Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 21, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba THINK TANK COMMENT EDITOR: RUSSELL WANGERSKY 204-697-7269 ● RUSSELL.WANGERSKY@WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A9 THURSDAY MARCH 21, 2024 Ideas, Issues, Insights MARC GALLANT / FREE PRESS FILES Former Winnipeg police chief David Cassels, shown here in 1998, has new ideas for police reform and training. New training needed for police T HE Police Accountability Coalition (PAC) last week called out Winnipeg police for the way it’s dealing with mental health issues. This, after two people were killed recently by police while suffering mental health-related situations. PAC suggests instead of using police to conduct wellness checks, community-led crisis teams should be utilized. A similar model is in place in Toronto. The premise is that the presence of a police officer — plainclothes or not — could exac- erbate an already tense situation. This suggests that police have only one role — as law enforcers. But a former Winnipeg police chief thinks this is too myopic and wants a national training program to set standards for the education of police recruits so police can become much more than just enforcers. They could be- come peacekeepers. Dave Cassels, the police chief in Winnipeg from 1996 until 1999, is the president of the Coalition for Canadian Police Reform (CCPR), a group asking for the creation of a national college for all police recruits — not bricks and mortar — but a National Centre for Police Excellence which would inform and support training centres across the country. A national accreditation would ensure training and standards that would fill any voids new hires have regarding diversity, racism and mental health issues. Students would learn methods to understand and better calm people and de-esca- late situations. According to Cassels, these funda- mentals do not appear to be taught in a sustained way in any police college in Canada. Training centres across Canada could be utilized and the quality of the instruction and the trainers advanced skills in adult education ac- credited. National exams would assess students’ knowledge of history, theory and practical knowl- edge with an emphasis on the local community’s diversity. The outcome would be better trained recruits who could work anywhere in Canada. John Lilley, one of the founding members of the CCPR, says there’s a great deal of emphasis in the police service on beat officers getting promoted into key jobs like the canine unit or tactical sup- port. This means that there’s too much focus on a physical response rather than relying on softer skills like communication and de-escalation. The national standards would emphasize those skills, building a new mindset within the police force itself and potentially changing the culture. There’s been a lot of criticism about policing in this city in recent years. Concerns about the num- ber of police-related shootings involving Black and Indigenous people raising issues of racism have been a regular refrain. Many are asking for a rethink of the funding model for policing — with a diversion of funding from the police to commu- nity, recreation, health and education programs instead. Less police, more social work. But what if the police officer being trained on the job understood that the job itself should be less police work and more social work? Is “duty of care” not the principle function of our police officers? If you look at the recruitment page for the Winnipeg Police Service, there’s no requirement for anything other than a high school diploma, although there is a suggestion that a post-second- ary degree would be given preference. What that degree is in, however, is not stated. Obviously, students enrolled in criminology, criminal justice or sociology are more likely to apply. Yet, there’s no guarantee that what they’ve been provided at a university or college setting has pro- vided them with the information they’ve needed to do the heavy lifting a job like the Winnipeg police requires. Upon their hire, new trainees go through an additional 18 weeks of in-class training by Winni- peg police and another 16 weeks in the field and return for two more weeks in the class before graduating. But according to Lilley, the curriculum he has studied of police colleges across the country provide little by way of understanding how to deal with those in mental health crisis and even less in understanding the role police play in democracy. And while there has been an emphasis on improving the number of Indigenous and Black recruits to ensure a diverse police force, the historical implications of trauma and colonization are not referenced. The status quo in Winnipeg is killing marginal- ized people in this city. It’s time to rethink how we’re training our police officers to stop thinking only about law enforcement and start thinking peace keeping, especially in times of mental health crisis. A Na- tional Centre of Police Excellence is a good place to start. Shannon Sampert is a lecturer at RRC Polytech and an instructor at the University of Manitoba. She was the politics and perspectives editor at the Free Press from 2014-17. shannon@mediadiva.ca Living, despite the odds: knowing Paul Alexander POLIO didn’t bring Paul Alexander down. Since he was struck by the crippling disease in 1952, every single breath he drew had to be consciously taken and every accomplishment hard-won as he battled his paralyzed body, societal exclusion and poverty. But COVID-19 achieved what polio failed to do. Paul, who lived in Dallas, Texas, died Monday, March 11 of complications related to COVID. He was 78. He had lived in an iron lung since he was six years old. I met Paul in 2020 when I was researching the polio epidemics of the 1950s for Second Chances, a novel for young adults. He was concerned that the newly emerging coronavirus would debilitate or kill people before a vaccine could be developed to save them. He didn’t want anyone to go through what he did. We had conversations that gave me valuable details about polio. He was enthused about the book’s potential to educate young peo- ple. Polio outbreaks in the first half of the 20th cen- tury terrified society. No one could predict when or where they would break out, and children were affected most. While some victims experienced mild, flu-like symptoms, others ended up with lasting paralysis or respiratory damage. Some died. In Canada, polio paralyzed 11,000 people between 1949 and 1955, when the Salk vaccine eliminated the epidemics. The worst year was 1953 and Manitoba was the hardest-hit province, with nearly 3,000 cases and 89 deaths. As a little boy, Paul remembers waking up one day in panic, thinking he was dead. He couldn’t speak because of a tracheostomy in his throat and couldn’t see because his head was draped in a steam tent, while his stiffened body lay entombed in an iron lung. Every time the tent was raised, a different child lay beside him; children were rapidly dying. He spent 18 months on a ward with 20 or 30 other kids also trapped in huge, noisy machines that whooshed air in and out, in and out, unceasingly. Hospital care was something we wouldn’t rec- ognize today. Nursing staff had little education about child- hood development. He recalled that in his hospi- tal, while some staff were caring, others viewed the children as bothersome. Requests to be cleaned or to have their noses scratched too often might be met by neglect, belittlement, or occasionally by having the plug on their machines yanked for a few seconds. Paul knew he was expected to die because the doctors talked about him over his head. That’s why he was sent home — to die. Instead, he thrived, because his parents finally fed him nutritious food. His parents fought for his right to education and taught him to have ambitions, just like other kids. Determination and persistence became his distinguishing features. He lobbied for years to gain admittance to a uni- versity. Pursuing a law degree, he memorized ev- erything his professors said because he couldn’t take notes. He learned to ‘frog breathe’ — lifting his head and gulping air, which allowed him to leave the iron lung during the day so he could go to court or socialize with friends. He fell in love, travelled and wrote his autobiog- raphy by tapping a plastic wand on a keyboard. It took eight years, and he was working on another book. Although eventually confined to the iron lung full time, he still had ambitions: to teach people about polio and the danger of another epi- demic. Always up to date on what was going on, he had 300,000 followers on TikTok, where he talked about polio and how he dealt with his challenges. I named a character after him — one who doesn’t get polio, but who skates away to a possi- ble future in the NHL. When he read the novel, he asked how I knew how he felt the day he got sick. “You’ve got it,” he said. He cheered when Second Chances won the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People in 2022, and encouraged me to continue writing. We kept in touch, talking about writing and politics. I sent pictures from my travels, which were greeted with “I’d love to go there!” He was always curious, always expanding his mind. I called him on Tuesday to catch up, but there was no answer. There’s been an outpouring of admiration from the many people everywhere that Paul befriended and helped from his fixed location in a Dallas nursing home. If there’s a positive outcome in this, Paul would want his life to be instructive. Although he suc- ceeded in many ways, he wished a vaccine had existed in 1952 so he could have run and jumped like other six-year-olds. He wished for disease prevention, education about science, for every- one’s good health — so no one, anywhere, would have to endure what he did. Harriet Zaidman is a Winnipeg writer and reviewer. We must deal with toxic drug supplies OUR son Jessie’s birthday was March 20. He would have been 34. Jessie will be gone 10 years this July. He is one of the 2,801 people who have died in Manitoba from drug-related causes. Most have been fentanyl related, and most have been from the toxic drug supply run- ning rampant in our province. Somebody dies every day in Manitoba from toxic drugs. In October, 40 loved ones died — in November there was 36. Our government’s take-home naloxone program gives out over 3,000 kits a month. Our fire and paramedics attend to numerous overdoses every day. In December, there were 14 overdoses in 24 hours by Logan and Main. Our own Mobile Overdose Prevention site has collected data on the types of drugs they are testing to inform the public. We have fentanyl everywhere. Our loved ones — our children — are dying from what they are getting off the streets. How can we not be talking safe supply? How can safer supply not be included in the plan? Why do I feel the need to defend what is right, instead of writing about diversion of drugs? Diversion has always happened, since the beginning of addiction and drug use. This is not new. But what has changed is the toxicity of our drug supply. And the huge loss of life to toxic drugs across Canada and here in Manitoba. The sad thing is that there is no evidence to disprove the lies that safe supply is being diverted to others. But there is evidence that safe supply is working. It is saving lives. These stories of diverted drugs come from those that do not support safe supply. That are OK with the thousands that are dying because of toxic supply. What is shameful is ignoring something that is so badly needed and is already prov- ing to save lives. Safe supply. How long are we going to talk about improving our addiction system? How long are we going to talk band-aids, with naloxone and safe consumption sites, drug testing machines, more rapid access to ad- diction medicine clinics? And, at the same time, not talk about what people are dying from. Why do we give the supports to do the toxic drugs and not the safe drugs? Where did we lose sight of our human rights? How has this become so difficult and taken so long? Nobody ever said that safe supply was the only answer, but what the hell — we just let people die while we keep talking. Hundreds of our loved ones have died from toxic drugs, we can not forget who we are talking about. What if your child goes out today and takes a pill that a friend gave him, and your child dies because it was full of fentanyl and not what your child thought he was going to take? You don’t just advocate for treatment, because treatment wouldn’t have helped, and justice wont bring your child back. You need to fight for safe supply. We are accepting the unacceptable. My hope is that our new government is not afraid to do the right thing. To do more than sit and wait on safe supply. There is not a day go by that our son is not in our thoughts. I know the pain that to many of our families know. The emptiness in the heart that can never be filled again. We don’t just mourn the past, we mourn the future. The future we will never have. For me, it is not enough to be told I am so sorry for your loss, not when so many of our children, our loved ones, our friends, are dying all the same way. This isn’t right, it is unacceptable and only governments and leaders can change this. Birthdays are to celebrate. How do you celebrate when your child is gone too soon? Arlene Last-Kolb is Jessie’ s mom and Manitoba regional director with Moms Stop The Harm. ARLENE LAST-KOLB HARRIET ZAIDMAN SHANNON SAMPERT What is shameful is ignoring something that is so badly needed and is already proving to save lives. Safe supply. ;