Showing posts with label personal integrity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal integrity. Show all posts

Thursday, May 14, 2015

The High Cost Of Integrity



In this world, remaining faithful to one's principles can be a very difficult proposition. We often hear how important it is to "go along to get along," and while we all make compromises during the daily course of living, sometimes the issues confronting us are too large to ignore, too loud to mute that voice crying from within. But acknowledging that voice can come at a cost.

Dr. John O’Connor appears to be paying the price.

The northern Alberta doctor, the on-call doctor for the residents of Fort Chipewyan, you may recall, has been an outspoken critic of the tarsands, his studies showing rare cancers occurring at extremely high rates for the residents residing downstream of the oilsands, apparently the victims of toxic emissions and effluents from the bitumen extraction taking place in their environs. His warnings have been largely ignored by both the Alberta and the federal governments.

But someone must have been listening.

O'Connor, as reported in The National Observer, has been fired.
After 15 years of committed service, his termination came on May 8 without the slightest warning.

“Please be advised that Nunee Health Board Society no longer requires your professional services to provide any patient consultation or on-call services to the staff at the Fort Chipewyan Health Center.”

And just in case that wasn’t hard-edged enough:

“In addition, you have no authority to speak to or represent the Nunee Health Board Society in any way to any other individual, party or entity (sic)”
While at this time there is no proof that his outspokenness caused his termination, the Observer offers some history that puts his dismissal into a provocative context:
Twelve years ago, he diagnosed an unusual number of cancers of the bile duct in the tiny northern hamlet of Fort Chipewyan, located downstream of the oil sands. The condition is familiar to Dr. O’Connor because his own father died from this same illness in 1993.

He also noted higher-than-average rates of other kinds of diseases, as well as persistent reports from local hunters and fishermen of unpleasant changes in the wildlife in the region – such as dead and disappearing muskrat, and fishes with strange deformities. He wondered if these circumstances had to do with the pollution from the oil sands companies.

In 2006, the CBC reporter contacted O’Connor, who said publicly, for the first time, that he felt there was a looming public health issue in the region.

Dr. John O’Connor's data was challenged by Health Canada and public health officials in Alberta, and he was threatened with loss of his license because he had raised “undue alarm”.
While he was eventually, over several years, cleared of such charges and complaints, it turned him into a tough crusader for what he considers life and death issues.

His dismissal coincides with another curious event:
About three weeks ago, renowned physician Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, who had been spending a week every month in Fort Chipewyan for the last three years, suddenly ended her service, without explaining why to the staff at the nursing station where she worked.
That a respected First Nation physician would suddenly disappear from the community, and then three weeks later Dr. O'Connor would be abruptly terminated raises important questions as to what is going on behind the scenes.
And it would seem that the impact of these losses will reverberate throughout the region he and Tailfeathers served:
John O’Connor has been supplying on-call services, 24/7, for 15 years. He has answered calls while traveling in other countries, from holiday locations, and even from the shower, walking nursing and paramedic staff in Fort Chipewyan through challenging medical emergencies whenever they occurred. On a number of occasions over the years, he offered to reduce his fees if the Nunee Health Board Society was having trouble meeting them. In fact, [he] reduced his invoice for August 2014 to February 2015 by 50 per cent at the request of Caroline Adam, the person who sent him the one-line email [of termination] on May 8.
Virtue, we are told, is its own reward. That may have to be the consolation for O'Connor, but given his capacity to fight the good fight, I very much doubt that the matter will end here.


Sunday, February 16, 2014

To Be Young, Gifted, And Gay - Part Two

While I wholeheartedly agree that no one has the right to pry into a person's sexual orientation (except in cases of arrant hypocrisy), I still feel such admiration for and encouragement about the human spirit when people choose to reveal it. Following Michael Sam's recent revelation that he is gay, Canadian actress Ellen Page has made the announcement that she is as well.

In the following video, a testament to her integrity, Page talks about the priorities we all should have. I defy you not to be inspired by her words:



P.S. The audio volume of the video is somewhat low, so you may wish to turn on the closed caption option.

Monday, February 10, 2014

To Be Young, Gifted, And Gay

I am in awe of this kind of courage, and it is one of the reasons I am never quite wiling to give up on humanity. Despite the progress that society has made, I can't think that this could have been an easy decision.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

More Praise for Kevin Page

Readers of this blog will know that I have a deep and abiding respect for people of real integrity, those capable of moving beyond narrow self-interest to embrace ethics and principles in the conduct of their lives. Kevin Page, of whom I have written several times, is one such individual who has set a sterling example for all of us.

Today's Star has several letters of praise for the former Parliamentary Budget Officer, several of which I am reproducing below. Please be sure to check out the full array of them on the Star website. The respect accorded him in the letters suggests his example will be remembered long after Harper and his ilk are but historical footnotes.

The job no one wanted, Opinion April 1

Not only does this reveal a man of courage, but it highlights the courage we all need to resist “the consolidation of power at the expense of citizens” taking place in our time.

Whenever privilege becomes concentrated to a few, whether we are talking wealth, political power or mass communication, nations fail. Canada is failing because political, economic and educational privilege is being consolidated to a few rather than dispersed among many.

But the remedy doesn’t lie within Parliament, or with big business or with the media conglomerates. It lies as Kevin Page rightly diagnoses, in our “need to wake up.”

Not only is ‘Canada’s Parliament losing its capacity to hold the government to account” but we are losing our capacity to hold our markets to account for making a few wealthy at the expense of the many, and our capacity to ensure the vulnerable are provided for by our social programs and our institutions of care.

To speak up against this trend is a job nobody wants, especially if job security is threatened. But without that courage, our democracy and prosperity are at stake. Not just for the vulnerable, but for all of us.

We need to wake up.

John Deacon, Toronto

Wow! What a letter. I am blown away by Kevin Page. Now here is a guy who gets it. He understands his role and does so with integrity and professionalism and with the best interests of the Canadian taxpayer in mind.

One may reasonably think that the Conservatives would do everything possible to ensure he stays on board instead of showing him the door and replacing him with someone nice but “not so efficient.”

This reminds me of Dalton McGuinty balking at the rehiring of Ombudsman Andre Marin in 2010. It turned out fortuitous for the provincial leader as his government needed transparency after the G20 debacle and Marin’s office was there to help.

Maybe Prime Minister Stephen Harper should reconsider his tired cloak and dagger routine.

Jeff Green, Toronto

Kevin Page and the PBO have made a great contribution to Canada in the past five years. What Canada needs to succeed in the future are more Kevin Pages and fewer Stephen Harpers. On behalf of Canada, thank you Mr. Page.

Charles Campisi, Oakville

Thank you Mr. Page for sharing your thoughts with Canadians. In spite of continual stonewalling from the present federal Conservative government, you, as head of the PBO, were truly a very conscientious, thorough, “sticking to the facts” and “no axe to grind” type of civil servant and we all Canadians should be proud of you. Best wishes in your future endeavours. Aquil Ali, Toronto Kevin Page is one of my heroes. I copied his letter in the Star and sent it, along with my own cover letter, to 20 of my family and friends. I asked them to contact their MPs and demand that they support even more power to the position to the PBO’s position in the future.

I sincerely hope that we have not heard the last of Kevin Page. We need his courage, character, skill and sense of right in this country. I hope that his service to Canadians will be recognized with an Order of Canada. (It certainly won’t be given by the Conservative government with Harper as leader!)

Listen up Justin Trudeau! Kevin has gifted his sons with an amazing legacy and has given “We The People” an incredible example to follow. This is a wonderful example of turning a tragedy into something very positive.

Kathryn Walker, Toronto

My sincere thanks to Kevin Page for his dedicated service to Canadian taxpayers like me. Under difficult circumstances, he has shown himself to be a man of integrity, class, and principle. It’s a shame his political masters in the Conservative government couldn’t manage something similar. Bravo, sir.

Susan Sterling, Toronto

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Another Face of Integrity

While we are witness to almost daily examples of greed, venality and dishonour (think of Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Mac Harb and Patrick Braseau as but a few odious examples) in public life, we don't often get to see its obverse, personal integrity. That is why I take particular pleasure in posting this link to the story of Michael Houghton, who holds a $10-million Canada Excellence Research Chair in virology at the University of Alberta.

Dr Houghton has the singular distinction of being the only person in its 54-year history to turn down the Garnier Award, worth $100,000, given to him for his discovery and cloning of the hepatitis C virus. The reason? His two close collaborators, Qui-Lim Choo and George Kuo, were not being similarly recognized.

Enjoy the story, and think about all those in public life who offer such a stark contrast to Dr. Houghton