Brenda Hardiman wants to prevent more special needs individuals from being unfairly criminalized.  She is the Chairperson and co-founder of Advocating Parents of Nova Scotia (APNS), a non-profit organization that aides and support parents who have children with physical and/or intellectual disabilities.

“We decided that Nova Scotia needed something like Advocating Parents with families that were having problems navigating community services and health,” she said. “They could contact us and we could help them with that because both of us have already been through it.”

Hardiman founded the organization with another parent in 2014 after her daughter, Nichele Benn, was charged with assault by a staff member at the Quest Regional Rehabilitation Centre where she was a resident. Benn has since been moved to a small options home, but Hardiman says it’s a lack of compassion and understanding that causes people to criminalize persons with special needs.

“In today’s world, people with intellectual disabilities are quite often segregated and isolated from the general public,” she said. “People are not exposed enough to various abilities and disabilities, so when they do see somebody or have contact with somebody who has an intellectual disability, it frightens them.”

To resolve this, Hardiman is partnering with Peoples First Nova Scotia (PFNS), an advocacy group for people with intellectual disabilities, and Archie Kaiser, a Dalhousie law professor who specializes in mental disability law. They plan to create educational literature for local police, lawyers, judges and others who regularly interact with special needs individuals.

The idea was inspired by Dave Kent, President of the Board at PFNS, and his experience with the local Truro police two months ago. He was stopped on the street by police officers who accused him of drinking and refused to believe Kent when he explained it was his medication for bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia that affected his walking.

“They gave me a breathalyzer and nothing showed up. Then they followed me home,” said Kent. “What they put me through that night made me nervous. I thought they were taking me to jail.”

Cindy Carruthers, the executive director of PFNS, says Kent’s story is one of many that happen daily and it’s not just with law enforcement.

“Many lawyers struggle with these cases when they have people with intellectual disabilities coming to them, needing support,” said Carruthers. “Through lack of knowledge, they often suggest ‘just plead guilty’ because they don’t know how to support them. Whether they’re innocent or guilty, it’s often just the recommendation to plead guilty.”

Though Halifax Regional Police train officers on how to respond to calls that involve individuals with special needs, Hardiman believes there’s still a lack of knowledge in the policing community.

According to the Department of Community Services, in 2015 there were 1,153 clients in small option homes and 189 clients in regional rehabilitation centres. Individuals with complex needs can cost upwards of $250K-$1M every year for each case. These cases has increased by an average of 17% every year in the last 4 years.

Hardiman said although people with intellectual disabilities can commit crimes, incidences involving special needs individuals should be viewed as a health issue and not a criminal issue.

“The legal system is meant to be punitive for people, but for the people that can’t learn a lesson there’s no point in making it punitive,” Hardiman said. “If people could just stop and think how they would treat their own family member if they had an intellectual disability, they would be a little bit different.”

Though the educational package is still in the beginning stages, Hardiman and PFNS are confident it would be a success. They plan on launching the package next spring.

“I think you would find most individuals with intellectual disabilities and special needs are fearful of the police,” said Carruthers. “We would like to try to change that a little bit so that they can see them as someone who can help them and not someone to be feared.”

A small sign sits on the corner of the front desk at a Nova Scotia medical clinic.

The greeting card sized sign reads, “Dr. Leo Wisniowski does not provide counselling or psychotherapy “

But if patients ask why, they won’t hear about Dr. Wisniowski’s sexual relationship with a patient that resulted in him being banned from providing the services.

“It’s pretty self-explanatory, just the fact that he doesn’t offer to do it,” says Carla Livingston, officer manager at ScotiaMed Family Practice and Walk-in Clinic in Bedford.

Livingston says, if asked she would only tell patients that Dr. Wisniowski doesn’t provide those services but so far, no patients have inquired about the sign.

But patient advocate and owner of Patient Pathways, Connie Jorsvik, believes patients have a right to know the full story.

“If people don’t know then they go into a doctor’s office trusting that they’re going to get the best care possible and that a doctors not going to do something like that,” Jorsvik says.

The Case

In 2005 The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia suspended Dr. Wisniowski’s medical license for a year, after a complaint from the female patient.

“They discussed her childhood, her relationship with her family and friends,” the doctor’s settlement agreement with the college reads. “During one session during which [she] began crying and feeling helpless Dr. Wisniowski offered her a hug.”

The hugs grew longer and eventually lead to the sexual relationship that Dr. Wisniowski says occurred during a stressful time in his life.

Benjamin Capps, a professor in the department of bioethics at Dr. Wisniowski’s alma mater, Dalhousie University, says the school covers the topic of appropriate boundaries and sexual relationships with patients in its professional competencies program.

Capps says having sex with a patient creates an inappropriate relationship.

“Ethically it raises issues about power and exploitation,” says Capps.

Dr. Carol Leet, the former president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario discussed sexual relationships between doctors and patients in a recent article from the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

“There is no such thing as a consensual sexual relationship between a doctor and a patient,” says Dr. Leet states in the article. “There is a power imbalance that makes it impossible for a patient to actually be consenting to having that relationship.”

The family doctor now has restrictions on his license including being prohibited from engaging in marriage counseling and any form of psychological counselling and being restricted to treating patients only within his regular office hours, which must not be in the evening.

The doctor also had to undergo psychotherapy treatment.

Restriction’s on Dr. Wisniowski’s license

‘Every woman has the right to feel safe’

Jorsvik has dealt with several cases involving doctors and sexual misconduct and says she doesn’t think the cases are rare.

“I feel there are a lot of doctors who are sexually assaulting their patients and getting away with it,” Jorsvik says.

A study, published in the journal Open Medicine, found 606 Canadian doctors had been disciplined from 2000 to 2009.

Sexual misconduct was the most common violation, making up 20 per cent of the types of violations disciplined.

Jorsvik says her biggest concern is the safety of female patients.

“Every woman has the right to feel safe when they go into a doctor’s office,” says Jorsvik. “Women especially are very vulnerable to being complaint, so they get into situations with people in power, who they think know best.”

A Nova Scotia doctor can now apply to reinstate his medical licence after it was revoked in February.

Dr. Mohsen Yavari has a family medicine practice in Glace Bay, NS. He lost his licence earlier this year after the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia found that he had under-reported his qualifications to the college.

Dr. Yavari came to Canada in 2013 through the Clinician Assessment for Practice Program, to work as a family doctor in rural Nova Scotia.

On his program application, Dr. Yavari left out his six years as an Emergency Medicine Specialist in Dubai. He told the committee he had not shared the information on purpose.

Clinician Assessment for Practice Program

The Clinician Assessment for Practice Program was a provincial program used to recruit International Medical Graduates as general practitioners and family doctors to Nova Scotia.

Recruiting International Medical Graduates is common in Canada. The Canadian Medical Association says the “top five suppliers of physicians new to Canada” in 2012 were; South Africa (58), India (53), Libya (37), USA (36), and Pakistan (33).

Doctors in Nova Scotia

According to the Canadian Medical Association, Nova Scotia has the highest rate of doctors based on 100,000 population.

Source: Canadian Medical Association

Director of Strategic Partnerships at Doctors Nova Scotia, Kevin Chapman says, the rate of doctors in the province is “disproportionate” to the number of doctors actually seeing patients. He insists that Nova Scotia “absolutely” has a doctor shortage.

“Some folks would say we are ‘over doctored’,” says Chapman. “But we know there are a number of Nova Scotians without a family doctor and we still have long wait times for certain services.”

He says, doctors at IWK and QEII have Maritime, or Atlantic responsibilities and shouldn’t be included in the Canadian Medical Associations numbers. Chapman also points to physicians teaching at medical schools as misrepresenting the number of practicing doctors in the province.

Recruiting doctors to rural Nova Scotia

Head of Family Medicine of Western Zone for Nova Scotia Health Authority, Dr. Crystal Todd, says doctors in Nova Scotia tend to stay in urban areas.

“Recruiting has always been a problem for certain areas,” says Dr. Todd. “The more rural the area, the smaller the niche of people who are going to be attracted to that area.”

Chapman agrees with Dr. Todd.

He says Nova Scotia’s aging and disperse population creates its own challenges for recruiting doctors.

“Some doctors in rural areas have two, three, or four thousand patients,” says Chapman. “These are incredibly big practices that takes one and a half, or two people to fill the role after a doctor retires.”

Recruiting vs. retaining

Dr. Todd says recruitment isn’t the only challenge in rural Nova Scotia.

“In many areas of Nova Scotia it’s not recruitment that’s the problem, it’s actually retention,” she says.

Dr. Todd says the Nova Scotia Health Authority knows that what’s been done in the past to recruit doctors hasn’t worked.

“We’re not just plugging holes with bodies, so to speak,” says Todd. “We’re trying to have conversations with graduates and communities to find the right matches, because that will make retention significantly more successful than it has been.”

Chapman says the Clinician Assessment for Practice Program brought doctors, like Dr. Yavari, to parts of the province that had “challenges” recruiting.

Provincial program ends

The program ended in March 2015. According to the college’s website, the decision was “based upon the results of the program’s annual evaluation.”

The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Nova Scotia declined to comment on why the program ended. A spokesperson redirected all questions to the group’s website and the Nova Scotia Health Authority.

The Nova Scotia Health Authority said it couldn’t comment on the program, because it was a program by the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Nova Scotia. A spokesperson suggested talking to the college.

The website mentions “new pan‐Canadian standards”, but the provincial program has not been replaced yet.

In late May, Nova Scotia’s Small Claims Court found Joe Metlege, as president and representative of Templeton Properties, to be in violation of the Residential Tenancies Act when the company made a tenant pay three months’ rent up front at the beginning of a lease.

The violation was mentioned as part of a ruling that saw to put an end to a dispute between a tenant and Templeton Properties. In his ruling, adjudicator Michael J. O’Hara, thoroughly explained his reasons for finding Templeton in violation of the Act.

The court documents described how the landlord had defined the sum of money as neither a security deposit, nor a application fee. Instead, it was defined as prepaid rent. A cosmetic distinction that did little to disguise the actual nature of the sum, according to O’Hara, who then went on to explain why, citing the Act’s definition of a security deposit.

With that in mind, O’Hara made clear how the sum exceeds the legal limit of a deposit.

As he summed up his reasoning, O’Hara further commented on the practice of demanding rent upfront under the guise of being “prepaid”, and how the practice, if left unchecked, could leave “unscrupulous” landlords free to circumvent the rules of the Act.

The reminder from the legislature is timely with a new school year on the horizon. As summer begins to cool off, students move back to the city to continue their studies, and many will be taken advantage of as they look for housing.

In 2014, Students Nova Scotia, a student right’s advocacy group, published a report that investigated off-campus housing in the province. They found a pervasive trend of landlords taking advantage of unwitting students, especially those from outside Canada.

They noted “landlords often capitalize on international students’ unfamiliarity with local laws by asking for several months rent in advance.” The report further landlords’ reason for doing so, claiming it to be “assurance against international students leaving the country and breaking their lease.”

At Saint Mary’s University, almost a third of the student body is international. Overseeing them all, as part of Saint Mary’s Board of Governors, is Joe Metlege, here listed as Joseph. He was appointed in 2012, the same year he received his MBA from Saint Mary’s, according to his LinkedIn-page.

Sophie Helpard, Executive Director of Students Nova Scotia, confirms the widespread unlawful practice of demanding rent in advance. She also says more needs to be done to educate students.

“A large part of protecting students from these kinds of, essentially abuse, would be to look at knowledge campaigns and make sure that students understand their rights,” she says. “A lot of partners have the responsibility to educate students, whether it be the universities themselves or the municipal government, specifically. Even landlords, the police, bylaw enforcers and student unions. I think everyone has a role to play.”

Despite the illegality of the practice, there’s nothing in the Residential Tenancies Act that explicitly forbids it. A symptom of a legislative shortcoming in regards to students, says Helpard.

“One thing that’s highlighted throughout the report is looking at the issue that students are rarely legislated for. There is a large gap in things like policy that looks at affordable housing. Student access is not as protected, and so I definitely think that’s prevalent,” she says.

Templeton Properties owns apartment buildings all over Halifax. An overview of the properties can be here.

Robert Batherson is a native Cape Bretoner who has held a high profile presence in political and business circles for the past two decades. A Halifax resident, he is a 1997 graduate of Mount Saint Vincent University’s Public Relations program. His LinkedIn profile showcases a vast network of political connections, starting with a stint in Ottawa shortly after his graduation as a Special Assistant within the Parliament of Canada.

Political roles

After a year-long term as a Special Assistant, he served as an Ottawa Legislative Assistant prior to returning to Nova Scotia in 1999. He joined the newly-elected Hamm government as Press Secretary. His public relations training was put to further use when he was appointed Deputy Communications Director to Premier John Hamm in 2003. A loyal Conservative Party supporter, he established his credentials as a communications specialist while immersing himself in the world of provincial politics.

Other roles

While serving the Hamm government Batherson took on additional roles including Principal Secretary with the provincial Progressive Conservatives (PC) . Current PC MLA Chris D’Entremont worked alongside Batherson during the Hamm era. He recalls the many ways Batherson was involved in Party politics. He was a PC candidate in the Sackville-Cobequid riding during the 1998 provincial election, D’Entremont said.

Post-Hamm era activities

Following his tenure as Premier Hamm’s spokesperson, Batherson was well-placed to consolidate his role as key political organizer for the Tories, and to put his political acumen to use as an analyst for CBC supper hour news. He appeared as a frequent commentator on provincial politics on CBC televised newscasts between 2005 and 2007. Batherson was a familiar face to CBC supper hour viewers, often appearing with well-known political columnists such as Marilla Stephenson. He also established a career with a local public relations firm. In addition to his ongoing contributions to the PC Party, Batherson became a well-known community networker in Halifax business circles, serving on HRM committees and gaining positions on various Boards of Directors, including the Halifax Chamber of Commerce and Neptune Theatre.

Directorships

Rob Batherson seamlessly integrated his political, community and business contacts in forging a reputation as a highly-engaged community supporter. He is involved with his local PC Constituency Association in Armdale. In 2013 he was selected by HRM Councillors as the Halifax citizen representative on the Halifax International Airport Authority Board of Directors. The May 2016 edition of Business Voice toasts his recent appointment as Honorary Director of the Neptune Foundation, following his distinguished service as a member of the theatre’s Board of directors. Alongside his business interests Rob Batherson served as President of the provincial PC Party between 2010 and 2011.

Political donor and lobbyist

A search of registered lobbyists in Nova Scotia reveals that along with his public relations practice, Batherson has a wide selection of clients in lobbying circles. His clients number well over a dozen and range from the telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries to payday loan companies. He is a financial supporter of the PC Party and his local PC candidate, having contributed to Irvine Carvery’s 2013 campaign together with a 2014 donation of $1,437.00 to the N.S. Tories. His west-end Halifax residence is listed at an assessed value of $341,800.00.

An engaging personality

Linda Mosher is a long-serving HRM Councillor in whose district Batherson resides. She mentions Batherson’s enthusiasm for his community and his astuteness in budget management as two of his notable qualities. “He takes transit everywhere” Mosher says of her constituent who, at a moment’s notice, was willing to hop on an HRM Christmas float with his young son. D’Entremont credits Batherson as “well-spoken, personable and a terrific dad” to his son.