Canadian Mindscape Monitor

Sorry, dear readers, that we’ve been delinquent in our posts. Too much work, too little pay for this blogging (i.e. none!) etc etc… But we do feel it’s important to follow up on an earlier story.  When asked by CMM if he could provide even one scientific reference for his grandiose claims to the media [...]

The inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski in the Vancouver Airport after being Tasered 5 times by RCMP officers has exploded across the national and international media again following the testimony of Richmond Fire Capt. Kirby Graeme. Graeme called the RCMP officers “unprofessional” and said the RCMP officers even “obstructed” paramedics who wanted to [...]

Various and sundry Canadian media covered with relatively little fanfare or controversy the recent decision of sitting “independent” Senator Lillian Dyck to become a Liberal.  Along the way, they casually described her background, which includes a PhD in Biological Psychiatry and studies into antidepressants and antipsychotics. She’s also patented some mental health drugs herself.  So [...]

Sorry, dearest readers, that we’ve been delinquent here at CMM lately getting posts up… We’re trying to get back on the job after binge-working on the aforementioned feature article about the rights of seniors in BC care homes. But we couldn’t let you miss today’s New York Times coverage of the latest on the lawsuit [...]

This is rich. British Columbia’s Minister of Housing and Social Development Rich Coleman told the Victoria Times-Colonist that the government was engaged in a review of the BC Mental Health Act, partly with an eye to begin forcing homeless people into emergency shelters on cold nights. This comment came in the wake of a Vancouver [...]

CMM editor Rob Wipond has just published an article in Focus magazine about the overlapping mental capacity and mental health laws which allow elderly people in British Columbia to easily and quickly be stripped of all their legal rights. Check out “Who Has the Right to Control Your Life?“

The Vancouver Sun has published a lengthy story on a company that has begun marketing a multivitamin treatment for bipolar or manic depression. The concoction is called EMPowerplus from Truehope. Interestingly, they supposedly hit upon the idea after making batches of special calming feed for trapped, aggressive pigs. After some success stories, including the involvement [...]

Les Leyne has written a good column for the Victoria Times-Colonist about the decision not to press charges against the RCMP officers who infamously on video killed Robert Dziekanski while he was pleading for help in Polish in a Vancouver airport: “It’s easier to blame Robert Dziekanski”. Yes, that about sums it up, right down [...]

The Canadian Press is reporting that the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada is “endorsing the principles” of a April 2008 report from the Association of American Medical Colleges which recommended cutting off the stream of kickbacks and perks like free pizza parties, refrigerators and sunbelt trips being given to med students by pharmaceutical [...]

British Columbia police are pulling their X26 Tasers out of field use after BC’s Solicitor General also found, like many others before have found, that Taser shock levels can vary a lot and dangerously in actual field use. It’s little more than a show for the public, though — police will simply use other models [...]

The Globe and Mail cites perennial involuntary committal promoter and Schizophrenia Society rep John Gray as saying that 60,000 people are involuntarily treated in Canada each year. It’s a stunning statistic. And you can bet it’s actually much higher if we add in all the “treatment by forcible coercion” numbers, because it’s common practice for [...]

Canada’s Mental Health Commission has spun off a fundraising arm, “Mental Health Partnerships of Canada”. The MHC announced recently that it had developed a “strategic alliance” between Mental Health Partnerships of Canada and the Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation to raise money “to support the goals of the Mental Health Commission of Canada”. However, Mental Health [...]

Why is the Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation hiding its biggest corporate funder? If you look at the “Partners and Corporate Contributors” section of their website, you see a fairly innocuous-looking list of corporate contributors:
The Frank Cowan Foundation
CIBC
CIBC World Markets Children’s Foundation
RBC Financial Group
Scotiabank
TD Bank Financial Group
That’s the whole list. But delve [...]

The Toronto Star ran two strong opinion articles in the past two days, one by Joe Fiorito, and another by Anita Szigeti, attacking the Ontario Public Service Employees Union for its recently half-aborted ad campaign.  (The Toronto Sun also ran a news article.) Szigeti points out that of the 23 recent incidents of “violence” against [...]

The controversy over the sensationalist ads by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union continues. In a Nov. 10 press release, OPSEU acknowledged the ads “may be moving”, but vowed to keep them up. However, the billboards outside Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, which depicted a battered woman and implied she was beaten by [...]

It seems the Ontario Public Service Employees Union local that represents staff at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has a history of being more concerned about staff safety than patient safety. In the wake of the scandal already resulting from OPSEU’s placement of a sensationalist billboard ad yesterday, the Ontario Psychiatric Survivor Archives [...]

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union today placed this billboard of a battered woman outside Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. In a press release, OPSEU states that “OPSEU is sending the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health a message they can’t ignore — starting this week outdoor advertising will be placed directly across from the [...]

An article in Ontario’s Mississauga News reports on a nurse winning a $5,000 award from pharmaceutical giant Bayer’s “Bayer Dream Fund“, given “to support the dream of a Canadian who is effectively managing their diabetes”. That nurse’s dream? She is “creating a local exercise program for people with diabetes who also experience mental illness”.
It’s a [...]

Many people arriving at CMM via search engines in recent weeks have been searching for information about the inquest into the death of Jeffrey James at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Toronto civil rights activist Don Weitz has contributed some invaluable, detailed, first-hand-account analysis on the topic to CMM. Click on the “Comments” [...]

A contest is being held inviting people to submit designs before December 1, 2008 for a permanent memorial on the grounds of the old Lakeshore Insane Asylum/Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital in Etobicoke, Ontario. According to the Psychiatric Survivor Archives, “1,511 forgotten people”, inmates of the hospital, were buried without markers on the site. As part of [...]