The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 10

A10 MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2011 OTTAWACITIZEN.COMOPiNION THE OTTAWA CITIZEN "FAIR PLAY AM) DAYLIGHT LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 1 Family appreciative of support Vl Rest well, you wonderful man. And thank you. ROBERT GAIRNS, Kanata A welcome discussion Re: Mixed messages about suicide in the media, Oct. 2L We'd like to applaud Kelly Egan for a thoughtful piece on the complexity of youth suicide. The guidelines of the Canadian Psychiatric Association and the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention ask media to avoid glamorizing suicide so that it does not appear to be an attractive option to others.

Young people under 24 are especially vulnerable to the influence of the mass media and, nowadays, its multiplied effect in cyberspace. This balance can be difficult to achieve while also honouring the grief of a bereaved family and community. It's a good thing that members of media are discussing this issue and looking for the best approach. As humans, we do search for simple answers which reassure us in JtAN LVAC, TMt OTTAWA CI1 UtH Mourning the loss of Martin Bergmann, the Bergmann family, from left, Rosemarie Bergmann, Alexandra Montgomery, Victoria Merkis and Alexander Bergmann, are grateful for the support they've received from so many. Re: Scientist made sure people in the North worked together, Aug.

3L On behalf of the Bergmann, Merkis and Montgomery families, I would like to express our deepest appreciation for all of the support and help we have received as a result of the recent death of my brother-in-law, Martin Bergmann. He, along with 11 others, was killed in Resolute Bay, Nunavut, on Aug. 20 in the crash of First Air flight 6560, en route from Yellow-knife. As director of Natural Resource Canada's Polar Continental Shelf program, Martin was leading a team of research scientists who were scheduled to showcase the research facility in Resolute Bay and demonstrate its capabilities to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Governor General David Johnston, who were journeying to the North as part of a weeklong tour of the Arctic Martin's death was as sudden and dramatic as the North is mysterious, fierce and oftentimes unforgiving, and it not only leaves a serious gap in Canada's northern research capabilities, but has also devastated loving families who are only now just beginning to cope with his loss. His wife, Sheila, in Winnipeg, and his four children, have lost a loving and caring father.

For his elderly parents and his two sisters in Ottawa, a loving son and brother has been taken away from them far too early. He was an uncle, friend and mentor to many, and the memory of his many business and personal relationships will endure. The support and care we have had from Martin's many friends and colleagues has been a source of strength for our families and in Kanata, who officiated at service. His kind and thoughtful prayers put much into perspective to ease the pain we all felt many letters, emails and telephone have received over these past healing journey would be difficult to endure. Although we thank each and every one of moment, we want you all to know and our most sincere appreciation only exceeded by the power of and your assistance to us in greatest need MERKIS, has had tremendous healing powers as we try to fully understand our loss.

Although we will thank everyone personally, we wish to single out a number of you who helped to arrange the broadcast of the Winnipeg memorial service in Ottawa. In particular, we recognize all of "Marty's NRCan Family" here in Ottawa and, in particular, Geoff Munro, assistant deputy minister at Natural Resources Canada, for enlisting his staff who so wonderfully, and without hesitation, supplied the resources for the broadcast The care they took of Martin's parents, who were not able to make it to the memorial service in Winnipeg, was a particularly wonderful gesture. We also wish to thank Fr. John Bridges of Meeting demand for care Re: Frightening view of senior care, Oct. 9.

Increasing the level of care for residents in long-term care homes has been the top priority for our association for many years. It was also the cornerstone of the government-commissioned Sharkey Report, which recommended in 2008 an average of four hours of paid care per resident per day. Currently, the sector is close to three hours. The provincial government acknowledged the need and committed in 2008 to add 2,500 personal support workers (PSWs) over three years and 2,000 nurses over four years. In the recent provincial budget, they fulfilled the PSW promise with funding for the final 1,100 positions.

While there is much more that can, and should be done, we must recognize that even incremental increases such as these require a huge investment when applied to more than 620 homes across the province that care for over 77,000 residents. By way of example, funding to add 2,500 PSWs alone was more than $100 million. It is in this context that we realize that constant, one-to-one care is simply not something that our current long-term care home system is funded or the face of events like suicide which are unfamiliar to many, frightening and surrounded by stigma. We cannot ever know the full reason for a suicide that is completed, al though in Jamie Hubley's case, he expressed many of his thoughts and feelings online. What we do know is that sup porting the mental health of chil dren and youth does offer them greater resilience, which can pro tect them to an extent as they go through the pains of adolescence and become adults.

Mental health programs need to be readily available in the community and as natural as seeking other services. Media coverage should always include where to get help. This includes the YSB's 247 Crisis Line for children, youth and families across Eastern Ontario (613-260-2360). Our mental health walk-in clinic is also a safe place for youth to talk to someone before their feelings become overwhelming (www.ysb.ca mentalhealth for details). JOANNE LOWE, Executive Director, Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa A hope for Libya Re: Who will run the new Oct.

21. I hope now that there is a chance that democracy will come to Libya that it is not patterned on the current American "democracy" or even the Canadian "democracy." I hope that the revenues from their oil benefit all the people of Libya providing them with good health care, education, a better standard of living and more human rights especially for women. I hope that the Western plutocrats do not rush in to make billions at the expense of the citizens and that the gap between the rich and the poor becomes very small. I hope that its new government does not become just a puppet for Western interests. What are the chances? KATHARINE R.

ELLIOTT, Ottawa did have a beret on. Instead it was an embryonic form of inclusive protest feeling its way forward, in Confederation Park and in a legion of cities around the world. Certainly, there is not one clear shining target here, or a homicidal Alfred E. Newman figure like George Bush to focus on. The banners on display were like assorted cards from a pack of complaints, but revulsion at modern Greed with a capital(ist) underlay the majority of them.

Whenever the gap between the richest and the poorest reaches deeply obscene, immoral, criminal levels, as it has in the last 10 years, and the least truly productive members of society award themselves fail-safe Olympian fortunes, there is going to be a push back, and here it is. Whether it will sustain itself or not, and succeed in forcing a fall in greed and a rise in compassion, no one knows, but many hope. It gets my vote. Following the old equation that talk minus action equals zero, the first day of the occupation ended with the creation of a tent city, population around 70. As of this writing, they are still there and well-organized, cold but determined, dependent on their inner strength and the kindness of strangers.

The fact of them is the message this time. Now let's see who accepts delivery. Phil Jenkins can be reached at philaphiljenkins.ca. professionalism. He took our comments seriously and took immediate action to implement our recommendations.

During the audit visit, the consulate was visited by John Buchanan, the then-premier of Nova Scotia. The premier was in town as the province, at the time, was considering co-locating its trade representative in a new consulate planned to open shortly in downtown Boston. Danson invited me and a colleague along to accompany him and the premier to examine the new quarters. We began a 10-minutewalktothenewloca- tion when Danson suggested we drop into a specialty shop that offered several unique gadgets that intrigued him. An enjoyable half-hour ensued.

Here we were, with our consul general and the premier of Nova Scotia, shopping in complete anonymity in downtown Boston. Along the way, John Buchanan indicated that the Blue Nose was in town on the weekend, and Danson then invited the audit team to accompany them for a sail in the Boston Harbour. Not surprisingly, we seized the opportunity. The audit team spent a great afternoon and evening on the Blue Nose. I will forever remember this wonderful visit to Boston and the reception offered by a truly down-to- zero people marched on the Hill to bother Mulroney and let him know that they knew the true state of things and were anxious that something be done about it Not much was, it turns out When we got into this millennium, there was much ado downtown about the 2001 G20 meeting of finance ministers over in the Gatineau and again, when the G8-G20 met in Calgary the following year; protesters took to the streets and the police were cruelly over-zealous in their arrest procedures.

I'd spent five days in Quebec inhaling tear gas by then, and I was getting enjoyable flashbacks of London in 1968. If this wasn't the revolution, it would do till the revolution got here. But then came the grotesque G20 in Toronto, Harper's raised middle finger at those who hadn't voted for him and at the right to gather and protest The Occupy Ottawa campaign that began on Oct 15 is a bird of a different feather. It is many headed and full of the chirping of smart-phones and people recording events even as they are happening, as though it were a concert, which in a way it is. So far it involves a complete absence of violence on both sides and it is the city's first real demo in the age of social Distribution PAW.SARKOZY VP Marketing and Reader Sales RYAN SHORTT VP Advertising Sales SHIRLEY TAM Director of Finance P0STMEDIA NETWORK INC.

St Paul's Church the memorial words and and helped Without the calls we few weeks, our much more cannot possibly you at the that our gratitude is your kind words our time of WITOLD Kanata Earth Canadian and gentleman. BARRY MELLOR, Ottawa A man of accomplishment I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of the Honourable Bar-nett (Barney) Danson. So should many Canadians who never met this man of great accomplishment I had the good fortune to be his press secretary when he was minister of urban affairs and housing in the Trudeau government I remember, not only his distinguished, courageous military career but his success in business, his valued career in politics and his contributions to the betterment of Canada, as founder of the youth project Katimavik, his work on behalf of War Amps and veterans and many other notable achievements that would leave the average person standing in his dust I also remember his tremendous self-deprecating humour and the great kindness he unfailingly displayed toward we who served him as staff, including our spouses who had to put up with a somewhat unkind work schedule. Unfortunately, there are far too few in politics these days who deserve the title "Honourable," but Barney Danson was one who qualified, in spades. media.

There may be a future "e-rally," where the whole thing takes place on Skype, and billions all hit send at the exact same time I gladly added my number to the gathering 10 days ago around the fountain in Confederation Park, where only a few months earlier we had been listening to jazz. Occupy Ottawa that day got off, as these things often do and should, to a ragged start This was partly because it was working to an all-new play book and partly because people had waited to see how the weather turned out It was not bad, one tiny sun-shower. By one o'clock, there were 500 to 600 people there, a glorious cross-section of Otta-wans, hardly any politicians in sight, particularly from the Opposition, and an air of calm. People passed out sheets of paper with the number to call if you got arrested, and there was a bizarre brief singing of a Christmas song by the look-at-me fringe element before we got to the heart of the matter. The young campaigners facilitating had designed the rally initially as an encouraging echo of the occupation in Zuccotn' Park in New York, the mother occupation, as it were.

There was, for quite a while, a sort of secular verse and mass response, complete with collective semaphore, while the guidelines for reaching consensus, or not, were inculcated. There was no counter-revolutionary star at the head, although one man structured to support Notwithstanding the fiscal pressures, we cannot lose sight of the current and growing need for additional front-line care, especially as long-term care homes are expected to admit residents with increasingly complex needs. DONNA A. RUBIN, Chief executive officer, Ontario Association of Non-Profit Homes and Services for Seniors, Woodbridge A fine statesman Re: Politician fought for military, Oct. 19.

It was with deep regret that I heard of the passing of a fine Canadian statesman, Barney Danson, in a Citizen article. While the obituary recalled his professional career in the Canadian military during the Second World War and his various roles in Canadian federal politics, it failed to point out his appointment as our Canadian consul general in Boston during the years 1984 to 1986. In 1985, 1 met Danson as part of an audit team conducting a routine internal audit for Foreign Affairs of the Boston Consulate. While no one enjoys having an organizational review of one's operations, he welcomed the audit team and treated us with the utmost respect and Veteran demonstrators, the ones who have proudly kept the denim shirt the police tore, the broken bar-rette and the boots with the hole in the sole, will, I hope, smile in fond remembrance when I mention COAT, which stood for the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade. It was a startup in 1988, back when Ottawa had a nasty habit of hosting arms trade exhibitions, usually called ARMX, an ugly word if ever there was one.

The demos back then were successful enough to give birth to an extraordinary bylaw that banned arms trade fairs inside city limits. It seemed we had started to grow up, but then the city started its slow, oppressive swing to the right, as did the country, and the bylaw was shot in the back and thrown in the river in 2008, and the death pushers returned. The Bread and Roses women's caravan arrived in Ottawa in June of 1996, having come to the capital from both ends of the country to ask for the alleviation of the disgraceful level of poverty in the country and a reduction in the chasm between the rich and the poor, the true two solitudes. (Sound familiar?) Two thousand women set up a tent and stall city on LeBreton Flats, not far from where the Canadian War Museum is now, and then 10,000 Talk minus action equals 'K PHIL JENKINS The history of protesting in Ottawa begins even before it was the capital, in fact even before it was a city. In September, 1849, there was a melee, the Stoney Monday riot on the ByWard Market (then the North Ward market) that involved stones, rifles, soldiers and a single fatality from a gunshot The gentleman killed was named David Borthwick, and in 162 years he remains the only person killed in the course of a demonstration or riot in Ottawa.

The fracas, which had been brewing for some time, was political in nature, with two factions in By-town, Tory and Reformist, both being certain that their point of view was correct The day after Borthwick was killed, the two sides squared off on what is now the Plaza Bridge, the one over the canal where Wellington meets Rideau. Further bloodshed was prevented bv a brave soldier who intervened. GERRY NOTT Pablisfrar and Editor-in-Chief ANDREW POTTER Managing Editor DREW GRAGG Deputy Editor, Digital PETER CARL Deputy DAVID Ottawa Citizen If SSsr.ro your views: lettersottawacitizen.com Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Ottawa Citizen, 1101 Baxter Ottawa, Ont. K2C 3M4 Citizen Online: ottjac itizen.com DEBORAH BENNETT VP Human Resources PATRICK BRENNAN VP Manufacturing and R0B8 Deputy Editor, News NEU5TAEDTER Editor. Features WATSON Editorial Pages Editor PUBLISHED BY THE PROPRIETOR: OTTAWA CITIZEN, A DIVISION OF.