The snow is piling up outside the window of 16-year-old Nour Taltello’s classroom. The high school student first landed in Ottawa last winter with her parents and younger sister as Syrian refugees.

“A lot of people don’t like the snow, but for me I like the snow,” she says with a laugh, while sitting behind her desk.

Like Taltello, a majority of Syrian refugees who recently arrived in Ottawa are under 18 years-old, according to a report published by the Ottawa Local Immigration Partnership (OLIP).

Released last month, the umbrella organization’s report estimates that youth under 18 constitute 60 per cent of government-sponsored Syrian refugees in Ottawa from 2015-2016.

The report was funded by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada as part of a research initiative to strengthen the city of Ottawa’s ability to support Syrian refugees. Among its recommendations is to develop a youth-focused settlement and integration strategy.

The integration of young newcomers “is integral to our success as a host community,” says Hindia Mohamoud, the director of OLIP, which works to attract and settle immigrants.

Mohamoud says it’s important to have a plan aimed at youth because their experiences are different from those of adults. Youth spend more time in school, for example, and are affected by the decisions of their parents and pressure from their peers, she says.

Apart from enjoying the snow, Taltello faced her share of challenges as a newcomer to Ottawa.

“My English is not strong,” she says. “In my math class, I always struggle because when the teacher (is) explaining the question, first I have to go through the English and then through the math.”

Taltello attends regular courses throughout the school day, except for one class where she joins other students learning English as a Second Language (ESL). Her teacher, Janet Birmingham, says several students in this class came to Canada as immigrants or refugees. They often face difficulties when adjusting to the expectations of a new school and learning to express themselves in a new language.

“They’ve all been in the same boat, even if they’re coming from different countries,” says Birmingham, who teaches ESL at St. Mother Teresa High School.

Some students in the class experience emotional challenges as well, says Birmingham, especially if they fled violence or have family members in war-torn countries. For Taltello, it helped to have relatives already in Ottawa who comforted her and her family when they first arrived. “They just help us to organize our feelings,” she says. “They told us it’s okay.”

In 2011, OLIP established a local immigration strategy that lays out long-term priorities to help newcomers in various service sectors, including employment, health and education. It further expressed concern that services supporting immigrant youth are “fragmented and unfocused.”

Ottawa needs a plan that elaborates on existing strategies and resources to specifically address the challenges of newcomer youth, says Mohamoud.

“We have a lot of experience as a city because we have been integrating immigrants a lot,” she says. “The gap we see is one that requires bringing together all these experiences and putting priorities that we as a community can grapple with to succeed effectively in the integration of newcomer youth.”

Since first arriving in Ottawa, Taltello says her language skills have improved and so has her knowledge of the community through volunteering. After high school, she hopes to apply for university here and study to become a doctor.

“To build my future, to have a great job, to be successful—that’s my dream,” she says.

Most Rideau-Vanier residents feel unsafe after dark, according to an Ottawa Police Service 2016 public survey. Only 44 per cent of those surveyed said that they felt safe at night in Rideau-Vanier, compared to the 70 per cent Ottawa average. Anna Hayward, a Vanier resident, says she can relate to that feeling of uneasiness in the area once the sun goes down.

“There is a reason why I tried to schedule only morning and afternoon classes this year,” said Hayward.

Anna Hayward, 22, says she often feels unsafe in Vanier at night, because of the area’s reputation (Provided).

Hayward is a Toronto-native who is living in Ottawa while she finishes her political science studies at the University of Ottawa. While she says that she has not had anything “terrible” happen to her during her time living in the area, Hayward is firm about her apprehension with being out at night in Vanier, especially alone.

The 2012 Ottawa Police Service public survey indicates that not much has changed in the feeling of safety in Vanier after dark. That year, only 40 per cent of those surveyed said that they felt safe walking alone at night in the area.

“You just can sometimes feel vulnerable in the area, knowing the kinds of things that you hear about happening in Vanier and at the same time not knowing what could happen,” said Hayward.

There is some shouting that can be heard from outside of Hayward’s Vanier apartment complex, but it is the afternoon and it is just the neighbourhood kids walking home from school.

Rideau-Vanier saw an 11 per cent increase in crime rate between 2015 and 2016, according to the Ottawa Police Service. Rideau-Vanier, Ottawa’s 12th ward, had a total of 5,331 reported crimes in 2016. That is an increase of nearly 600 reported crimes from the year before. Despite the increase however, there are those in the community that believe the area is improving its safety.

“I think Vanier has improved and the people that live here really care about it,” said Helena Arruda, the director of counselling and community development at the Vanier Community Service Centre.

The centre has been working with the Vanier community for over 35 years and according to Arruda, safety has remained a primary concern. This includes working closely with Crime Prevention Vanier, a group of community leaders that meet on a regular basis to discuss how to make the area safer. Along with the Vanier Community Service Centre, Crime Prevention Vanier works on beautification of the area’s neighbourhoods and encourages citizens to start their own neighbourhood watches.

“It is something we have to continue to work on so that Vanier is somewhere people want to live,” said Arruda.

In addition to the overall increase in crime rate, there was an increase of more than 100 break and enter cases between 2015 and 2016. Going back to the 2016 public survey, 71 per cent of those surveyed from Vanier were concerned with break and enters in the area, compared to the city average of 55 per cent.

Arruda says that Vanier’s reputation as a “shady” area of Ottawa has been difficult to shake, but that the right systems are in place to make people see Vanier differently.

That includes Rideau-Vanier City Councillor Mathieu Fleury, who was unable to speak for this story because of the tabling of his office’s new budget last week.

Between Fleury’s office, the Ottawa Police Service, and the various Rideau-Vanier community groups, there is a sense of unity that Arruda thinks will yield tangible results.

“To have a safe community and to have a strong community, you have to work together. I think that is what we are doing,” said Arruda.

There has been a 31 per cent decrease in avoidable deaths in hospitals since 2006, according to an analysis of data from both the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) and the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU).

Between 2006 and 2008 there were a recorded 71,335 “avoidable” deaths in Ontario hospitals, according to CIHI’s data. That number had dropped to 26,070 by 2013. OCHU found that in 2016 that number had fallen even more, hitting 3,200.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement defines avoidable deaths as deaths resulting from hospital errors.

However, OCHU blames cuts to healthcare funding and understaffed hospitals.

“Underfunding leads to understaffing,” Michael Hurley, OCHU’s President, says, “That leads to cutbacks in cleaning and that leads to overcrowding.”

Hurley cites overcrowding as the number one issue.

“Our hospitals in Ontario are more overcrowded than a lot of countries,” Hurley says, “The Ottawa Hospital is running at about 110 per cent capacity. Anything over 85 per cent is overcrowded.”

OCHU’s 2016 study found that most avoidable deaths are a result from diseases contracted inside the hospitals themselves, such as C. difficile (C. Diff), a disease that commonly affects elderly people in hospitals for other medical issues.

“You have patients sharing bathrooms,” Hurley says, “That’s the biggest thing that contributed to the C. difficile outbreak in Montreal a few years back.”

Tim Martin knows C. diff all too well. His father, Robert Martin, died from the disease in 2013.

“He had broken his hip in the nursing home and been sent to the hospital,” Martin explains, “He was gone within a few weeks.”

Robert Martin had contracted C. diff from a patient a few beds down from him.

“It was a small, local hospital,” Martin explains, “They didn’t have enough staff, and the ones that were there were exhausted.”

Kelsey Delesalle, a Registered Practical Nurse, experiences that exhaustion every day, working in a geriatric ward.

“I was alone on my fourth shift at my current hospital,” Delesalle says.

That wasn’t the last time Delesalle was stuck working alone, either. She often finds herself flying solo due to someone calling in sick, or just simple understaffing.

“We’re probably understaffed because we’re not paid that well,” Delesalle says, “There’s not enough money to go around.”

There’s also not enough hands to go around. Some jobs definitely require two people, she says.

“Certain patients can be what we call one person care,” Delesalle explains, “But most are two. Especially for transfers. You need two people to just move them from their bed to their wheelchair, much less onto a stretcher or to the bathroom.”

However, despite apparent understaffing and underfunding, a September 2017 study by CIHI found that the amount of Canadian doctors has grown faster than the Canadian population for decades.

Between 2012 and 2016 the number of doctors in Canada was triple the civilian population.

CIHI found that in 2016 there were 84,000 doctors in Canada, which translates to 320 per every 100,000 patients – the highest ratio in history. The previous record-breaking peak had been in 1993.

Part of that growth comes from doctors immigrating to Canada from abroad, CIHI says. 58 physicians joined Canada’s workforce from abroad during 2016.

However, nurses and cleaning staff are in short supply, according to Hurley. And that will only change if hospitals receive more funding.

“They’re still cutting the budget,” Hurley says, “We need funding that reflects the growth of our aging population.”

In the end, it all comes down to the money.

“A lot of our girls love arts and crafts,” Danielle Stang explains as she points to the bright peach and purple walls, each adorned with artwork that depict a variety of subjects, from cartoon characters, to desert sunsets, to calming blue waves. The paintings are memories of the past and present inhabitants of Talitha House, an Ottawa-area open youth custody facility for young female offenders aged 12 to 17, where Danielle is the director. “They find it to be a great way of relaxing and expressing themselves.”

Since 2011, custody rates for youth aged 12 to 17 in Ontario have dropped by 51 percent, according to an analysis of Statistics Canada data related to youth custody rates. For girls, such as the ones that Danielle works with, the numbers have dropped by 52 per cent. In boys, the custody rates have dropped by 51.5 per cent.

Danielle credits this drop to the 2003 Youth Criminal Justice Act. The YCJA focused on reducing the number of youth who went to court or and were jailed for less serious offences, focusing instead on community programs and reintegration. It replaced the Young Offenders Act, which had previously been in place since 1984.

“Before the Youth Criminal Justice Act came along, you’d have an unfair mix in youth jails,” Danielle laments. “You’d have kids who made fake phone calls in there with ones who had committed more serious offences.”

Under the YCJA, young offenders are commonly given open custody sentences, in smaller custody facilities under staff supervision, like Talitha House. Typically, young offenders spend two thirds of their open custody term in an open custody facility, and undertake community service for the final third of their term. The stay in these types of facilities can vary from a few days, to several months.

Dan O’Rourke has worked with young offenders for over 20 years. He currently works at Laurencrest Youth Services, a custody facility for young male offenders in Cornwall, Ontario. Dan explains that the YCJA has had both negative and positive impacts. On one hand, Dan says, “We’ve found that early, up front services have more of a long-term impact on the youth than just  putting them in a custody facility.” But the youth custody decreases have led to the provincial government to close down youth custody facilities and decrease the number of beds at these facilities. Dan says that these changes lead to increased pressure on the remaining facilities to apply their programs.

Jim MacDonald is the Executive Director at Phoenix House, one of the few Ottawa-area youth detention facilities that remains. He identifies another kind of frustrationdue to the YCJA. Lower conviction rates for youth and the conditions of the Phoenix House contract mean that the Navan-area facility, about 30 minutes from Ottawa, is frequently empty.

Under Phoenix House’s contract with the Catholic School Board, only offenders who have been sentenced to custody can attend the facility.
“There’s a real reluctance to dole out a sentence,” Jim explains. “Youth have to have gone through the justice system a lot before they are given custody.”
For Jim, it’s an annoying situation to be in. “We have funding, and we want to fill our desks, we want to fill our beds and we’ve budgeted for five to seven youth a week.” Jim clarifies. “We want to work.”

Jim is hoping to temporarily work with at-risk youth in his community, even if they haven’t received a custodial sentence. For Danielle, her purpose remains the same: to help the remaining girls who come through the doors of Talitha House. “At the end of the day, they’re our girls,” Danielle adds thoughtfully. “All we want is to help them to improve their self-image and find strength in themselves.”