FF-WPR Farewell to Jack Layton, the Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office and Wendy Babcock

By anna Saini

Death in the summertime is unnatural. In the Winter and late Autumn it makes sense. Just as Spring is the season of birth winter is the time of death. The reaper begins its fatal sowing of the landscape in the late Fall after the harvest. There is some reason to it, at least. But Summer is the time of youth. Death is unfair in the Summertime.

In the post G-20 deterioration of Toronto politics into the Ford-era, the death of Jack Layton is not fair. Layton enjoyed all the privileges of a white upper class heterosexual man and, as former leader of the NDP, functioned within a system of electoral politics that alienates much of our communities. But I think a lot of regular people, people who you would not necessarily expect would feel kinship to a man such as Jack Layton, are experiencing his loss.

One reason for this is that Layton was regularly spotted riding the streets of Toronto on his bike, which is a grand equalizer. No one is immune to midday traffic, potholes or a collision with a pile of police horse shit. Not Jack Layton, not anyone. He was one of us. He was married to an Asian woman, a survivor of family violence and the first woman MP. Layton's marriage with his colleague Olivia Chow is perhaps the most charming reflection of Canadian multiculturalism in herstory.

We will miss Jack Layton championing the public interest even when we did not always agree that he had his finger on the pulse of it. In his role as leader of the official opposition he leveraged his placement to make real gains for working class people. He demonstrated logic, intelligence and genuine commitment, which is disheartening rare of late.

Exemplary of this void in Canadian politics is the recent dissolution of thee Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office into the Canadian Mental Health Association this summer. Previous to the July hand-off the Office was an independent provincial agency. By compromising the independence of the Psychiatric Patient Advocate, the Ministry of Health has created a conflict of interest that has the Canadian Mental Health Association evaluating and taking action on itself, as the main provider of outpatient mental health services.

The Office was created after a series of deaths at the Queen street Mental Health Center, which led to the revelation of prison-like conditions, involuntary drug treatment and unconsenting electroshock therapy in many of the province's psychiatric hospitals. 28 years later, amongst major inquiries into the killing of mentally ill people at the hands of Toronto police, a burgeoning population of caged and neglected mentally ill people in Ontario prisons and deplorable conditions in the province's psychiatric facilities the issues that prompted the Office's creation are even more relevant. The death of the Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office is another critical blow to the voice of psychiatric consumers and their families against the assault and mistreatment that runs rampant within the broken system.

And the system is rife with casualties. People who don't get the help they need. People who are relegated to abuse and neglect by virtue of them being subversive and vulnerable. Wendy Babcock was one of these people.

As a law student at Osgood Hall Wendy was a leader in the movement to decriminalize sex work, a movement that recently made substantial gains when the Ontario Supreme Court ruled to strike down the laws criminalizing sex work on the basis that they violated human rights of safety and security of person. The Conservative government opted to appeal the ruling almost immediately and proceedings on this issue will likely stretch out over months if not years. With the Ontario Court ruling on its side there is a strong case for decriminalization in Ontario that would cause a ripple effect Federally. It's deeply saddening that Wendy will not witness the ultimate fruition of her labor except in spirit. However there were great strides made when she was with us and her memory will no doubt fuel our communities to further our goals and honor her legacy.

Despite Wendy Babcock's meaningful contributions to Canadian public policy before even having graduated from one of the most prestigious law schools in the country, the media, when they did not ignore the story completely, largely reported on her death as that of a “prostitute cum law student found dead in apartment”. So even in death Wendy, her friends, family, communities and all of those who looked up to her are traumatized by the stigmas on mental illness and sex work that plagued her and that she so fervently resisted in life. These stigmas are vestiges of irresponsible and lazy journalists. Wendy Babcock's death is a reminder that these stigmas often prove fatal and that this kind of death during youth is utterly unnecessary.