Category: civil liberties
Pynch-Worthylake redux
An American friend writes:
I just call to your attention the fact that in all the posts about Superintendent Pynch-Worthylake, none of you polite Canadians commented on her name. I”m pretty sure she was Dean of Discipline at Hogwarts before coming to NS.
Tsk, tsk.
[Update] Reader Bev Brett replies:
I find it interesting that not stooping to namecalling is considered “polite.” Obviously the people who wanted their points in the debate to be considered valid held back. Rather than “polite,” I would call it “informed discussion.” If anyone makes fun of someone’s name during a serious debate, I automatically dismiss the argument.
Authoritarian Superintendent of the Month — feedback
Golly, tons of reaction — on all sides — to cyber-libertarian Jeff Shallit’s nomination of South Shore District School Superintendent Pynch-Worthylake as “Authoritarian High School Superintendent of the Month.” (Apologies for the delayed posting; it’s been a busy week.)
Chris McCormick writes:
I figure someone’s right to express their opinion is balanced by my right to ignore them; the principal’s reaction just valorizes the ‘victim society’ where we want to whitewash all differences and offending symbols…remember Lenny Bruce [language NSFW]? “It’s the suppression of the word which gives it the power, the violence…”
Jeannie Eyking:
I have been aware of Superintendent Pynch-Worthylake’s work for about 10 years. From everything I’ve heard, I understand her to be an intelligent, brave, and discerning professional and leader. When I read your blog this morning, I thought there must be more to this story than first presented. The editorial in the Cape Breton Post made the story more complete for me. My conclusion is the her decision was not only reasonable, but brave.
The young people in our schools are arriving with all sorts of things written on their shirts, much of which promotes disrespect. What was written on Swinimer’s shirt was not benign. The phrasing is significant. “Life is wasted without Jesus” is a judgment of what you should be and do, not an expression of what I choose for me. This is no small point. Tolerance and free speech can only be protected, if we have the intelligence to sort out the difference. The principal and Nancy Pynch-Worthylake tried to do that. I applaud them both.
A reader whose family includes a retired Anglican minister, passed along antidote apparel depicted at right:
A reader who is not from the Annapolis Valley or Bridgewater writes:
It’s obvious Jeffrey Shallit does not live in the Annapolis Valley or Bridgewater, because if he did, he’d know that no matter how strongly you felt it, you’d never say anything like this: “Swinimer’s t-shirt expresses a moronic and wrong sentiment, and he sounds like the typical evangelical jerk who can’t keep quiet about his own ‘good news.’” Because the fall-out from evangelicals, of which there are many who attend Baptist, Pentecostal, and break-away Protestant churches in the Bible Belt of Nova Scotia, would not be worth it. Shallit, safe from the wrath of God in Waterloo.
Reader Dana Doiron thinks the The Cape Breton Post got it right:
Proselytizing at school and suggesting that the international students at his school were damned (I spoke to students and parents) were the issue. The t-shirt was just the most recent manifestation to which the complaining students could point. Parents, teachers and religious leaders (and, politicians) should help students learn tolerance and empathy not just the assertion of individual rights. The student’s dad may have taken the best step toward resolving this issue by removing his son from school today to go home and change shirts.
What Shallit was reacting to, given the information available at the time, was Swinimer’s suspension for the sin of wearing a T-shirt expressing minority religious views. If Swinimer was browbeating fellow students, or proselytizing disruptively on school time, that’s another matter. Wearing a slogan the superintendent doesn’t like is not grounds for dismissal in a democracy.
Culture gap
A Chinese engineer, on his first trip to the United States, a work assignment for his company, snapped this photo, reproduced today on James Fallows’s blog. Fallows asks his readers:
- Why did he take the photo?
- What happened next?
For the answers, go here.
Pynch-Worthylake named “Authoritarian Superintendent of the Month”
[Update below] A Canadian Internet civil libertarian has named South Shore Regional School Board Superintendent Nancy Pynch-Worthylake “Authoritarian High School Superintendent of the Month” for placing student William Swinimer on five days suspension for wearing a shirt that read, “Life is wasted without Jesus.”
University of Waterloo computer science professor Jeffrey Shallit announced the tongue-in-cheek award on his Recursivity Blog, but his denunciation of Pynch-Worthylake’s overreaction was anything but tongue-in-cheek:
North American high schools are not places where free speech and criticism of authority are welcomed. Instead of teaching lessons about free speech, free expression, the Bill of Rights, and the Charter of Rights, principals and superintendents routinely impose arbitrary rules and punishments….
Swinimer’s t-shirt expresses a moronic and wrong sentiment, and he sounds like the typical evangelical jerk who can’t keep quiet about his own “good news.” But when he says, “I believe this is worth standing up for — it’s not just standing up for religious rights, it’s standing up for my rights as a Canadian citizen, for freedom of speech, freedom of religion,” he’s absolutely right.
Superintendent Pynch-Worthlake could have turned this into a teaching moment. She could explain that in a multicultural society there will be people who assert that their religion is the only valid one, and that’s the way life is. She could explain that the Charter guarantees “freedom of thought, opinion, and expression,” and even though she disagrees with Swinimer’s sentiment, she defends his right to express it in a non-disruptive way.
Instead, she took the authoritarian route. Shame on her.
[UPDATE] A reader who is not from the Annapolis Valley or Bridgewater writes:
It’s obvious Jeffrey Shallit does not live in the Annapolis Valley or Bridgewater, because if he did, he’d know that no matter how strongly you felt it, you’d never say anything like this: “Swinimer’s t-shirt expresses a moronic and wrong sentiment, and he sounds like the typical evangelical jerk who can’t keep quiet about his own ‘good news.’” Because the fall-out from evangelicals, of which there are many who attend Baptist, Pentecostal, and break-away Protestant churches in the Bible Belt of Nova Scotia, would not be worth it. Shallit, safe from the wrath of God in Waterloo.
Malice compounds DCS mishandling of the Talbot House fiasco
In a sign the Dexter government plans to tough out criticism of its handling of the Talbot House fiasco, the Department of Community Services (DCS) has posted the report of its controversial organizational review of the much admired Cape Breton addiction recovery centre.
In response, the Talbot House Society’s board of directors released a detailed, point-by-point response to the DCS report. You can read the DCS report here; the response of the Talbot House board here.
I have only had a few minutes to scan both of these documents. I am struck by how much the DCS report relies on third-party hearsay that the author, Marika Lathem, DCS Director of Family and Youth Services, accepts as factual without further verification. Even without the society’s rebuttal, it reads like a hatchet job.
Given that the CBRM Police Dept. spent eight weeks considering the department’s so-called “evidence” before concluding there were no grounds even to open a criminal investigation, it is astonishing DCS would now publish these discredited slurs. It’s as if the department were determined to undermine Fr. Paul Abbass’s vindication, despite the police department’s implicit rejection of its “evidence.” It adds up to a prima facie case of malice.
Also noteworthy is the ease with which the board dispenses with many, if not most, of Lathem’s bureaucratic procedural complaints against the society. It appears she took no greater care with easily verifiable facts than with the third-hand slurs against Fr. Abbass.
I will have more to say when I have read both documents thoroughly.
Talbot House strikes back
The board of directors of Talbot House, the much admired addiction recovery center shut down this winter after the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services raised vague and, as we now know, false allegations of sexual misconduct against its executive director, today issued two news releases that add up to a sweeping condemnation of the department’s behaviour.
How the Dexter government reacts will be a major test of its integrity. Will it circle the wagons? Or will it implement real reforms?
Please read the releases for yourself here and here. [Note: I have removed contact information for the board chair.]
On the Cape Breton Regional Police Service announcement late Friday that it had found no grounds to investigate the centre’s Executive Director, the board writes:
The Board of Directors initially contacted the police in response to a report to the Board from the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services, of serious allegations and complaints concerning Father Abbass. These allegations and complaints were provided to Ms. Marika Lathem, Director of Family and Youth Services with the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services, initially by the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness, and subsequently, during the course of an organizational review of Talbot House.
The Board of Directors made immediate and repeated written requests of Ms. Lathem and the Department of Community Services for the details of any allegations or complaints, or information that would allow a timely and balanced investigation of the matter, based on principles of procedural fairness and natural justice. To date, the Board of Directors has received no response and no direct complaint concerning Father Abbass. Despite our repeated requests, the Department of Community Services has provided no substantive information that would compel a formal investigation.
…Although we are pleased that Father Abbass has been vindicated of any wrongdoing, the delay in resolving this matter has resulted in an untold human cost, and was directly responsible for the series of decisions that resulted in the eventual discharge of residents from Talbot House.
Following receipt of a single, non-sexual complaint against Abbass last December, Ms. Lathem, who is Director of Family and Youth Services, launched an “organizational review” of Talbot House. Despite media requests and at least two FOIPOP requests (including one from Contrarian), the report has not been released, but according to the board’s news release, it reaches two main conclusions:
- ”Talbot House is not operating in compliance with the majority of the Standards for Recovery Houses” and
- “There is no evidence that the board has been actively overseeing the operation of Talbot House.”
In a telephone interview, Board chair John Gainer, a highly regarded Sydney psychologist, said the board “absolutely rejected the conclusions,” saying they were based on a lack of proper evidence. He said the board had prepared a point-by-point rebuttal of the report that would be faxed to the department Sunday evening.
The news release is equally scathing:
The details of the report are presented as a series of “bulleted” items, many without context, elaboration, or analysis. It is the opinion of the Board of Directors of Talbot House that the review was fundamentally flawed in process and analysis, procedurally inadequate, lacked balance, and contributed to a report that contains numerous inaccuracies, and misrepresentations that, by their nature, are prejudicial, biased, and misrepresent the history, governance, and operation of Talbot House.
The board acknowledges that it was not fully complaint with the 2008 guidelines, which deal with procedural matters like job descriptions and performance appraisals, but insists, “there is ample evidence that the board was addressing these policy and operational issues in a systematic fashion.”
The news release also confirms that, even as Lathem’s vague accusations against Abbass sputtered to a halt due to lack of evidence, the department moved aggressively to ensure Talbot House would never reopen. On April 4, without advance notice to the board or any public announcement, the department retroactively terminated the centre’s funding as of April 1. Lathem told the board the department would issue a request for proposals for addiction services in Cape Breton, adding tartly that the Talbot House Society was welcome to submit a proposal.
The news release terms this action, “pre-emptive and unnecessarily punitive.” In previous years, funding was renewed automatically every April 1.
In short, the board describes a pattern of behaviour that is at once imperious and incompetent. It is a pattern many social service organizations and societies in Nova Scotia will recognize. In fact, it’s an attitude long complained of by NDP activists before the party gained power in 2009.
If even half of what the Talbot board says is true, then a searching, independent, top-to-bottom review of the Department of Community Services is long overdue.
A few background points:
– By all accounts, the Lathem report reflects a departmental penchant for placing process ahead of outcomes. Throughout this controversy, I have not heard anyone question Talbot’s success in treating addicts, many of them tough young men hooked on hard drugs.
– Many social service organizations and volunteer societies are struggling to comply with departmental guidelines requiring written policies, job descriptions, and performance reviews, and they are doing so without financial or administrative support from the department that imposed these governance requirements.
– To provide round-the-clock treatment and residential care for a rotating population of 18 men addicted to gambling, alcohol, or drugs, Talbot had a fulltime staff of six. That probably didn’t leave a lot of time for paperwork.
– Although their names may not be well known in Halifax, the Talbot Board is no random collection of hayseeds. It consists of bluechip professionals and community leaders, most of whom have distinguished records of achievement.
If Darrell Dexter treats this challenge as a political threat to be defended against with all of his government’s formidable powers of communications and institutional resistance, a great opportunity will have been missed.
On the other hand, if he sees this as an opportunity to step back and order a searching, independent review of the way social services are delivered in Nova Scotia, then some good will have come out of the disgraceful treatment accorded Fr. Paul Abbass and Talbot House,
Community Services Dept. vs. Talbot House
Exactly as many of us expected, the vague, shadowy accusations of sexual impropriety against Fr. Paul Abbass have proven false.
The Cape Breton Regional Police announced late Friday that the department has completed its review of information in the case — they were cagey about who was being investigated, but everyone knows it was Abbass — and they will not proceed with a criminal investigation. There was nothing to investigate.
I hope Fr. Paul Abbass will have the generosity of spirit to resume his duties as Executive Director of Talbot House, the community-built recovery center that has for 53 years successfully treated men addicted to alcohol, drugs, and gambling, and where Abbass served ably and generously for 17 13 years.
But that’s a pretty tall order. Just consider the toll the allegations have taken.
For eight weeks, the falsely accused priest suffered his public humiliation in quiet dignity. He was forced to step down from his post as Executive Director of Talbot House, and stripped of his duties as Vicar General, spokesman for the Antigonish Diocese, and pastor to four rural Cape Breton parishes.
From that litany of jobs, anyone can see Abbass was an exceptionally busy man. While running Talbot House and ministering to four congregations, he handled the unenviable task of speaking for the church after Bishop Lahey was arrested for possessing child pornography, and while church property was liquidated to pay for its settlement with abuse victims.
Abbass was guilty of nothing more than resisting the bureaucratic niceties demanded by Department of Community Services bureaucrats who don’t like Talbot’s recovery model of care, and who moved aggressively during Abbass’s eight-week ordeal to ensure the centre never reopens.
As it became apparent that the initial allegation of gross misconduct was a non-starter, the DCS official handling the file scrambled to find some rationale for the department’s overreach in this disgraceful episode. Last week, Marika Lathem produced a report that refocused the department’s gunsights from Abbass to the Talbot board of directors, whose governance it criticized.
Lathem’s self-serving report should have no more credibility than the dubious allegation she originally brought forward and promoted with reckless disregard for the consequences.
Over four decades of living in Cape Breton, I have heard nothing but admiration for Talbot House and praise for its work. As for the bureaucratic niceties DCS cherishes, many if not most care-giving organizations in Nova Scotia are struggling to implement the litany of policies, job descriptions, and performance appraisals currently in vogue among public administration wonks. They do so, it might be added, without financial or administrative support from DCS.
For decades, the NDP has challenged the unfeeling policies of this backward department. Now it’s time for the Dexter Government to put those ideals into practice:
Remove the discredited Lathem from any role in the affairs of Talbot House, and withdraw her report.
Appoint someone independent of the department to assist the Talbot Board in the onerous task of undoing the damage caused by the department’s misguided actions, with a budget sufficient to the task.
Undertake a searching, top-to-bottom review of Community Services by someone with no connection to the department. Someone who will actually listens to the men, women, and caregivers who suffer under its inept administration. Someone who will help implement the vision — so long championed by the NDP — of respectful support for those Nova Scotians most in need.
Peterson-Rafuse passes the buck
Liberal MLA Kelly Regan put two questions to Community Services Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse in the House of Assembly yesterday:
MS. KELLY REGAN: Mr. Speaker, for 53 years Talbot House provided residential addiction treatment for men in Cape Breton. Talbot House recently, abruptly closed its doors and left the people of Cape Breton with a whole lot of questions. Will the Minister of Community Services lift the shroud of secrecy and tell the men and their families who rely on these services why the minister closed the doors and removed this vital service from this community?
HON. DENISE PETERSON-RAFUSE: Mr. Speaker, we know that the recovery houses that we have throughout the province are vitally important and we have supported those. In fact, we were not responsible for closing it, so I would think the honourable member should get her information straight. Thank you.
MS. REGAN: Mr. Speaker, it is the responsibility of this minister to ensure that her department can properly manage its programs and guarantee a continuity of service. People in Cape Breton are wondering what other local, accessible, comparable programs have been made available to men needing these services?
MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that every person who was in that recovery house was well taken care of. They have a placement that they are satisfied with and the fact is that is another organization that is run by a board of directors. The board of directors made the decision, not Community Services.
In short, the closure of this valued treatment centre is not the minister’s problem, and really didn’t cause much harm anyway. See the happy residents, all “placed” elsewhere.
It would be hard to imagine a minister more deeply out of touch with sensibilities, sentiment, and history on the ground in the area affected by the bureaucracy she heads.
The shaming of Fr. Paul Abbass — a clarification
In my post about the Queen-of-Hearts treatment accorded Fr. Paul Abbass—sentence first, trial later—I wrote that the Cape Breton Regional Police “said it had begun investigating allegations concerning a Talbot House employee.”
In fact, police spokesperson Desiree Vassallo chose her words more carefully than that.
“We are looking further into [information received from the Talbot House Board] and will determine whether there’s anything that needs a criminal investigation,” she said.
While Vassallo didn’t identify Abbass, everyone knew who she was talking about.
Almost seven weeks have passed since Vassallo made that statement. If the police have determined that the information does not warrant a criminal investigation, then in light of the personal cost to Abbass and the residents at Talbot House, they bear a heavy onus to acknowledge that the case is closed—or indeed, that it never opened.
A process long on shaming and short on evidence
I am increasingly uneasy about the way the Talbot House crisis is playing out. In the space of three weeks this winter, a respected community leader’s life was shattered, and an admired institution that had ministered to troubled individuals for 53 years was abruptly closed—all on the basis of an unspecified third-party complaint of unknown veracity that remains shrouded in secrecy two months later.
[UPDATE: Fr. Paul Abbass has been exonerated. Please see Community Services Dept. vs. Talbot House]
I don’t know Fr. Paul Abbass personally, but I admire the grace and candor he displayed when speaking for the Antigonish Diocese during the crisis that followed Bishop Raymond Lahey’s arrest for possessing child pornography. I’ve only ever heard good things about Talbot House Recovery Centre, the Frenchvale addiction treatment centre Fr. John Webb founded in 1959, and where Abbass served as Executive Director for 17 13 years until his dismissal in February.
The Talbot House board asked Abbass to step down after the Department of Community Services informed it of a complaint against the priest, the nature and source of which it has not publicly revealed. The diocese relieved Abbass of his pastoral duties, and of his role as Vicar General and diocesan spokesperson.
The Cape Breton Regional Police said it had begun investigating was looking into whether information it received about a Talbot House employee it declined to identify “needs a criminal investigation.“ After almost two months seven weeks, it has laid no charges, suggesting that any actual criminality is uncertain.
Although the official bodies involved have been tight-lipped, Dave Mantin, Atlantic Canada group leader of an organization called Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told the Chronicle-Herald he had received two complaints about Abbass, one “sexual in nature,” and the other related to “access to medication” and “Abbass’s behaviour.”
Residents of Talbot House are adult men with addictions to alcohol, drugs, or gambling. It is not clear whether Mantin was the source of the complaint to Community Services, but it seems doubtful that the original source was the purported victim, if there was a victim, rather than a third party who disapproved of Abbass’s interactions with someone in treatment.
These events unfolded in the context of two obvious facts:
- The history of sexual scandal in the Catholic priesthood has placed an extra burden of suspicion on any accused priest. By virtue of a category to which they belong, priests are more inclined to be presumed guilty, regardless of evidence.
- Bishop Lahey’s conviction for possessing child pornography deprived the Antigonish Diocese of the moral authority that might have enabled it to serve as a counter-balance to the actions of Community Service in respect of an institution that, though widely respected, does not fit the Community Services Department – Maritime School of Social Work model of care.
I have no inside information, but my experience as a someone who for many years reported on issues involving the Department of Community Services, and my recent experience as a supporter and board member at l’Arche Cape Breton, do not fill me with confidence in the wisdom and fairness of that department when it comes to institutions that operate outside its preferred service delivery model.
Taken altogether, these facts and circumstances set off alarm bells for me. Specifically, I am concerned that:
- A tip of unknown veracity from a self-appointed support group has given Community Services bureaucrats a pretext to shut down an institution they didn’t much like but couldn’t attack head on, with the result that a good organization that has helped hundreds of troubled people no longer functions and likely never will again.
- Father Abbass has been deprived of the presumption of innocence in every practical sense. He may never be charged, let alone convicted. He may be completely innocent of the complaints against him. But in the community’s eyes, he will always carry a stigma of guilt, and his career has been shattered.
- Concerns about privacy have enabled this process to take place entirely in secret.
We used to have a system in which serious accusations were dealt with in open court, according to rules of law that guaranteed accused persons the presumption of innocence and the right to confront their accusers. In the name of privacy, we have replaced that system with one in which an anonymous third party, of unknown motives, can level a complaint whose vague and sinister nature is made public, while all actual evidence is shrouded in secrecy, and the matter is adjudicated by anonymous officials, meeting in secret, with no public accountability.
Obviously it is possible that Fr. Abbass committed acts that are unambiguously wrong and that unquestionably render him unfit to continue with his duties. But how are we to know in the face of a process that is long on shaming and short on evidence?
