Pardoned sex offenders evade record checks due to tighter privacy – The Globe and Mail

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Pardoned sex offenders evade record checks due to tighter privacy – The Globe and Mail.

This article suggests that the government has tightened the privacy act to such an extent that only the person involved can give permission for the record to be released. So it should work like this: Mr. X wants to work as a hockey coach in September. He applies for his police check in August, giving permission to release the contents of any record found. But when the records are searched, he has no record, because that 2 years for child sexual abuse has been pardoned and that record is not released, at least not without his permission. So it would seem that there is no protection. Clearly if the RCMP are just following the directives, then the legislation has to be looked at again.

Deep in this article is a reference to a Real Time Identification Program of automated finger-printing that would decrease the current 120-day  waiting period. According to the article the RCMP is working on a Real Time Identification Program.

The website for the RCMP is clear that this system all ready exists and is in use daily by police services for their routine work. The system requires that the fingerprints being checked are in electronic format.

In order to get a police background check,for a civilian, a full set of fingerprints must be provided. If these can be done electronically at the local police station, the checking time is dramatically reduced. Reduced, that is,  until there is a hit on a criminal record. If a criminal record is found, checking can extend over 120 days.

It seems to me, that if an individual wishes to have a police background check done, the first step should be to review the steps of the process on the RCMP website. The directions are clear. Making sure that the fingerprints are sent electronically should reduce the wait time.

Pardon for Sex Abuser

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Ex-coach Graham James pardoned for sex abuse that rocked NHL – The Globe and Mail.

This is a shocking story. In my 33 year career as a pediatrician I have talked with many children who suffered sexual abuse. All of the children I have seen were abused by someone they trusted or who was in a position of power over them –  a parent, a step-parent, a coach.

When an adult suffers an horrific event, he or she may suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, seek treatment and eventually go on, the event fading further into memory. With children, it is different. With each stage of development, the trauma can surface again – as the child becomes more able to understand what has happened, and as psychosexual development reaches anther stage.

I recall one boy whom I saw first when he was seven, sitting in an emergency room cubicle, with a frozen attempt at a smile on his face. That boy suffered throughout his childhood from a father who continued to stalk him. When he was 16 the boy laid a charge and the father was convicted. Imagine if he was now pardoned, because pedophilia is not as serious a crime as murder. The victim would be traumatized yet again.

This is what the parole board has done, in allowing the abuser of all those young boys to be pardoned. It has denied the importance of their suffering.

Retiring: The Last Day

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Tomorrow is our last day of seeing patients after almost 40 years. I started my internship in July of 1970, and my practice in 1976. I remember so many of the children and I’m going to miss seeing them. However, I’m also going to enjoy not waking up in the middle of the night worrying about a decision I had made, or some test I didn’t order, or whether the parent had understood my instructions.
The work isn’t over yet. We still have to finish closing down the office, making provision for the charts, getting rid of furniture, shredding, taking out the trash. Not as exciting as setting up.
But it’s spring. We have work to do in the garden. I have a book to edit, and another to polish. We’re going to Spain in the Fall. This year at least is looking good.
My last patient is a well child, the grandson of an old friend. A good way to end.

Educating Girls

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

An issue where Canada needs to lead – The Globe and Mail.

Rania Al Abdullah is Queen of Jordan and Unicef’s Eminent Advocate for Children.

The article above is written by the Queen of Jordon. She expresses the value of educating girls, empowering women, educating them about health so that their children survive. It was published on the op-ed page in the Globe and Mail. I thing Queen Rania’s words should be sent to our politicians, especially those who will be at the G8 and G20, and those who would deny that birth control is factor in women’s health.

Health Care

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

The Americans have finally passed a health care bill. Two important provisions: No one can be denied health care for a pre-existing condition; no one is dependent on keeping a particular job in order to keep health care.
No doubt the big insurers are worried about having to take on all these sick people. They certainly can cut into the profit margin.
Up to now, the US has been unique amongst developed nations in not providing health insurance for all its citizens. I hope the people in the middle class, the ones who formed the millions without health care, remember on voting day in November who it was that wanted to condemn them to bankruptcy in the face of catastrophic or long term chronic illness.
The saddest sign I saw at the protests to the bill was held by an elderly woman. “Hands off our Medicare” it read. Spreading fear amongst the vulnerable is a deplorable political tactic, not unique to those south of the border.
Our current government is “getting tough on youth crime” at a time when youth crime is falling. They want to be able to send 14 year olds to adult prisons. I think they’ve never actually talked to a teenager, or raised a child to adulthood.

CBC News – Politics – Contraception an ‘option’ in maternal health plan

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

CBC News – Politics – Contraception an ‘option’ in maternal health plan.

These people still don’t get it. Contraception should not be an option. It is too important in the health of young women everywhere, especially in the developing world.
And apparently “family planning” is the Conservative code word for abortion. At least the Minister says no family planning, and Harper says yes to contraception as an option but no abortion debate. Yet more back pedalling today. Either they are incapable of thinking through their ideas, or they believe they can put “spin” on these issues and we won’t notice.

Retirement looms. One more week until the last day for patients, the 29th of March. I’ve been cleaning out financial files. Who knew how much there was to keep. The rule, according to our accountant is to keep seven years of records. I’m up to 6 banker’s boxes and counting.

Fundamentalist Harper and failure to save women’s lives

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

CBC News – Money – 10 myths about taxes and filing.

It’s tax time and the CBC has been helpful, publishing a list of myths. Some of them are very old news, but there’s new information too. Worth the read.
I see the Harper government doesn’t think that supporting contraception and abortion rights saves lives. I guess the only lives worth saving are those of embryos.The lives of the women who die in childbirth or its complications, of which there are millions around the world, don’t count. The lives of women who are condemned to repeated pregnancies, without pause, ending up dying at what is by our standard a very young age, don’t count either. Stephen Harper tries very hard to convince us that he’s at the centre of the political spectrum. This sort of pandering to the most fundamental of his supporters shows again that he is not.
Shame on him. Shame on us if he’s elected again.

A black eye for hockey – The Globe and Mail

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

A black eye for hockey – The Globe and Mail.
One of the commentators on this story suggested that the hitter should stay off as long as his victim cannot play. This could, of course, result in a life-time ban from playing. Another suggests criminal charges.
Criminal charges should be laid, in my view. Anywhere but on the rink such an attack would be called what it is – criminal assault. But there is a defence. The young man who hit Marc Sivard, had a coach, and a manager. He played in a league which has a bizarre standard – no penalty was called – and can’t bring itself to suspend the offending player. What were his instructions when he went on the ice that day. Was he supposed to bring down a player who was such a threat that the coach wanted him taken out of the game? Was it payback for some hit in some other game?
We’ve just finished watching the game played at the highest level, by stringent rules, with no one damaged for life. Can’t the standards of the Olympics transplant to the NHL? Or is the core audience watching for the thrill of seeing thugs batter others.
In my medical practice, I’ve talked to the adult survivors of head injuries like this. They are struggling to raise families and deal with such ordinary matters as remembering appointments for their children. They apologize for their poor memories and their emotional responses in ordinary conversation. They tell me about being unable to drive, and having to rely on community organizations and disability pensions. And I only hear a little of the trouble, because I’m their children’s doctor, not their own.
The long term consequences of head injuries range from learning disabilities to marital breakdown. The article above talks about Marc Sivard’s life at the moment. I hope his recovery is complete, and that depends on how many concussions he’s had in the past, and how severely his brain was damaged this time.
Paediatricians are trying to ensure that children wear head-protecting helmets in sports as diverse as biking and snowboarding. We encourage no-contact. We are playing a losing game while this kind of attack goes unpunished.

Mr. Pip

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Mr. Pip, by Loyd Jones. Alfred A. Knopf Canada, publisher. 2007.

This entrancing book comes with a distinguished record – winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize for best book, and finalist for the Mann Booker Prize.
At first, we are offered a mysterious white man, married to a madwoman, who becomes the teacher for the children when the teachers are lost to one of those brutal island wars of rebellion in the South Pacific. He is a Mr. Chips if you will – whose only remaining book is Great Expectations. Matilda, a child of the village, soon to become an adult, takes us into her life and the life, and death of the village.
The many layers of this story, the beautiful language, the characters who will remain in memory long after the book has been closed, and the tragic denouement, are lessons in writing the literary novel. This is a book about the transforming power of literature and is itself an example of it.

Medical Isotopes

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Precious medical isotopes could be shipped overseas – The Globe and Mail.

The people who are charged with fixing the reactors are working 24/7 to get them up an running to ensure that the global supply of isotopes returns to normal. I presume they know they are not working long hours and double shifts for the citizens of Canada, but for their company, which will then send off the products to the global market. Quite a deal the government or AECL or both made this time.
In 2008, on the Harper watch, funding was cut off to the scientists working to get the two Maple reactors on line. I am told that it is possible to fix whatever is the problem with “a few lines of code”, but the work has to be funded.

Why are they patching up the old, and why did they mothball the new technology? The article tells us that the Minister in charge of the file, Christian Paradis, referred question to the AECL management. Of course he did. Why take ownership of a problem that might bring backlash from citizens – patients – waiting for tests of their cancers, or heart disease, or renal failure, who may have to wait until the global market, and Canada with it, has an adequate amount of isotope? The global market didn’t supply the millions to fix the reactor, Canada did.

Publishing is on my mind again, as Write Words Inc. is planning to bring Murderous Roots out in a print on domand edition. Details to follow as they come to me.