The 8th National Mental Health Conference in Winnipeg March 21-23

I was fortunate to be able to attend the recent National Mental Health Conference in Winnipeg.

There were many helpful sessions, including on youth suicide and on crystal meth in Manitoba and its impacts on health and justice. I found the presentation by Delores Daniels, the mother of Serena McKay, to be particularly moving. She spoke eloquently about bullying, gossip and lateral violence using her personal journey and experience as Serena McKay's mother to illustrate the importance of addressing these issues.

Troy Draper shared his own experience with crystal meth and showed that people with meth addiction can recover. For more on his story click on this link - Troy Draper story.

Sharon Blady spoke of her own lived experience, explaining how her own struggles with depression gave her the ability to be more empathetic when she was the Minister of Health for Manitoba. Her experience shows the positive contribution that people who have this lived experience can make - a fact which is reinforced in the stories of leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill who have had experience with depression who went on to make major contributions.

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Comparison between Manitoba and South Dakota shows dramatic impact of Physical Distancing

Manitoba implemented physical distancing measures in mid-March. South Dakota has still not made physical distancing mandatory. The result is a dramatic difference in the incidence of covid-19 viral infections between the two jurisdictions. This graph shows the number of people with Covid-19 infections from March 27 to April 14. Manitoba ( red line ) started leveling off about April 4 and has seen only a small increase in Covid-19 infections since then. South Dakota ( blue line ) has seen a dramatic increase in Covid-19 infections since April 4. Those who are skeptical of the impact of physical distancing in Manitoba should look at this graph! Data are from the Johns Hopkins daily tabulations

Pushing for safe consumption sites and safe supply to reduce overdose deaths

On Monday June 20th, Thomas Linner of the Manitoba Health Coalition, Arlene Last-Kolb Regional Director of Moms Stop the Harm and Winnipeg City Councillor Sherri Rollins were at the Manitoba Legislature to advocate for better measures to reduce deaths from drug overdoses, most particularly for safe consumption sites and for a safe supply, measures which can reduce overdose deaths.

Dougald Lamont speaks out strongly against the "reprehensible", "legally and morally indefensible" Bill 2

Early in the morning, just after 3 am, on November 6th, Dougald Lamont spoke at third reading of Bill 2, the Budget Implementation and Statutes Amendment Act. He spoke strongly against the bill because it attempts to legitimize a historic injustice against children in the care of child and family services. As Dougald says this bill is " the betrayal of children, First Nations and the people of this province. " Mr. Dougald Lamont (St. Boniface): These are historic times. This is an historic budget, for all the wrong reasons. I was thinking of the Premier's (Mr. Pallister) comments about D-Day today and my relatives who served in combat in the First and Second World War. I had a relative who played for the Blue Bombers and served at D-Day with the Winnipeg Rifles because he was an excellent athlete, he made it quite a long way up the beach. And had he lived until last year, he might have been one of the veterans the Premier insulted by not showing up at a

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