Dr. Barbara Kane is a psychiatrist who has spent much of her career in BC’s north treating people with severe mental illness and addictions. During that time, she’s witnessed and cared for people in such deep distress, they are harming themselves in ways the rest of us can only imagine.

She’s calling on the province to green light a secured psychiatric facility in Prince George to care for the people with intractable mental illness and addictions, whose most essential needs are not being met in our current healthcare system.

To the naysayers who worry that mandatory residential care is an infringement of people’s rights, Kane is empathetic but firm – some people need it. For their own sake and the safety of those around them.

Right now, those individuals bounce back and forth from the street, to the hospital, to supportive housing, to the street, to the hospital, round and round they go, getting worse instead of better.

In hospitals, they’re scaring other patients and injuring staff not trained or resourced to adequately care for them. The streets are dangerous, violent and chaotic. Supportive housing is unequipped to deal with the acute needs of a person in psychosis or trapped in deep addiction and mental illness.

Kane argues that a properly resourced pschiatric facility would be safer for the community and more humane for the individuals. Patients would be safe, medically cared for, have freedom of movement not possible in a general hospital and they would have much greater hope of improving their quality of life.

The former department head of psychiatry at the University Hospital of Northern BC, Kane has been the medical lead for Northern Health’s mental health program since 2018. She says she understands the deficiencies of the institutionalization of mental health patients in facilities like BC’s old Riverview Hospital, but has come to believe that having a psychiatric hospital, based on today’s ethical standards, is foundational to a strong health care system and the safety of the public.

The whole system is breaking down without this essential backstop, she says. Previously, hospital staff could send patients requiring longer and more intense care to Riverview. Now, they must be held in hospital or released into the community where their needs can’t be met. Because they need care and attention 24/7.

Right now, these patients are disrupting hospital systems not designed to care for them, endangering staff and contributing to capacity and staffing issues. We can see the consequences of not having dedicated psychiatric facilities on our downtown streets.

Dr. Kane sat down with me to share some professional insights and explain why she’s convinced we need secured psychiatric care, not just in Prince George, but in communities across BC.

Enjoy the podcast!

Fran

Podcast producer: Rob Shaw

Feedback: [email protected]

For more political news and views, read NorthernBeat.ca

“When it comes to leadership, holding your cards to your chest all the time doesn't really help.”

–Ronnie Chickite

Ronnie Chickite is a fourth generation fisherman re-elected chief of We Wai Kai First Nation in January. No wonder. Under his leadership, investments, partnerships and economic development have shot through the roof. Building on previous successes, his community has grown or diversified its interests in retail businesses, real estate, housing, education, tourism, forestry and more.

“A healthy economy is a healthy community,” Chickite says. In We Wai Kai, the benefits of economic prosperity are building resiliency, capacity and community pride. Members own their homes, every post-secondary student last year got a $3,000 scholarship, and each resident can access up to $30,000 for private addiction treatment health care.

Chickite credits his council and members for guiding many of the community’s achievements and he says“good communications” are the foundation of its relationship with neighbouring first nations and collaborations with Campbell River’s mayor and council.

Which is not to say We Wai Kai has been without its challenges.

Last year, it became the site of the largest known safe supply drug bust on reserve land in BC. While the incident shocked members – several kilos of illegal drugs were also seized – it didn’t slow the pace of progress.

The first Indigenous nation in Canada to own a Starbucks, it will soon also be the only First Nation in BC to own and operate a licensed medical addiction treatment centre.

“Healing people is far more valuable than a tourism destination,” Chickite said of the decision to renovate a vacation resort into a treatment facility. Treatment will consist of half clinical therapies, half land-based care, and will be open to Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants.

Guiding all these investments and ventures like a North Star is the community’s multi-generational vision of achieving self-determination and economic self-sufficiency.

Still, Chickite knows that rapid change can feel alarming, particularly when it relates to reconciliation efforts.

“First Nations aren't coming to take everything, as some people think. We just want to be included. I think we have a lot of value to bring, which at times, some people forget that,” he said.

“We're running a government just like the municipal government or the provincial government or the federal government… governments that have constituents that they're answering to.”

I hope you enjoy the podcast.

Fran

Podcast producer: Rob Shaw

Info: [email protected]

“It's about redirecting them to positive sources of influence that over time can be cultivated to be intrinsically meaningful… to the point where the risk of re-engaging with their addiction isn't worth it because of what they now have to lose.”

–Julian Somers

What if our need for purpose and meaningful relationships is an evolutionary imperative? And what if addiction is our adaptative response to having to live without them?

How can we reconfigure this ‘maladaptive’ response when it’s actually serving our biological need to survive in a loveless world?

Drug overdose is now the leading cause of death among youth – 73 per cent of youth who died between 2016 and 2023 were clients of Ministry of Children and Families.

Healthy psychosocial integration may be the solution, according to Julian Somers, who says evidence overwhelmingly shows that it's possible to both prevent addictions and help people recover.

A clinical psychologist and Simon Fraser University distinguished professor, Somers has devoted his career to understanding people with severe addiction and mental illness caught in a cycle of homelessness and crime.

For four years, his research team followed hundreds of people living in the Downtown Eastside. They monitored their ongoing and historical interactions with the justice and health systems going back 10 years. A trajectory of circumstances and events emerged as risk factors or predictors, as much as a decade earlier, that their lives would one day spiral into crippling addiction and homelessness.

Yet Somers proved even those hardest-to-house individuals could be helped. Not by current public health policies of supplying addictive drugs and housing people in active addiction together in single room occupancy (SRO) facilities without adequate supports. Instead, Somers and his team found homes for them throughout the city in regular buildings and connected them with healthcare professionals and an intense regime of psychosocial integration.

Compared to a control group living in congregate SRO-type housing with similar supports, the people Somers’ team placed in scattered housing had 71 per cent fewer criminal convictions and 45 per cent fewer medical emergencies in the first year.

“For one group of people [doctors, pilots, nurses, public servants]… we focus intensively on psychological and social forms of support, and the outcome is abstinence from drugs.

This other group [people living in poverty] we put them all together in buildings with each other… not attending at all to psychological and social forms of intervention. And the outcome that we mostly look at is … continued use of drugs that we provide to them.”

Somers says everyone has the capacity to change, but they have to be helped earlier, and supports must leverage their inate biological need for human connection.

Julian sat down with me this week to talk about this and more. Have a listen and let us know what you think.

If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, consider becoming one – support independent journalism! All revenue goes to our talented freelance writers at NorthernBeat.ca.

Thanks for tuning in.

Fran

Podcast producer: Rob Shaw

Feedback: [email protected]

Safeguarding the honour and trustworthiness of our election processes has never been more integral or challenging. Disinformation campaigns, foreign interference activities and false online narratives are on the rise in Canada. The job of protecting the integrity of our elections against attack is an increasingly complex, high-stakes responsibility.

Enter Anton Boegman.

Boegman began at Elections BC in 2004 and has served as Chief Electoral Officer since 2018. A LOT has changed in 21 years. From how elections are administered, to how people vote, where people get their news and how fast they share information.

One shocker for Boegman and his team in last fall’s election was the unprecedented scale of misinformation narratives circulating online, particularly between election day and the final count two weeks later.

Fortunately, prior to the election, Boegman did something novel – he pulled together an election integrity working group comprising RCMP, CSIS, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, BC’s chief information officer, the province’s privacy commissioner, the lobbyists registrar and others to take “a whole of government approach” to countering potential disinformation and election interference.

Ultimately, the 2024 provincial election featured the highest voter turnout (2.1 million), the most votes cast prior to election day (about 1 million), and such terrible weather in some parts of the province on election day officials couldn’t reach polls to open them.

Modern voting alternatives saved the day, as did newly implemented electronic capabilities which reduced spoiled ballots, increased voting integrity and facilitated the fastest tabulation of votes in BC’s history.

Read Boegman’s report on the 2024 election here.

We discuss all this and more in our conversation in the press gallery recording studio at the legislature this week.

Give the podcast a listen and let us know what you think.

If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, pls consider becoming one – support independent journalism! All revenue goes to our talented freelance writers contributing here and to our online news magazine at NorthernBeat.ca.

Thanks for tuning in!

Fran

Podcast producer: Rob Shaw

Feedback: [email protected]

“Before you go off and try and save the planet or achieve a major complicated societal objective, job number one for government is to provide basic core services.”

–Brad West

Fans of Brad West extend far beyond the mid-sized BC municipality he represents. Maybe because he’s willing to go where other elected representatives fear to tread.

The mayor of Port Coquitlam, West is concerned on a few fronts. One is a trend by the provincial government to concentrate more and more power in the hands of fewer people – namely, the Premier and Cabinet.

Controversial legislation rammed through by the BC NDP this session will allow Cabinet to bypass the environmental assessment process and override municipal authorities for projects nebulously determined to be “provincially significant.” Like most mayors, West is all for correcting the current flawed process through streamlining provincial regulations and speeding approvals, he’s just skeptical the BC govt’s strategy is an effective way to achieve it.

Prior to becoming mayor in 2018, West worked for the Steelworkers union, whose members are the lifeblood of the province’s natural resources sector, “salt-of-the-earth” people in towns, cities and villages across BC. Used to be, anyone holding a resource job supported the NDP.

Not anymore.

Over the last few years, West says centre-left parties in many jurisdictions, including the NDP in BC, have become so fixated on ‘progressive’ policies, they’re not properly delivering core government services like healthcare, education and infrastructure. The parties have become so disconnected from what matters most to regular working people, they’ve lost their trust and their vote.

Mayor Brad West sat down with me this week to share his frank perspective on these issues and more, including an egregious public policy he thinks will haunt communities for years to come.

Enjoy!

Fran

Producer: Rob Shaw

Feedback: [email protected]

The new MLA for Skeena, Claire Rattée has emerged as a strong, effective voice in the BC Conservative caucus. A powerhouse Opposition critic for mental health and addictions right out the gate, she has been lighting it up since her first Question Period when she held Premier David Eby to account for his government’s inaction on addictions treatment services.

Claire grew up in the Lower Mainland and moved to Kitimat as a young adult, where she served as an elected councillor and still owns her own tattoo shop. She doesn’t have much time lately for the art she loves, but is thoroughly enjoying that other life-long passion of hers – politics.

She joined us in the legislative press gallery studio to talk about her goals for the job, what wakes her up in the middle of the night, who she wants to help the most and the surprising thing that challenges her personally.

Hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

Feel free to share it and let us know what you think.

Thanks for listening!

Fran

Podcast producer: Rob Shaw

Contact us: [email protected]

Read our stories: NorthernBeat.ca

If Time magazine had a British Columbian edition, Conservative Leader John Rustad would surely be 2024 Newsmaker of the Year. Within 18 short months, Rustad catapulted himself and the BC Conservatives from basement obscurity (metaphoric and literal) to leader of an official party and the largest Opposition in the province’s history.

Under Rustad, Conservatives ballooned into a big, if unruly, tent party that very nearly won government. The journey has been rocky, at light speed, and it’s far from over – the party is still being built. But Rustad survived his first leadership review, and despite losing three disaffected MLAs from his caucus in March, his Opposition team has managed to pull off several legislative and policy successes.

One of the challenges for politicians is trying to reduce complex topics to a sound bite or a news headline. Our podcasts are about slowing things down a notch.

Rustad swung by our studio for an extended conversation that ended up covering a lot of ground:

The “tipping point” of escalating provincial debt; how to strengthen our economy; why investment is fleeing the province; what Donald Trump really wants; the nuclear “conversation” we need to have; the stuff the BC NDP are not being straight about, and why he likes cutting the grass.

As a former BC Liberal Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation (2013 to 2017), Rustad expressed particular worry about the “vulnerabilities” he says the BC government is creating by its handling of Indigenous rights and title.

“Government is doing things willy nilly, without understanding of the unintended consequences,” he says.

Listen to the whole podcast by clicking the link at the top of the page.

For a glimpse of how and why Rustad and the BC Conservatives skyrocketed into political relevancy, check out our 2024 profile of John Rustad [photos by Northern Beat’s favourite photographer, Chad Hipolito].

Hope you enjoy the conversation and let us know what you think.

Thanks, as always, for your interest and support.

Fran

Podcast producer: Rob Shaw

Sean Bujtas is the mayor of Terrace, a northern city surrounded by incredible natural beauty, even as it’s burdened with among the highest homelessness and drug overdose rates in the province.

Bujtas is a relentless advocate for his community. He’s made it his job to regularly petition decision-makers and knows many ministers by name. He recently led the northwest mayoral contingent that helped lock down a monumental many-years-in-the-making, revenue-sharing agreement with the BC government that will divert $250 million resource development dollars over five years to 21 northwest municipalities.

Terrace’s portion of that funding will help fix potholes, pave roads and catch up on infrastructure demands. But the most pressing concerns of Terrace citizens remain unresolved.

Crime, homelessness, mental illness and addictions weigh heavy on the city. People are suffering on the streets without proper healthcare, businesses are buckling under repeated vandalism and break-ins, and residents are suffering “compassion fatigue” and feeling unsafe in what used to be a quaint small-town community.

Terrace needs housing with healthcare supports, and long-term detox, treatment and recovery. As it stands now, there is no medical residential treatment for adults in the whole Northern Health region. Bujtas says his community desperately needs that to change.

Sean was in Victoria meeting with ministers and the premier this week. He joined me for a chat in the legislative press gallery studio.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

Fran

Podcast producer: Rob Shaw

Hello subscribers!

Welcome to Northern Beat’s inaugural podcast!

From rap singer to filmmaker to newly elected MLA for Chilliwack-Cultus Lake, Á’a:líya Warbus’ dramatic entrance onto BC’s political scene may be partly genetic. Her mother was a university chancellor, and her father, chief treaty commissioner, provincial court judge and Lieutenant Governor. Thanks to Á’a:líya, the family can now add Opposition house leader to their collective public service resume.

Á’a:líya sat down with me for a wide-ranging conversation about how she chose her name, what it felt like growing up “Indian,” the spooky experience singing in a former residential school, why she ran for the B.C. Conservatives and what she thinks of party leader John Rustad.

On being a member of the Conservative caucus:

“I don't want to sit with eight other people that agree with me, because where is the solution in that? We're all just saying, ‘Yeah. Good job. Awesome.’

“With some of the difficult things that have come up with this caucus, the old me would have ran and been like, ‘This is awful. I don't like these people. I don't like these conversations.’ Because we all want to progress past the difficult stuff, right?

“But can we do it from opposite sides of an X post or from articles aimed at each other? No. I think we do it like this, sitting across from each other.”

Click on the link above to listen to the whole podcast.

Enjoy and let us know what you think!

Fran

Podcast producer: Rob Shaw