During summer season, Marie-Julie Cosenzo used to spend most of her days biking, running or playing at the park with her children. Since 2015, even a simple task like getting dressed is a burden for this mother of two.

Cosenzo who lives in Ottawa and practiced as a paramedic with the Coopérative des Paramédics de l’Outaouais for about 10 years was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in October 2015, after responding to a traumatic call.

It was a dark and cold October night in Gatineau when Cosenzo and her partner got called to a scene where they found a 17 years-old boy died by suicide.

“I even remember the song that was playing in the ambulance when we got the call,” she says. “I had seen gruesome scenes before, but that one really affected me.”

Cosenzo is one of thousands of paramedics who are living with PTSD in Canada.

According to the Tema Conter Memorial Trust, a foundation that advocates better mental-health support for emergency service workers, more than 25 per cent of paramedics in Canada will be diagnosed with PTSD at some point in their careers, compared to 7 per cent of police officers.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental illness. It often involves exposure to trauma from single events that involve death or the threat of death or serious injury, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association. 

Cosenzo says there is still a lot of stigma around PTSD in the paramedics’ world, which could result in the number of diagnosis being lower than the number of people living with PTSD.

We often see ourselves as heroes, but in the end we are just like everyone else. Marie-Julie Cosenzo

Not only are paramedics more likely to develop this mental illness than other first responders, they are also most likely to die from suicide.

Since the beginning of 2017, 13 paramedics in Canada died from suicide, which were reportedly linked to their careers, compared to five police officers, according to the Tema Conter Memorial Trust.

Daily burden 

Paramedics are subjected to traumatic experiences on a daily basis, sometimes more than once a day.

“The calls volume is always so high that there are no downtime and the level of stress keeps building up,” says Natalie Harris, a paramedic who worked with the County of Simcoe Paramedic Services for 12 years.

The demons of PTSD reached Harris after she entered a hotel room where two nearly decapitated women lay dead, and she had to care for their murderer who was suffering from self-inflicted knife wounds.

“I did not know what I would walk into and when I got there, the scene was so gruesome and I had no idea how to process it.”

Right after unloading the man at the hospital, her and her partner left for another call.

Both women say they have tried to suicide in the past couple of years.

Family

PTSD affects both the person’s mental and physical health, ultimately affecting their loved ones.

“I feel like a boring mother,” says Cosenzo. “I can never go play at the park with my six year old son because I’m too scared to have a panic attack,” she adds.

As for Harris, she said her relationship fell apart once the effects of PTSD kicked in. She said she could not sleep well, would drink and has overdosed on drugs. “I had a plan to kill myself.”

Both women say the help given to paramedics once they have been diagnosed with PTSD is getting better, but there is still a lot of work to do.

At the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre in Halifax, the heat and the air conditioning systems are broken, water is dripping down the roofs and mice are walking behind the walls.

For 15 years, members of the community have been lobbying to get a new friendship centre, and it’s finally happening.

According to an analysis of Statistics Canada’s latest Census that tracts maternal languages, there are 75 aboriginal-language speakers in Halifax, just like five years ago during the 2011 census.

Despite the few people speaking an Aboriginal language in Halifax, there are more than 33,000 people who identified as Aboriginal during the latest Census about population released in 2011.

Glode-Desrochers says there are currently around 12,000 Indigenous people in the city, but most of them don’t speak the language or don’t take part in census. “A lot of us don’t want to disclose our full identity,” she says.

On Tuesday August 8, the Mi’kmaw community centre invited everyone and anyone to speak up about their vision and hopes for their new place.

Executive director Pam Glode-Desrochers says the drawings represent what the community wishes the building will look like. Source: Facebook page of the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre.

The community centre is the hub where they meet, pray, cook and learn about their own culture. The need to have a new and bigger place is what brought more than 50 people together on Tuesday to share their ideas for the new centre.

Despite the few people who speak an Aboriginal language, the centre helps an infinite amount of people.

“The centre has saved my life and probably saved other peoples’ lives,” says Florence Blackett who has been involved in the centre since she was four years old. “My daughter was raped and I lost my mind and it’s through the support of the centre that I was able to go through the darkest period of my life.”

Blackett and three children.

The centre offers a diversity of programs from cooking classes to mental health counselling.

Florence Blackett, who has been involved with Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre since she was four year old says finally moving location will be like moving an entire family.

Pam Glode-Desrochers, executive director of the centre says, “people who have been here know that there are times when you come in this building and it’s -60 degrees in here and it’s -20 degrees outside, but the staff will still continue to work with their coats and mittens on.”

The centre opened its doors on September 17, 1973. It has been at the same location on Gottingen Street for more than 20 years, in a building that is quickly deteriorating. “I believe that the community has a right to walk into a building that is safe, secure and can deliver what their needs are,” says Glode-Desrochers.

Six years ago, the Mi’kmaw centre had eight programs for its members. The centre evolved over the past years and now offers 28 programs, which are serving more than 5,000 people, compared to 1,600 people in 2000.

“I’m only supposed to allow 200 people in here, says Glode-Desrochers. We are totally out of place in this old building.”

It is still unclear where and when the new centre will open, even how it will be funded, but members of the community say they are on the right track and stay optimistic.

Rag Manzer, a Dalhousie University graduate student and registered nurse who attended the open session, says he just recently learned about his Indigenous identity that was kept secret by his British family for years.

Reg Manzer speaks about his wishes with the community centre. 
  Manzer recently learned that he has Native ancestors. It was his first time at the centre on Tuesday August 8, 2017.

While the population of Quebec is aging faster than it’s ever been, a Quebec billionaire and controversial business man is completing the construction of his 14th residence for elderly people.

Average age of people in Quebec, according to Statistics Canada 2016 Census data. Credit: Gabrièle Roy 

Eddy Savoie is the founder, owner and president of the Groupe Savoie, which owns the Résidences Soleil for elderly people. From the residence in Sherbrooke to the ones around Montreal, Groupe Savoie employs 2,000 people and 7,000 people live in the residences, according to Résidences Soleil website.

Here are the 14 residences across Quebec. Credit: Gabrièle Roy

The starting price for a studio in those residences is more than $1,200. Marco Guerrera, public affairs councillor at FADOQ, the largest association of Quebecers over 50 years old, says, “the median income of people over 65 years old is $19,500, so most of them don’t have enough money to go in a residence like Résidence Soleil.”

Groupe Savoie said in an email no one was available to do an interview.

Many will know Savoie from his numerous appearances in Résidence Soleil TV commercials. Others will remember his long battle with Superior Court of Québec.

Court case
In 2011, Pierrette Thériault-Martel publicly denounced the poor health care given to her mother, a resident at CHSLD Saint-Lambert-sur-le-Golf, the first CHSLD – a long term care establishment or retirement home- built on a public and private partnership in Quebec with Groupe Savoie.

Eddy Savoie sued her for defamation, demanding $400,000. Thériault-Martel only made $12,000 a year at the time, while Savoie estimated his personal wealth at $1.5 billion, according to court documents.

He asked a court to keep the figures confidential, but the request was denied in May 2014, when a judge cited philosopher Jeremy Bentham famous quote, “where there is no publicity, there is no justice.”

After a four-year battle in court, judge Gary D.D. Morrison deemed the billionaire’s suit abusive and ordered him to pay $310,000 to Thériault-Martel. Morrison declared the suit as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, also known as a SLAPP suit.

Judith Dagenais, lawyer for Thériault-Martel says, “It was the first time in Quebec that someone was ordered to pay such amount for a SLAPP suit.”

In his judgment, Morrison explained that Savoie had no remorse and that “he maintained he would have done the exact same thing again if he had the chance.”

“It was a disproportionate context, like David and Goliath, where he tried to prohibit her from denunciating a situation she had all rights to talk about”, says Dagenais.

Judith Dagenais, lawyer for Thériault-Martel, says the court case was an important one, not only for the health care system in Quebec but also for the disproportionate context in which it took place. She also says SLAPP suits are very rare.

Inspection report
In December 2016, CHSLD Saint-Lambert-sur-le-Golf did not achieve the customer satisfaction standards, which resulted in an external investigation by the minister of health and services in Quebec.

According to the most recent inspection report published in early 2017, CHSLD Saint-Lambert-sur-le-Golf “must offer a better life quality to its residents.”

One of the numerous recommendations requested by the minister is that the “the institution take the necessary steps to ensure that the staff is showing attention to the residents.”

In 2015, judge Hellen Paré of Quebec’s civil court sentenced ex CHSLD Saint-Lambert-sur-le-golf employee Immacula Eugène to 15 months in prison for “having maltreated patients.” Eugène pleaded guilty to assaults against six beneficiaries as well as having administered anxiolytics to two patients, without their knowledge, to make them sleep, according to the court document.

The 14 other residences owned by Groupe Savoie are private. There are no publicly available inspection reports for these residences.

Political donations
Savoie has donated more than $23,500 to Quebec’s Liberal party between 2000 and 2014, according to data obtained on the open data website of the Directeur Général des Élections du Quebec.
His wife who is vice-present of the Groupe Savoie, Carmelle Ouellette, also gave more than $20,000 to Quebec’s liberal party between these years.

The number of people who wish to join a class action lawsuit involving thousands of children who were placed in foster care in B.C. is so high that one of Canada’s leading class action law firms can’t answer them all.

“We have to transfer people to a hotline that gives the most recent updates and explains the qualifications and steps that have to be taken to apply”, says a receptionist at Klein Lawyers, a personal injury and class action law firm in Vancouver. She said she did not know the exact number of people enrolled in the class action at the moment.

The Government of Canada is trying to reach a national settlement with victims of the Sixties Scoop, which means all class action lawsuits are currently under hold while discussions for an agreement are undergoing.

The Sixties Scoop class action alleges that the Government of Canada failed “to take steps to prevent Indian children from losing their Aboriginal identity and the opportunity to exercise their Aboriginal and treaty rights, causing ongoing harm to Indian children in care.”

Thousands of Indigenous people across Canada continue to join the different Sixties Scoop lawsuits in the country, seeking justice for the actions done by the Government of Canada.

During the Sixties Scoop, First Nations, Métis and Inuit children across Canada were taken away from their homes by child-welfare agencies between 1960s and 1980s. The majority of children were placed in non-Indigenous homes by agencies without taking steps to preserve their culture and identity, according to the B.C. class action lawsuit. Some children were sent to live in other provinces, other countries and other continents.

In February 2017 an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled in favour of Sixties Scoop survivors, stating that the Government of Canada breached its “duty of care” to the children, and ignored the damaging effects of the Ontario-led program.

Summary Court (Text)

Since the February decision, “18 new claims started across Canada, but Ontario is still the only claim that has been certified and successful in establishing liability”, says Jessica Braude, one of the lawyers in the Ontario class action that involved 16,000 people. 

Canada’s fastest internet provider is constantly losing cable television customers but claims it has the solution this fall back, according to its most recent financial statement.

Rogers Communications Inc. ended the first three months of 2017 with 1,796,000 cable television subscribers compared to 1,870,000 subscribers at the same period last year. This decline has been constantly increasing in the past five years.

To remedy to its losses, the telecommunication giant announced at the end of 2016 a partnership with Comcast Corp. to license the X1 cloud-based TV platform, which will launch in early 2018.

The system initially launched in the United States in 2012 and provides a cloud-based DVR, an advance guide, voice-activated remote controls and internet applications.

Comcast Corp. X1 product is comparable to Apple TV, as it currently provides Netflix and will soon be adding YouTube.

Alan Douglas Horn, president and chief executive officer of Rogers said during the 2017 first quarter analysts conference call that, as the company heads into the first quarter of next year and launches “the excellent Comcast platform,” the expectation is that it will “drive positive net adds.”

Dalhousie University assistant professor at Rowe School of Business said in an email that “the question of whether Rogers can continue to compensate for failing cable demand depends on whether the company can deliver cable far more efficiently than they have to date, or else leapfrog effectively from behind into next generation technologies their non-cable company competitors are into.”

Despite the constant fall in cable television subscribers, cable revenues decreased marginally this quarter due to more home phone and internet subscribers.

Rogers ended the first quarter of 2017 with $855 M in revenues for its cable services as opposed to $858 M to end of the last quarter of 2016.

“When we look at customers either staying with us or coming in, we find that over half of them are choosing their in-home services provider based first on internet”, says Horn.

Growth in wireless business

Rogers Communications Inc. increased its net income by 28 per cent and ended the first quarter of its 2017 fiscal year with $290 M in net income, up from $230 M for the same period last year.

Rogers Communications Inc. Stock Prices by arvinjoaquin on TradingView.com

The company’s stock prices have been increasing after a slight dip.

It attributed the net income increase to its growth in wireless business, after acquiring 60,000 new wireless subscribers, compared to 14,000 subscribers in the first three months of 2016.

The wireless subscribers have been increasing steadily in the past year, but Rogers considered this year’s addition of wireless subscribers the strongest one since 2009, therefore extensively contributing to a higher net income.

“Wireless revenue and subscriber growth was impressive, and importantly, this robust growth did not come at the expense of profit”, said chief financial officer at Rogers Communications Inc. Anthony Staffieri during an analysts teleconference.

Rogers Share Everything plans gained in popularity among the new wireless subscribers.

Share everything plans are wireless plans with data. Customers can either keep the data for themselves or share the data between family, friends or other devices such as a tablet. Subscribers of these plans also get to use other services such as Spotify, Texture and Rogers NHL GameCentre LIVE.

In its management discussion and analysis document, Rogers said it believes the increases in gross and net additions this quarter were results of its strategic focus on enhancing the customer experience by providing higher-value offerings, such as the Share Everything.

Staffieri said that although he won’t disclose the number of devices per plan, “when looking at the numbers, we continue to see that we are moving in the right direction.”

The number of tablets added into this type of plan remains very low, said Staffieri, but “it’s certainly something that consumers find helpful and they share everything and more value from that.”