Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 09, 2012, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 A 4 WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 2012 TOP NEWS winnipegfreepress. com r e d r i v e r e x . c o m Watch for your June 15 to 24 Download your FREE copy of this year's Red River Ex Event Guide from O TTAWA - Independent MP Bruce Hyer says the government's muzzling of information and scientists at the Experimental Lakes Area has gone too far after he was denied a chance to visit the site this weekend. Hyer, a Thunder Bay- area MP, requested an official visit with an ELA scientist for June 10. After several days of waiting, the regional director for science for the Fisheries and Oceans Department told him it wasn't going to happen. " Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate this request at this time," wrote Michelle Wheatley. Hyer said he wasn't given any indication why his request couldn't be accommodated. " I'm really disappointed. I can't 100 per cent know for sure, but this looks like further evidence of this government muzzling scientists." Late Friday, a Fisheries spokesman said the department does not conduct tours for individuals. The government announced last month it was cutting the ELA program after more than five decades of research. The ELA is an aquatic experimental area unmatched in the world. It allows scientists to conduct research on the impact of various pollutants and human activity on aquatic life by purposely polluting a series of 58 lakes in northwestern Ontario near Kenora. The lakes are eventually returned to their normal state, but the research has given scientists and policy- makers insight into everything from phosphorus to mercury to acid rain. Reports from the ELA have driven understanding and policy decisions on coal- fired power plants and hydro dams, helped remove phosphorus from dish soap and given greater insight into the kind of algae blooms that wreak havoc on Lake Winnipeg. The government has said the ELA is no longer in line with its mandate and wants someone else to take it over, such as a provincial government or the private sector. Hyer said that stance is perplexing, because in 2009, the same government sang the ELA's praises and invested $ 850,000 to upgrade the labs on site. Kenora MP Greg Rickford made the announcement as part of the Economic Action Plan. Dozens of scientists from around the world have written to the Canadian government asking it to reverse its decision on the ELA, noting its unique nature and impact on aquatic ecosystems. Hyer said he wants to visit the site because he is a scientist and wants a better understanding of what happens there. He was a wildlife biologist before getting elected. He was an NDP MP but left the caucus earlier this year in a dispute over his support for getting rid of the longgun registry. Hyer said he plans to visit the ELA anyway and take a self- guided tour of the parts that are open. mia. rabson@ freepress. mb. ca I T'S a first, as far as I can remember. Late last month, a police officer thanked me for something I'd written about him. Mind you, it took nine months - until he had retired - before James Jewell felt free to express his gratitude in an email. But with the thank- you came a lot more that had nothing to do with gratitude and everything to do with anger and what he feels is some unfinished business at the Winnipeg Police Service. The column Jewell was responding to appeared late last summer after labour arbitrator Arne Peltz's stinging rebuke of Winnipeg police management's decision to abruptly transfer Jewell out of the homicide unit. That happened after Jewell went over his superiors' heads and walked through Chief Keith Mc- Caskill's " open door" to challenge a transfer policy that restricted the stay of a pair of his detectives to only two years working homicides. Peltz ruled that Jewell's subsequent transfer was punitive, tainted by bad faith, and effectively ended his career. Over the phone this week, the now 52- year- old former detective recalled being with his wife Lori at Rushing River in northwestern Ontario late last August when he opened the Free Press and saw my column about the case. " Where can cops turn if they can't trust each other?" the headline read. Eventually he would get to the column's last line and a personal message that was meant to be as much from the public at large as it was from me. " I'm sorry, James," I wrote. " You're not the one whose career should be over. After all, the guys who worked for you still trust you." In his response, nine months later, Jewell would write this: " Your article was published at a time when I was mourning the loss of my career and it truly touched me." But as I was suggesting, Jewell's message went well beyond that. As the message would at his retirement party on May 3, when according to someone who was there, he spent more than an hour on a humourlaced, barb- strewn PowerPoint presentation that was both pointed and powerful. To Jewell's surprise, Mc- Caskill was in the audience. But as much as Jewell gave the police chief credit for showing up, he didn't spare him the verbal lash. Or, for that matter, Insp. Rick Guyader and Staff Sgt. Michael Stephens, the two officers who were directly involved in his career- ending transfer. What still bothers Jewell, and what he made a point of saying in his email to me, is that neither of them faced any internal discipline following the labour board decision. " The message that was sent by the complete lack of consequences," Jewell wrote, " still reverberates in the minds of my former colleagues." Later, Jewell would personalize that sentiment, saying he spent his career trying to get justice for others. " And in the end, there was no justice for me." Only an undisclosed financial settlement that, while undoubtedly significant, obviously still hasn't remedied what Jewell believes is the central problem. An absence of trust and accountability within the police service. To understand why James Jewell feels so strongly about justice, you first need to understand what he had to overcome to become a police officer. That starts with his father. And the abuse. As a child, his father would tell young James that he was worthless, but in the kind of devastating language a kid never forgets, no matter how old he gets. Eventually, young James would drop out of high school and do various jobs, including being a stable hand at Assiniboia Downs. Then one summer he chanced to meet George Phillips, the demanding but inspiring founder of the Legion Athletic Camp at the International Peace Gardens. It was Phillips, who has helped so many kids, who would help young James feel worthy. Worthy enough to complete high school and realize his dream of being a police officer. Policing, I suspect, is a position where Jewell felt he could help others and bring a sense of order to the world that he hadn't known growing up with a violent father. All of which would make what happened at the end in his police family all the more hurtful. It also explains why he fought back through the labour board process, and especially what he's just done. James Jewell has written a book, an autobiography, but with a selfhelp component. He says it's meant to inspire people who grew up in violent or dysfunctional environments. In other words, kids who grew up being treated as if they were worthless. It's called Surviving the B. S. By the sounds of it, James Jewell is content with the present. As for the recent past, he wouldn't change anything he did. " Fighting for your people," he says, " is what ' real' leaders do." gordon. sinclair@ freepress. mb. ca. MP turned down in bid for tour of doomed ELA By Mia Rabson GORDON SINCLAIR JR. Wronged ex- police officer still intent on helping others Bruce Hyer SUBMITTED PHOTO Former Winnipeg police detective James Jewell has written a book that aims to inspire people abused as kids. A_ 04_ Jun- 09- 12_ FP_ 01. indd A4 6/ 8/ 12 11: 13: 09 PM ;