Jan 9 News Items
News items for Monday, January 09, 2012:
- Police Learn How to Deal with the Mentally Ill in Crisis – Globe and Mail
- Homeless man shot and killed by Montreal police remembered as a ‘solitary guy’ – Global Calgary
- From Journal letters on facebook: – Edmonton Journal
- Pleased to meet you – Calgary Herald
- Extra! Extra! Read all about it! – CTV Calgary
- Plan to provide EI benefits for adoptive parents ‘a positive step’ – Calgary Herald
- Alberta economy forecast to lead nation next two years – Calgary Herald
- Alberta employment growth best in Canada – Calgary Herald
Police learn how to deal with the mentally ill in crisis
Globe and Mail, Carys Mills, January 2012
Michael’s manic episodes started after an injury stopped him from doing what he loved most – playing hockey. Feeling like he had lost his identity, he took a job as a bouncer at a nightclub, and started abusing drugs and alcohol. His volatile lifestyle came to a head one night when a scuffle with police landed him in Mental Health Court.
Police say he assaulted an officer. Michael, who asked to be identified by his first name, says he was the one hurt in the encounter. But the result, court-ordered participation in recovery groups and therapy combined with medication, gave him a new lease on life. Ontario’s Mental Health Court is a court system designed for people with mental illness. “The opportunity that was awarded to me through Mental Health Court was great. I wish it didn’t have to be my head bouncing off cement that got me there,” Michael said. “I wish it was something a little softer.”
A shortage of mental-health resources in Canada has put police and the mentally ill on a collision course, with officers increasingly becoming the first point of contact for people in crisis. While few police forces keep detailed statistics of the types of calls coming in, officers across the country say a rising number of them involve the mentally ill. In Vancouver, it’s a third of all calls. Research conducted in the small Ontario city of Belleville, population 50,000, shows that each front-line officer attends about 40 such calls a year.
While Michael’s story ended happily – he’s now working and gives lectures to Ontario’s York Regional Police force on what it’s like to live in the throes of mental illness – other cases have ended in tragedy. In Ontario last year, a bipolar woman was shot dead after rushing at police with a knife. Another man with obvious mental-health issues wound up dead after an altercation with police on the street (the incident is currently under investigation by the province’s Special Investigations Unit). On Friday, Montreal police shot and killed a homeless man some shelter workers said may have suffered from mental illness. The case is being investigated by Quebec provincial police.
In response, some forces are devoting extra time and resources to training their officers, and experimenting with more effective ways to approach mentally ill citizens in crisis. But Shelagh Morris, chair of a Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police committee that recently examined this issue, said standards vary across the country. Some police forces, such as those in Halifax and Hamilton, are dedicating an extra 40 hours of training to the topic, and have instituted first-response teams that involve mental-health professionals. Others, such as in Lethbridge, Alta, have less than two hours of training dedicated to mental health.
Ms. Morris said those first few moments of interaction between police and someone in crisis are crucial: “If you don’t respond properly, the results can be catastrophic.”
The altercations
In August, 46-year-old Charlie McGillivary, a large man who had been struck mute and brain damaged as a child by a car accident, was walking with his mother in Toronto to get a slice of pizza. Police, who were in the area for something unrelated, crossed their path, and an altercation broke out. What happened then is still unclear – it’s under investigation by the SIU – but Mr. McGillivary died shortly afterward.
A few months later, Toronto’s Sylvia Klibingaitis told an emergency dispatcher that she was bipolar and wanted to kill her mother. When police arrived at the scene she ran at them with a large knife and was shot dead.
These cases are at one end of an extreme, but illustrate the high stakes often involved when mental illness plays a role in an altercation with police.
Mike McCormack, president of the Toronto Police Association, says officers have to deal with the danger first when they respond to a call, to protect themselves and the public.
“The mental-health issues sort of take a back seat when our officers are exposed to people with weapons and violence,” Mr. McCormack said. “The priority at those calls is dealing with that immediate threat.”
Lawyer Julian Falconer, who has represented the families of mental-health patients and those who have taken legal action against the police, says officers must differentiate between a situation that requires force and one that can be de-escalated verbally. “It’s not true that we should react exactly the same, simply because the threat is there.”
The closing of beds and the movement to deinstitutionalized care has created this situation, said Dorothy Cotton, a psychologist who has reviewed officer training across the country.
“To a large extent, the whole situation is not a police problem,” Dr. Cotton said. “It’s a problem that ended up with police.”
Recently leaked Alberta Health Services memos cite a “critical” shortage of in-patient mental-health beds and an “acute shortage of psychiatrists.” Budget cuts have forced B.C.’s Vancouver Island Health Authority to reduce the number of caseworkers and hospital beds for the mentally ill. In Ontario, the average waiting time for community-mental-health services in 2008 was 180 days.
Toronto police have declined to answer questions about the McGillivary case, or how they are trained to deal with the mentally challenged or mentally ill, until the investigation is complete.
Officers were cleared in the death of Ms. Klibingaitis, but her sister, Anita Wasowicz, wonders if things could have turned out differently, especially since her sister told the 911 dispatcher she was bipolar.
“That was a cry for help,” Ms. Wasowicz said.
The clients
They are known as “the clients” – the people with mental illness and histories of violence who are repeatedly the focus of 911 calls.
In Edmonton, the responders are tandem teams of mental-health professionals and police officers, trained specifically to deal with crises. On a winter afternoon, Constable Kevin Harrison and Tanya Hansen are sitting in a cruiser outside a house in the city’s east end. The client this day is a young man in his 20s who is threatening family members, living with the delusion that the police are out to get him.
It takes a couple of hours, but Constable Harrison and Ms. Hansen succeed in talking the client down. They then spend eight hours waiting in a hospital emergency room, so the man can get medical attention. “Some of [the clients] love us and remember how we treated them,” Constable Harrison said. “Others hate us.”
The tag-team approach has had success in Edmonton, but it’s a model that’s not applicable everywhere.
The Ontario Provincial Police said it doesn’t use joint response teams, largely because some rural areas lack the required resources and there is a lack of demand. (A team is being considered by the OPP in Collingwood, however, after the death of a schizophrenic man in June, 2010, who was tasered after becoming aggressive outside a group home.)
The Toronto Police Service teamed up with mental-health workers after the death of Edmond Yu, a schizophrenic man who took a hammer out of his pocket on a bus and was shot by police in 1997. But the teams are a secondary response – the scene must first be deemed safe by front-line officers. Critics also say the teams are inadequate because they operate in only 10 of 17 policing divisions and only for 10 hours a day.
“You have to be in crisis in certain hours of the day, in certain parts of the city,” said Mr. Falconer, who represented Mr. Yu’s family.
Across Canada, training dedicated to mental illness is also sporadic. For new recruits, it ranges from one to 24 hours, according to a 2008 study co-authored by Dr. Cotton. “There are many police officers, who, the only formal training they would have had would have been in the police academy,” she said.
Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews said it’s inevitable response will differ across the province where geography and populations differ. “It’s not going to be the same across Ontario. Having said that, there are certain standards that we need to implement provincewide,” she said.
In British Columbia, a 10-hour training program in crisis intervention and de-escalation will become mandatory for all officers in the province on Jan. 30. It is a result of recommendations made by the public inquiry into the death of Polish émigré Robert Dziekanski, who was tasered five times by RCMP officers at Vancouver Airport and died in 2007.
And the city of Hamilton and York Region have adopted a training model that was developed in Memphis, Tenn., that gives front-line officers an extra 40 hours of training in de-escalation and recognizing mental illness.
Michael is a part of that training. On this day, he addresses the crowd of plain-clothes police officers with confidence, his bipolar and borderline personality disorder under control. They hang off his every word. Until this point, they’d heard presentations and talked about how to react in certain situations, but when Michael took centre stage, it allowed them to put a face to the people they’re responding to.
“You have the opportunity to be the first person on the scene of a crisis,” he told the class, “and you can make all the difference.”
With reports from Josh Wingrove in Edmonton and Sunny Dhillon in Vancouver
Read it at the Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/police-learn-how-to-deal-with-the-mentally-ill-in-crisis/article2295503/page1/
Homeless man shot and killed by Montreal police remembered as a ‘solitary guy’
Global Calgary, Benjamin Shingler, January 08, 2012
MONTREAL – By all accounts, Farshad Mohammadi was a quiet man who kept to himself. So when those who knew him heard the 34-year-old homeless man had been fatally shot by Montreal police following an altercation, the news hit a nerve. Mohammadi’s death is the second time in less than a year that a homeless man has been killed by Montreal police.
Last June, a homeless man wielding a knife was shot and killed on a downtown street. An innocent bystander was also struck and killed during that incident. The latest fatality has shone a light on the often difficult relationship between police and the city’s homeless.
Matthew Pearce, director general of Montreal’s Old Brewery Mission shelter where Mohammadi once stayed, described it as “not an easy and comfortable one.” “Typically, the police are the ones who are moving (the homeless) on from where they are,” he said in a phone interview. ”A large percentage of the homeless population suffers from mental illnesses. Consequently, they become more unpredictable in a situation where the tensions rise.”
At a soup kitchen Mohammadi used to frequent, several men and women who lined up for lunch on Sunday expressed their anger and frustration that the altercation involving Mohammadi ended in his death.
Andre, a homeless man who declined to give his last name, said some police officers, particularly young recruits, don’t know how to deal with people living on the street. Some of the more seasoned officers are better trained, but there aren’t enough of them, he said.
Andre, who was forced out of his apartment and now lives in his truck, said Mohammadi was of Iranian descent and spoke a little French and English. “He was curt,” said Andre. “He wouldn’t talk to you if he didn’t know you…but I never saw him doing anything violent.” Mohammadi died on Friday afternoon after an altercation with two officers in a downtown subway station.
One of the officers was treated for knife cuts to the head and upper body, and the other for shock. Both were released from hospital late Friday. Details of the incident remain unclear. Quebec provincial police have taken over the investigation, but offered little new information on Sunday. Witnesses have said they saw one officer pull a gun and the other a nightstick as they ordered Mohammadi to stop inside the subway.
Mohammadi began to run and when he turned a corner, at least three gunshots were fired, according to witnesses. Mohammadi wasn’t carrying identification on Friday and had to be identified with his fingerprints. Jean-Francois Peterka, a volunteer at Accueil Bonneau, a soup kitchen in Old Montreal, described Mohammadi as a loner who appeared to suffer from mental illness. “He was a solitary guy,” said Peterka, who himself lived on the street for two years and now lives in a half-way house. “He often spoke to himself, and he never really fit in with the crowd.”
Reports suggest Mohammadi had bounced around the city’s shelters since at least 2009. Pearce said he last stayed in the Old Brewery Mission in that year. Mohammadi was briefly suspended from the shelter because of an incident “that probably involved some aggression on his part towards a staff person,” Pearce said.
The incident likely wasn’t serious, because if it was it would have been in the report, he said. Quebec provincial police said they made Mohammadi’s identity public on Saturday in the hope of locating a family member. Martine Asselin, a spokeswoman for the force, said Sunday that a relative had yet to come forward.
Read it on Global News: Global Calgary | Homeless man shot and killed by Montreal police remembered as a ‘solitary guy’
From Journal letters on facebook:
Edmonton Journal, Mary Ann Baxter, January 6, 2012
I have seen many articles and letters regarding poverty in Alberta. It is disturbing that rental subsidies are being stopped at a time when the cost of living is going up. Low-income persons will need those rental subsidies if they are not to end up homeless with the high cost of rent.
The government pays lip service to eliminating poverty, while at the same time actually fostering poverty and homelessness by turning away applicants for even temporary assistance. Instead of helping people in danger of losing their homes, the government refuses assistance and hands out lists for shelters. How does this help eliminate poverty when families lose everything for which they have worked so hard?
We are all only one pay cheque away from being homeless or poor. With high rents and increasing food and shelter costs, how are the low assistance amounts to keep people from sinking even further into poverty? A concerted effort from government, society, landlords et al is required so that no one is a victim of poverty. Poverty does not help kids learn. It is a repeating cycle. It is difficult to raise oneself out of poverty without the tools to do so. Unfortunately, education costs money.
To eliminate poverty or at best decrease it and its impact, we need places which work as central information depots to help put people in need in contact with groups that can help. I love my home province and I would like to see it become a friendlier place to live.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/From+Journal+letters+facebook/5955599/story.html
Pleased to meet you
Calgary Herald, Lois Tomlinson, January 8, 2012
Re: “When logic just doesn’t add up,” Karin Klassen, Opinion, Jan. 2.
In reference to secondary suites, Karin Klassen states, ” I don’t know one single homeowner (save for the ones who live in Phoenix) who wants them in MBY.” Well, I would like to put an end to that for her. You now have met one!
I grew up in a home that rented out secondary suites as well as basement rooms to single women who could not afford anything else. This was not uncommon in our neighbourhood and prevented many folks from swelling the ranks of the homeless. Our neighbourhood was quiet, friendly and safe.
As an adult raising a family in Brentwood and now as a senior living in Varsity Acres, I would have no qualms about secondary suites in the neighbourhood. It is time to get rid of this protectionist attitude and start thinking about others who are less fortunate and need safe, affordable shelter.
Lois Tomlinson, Calgary
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Pleased+meet/5963456/story.html#ixzz1iycJXnsf
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
CTV Calgary
January 6, 2012
A new publication is coming to Calgary which will hopefully fill the void that was left when Street Talk published its final issue last summer. A similar paper sold in Edmonton has now been renamed Alberta Street News and will be sold by Calgarians throughout the downtown core.
Alberta Street News has several pages devoted to content from Calgary and four vendors are already selling copies of the paper on city streets. ”People miss the old Calgary Street Talk, so they want something else to read, because it’s about poverty, homelessness and the industry programs. That’s something that the major papers don’t carry,” said paper vendor Nick Diclitch.
Street Talk was published by CUPS and saw sales decline for five straight years before the decision was made to fold the paper. The paper was a place for people struggling with poverty to express themselves and share their stories with people of all economic levels.
Vendors of Alberta Street News hope the new paper will be a success and reconnect members of the homeless community with each other. The vendors purchase the papers for 50 cents and can also choose the number of papers they are going to sell. They are also self employed and can choose their own hours and locations.
Plan to provide EI benefits for adoptive parents ‘a positive step’
Calgary Herald, Eva Ferguson, January 7, 2012
Calgary — Alberta Human Services is applauding a new federal program providing support for parents who decide they want to adopt a foster child, giving them parental leave and employment insurance benefits before the adoption even becomes official. “It’s always a positive step when new initiatives are introduced that give families more choice and more flexibility,” said Cathy Ducharme, spokeswoman for Alberta Human Services.
While some adoptive families may choose to continue working, and not take a full-year of parental leave, others may feel they really need that bonding time and take the year off along with EI benefits.
“Each family is different, but what’s important is they now all have more options,” Ducharme added.
Parents who decide they want to adopt a foster child will now be able to take parental leave before they have legally adopted the child under new Employment Insurance rules announced by the federal government this week. As soon as parents show that they have a “demonstrable commitment” to adopt a foster child they will become eligible for EI parental benefits. Parents will no longer be required to submit an adoption application to a provincial or territorial court to qualify for benefits, according to the department of Human Resources and Skills Development.
Ducharme stressed that while it is the intention for the majority of kids to go back to their biological parents, of those few that are deemed adoptable, up to 50 per cent of them go to foster parents or kinship parents, defined as extended family. Whereas before prospective families would have had to wait until their adoption became legal to qualify for parental leave, now they can choose to stay home with a child while they are waiting for their adoption request to be processed.
Karen Evoy, manager with program legislation and policy support for Alberta Human Services, added the new program wouldn’t serve as a recruitment tool, but she stressed the province is always working to welcome more prospective foster parents. “We’re always looking for more foster parents,” she says, often in the hopes that foster kids have increased options of staying closer to their biological parents or extended family.
As of last June, Alberta had 2,410 foster homes and 13,086 kinship homes. Earlier this week, Human Resources Minister Diane Finley said introducing the new rules “seemed the right thing to do.”
But how much the new rules may cost taxpayers is still unclear, and will depend on how many parents decide to take part in the program. Human Resources and Skills Development Canada expects the changes to affect about 400 families annually.
Right now, there are about 2,000 adoptions of all kinds across the country annually, with Finley adding that she hopes that number will increase as the new rules take effect. Parental benefits under the EI program are provided to parents who take time off work to be with a newborn or newly adopted child and are good for a maximum of 35 weeks.
Alberta economy forecast to lead nation next two years
Calgary Herald, Mario Toneguzzi, January 9, 2012
CALGARY — Alberta’s economy is forecast to lead the country this year and next year, according to a report by TD Economics. The provincial economic update also sees employment growth in Alberta topping Canada for 2012 and 2013 as well. The TD Economics report predicts Alberta will see Real Gross Domestic Product growth of 2.6 per cent this year and 2.9 per cent in 2013 compared with 1.7 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively across the country.
Employment growth in the province is forecast to be 1.5 per cent this year and a further 1.8 per cent in 2013 compared with 0.8 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively across the country.
The positive economic report is good news for business owners in the province like Leah Layden of the Double ELLE Bakery in Calgary who has been open for business in the Ramsay neighbourhood for about a month.
“I’m brand new but the first month has gone well,” said Layden. “I’m the kind of person who likes to do what I want. Takes a risk and does everything I can to make sure it works. I’m not too worried. Certainly I watch my pennies, that’s for sure. I’m aware of what’s happening. I try to keep my costs down. I’m not the kind of person that throws money around, that’s for sure. “Here in Calgary and in Alberta I think things are going not too bad. Some sectors I’m sure they’re suffering but overall I believe that Alberta and Calgary in particularly is doing quite well just from my observations.”
A recent survey of members by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business showed business confidence and optimism was the highest in Alberta. “The nation-leading optimism in Alberta is, perhaps, not a surprise,” said Todd Hirsch, senior economist with ATB Financial in Calgary. “Growth in the province has outpaced most of the rest of North America, despite the growing worries in Europe and elsewhere. “Strong crude oil prices, a good year in agriculture, and an expanding labour market have contributed to a healthy economy. As a result, Alberta’s independent business owners are in a relatively buoyant mood going into 2012.”
TD Economics said Alberta’s current economic momentum “both underscores solid business confidence and solid domestic spending.” But as European concerns mount in the early stages of 2012 crude oil prices are expected to fall towards $80 per per barrel then rebound towards the $100 mark later in the year, it said. “In this volatile environment — and with natural gas prices projected to hold at relatively low levels — some projects are likely to be delayed to 2013 or even shelved,” cautioned TD Economics.
That caution is evident to business owners in the province like Layden. “I did notice that banks were a lot more hesitant with respect to lending,” she said. “The risk factor certainly has gone up so I think there’s an element of caution but I wouldn’t say we’re in a bad state, that’s for sure. And I think we’re going to see some more growth soon.”
Alberta employment growth best in Canada
Calgary Herald, Mario Toneguzzi, January 6, 2012
CALGARY — No one has to tell Jenna Hamilton how buoyant the Alberta job market has been in the past year. She experienced it. Alberta has been a job creation machine. The province, with the lowest unemployment rate in the country, accounted for close to half of all the employment growth in the country over the past 12 months, according to Statistics Canada.
The 18-year-old Hamilton was one of them as she got a new job in December at the Pandora jewelry store in Calgary’s Market Mall. “Before I was working in Banff. I quit there and for about half of November I was looking for a job,” she said. She found Pandora’s position online. “They called me that night and I got the job . . . I was shocked. I applied for it at like five o’clock that night and I got the call around seven and I got the job right there,” said Hamilton.
It’s a good sign of the economy here that so many jobs have been created in the past year. In fact, Statistics Canada reported Friday that the province’s unemployment rate in December dipped to 4.9 per cent from 5.0 per cent the previous month. While Alberta employment growth was flat on a monthly basis in December, growing by only 800 jobs, over the past 12 months it grew by 4.9 per cent or 98,800 positions.
More people were looking for work in the Calgary census metropolitan area which pushed the unemployment rate in the region to 5.5 per cent in December from 5.4 per cent in November.
A year ago, the Calgary region had an unemployment rate of 6.0 per cent while it was 5.5 per cent for the province. The Calgary region saw employment growth of 2,300 people or 0.3 per cent in December from November as well as a 4.4 per cent hike, or 31,200 jobs, over the past 12 months.
Todd Hirsch, senior economist with ATB Financial in Calgary, said the pace of job growth in the province was “astounding” over the past year. “To say that Alberta has been the engine of job creation in Canada is no exaggeration,” he said, adding that Alberta saw the seventh consecutive month of job growth in December. “Still, the pace of job creation in Alberta has moderated significantly throughout the year — particularly since June when there was a monthly gain of 22,000. And while Alberta is still expected to add jobs in 2012, the slower pace of job creation is likely to continue this year.”
Hirsch said almost every sector posted an increase in 2011, but the bulk of the 99,000 new jobs created were in retail and wholesale trade (22,300), oil and gas extraction (13,600), health care and social assistance (13,200), agriculture (11,900) and manufacturing (11,100). “Those trends are likely to continue in 2012, especially in health care, oil and gas, and manufacturing,” he said. “Reading the tea leaves is rife with hazard, but a likely scenario would be that Alberta continues to lead Canada in job creation in 2012, albeit at a slower pace.”
The Alberta government predicts the province could face a cumulative labour shortage of up to 114,000 workers across all sectors by 2021, up from the previous shortage of 77,000 workers forecast two years ago. Some of the occupations that anticipate shortages include a variety of trades, health-care workers, financial services, retail sectors, public service careers and restaurant and tourism related jobs.
Nationally, following two months of declines, employment rose slightly in December, up 17,500 or 0.1 per cent. The unemployment rate edged up to 7.5 per cent from 7.4 per cent in November. Over the past 12 months in Canada, employment growth totalled 1.2 per cent (199,200), with nearly all of the gains in the first half of the year, said Statistics Canada. “While far from stellar, the modest job gain is a mild relief after two months of decline. Still, the soggy details reinforce the point that the job market struggled late last year after a banner start to 2011, suggesting the broader economy is growing only modestly, at best,” said Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, about the national picture.
Francis Fong, economist with TD Economics, said the national employment gain is welcome news after two months of significant declines “However, neither the gain nor the underlying details would suggest any reversal of fortune for the Canadian economy as the three-month moving average fell by more than 18,000 jobs,” said Fong. “High levels of uncertainty surrounding any number of international developments, notably the European debt crisis, have clearly shaken the confidence of both consumers and businesses.
“This is unlikely to abate in the coming year. Government hiring is likely to remain under pressure in the coming months and private sector hiring will likely be tested by further deterioration in Europe’s debt crisis. All said for the coming year, TD Economics expects the unemployment rate to continue treading higher, likely to about 7.7 per cent, while job gains will average a paltry 10,000 per month, more heavily weighted to the second half of the year.”
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Alberta+employment+growth+best+Canada/5956487/story.html#ixzz1iyaWrLHK
