B.C. Government says elder abuse rampant in the province

I follow Paul Caune on Facebook, he is an advocate for the disabled and others who cannot stand for themselves. The following article on Elder Abuse was written by By Paul Caune and published in the Beacon News an online independent source of news. 

Elder abuse is a horrific crime against society’s most vulnerable citizens. And now the BC government has admitted just how prevalent it is.

“Every day in British Columbia, thousands of older adults are subjected to some form of physical, emotional, financial or sexual abuse, and/or experience neglect.”

That is not a statement from a sensationalistic tabloid journalist or a Beacon News head-line writer. It is a statement made by the Government of British Columbia in a March 2013 document titled “Together To Reduce Elder Abuse—B.C.’s Strategy: Promoting well- being and security for older British Columbians.”

The BC Liberals, who have been in power for twelve years, stated as fact in a Ministry of Health document signed by the then Secretary of State for Seniors Ralph Sultan (himself a senior) that “every day” “thousands” of British Columbian seniors are abused.

Thousands? Every day? If true, this would be one of the greatest crime waves in Canadian history. Let me repeat: thousands of seniors are abused every day in BC. Why is this not headline news? Why did the BC NDP, the Official Opposition, not make this an issue in the May 14, 2013 provincial election? Why is this not common knowledge? Why isn’t BC an international pariah for being one of the worst societies on Earth? The best place on Earth? A place where thousands of older adults are abused every day?

It was reported in the Province on May 1, 2013:

MLA Ralph Sultan, who served as the first Minister of State for Seniors, said his government’s overhaul of the senior-care system is adequate and, about “as done as it is going to be done.”

When are seniors most vulnerable? When they are physically fragile and cognitively impaired. Where are the most physically fragile and/or cognitively impaired seniors? They live in long term residential care facilities. If, as the Government of BC states, thousands of seniors are being abused every day in BC, it is most likely happening in long term residential care facilities.

Those facilities are either directly administered by the government, or by service providers contracted by the BC government. Therefore: most of the abusers must be government employees or contractors with the Government.

Why is this not national headline news?

What is the government’s strategy to reduce elder abuse? If you read the twenty-four pages long document closely, with the exception of a little tinkering of some existing laws, the best the BC government can come up with is an awareness campaign.

The awareness campaign includes teaching staff in residential care facilities how to report abuse. Given that most elder abuse most likely happens in those same facilities, what is the likelihood that the staff don’t know what’s happened on their work-site? How likely is it that they will report what they know? (After a five years long investigation BC’s Ombudsperson Kim Carter concluded in February 2012: “The health authorities do not track the number of reports of abuse and neglect they have investigated or the number of support and assistance plans they have implemented in response to investigations of abuse and neglect.”)

There is a bizarre unreality to the BC government’s entire strategy to reduce elder abuse.

Nowhere does it propose a law similar to the U.S Civil Rights of Institutionalization of Persons Act (CRIPA), which I discussed in a previous column.

What BC needs is our Attorney General to have the power to intervene in any community care setting, (such as long term residential care facilities) when they have good reason to believe there are widespread civil rights abuses occurring. And, if necessary, to bring civil suits against the abusers.

Most of BC’s seniors are Canadian citizens. Canadian citizens have a civil right to equal benefit and equal protection under the law. If thousands of Canadian citizens are getting abused every day in BC, they’re not getting equal benefit and protection under the law. If thousands of older adults are abused every day in our jurisdiction, we are not yet a civilized society.

In the meantime, until BC gets a law like CRIPA, I advise seniors who can afford it to hire bodyguards.

Paul Caune is the Executive Director of CIVIL RIGHTS NOW! Contact him at civilrightsnow@yahoo.ca or his websiteWatch Paul’s film Hope Is Not A Plan here.

Labour Day

Today, there will be the obligatory articles buried in the press about Labour Day, and the labour movement and workers will take the day off to celebrate role of workers in our society. But what do we have to celebrate? 

Union membership is on the decline and the future of unions is not, in my mind, bright. Somewhere in the 1980's we lost the idea that working people were better off with a union. The disconnect between workers rights and union membership and strength were lost, I think by design and by a conservative push and control of mainstream media.  But perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel, at least in Canada. Our Supreme Court of ruling in January of 2015, said that the right to strike is guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

The ability of workers to go on strike is a fundamental part of collective bargaining; a corner stone of our free and democratic society. It is extremely important to have the highest court in our country recognize this as a right of all workers, private and public sector alike,” said Paul Moist, national president of CUPE. “No union ever wants a strike, but without the right to strike, employers have an unfair advantage. This decision secures a balance between workers and employers in negotiations.

This decision stems from Saskatchewan labour legislation passed in 2008 - the Public Service Essential Services Act which put unjust limits on which public sector workers could go on strike in the province. The Supreme Court struck down the law because it violated Saskatchewan workers’ Charter right to freedom of association.  

The decision affirms that all workers, in all provinces, have the constitutional right to strike or to have another way to resolve labour disputes if their work is essential to health, safety or security. Earlier this month, in the RCMP case, the Supreme Court affirmed the right of Canadian workers to form and join unions.

Some highlights from this decision are:

The right to strike is essential to realizing these values through a collective bargaining process because it permits workers to withdraw their labour in concert when collective bargaining reaches an impasse. Through a strike, workers come together to participate directly in the process of determining their wages, working conditions and the rules that will govern their working lives. The ability to strike thereby allows workers, through collective action, to refuse to work under imposed terms and conditions. This collective action at the moment of impasse is an affirmation of the dignity and autonomy of employees in their working lives.

The right to strike also promotes equality in the bargaining process. This Court has long recognized the deep inequalities that structure the relationship between employers and employees, and the vulnerability of employees in this context. While strike activity itself does not guarantee that a labour dispute will be resolved in any particular manner, or that it will be resolved at all, it is the possibility of a strike which enables workers to negotiate their employment terms on a more equal footing.

The right to strike, however, is not a creature just of the Wagner model. Most labour relations models include it because the ability to collectively withdraw services for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of employment — in other words, to strike — is an essential component of the process through which workers pursue collective workplace goals.

This historical, international, and jurisprudential landscape suggests compellingly that a meaningful process of collective bargaining requires the ability of employees to participate in the collective withdrawal of services for the purpose of pursuing the terms and conditions of their employment through a collective agreement. The ability to engage in the collective withdrawal of services in the process of the negotiation of a collective agreement is, and has historically been, the irreducible minimum of the freedom to associate in Canadian labour relations.

The Canadian trade union movement grew out of the industrialization of the economy at the end of the 19th Century. At that time, unions were predominately a male domain and remained so until the 1960s. Today, a union member is slightly more likely to be a woman, and working in an office, school or hospital, while factory workers, miners and other blue collar trades have seen their union membership fall over the past quarter century.

The decline in the unionisation rate is not a recent phenomenon. In Canada, most of the decline took place in the 1980s and 1990s. Since Statistics Canada began measuring unionisation through household surveys, the rate of unionisation has fallen from 37.6% in 1981 to 28.8% in 2014.

The first labour organizations in Canada appeared in the early 19th century, but their growth and development really occurred in the early decades of the 20th century. During most of the 19th century labour unions were local, sporadic and short-lived. Moreover they were illegal, prohibited by strict anti-combines legislation, in view of the basic principle of the freedom of commerce and competition. From l872 they were allowed to exist by the Trade Unions Act, passed that year by the federal government. But union activities, such as demonstrations and strikes, were controversial until the 20th century.

Many types of organization existed in the 19th century: by trade, by industry, by region, by ideology. Survival was long to come. Total number of union members was erratic, depending mainly on the level of economic activity. At the turn of the century, it was less than 100 000 corresponding to less than 10% of the labour force.

The major growth of labour organization came only in the 1940s as a result of the industrial development spurred by the war industries and the postwar boom, and from new legislation (1944) permitting union certification and forcing employers to accept collective bargaining with employee representatives. Thus, during the 1940s, membership in labour organizations more than doubled, from less than 400 000 to 1 million, and the level of unionization rose from 20% to 30%.

The degree of unionization reached 34% in 1954, but returned to 30% in the late 1950s. In the 1960s efforts were made to tap new sources of members, eg, office workers and some professional employees. In the late 1960s all Canadian jurisdictions (except Saskatchewan, which had done so in 1944) granted public-sector employees the right to organize and bargain collectively. The level of unionization consequently rose to 40% of Canadian nonagricultural paid workers in 1983. Since then it has declined slightly (37.6% in 1987) and now remains relatively stable around 35%.

Without Unions we would not have the rights we have today in the workplace, so my hope is that the shift in attitude seen by the Supreme Court, will help all workers realize that they need to join a union.

A tribute to Verna Ledger

My mother-in-law Verna Ledger, died on September 1, 2015 from a massive heart attack, she was 88 years, she was a very strong, demanding but loving woman. She will be missed by her daughter, (my wife) her son Tom, and all of her grandchildren and great grandchildren as well as her Sister Lou, her brother-in-law Gord, and all of her Nieces, Nephews, great Nieces and great Nephews. 

She will also be missed by her friends in the Dogwood Choir and her friends in the BC Labour movement and all those she helped and trained over her long career as a member of her union, and her work at the Workers Compensation Board of BC.

What the younger generation may not have known about their grandmother is that she was a pioneer in the labour movement in BC. As well, Verna was a pioneer in the area of Health and Safety in BC and in Canada. So to honour her, and her work and legacy, here are two professional videos where she talks about her life, her work and her story.

The first video is a speech she gave at the BC Nurses Union Occupational Health and Safety conference: Building For a Safe and Healthy Future in 2004

http://www.workingtv.com/bcnu-oh&sconference.html

The second video is the first in a series of three videos that focuses on the history of health and safety in British Columbia’s forest industry:  

http://www.labourheritagecentre.ca/2013/03/09/new-video-verna-ledger-iwa-health-and-safety-officer/

We are working longer

The Federal government recently changed the retirement age to 67. The change will take place after most of the Boomers have retired at 65 but the change will affect younger Canadians, like my youngest brother. However, the government should not have changed the age because Canadians are voluntarily working longer as shown from this table from Stats Canada. 

Retirement age by class of workers
Survey or program details:			Labour Force Survey
Geography	Retirement age (1)	Class of worker	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
Canada	Age	Total, all retirees	62.1	62.4	62.9	63	63
Canada	Average age	Public sector employees	60.2	60.8	61.1	61.1	61.5
Canada	Average age	Private sector employees	62.8	62.9	63.3	63.8	63.3
Canada	Average age	Self-employed	66	66	66.4	66.7	66.4
Canada	Median age	Total, all retirees	61.6	62.3	62.6	63.2	63.3
Canada	Median age	Public sector employees	59.7	60.6	60.6	60.6	60.3
Canada	Median age	Private sector employees	62.6	63.2	63.3	64.3	64
Canada	Median age	Self-employed	65.4	65.1	65.6	65.4	65.8
Source:	Statistics Canada. Table 282-0051

33 Things People Affected by Alzheimer’s Wish Others Understood

This was written by Melissa McGlensey and posted here on Aug 18, 2015. It is a very powerful post and should be shared:

Every 67 seconds, someone in the U.S. develops Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. It is now the sixth leading cause of death in the country. Because the condition is so prevalent, we figured it’s time to clear up some of the misunderstandings surrounding it. The Mighty teamed up with Hilarity for Charity, a part of the Alzheimer’s Association, to ask our readers affected by Alzheimer’s disease, what they wish the world could understand about it.

This is what they had to say:

1. “It’s not a part of getting older. There’s a misconception that as you get older you become forgetful and Alzheimer’s is just a continuation of aging, but it’s not. It’s a terrible disease, not a part of aging. It’s not something that’s inevitable or just happens. It’s something we’re trying to fight to bring awareness to because with funding and research there can be hope.” — Stephanie Vasquez

2. “Be patient with those who suffer. Repeating and forgetting require compassionate responses, not exasperated ones. The disease might hide the person underneath, but there’s still a person in there who needs your love and attention.” — Jamie Calandriello

3. “I wish people understood how scary it must be for the person going through it.” — Tbird O’Leary

4. “The disease is still progressing… even though helpful medication exists, there’s still no cure, and we have to keep fighting to find one.” — Sally Noelle

5. “Just because he looks fine at this moment doesn’t mean it will be the same in five minutes, tonight or tomorrow.” — Nikki Dodson

6. “[People with Alzheimer's] can’t change the way it makes them act anymore than a cancer patient can keep the cancer cells from spreading.” — Brandyn Shoemaker

7. “I wish the world knew how heartbreaking it is to stand beside the woman who was the first one to ever call you by your name and realize she doesn’t know who you are. I wish they knew the joy it brings when she suddenly looks up at you after you’ve sat there for hours massaging her hands with lotion and says, ‘I love you, kid.’ It’s extremely hard to mourn the loss of my lifetime companion, my mother, while she’s still alive.” — Nancy Elizabeth Faram

8. “Rational thinking is gradually lost with Alzheimer’s, so don’t try to reason with someone with this disorder. Instead, distract them in as gentle a manner as possible. If they get angry or defensive, listen until they’ve said what they need to say. And remember, each time you interrupt or argue, you increase the duration of the conversation without resolving the issue.” — Rex Bierley

9. “It’s not simply forgetting things and people. It’s delusions, hallucinations, anger, poor judgment and personality altering. These things can come and go and the person suffering and their loved ones are on a continual and unknown roller coaster.” — Kimberly Crawford Bowman

10. “They’re not doing this on purpose.” — Denise Christy Reich

11. “The reality of this disease is that there’s no remission, there’s no stopping it, there’s no slowing it down, there’s no cure and there are no survivors.” — Suzanne Tackett

12. “One moment there’s clarity, and they look at you lovingly and say your name. A second later, they look at you frightened or confused because you look familiar or they don’t know you at all.” — Samwise Gamegee Works

13. “Even though behaviors have changed — the person you remember is still in there.” — Roxzan Sukola

14. “It’s an epidemic.” — ljsharp

15. “It’s not just memory loss. It robs the person of who they are and the ability to do the most basic tasks.” — Janice La Bella

16. “Losing some memories doesn’t make the still present ones any less important and meaningful.” — Molly Halla

17. “I wish people wouldn’t ask how my mom is doing or if she’ll get better. I wish people understood that Alzheimer’s is currently a terminal disease and that caregivers have to watch their loved ones waste away in front of their eyes. It’s often a painful thing to discuss [because] every time they ask, the person is worse than before.” — Michelle Raza

18. “[It's] devastating when a person who helped raise you completely forgets who you are.” — Odalys De Leon

19. “The caregiver, much like with any disability, carries a huge load. They need our support and love.” — Walking With Drake

20. “It’s not your fault.” — Rain Mom

21. “It’s the worst. People can’t handle it so they stay away. It’s isolating and lonely.” — Lisa Begley

22. “Although your loved one may not remember you or might do things that frustrate you, this is the time when he or she needs you the most. Your loved one needs you to care, to advocate, to be patient, to love and to be vigilant. Don’t turn your back on them.” — Angie Nunez Merryman

23. “I wish doctors would realize that the person with Alzheimer’s has thoughts and feelings about their care. Look the patient in the eye instead of talking to a family member and asking them questions as if the person who has Alzheimer’s isn’t there.” — Cynthia Adams McGrath

24. “You can’t explain what it’s like to mourn someone who’s still alive unless you’ve experienced it firsthand. It truly is the long goodbye.” — Jessica Seay-Soto

25. “[It's] important to remember those who are suffering from Alzheimer’s as they were before the disease and to keep that person in mind when learning to cope with the disease.” — alib13

26. “The person who has Alzheimer’s knows that pieces of the puzzle are missing, and they are terrified.” — sheilamcphierasak

27. “To lose a loved one is always sad, but losing a loved one bit by bit is so sad. It’s horrible to watch someone you love struggling to find words and trying to remember things they realize they should know. You feel so helpless seeing someone looking lost, and you try to take away that fear.” — Jeanette Maxwell

28. “I wish people understood the unique experience of grief and loss that comes with Alzheimer’s. My dad was 64 when he was diagnosed, and we’ve been living the loss of him for four years now, even though he is still in our presence. I can still hold my dad’s hand, but I miss him every day.” — Anna Copley

29. “Alzheimer’s patients are people, not patients. They are husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, bosses, employees, sons and daughters, all of whom were robbed of time and the ability to continue to chase their dreams and live their lives freely.” – nicoleadeline

30. “Referencing ‘The Notebook’ doesn’t mean anything to me. [My mother] not recognizing me is the least of my worries because she no longer knows how to swallow.” — fancyy77

31. “It can happen to anyone, young and old… my dad was 49 when diagnosed.” — karli_anne1012

32. “I wish other people would understand that the person affected by Alzheimer’s is not a child or a toddler, as I have heard people casually say to me. Yes, they have childlike qualities, but people have to understand this individual is still an adult, and you can’t treat them as you would a kid. My mom can notice when she’s not getting the respect she deserve.” — a11ofthelights1832

33. “They may not be able remember who we are, but they feel us just the same.” — Amanda Dillon

What would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments. 

Visit Hilarity for Charity to learn what they’re doing for Alzheimer’s disease.

*Answers have been edited and shortened.