A selection of my articles published in magazines, newspapers, journals, and webzines.
Kathleen’s Demise: a cautionary tale
There’s much to learn about BC’s laws and eldercare system from the last years of Kathleen Palamarek’s life in a local nursing home—especially from the battles that were fought in her name between her children, care providers and the Vancouver Island Health Authority.
It was a small but important epitaph for a much-loved woman. NDP West Kootenay MLA Katrine Conroy spoke in the provincial legislature in June in support of a public inquiry into the recent “suspicious death” of Kathleen Palamarek, an 88-year-old resident of Broadmead Lodge in Saanich.
During Lois Sampson née Palamarek’s five-year struggle to help get her mother out of the nursing home, Kathleen became an icon to local seniors advocates. That’s why the Saanich Peninsula Health Association, Vancouver Island Association of Family Councils, Old Age Pensioners Organization local, and others have been blitzing politicians, media and public agencies with requests for an inquiry.
“[T]he suspected abuse
Crisis Behind Closed Doors
Data obtained through a Freedom of Information request shows nearly half of all seniors in long-term care in BC are being given antipsychotics like Risperdal, Zyprexa and Seroquel. That’s almost twice the average for the rest of Canada and amongst the highest rates found anywhere in the world. And even though Health Canada warns these drugs cause a doubling of death rates in the elderly, care workers admit they’re mainly being used as chemical restraints in the absence of adequate staffing and proper oversight.
“IT WILL RELAX YOU.” That’s the only explanation hospital staff gave when administering the antipsychotic medication to Carl. At least, that’s the only reason he recalls—soon he began experiencing “very strange cognitive feelings.”
“I’m a reasonably logical person,” he says, but suddenly he was in a “swimmy universe that didn’t make any sense.”
Carl (not his real name) became indifferent to his normal interests; inexplicably disengaged when friends visited: “like I was talking to them through a tunnel.”
What is a Sidewalk For?
Municipal engineers have a lot more power over city life and politics than most of us realize.
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It’s an academic lecture about sidewalks. Could I have even dreamed up an event that sounded more inconsequentially mind-numbing?
But on this cold, rainy, January night, the little Legacy Art Gallery and Café, as part of the University of Victoria’s “City Talks” lectures, has drawn nearly a hundred provincial and municipal bureaucrats, business owners, artists, developers, lawyers, students, urban gardeners, civil rights activists, anarchists… Why on Earth would all these people be so interested in sidewalks?
Within the hour the answer becomes clear, as Simon Fraser University’s Nicholas Blomley delivers a surprisingly riveting overview of the role of sidewalks in social control.
Blomley is a “legal geographer” who specializes in “property and its relationship to the politics of urban space.” His new book sounds similarly recondite: Rights of Passage—Sidewalks and the Regulation of Public Flow.
The Yoga of Imprisonment
Between rocks and hard places, flexibility is desperately needed.
I taught yoga at the prison for five years. If you’ve ever taken yoga, you know it’s common in the first class for instructors to ask if anyone has had any major injuries or surgeries during their lives. It’s a safety protocol, so the instructor can provide extra guidance to vulnerable students. Typically, two people in 20 mention a car accident or appendectomy.
My first day teaching at the Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre, though, was different.
“I broke my hand when I punched a guy a few weeks back,” explained one inmate. He followed that with an incredible childhood tale of an abusive father, run-down truck, and backyard scrap heap. “My feet were crushed.”
Can We Revitalize Public Dialogues?
It’s time to start talking about rebuilding democracy from the grassroots
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I helped facilitate two public discussions recently; one delved into a global emergency, and the other a local crisis. Fascinating similarities between them hinted at ways to strengthen community dialoguing and social change.
The first discussion involved a panel of three writers noted for environmental concerns: Mark Leiren-Young, author of The Green Chain; indefatigable activist Guy Dauncey, and Focus‘ own Briony Penn.
We’d briefly sketched how we wanted to explore personal, “psychological” reasons we’re struggling with climate change; essentially, our question was, if most by now know what we can do to prevent worsening climate change, why aren’t we doing it?
The Politics of Parking
We’re paying a lot for parking. An awful lot.
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Years ago, I was awaiting the fate of a grant application before Victoria city council to help build a community garden. Instead, council got bogged down debating a developer’s building permit and re-zoning application.
The developer wanted a reduction in the number of parking spaces required in favour of more room to expand his apartment building. Discussion ensued about the number of people moving in, the number of cars they’d own, the limited availability of street and store parking in this high-traffic area, and our tight, expensive rental market.
It seemed mundane. Recently, though, an opinion article prompted me to investigate the politics of parking, and it dramatically shifted my perspective.
Most of the article’s arguments and statistics were based on Yale University urban planning expert Donald Shoup‘s intriguing book, The High Cost of Free Parking. Reading Shoup’s analyses, it suddenly seemed bizarre that, even though I’ve long been aware of
All Cabinet Records Erased–Pardon?!
No filing system is perfect. Especially when it might reveal a huge scandal for the provincial Liberal government.
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I’m hoping much of this is already ancient news to you. But based on the relatively subdued way BC’s mainstream media has been covering the story as Focus is going to print, I’m not counting on it.
You should have heard about it, though, because the story reveals a whole new depth of corruption in our provincial government for which it is literally difficult to find words.
In 2003, the BC legislature was raided by the RCMP, amidst accusations of bribery, leaks of confidential information, and links to organized crime during the Liberal’s BC Rail privatization.
What’s happened since? Various charges were laid against ministerial aides David Basi and Bob Virk and communications aide Aneal Basi. Then, we went through two re-elections of the BC Liberals with essentially nothing happening. The government has stalled defence requests for information so much the case hasn’t even made
Is it Time to Put the Mounties Out to Pasture?
Policing expert Paul Palango, author of a new book on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, argues we need to revamp the dysfunctional organization–or get rid of the RCMP altogether.
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Over the past few years, RCMP controversies have been in the news constantly. The extent of lying revealed during the inquiry into the tasering and death of Robert Dziekanski has been mind-boggling. High-ranking RCMP officials embezzled millions from the force’s retirement funds. The RCMP Commissioner misled Parliament about what politicians knew about Maher Arar. During a recent botched drug bust, an RCMP dog dragged a Surrey man to officers who kicked and stomped on him, even after the man had apparently pointed out they had the wrong apartment number. A long-awaited RCMP investigation found no fault with its officers, even after Ian Bush was arrested outside a hockey arena for jokingly giving a false name and, 20 minutes later, was dead in a jail cell from a bullet to
Cost of War in Iraq — the Video
The National Priorities Project shows what extraordinary things could have been accomplished in the U.S. using the money that’s been spent on the Iraq war. But what could that money have done in Iraq, where 1 dollar equals a whopping 1,200 Dinars?
A “Patient-centred” Path towards Ignoring Patient Rights
Wipond, Rob. A “Patient-centred” Path towards Ignoring Patient Rights: A Critical Analysis of the Federal Senate Committee’s Dismissal of Concerns about Involuntary Treatment Laws and Civil Rights Abuses in the Canadian Mental Health System.
Abstract: The Canadian Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology released a report on the mental health system in 2006, “Out of the Shadows at Last: Transforming Mental Health, Mental Illness and Addiction Services in Canada”. The Committee’s central recommendation was that Canada create a more patient-centred mental health system. Yet, the Committee utterly failed to address the fundamental lack of patients’ legal rights which drives the current, non-patient-centred system. Despite extensive discussions and witness testimonials that were extremely critical of routine involuntary psychiatric treatment and civil rights abuses in the Canadian mental health system, the Committee’s final report included no recommendations in this area. Through analysis of the language, arguments and rhetoric in the Committee’s writings, this paper demonstrates that the Senate