It's Time to Get Smart About Mental Health

 

"Moreover, this bill misses the crux of the problem altogether. Rather than making largely unnecessary -- and potentially counter-productive -- changes to the way we deal with mentally-ill people who have committed violent acts, we would do far more to protect the public by intervening to prevent such violence in the first place."

 

The average person responds to life.  The entrepreneurial person will proactively pursue their own interests.  The strategic person will proactively seek to improve the system.

 

We want to avoid crime.  We want to manage down health care costs.  We're supposedly after increased productivity and innovation and are trying to do something about the growing mental health crisis. 

 

Yet the great initiatives that have emerged in the past couple years are all reactions to a problem, like trying to identify and cure lead poisoning instead of taking the lead out of the pipe in the first place.

 

Yes, we have to try new approaches in how we deal with mental illness - but more than that, it's time we change our entire approach to mental health.

 

When you look at mental health holistically and not just as a problem, a proactive approach to fostering mental fitness becomes a key part of the solution.

 

We can do this - we can all move past this social barrier of stigma, but only when we're all on the same side, pushing forward together.

Faith Goldy-Bazos on Canada's China-Based Cognitive Dissonance

Chris Wattie / Reuters

Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivers a speech during a business dinner in Guangzhou, China, on Feb. 10.

Recent public unease over the newly dedicated Norman Bethune monument might be about more than putting hard-earned tax dollars toward commemorating a committed communist. Perhaps all the Twitter trouble and on-screen outcries are indicative of something more fundamental: the anxieties many Canadians have over our nation’s growing relationhips with China.

Currently China is our second-biggest trading partner, up from the number four spot it occupied in 1997. With Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird presently on a tour of Asian countries, our relationship shows few signs of slowing down.

More affiliations with China, however, entails a more earnest evaluation of conscience.

China’s record — past and present — is no secret: 65 million massacred at the hands of Chairman Mao, the continuation of forced abortions, its treatment the people of Tibet, China’s support of North Korea, aggressive posturing in the South China Sea, China’s treatment of prisoners, environmental issues, animal cruelty … The list is seemingly endless.

Even so, Canada must react to China’s rise and the changing global balance of power in an era of continued American decline. Not to mention China’s eagerness to drink up the oil we’re marketing in our guise of “an emerging energy superpower.”

Canada can’t ignore China, clearly. But at the very least, we can aim to have a China policy that is agreeable to Canadians.

Canada should stand strong in those areas in which China’s interests are adverse to its own. Such an approach would recognize China’s failure to respect human rights is a flagrant weakness to her power both at home and abroad. So emphasizing the centrality of human rights to Canadian ideology would seem to be a good way to set the boundaries, within which a rising Chinese power can operate without threatening Canadian interests. Ottawa’s China policy could reject Sun-tzu-style diplomacy, which aims to convince the other side that certain issues are too politically and culturally sensitive to discuss. China, for example, might be reminded that the universality of international human rights is a matter of international law, not opinion.

And, with Prime Minister Harper’s promise this past February that Canada would always be a “vocal advocate” for human rights in China, it appears we will pursue this second approach to relations.

Or will we? Surely a Conservative government spending $2.5-million to erect a memorial to an ally of Chairman Mao cannot jell with the defenders-of-human-rights image.

Unless Canada is taking a page from China’s diplomatic handbook. Chinese diplomacy is psychological. As far back as the third century, the military commander Zhuge Liang sent back an enemy army by opening the city gates and sunning himself on the ramparts; it looked like a trap and frightened away the opposing general. Recall when Mao received Nikita Khrushchev in his private pool, forcing the Soviet leader, who could not swim, to negotiate in water wings.

It’s possible Canada is staking out a psychological position in this new era of enhanced engagement with China. By commemorating Canadian-born Norman Bethune, who is a household name and heroic martyr in China (where the public is treated to a rich diet of nationalistic sentiment), Canada might emulate Chinese strategy, rather than yield to it. Perhaps Treasury Board President Tony Clement championing the monument wasn’t so shameful as it was strategic. Much will depend on what Canada gets back in return. Increased access to Chinese markets will be a good thing for Canada. But probably not enough to convince our leery public that the gesture was worth the price.

Scheer Failure, Parliament and Abner Doon

One NDP MP said the Liberals went “ballistic” after the vote, but the NDP saw little advantage to Richardson over Scheer and preferred to support one of their own.

In other words, the NDP acted tribally - if they can't have a Cabinet seat, they might as well go for the Speaker.  Which surely, they should have known they couldn't get, but that didn't matter - my Party right or wrong, etc.

The Speaker is the most important role in our Parliamentary system, which is designed to represent the interests of us Canadians.  We support Parties based on policy, ideology or in what's most often the case, because of tribal partisanship.  The Speaker's job is to make sure these sworn enemies play nice and in an idea world, find balance between accountability, planning and access.

But Scheer refused to intervene. He ruled the government had provided an answer, said it wasn’t his role to determine how accurate or appropriate the answer was.

If Scheer is defaulting on the side of government, not Parliament, we have a real problem with our already dysfunctional Parliamentary system.  The role of Speaker is like that of Somnec in Capitol; without an impartial Speaker (and without Parliament having the power to do anything about that Speaker), even the current illusion that we have a functioning Parliamentary democracy falls like a house of cards.  Government has no fear of being held to account, no cause to work with other Parties and will slide even further into the realm of "we can do whatever we can get away with or deflect criticism from." That means, they are free to enact ideology no matter how short-sighted it is.  That's bad for Canada - a dearth of ideas and debate in politics is the equivalent of a shallow gene pool. 

This is a reality caused by Political Parties, all Political Parties, playing long games that were focused around their partisan interests, not Canada's.  The Liberals, bastions of the Centre, were the first to fall due to this approach.  The CPC is already starting to crack as individual, ideological MPs start chafing against their specific issues not being pursued.  How long can Harper expect fear as a tool to work when it's anger he's trying to stifle?

We've seen partisan jockeying lead to an erosion of confidence in Ontario, too.  It's a slow, painfully downward spiral away from the things Canada is meant to represent - the whole being more than the sum of its parts and diversity providing opportunity, not inconvenience.

The reason our current model of Parliament is cracking at the seams, of course, is because it's an ancient institution, designed for another time.  Question Period wasn't designed with television in mind; now that it's there, QP is become more of a Sound Bite session.  Social media has nurtured Political Parties perceived need for message control just as it has made slips (and records of those slips) impossible to avoid.

People at all levels of society have told me the system is broken - there seems to be a growing consensus that the model is beyond repair and needs, somehow, to be replaced.  I'd argue that process has already begun.  Far from partisan leanings or defaulting to authority, Scheer's approach to the office of the Speaker might actually be the lynch pin in triggering that change.

Creative destruction - it can be messy, but it's necessary.  For those who see the whole as more than the sum of its parts and believe in collaboratively moving forward, it's also provides boundless opportunity. 

An Era Exploding - in Opportunity

"If a recession arrives, the great fight in Ottawa will be between a Conservative government reluctant to pile on tens of billions of dollars in new debt, and an NDP opposition that demands just that to combat unemployment.

It would be an ugly debate, fought on the backs of suffering workers and stricken businesses. We can only hope the Europeans find a way out of the mess that they’re in danger of dragging us all into."

This is true, though it needn't be.  We aren't being backed into a corner by economic challenges; the social challenges that are mounting in response to the financial ones aren't a nail in a coffin.

Instead, we have an unparalleled opportunity to break the mold, rethink the way we do business, govern, and participate in society. 

We can have staff transition strategies.  Governments can coordinate shared service models empowered by one service platform that is open sourced.  Businesses can create new markets, empower employees and reduce the barriers that constrain productivity and lead to mounting insurance costs, but also broader health care costs.  Online training can be expanded and students given more power, twinned with more mentorship, throughout their ongoing studies.

It's all there for the taking - we just need the will to think it through and make it happen.

Welcome to the Conscious Society.

How Police Are Responding to a Riot Culture Through Centralized Coordination

"As rampage becomes routine, when any large gathering in any urban setting seems an easy opportunity for street insurgency, police forces across Canada struggle to deal with an emboldened riot culture."

Yup.  So, how do you manage a challenged economy, behaviour issues both from the bottom (rioters) and the top (Chris Mazza, for example) while tackling the mental health crisis and positioning Canada for success in the Knowledge Economy?

But we already know the answer to that...

Police forces are considering standardizing public order units and responses to major events, swapping information and experiences on reconciling Charter rights with public peace, and dealing with the financial impact of burgeoning disorder, as all of that tactical gear is expensive.

In other words, they're looking for centralized coordination, data sharing, specialized collaboration.  They want to work together and create a national system.  Which is what's being called for in tackling mental health, too.  Yet our politicians seem to want to head in the opposite direction.  Which is why the new social entrepreneurs are leading the way.

Funny how that works, isn't it?

Could China be Harper's Achilles' Heel?

"Unfortunately, the PMO is very nonchalant when it comes to security," said the intelligence expert. "They have an agenda, a political agenda … and they disregard some of the warnings coming from the official agencies."

Socialist and Separatists? They'll destroy our country.  Environmental advocates?  They're fundamentally un-Canadian, backed by foreign capital.

But Huawei and China?  They're just good partners.

Canadians are an open people, but they value their security.  Harper should know - he's spent his entire time as Prime Minister fanning the flames of fear.  He needed more control, the argument went, to defend Canada from radicals like Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff.

Now, his own security apparatus - the people he has listened to unquestioningly (F35s, cough cough) as they supported the Harper Agenda are telling him that same political agenda is going to hurt Canada.  Not only that - the US is now wondering whether they need to worry about Canada becoming a security threat, a pawn in China's broader game.

So, having consolidated power, Harper is becoming the embodiment of every threat he has warned Canadians about, time and again.

What do you think - is Huawei a Trojan Dragon?  Will China prove to be Harper's Achilles' heel?