Tagged: Denise Peterson-Rafuse
Stealing off into the night
The Nova Scotia Department of Community Services, which was unceremoniously stripped of responsibility for addiction recovery centres earlier this month, has quietly removed from its website its much criticized review of Cape Breton’s Talbot House Recovery Centre.
An electronic search failed to turn up a copy of the “report” — hatchet job would be a more accurate descriptor — anywhere on the gov.ns.ca website. Removal of the error-riddled document, and publication of the Talbot Board’s point-by-point refutation, had been persistently sought by the beleaguered recovery center.
As recently as July, Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse insisted she stood by the review, saying it it “followed the standard and appropriate processes.”
Talbot has been closed since last March, after Peterson-Rafuse’s officials began furtively promoting false allegations of sexual misconduct against the centre’s executive director. Police found no evidence to support the rumors—nothing that would even warrant opening a formal investigation.
The Department of Health and Wellness, which became the new government home for recovery centres following the Community Services misadventure, is currently evaluating Talbot’s response to a request for proposals (RFP) for the very services it had provided to widespread acclaim for 53 years. The are no other bidders vying to help Cape Breton addicts seeking a residential recovery program.
That this vindictive RFP should never have been issued is by now obvious to everyone. As a face-saving exercise, the current evaluation is an ill-fitting fig leaf. The sooner it’s completed, and Talbot House refunded and reopened, the better.
Community Services stripped of recovery centre oversight
In a tacit acknowledgement that Community Services bolloxed the crisis it brought on at Cape Breton’s Talbot House Recovery Centre, the province has stripped the department of responsibility for all five addiction recovery centres in Nova Scotia. From now on, provincial funding, service agreements, and oversight will fall under the Department of Health and Wellness.
Peterson-Rafuse
The decision comes just in time for Health to assume responsibility for evaluating a proposal from Talbot House to restore provincial funding it received as Cape Breton’s only addiction recovery centre. That avoids the sticky problem of having Community Services officials, with their demonstrated bias against Talbot, evaluate responses to the Request for Proposals Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse ordered last June in a spiteful escalation of her department’s battle with the respected, 53-year-old treatment centre.
That’s all well and good. There is no reason to believe Health and Wellness can’t manage provincial funding of recovery centres professionally and fairly. But there remains the glaring need for a top-to-bottom investigation of the Department of Community Services. Its assault on Talbot was simply too reckless and too vindictive to let pass unexamined. There is ample evidence from other cases that imperious bullying of clients and client organizations has become standard operating procedure at Community Services.
If a government led by the New Democratic Party, which has criticized Community Services for decades, won’t undertake this long overdue review, who will?
Talbot House grad
Former Talbot House resident Greg Carter writes:
I’m writing in response to the department of community services’ refusal to meet with the board and at least let them reopen. After all, the allegations against Fr. Paul Abbass were unfounded and in my opinion malicious. I spent 18 months at talbot house and never once felt or saw any inappropriate behaivior on any of the staff’s part. The staff and Fr. Paul always acted with professionalism and care for the residents. Once my stay was over, I was able to come out to the house for a little work during the back shift, which was very beneficial to my recovery. The closing of the house should have never happened, and so it should be reopened immediately.
Scorched earth for Cape Breton addicts
On Wednesday, the Department of Community Services made good on Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse’s vindictive plan to issue a request for proposals (RFP) to replace the residential addiction treatment services so ably provided by the Talbot House Recovery Centre for the last half century.
Those services came screeching to a halt last February, after a biased and incompetent “organizational review” by the department’s director of family and youth services, Marika Lathem, lent temporary credence to what turned out to be false charges of sexual misconduct against the home’s executive director.
Peterson-Rafuse and her officials are variously quoted as saying the Talbot House Society is welcome to respond to the RFP, or she has not ruled out allowing them to apply.
You can download the RFP here. My very quick read this evening suggests it contains poisoned pills that may make it incompatible with the Talbot Society’s philosophical approach to recovery, and easy for a hostile departmental review team to rationalize rejecting any Talbot bid.
The person in charge of that team? None other than Marika Lathem, principal author of the incompetent and biased review that brought on this debacle. This brazen conflict of interest compromises the hard-won integrity of Nova Scotia’s procurement system, and ought to concern those in charge of that system.
It’s hard to imagine who else might bid on this RFP. No existing Cape Breton organization seems likely, but the canny strategists at DCS are not likely to have issued the tender call without assurances someone other than Talbot would apply. The smart money is that Lathem has cajoled one of the four existing recovery centres on the mainland into opening a branch plant in Cape Breton.
That’ll go over well in Scotchtown and Florence.
Prominent New Democrat denounces Peterson-Rafuse
Sydney Mines native John Hugh Edwards is a life-long New Democrat, the kind of party stalwart who mans phones during election campaigns, works polls on voting day, and faithfully attends NDP rallies and conventions. Twice, the longtime St. Francis Xavier extension worker ran as the party’s federal candidate in Cape Breton – The Sydneys, mounting a respectable challenge to Liberal MP Mark Eyking.
Don’t miss his letter to the Cape Breton Post about Community Services Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse’s treatment of Talbot House:
For decades, the staff and volunteers at Talbot House have provided Cape Breton with incredible service to those among us who have suffered from the ravages of addiction. Now it appears that the good work of these dedicated people, and the legacy of many years of service to our community, are to be thrown aside because of little more than false allegations, innuendo, and a tissue of technical and picayune complaints by nameless bureaucrats.
Before leaving home for work opportunities in Ottawa five years ago, I had the privilege to assist, in a small way, with Talbot House’s work. Through this direct experience, I can attest to the dedication and commitment of the executive director, the staff, the residents and the volunteers.
During more than 30 years of working with non-profit and community service organizations, I have rarely seen the level of commitment to service and recovery I found at Talbot House.
For the staff and board members of Talbot House to be subjected to the assault and vilification they have suffered at the hands of the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services is a travesty of the first order.
To add insult to injury, the behaviour of the current minister of community services in supporting the unsupportable organizational review is incomprehensible.
I have read the review, and my years of professional experience in organizational development tell me that aside from allegations that have since been proven false, it contains no substantial issues that could not be resolved by simple and direct communication between the board and the department.
We have not been able to read the board’s response* to the review since the Department of Community Services has refused to post it. More shameful behaviour. Further to the minister’s discredit, she appears to have reneged on commitments she made to the board in June.
I suggest the only fair resolution to this sad affair would include restoration of the mandate and funding for Talbot House; publication on the government website of Talbot House’s response to the organizational review; a public apology from the minister of community services to the executive director, staff, board, and residents of Talbot House; and a full and open inquiry into the behaviour of the Department of Community Services throughout this shameful episode.
Those steps would not only satisfy the injustice to Talbot House, but also assure other community-based organizations in Cape Breton and throughout Nova Scotia they will not be subjected to the same kind of treatment from the Department of Community Services.
I agree that the only fair resolution to this disgraceful episode is a thorough, scrupulously independent investigation of this department. Peterson-Rafuse has lately been crowing about how many volunteer boards and charitable community groups her department has subjected to “organizational reviews.” Well, if it’s sauce for all those goslings, how about some sauce for this smug, complacent goose?
Where are the other New Democrats who campaigned for decades to hold the Department of Community Services to account? How can they remain silent in the face of this behavior? Are they really satisfied to see such cruel, senseless treatment of a valued community organization by the first New Democratic government in Nova Scotia?
* Peterson-Rafuse’s department hasn’t have the integrity to publish the Talbot Board’s devastating response, which exposes the false allegations, factual errors, and bias that pervade her department’s own report on this issue, but you can download it from Contrarian [pdf].
[Disclosure: John Hugh is a longtime neighbour and valued friend. We were briefly business partners a decade ago. He now lives most of the year in Ottawa, and to the best of my recollection, we have n deveriscussed this issue.]
Save Talbot House, a Facebook page started by distraught former residents of Talbot House, has attracted 2,000 members in less that a week. There is also an online petition.
Talbot House responds to Peterson-Rafuse’s about-face
The background:
- On June 11, Community Services Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse agreed to suspend her department’s tender call to replace the addiction services formerly provided by Cape Breton’s Talbot House Recovery Centre, and pledged to personally lead direct negotiations with Talbot’s board for a new contract to deliver those services.
- Just 25 days later, without holding a single meeting with the board, Peterson-Rafuse told Talbot House she would not meet with them after all, and would instead proceed with the tender call.
Talbot’s board chair, Sydney psychologist John Gainer, issued the following statement Wednesday:
The Board of Directors of Talbot House was informed in a letter dated July 6, 2012, that the Minister of Community Services has withdrawn from further independent discussion with the Board and will issue a general request for proposals for an addiction recovery house in Cape Breton.
Gainer
Following what seemed to be a productive meeting in early June, the Board of Director’s was optimistic and eager to continue discussion with the Minister regarding the re-establishment of a service agreement between the Department of Community Services and the Talbot House Board.
The Minister agreed to review the report of the organizational review of Talbot House and the Board’s detailed and critical response. The Minister also agreed to meet regularly and directly with the Board to continue discussion. The Board agreed to provide additional documentation to the Minister in advance of subsequent meetings.
A follow-up meeting was never scheduled, due to the Minister’s and the Board members’ respective work and travel schedules in June and early July. On June 21, 2012 the Board requested available meeting dates from the Minister and informed her that she would be provided with all relevant information well in advance of the next meeting, including a detailed outline of the Board’s plans to establish compliance with Department of Community Services standards.
In the July 6, 2012 letter to the Board and in subsequent email correspondence, the Minister indicated that the Board had “failed” to “immediately” send her requested information, despite there being no agreed upon or specific deadline for the submission of documents.
The Board had also requested that the Minister send policy and governance documents from the other recovery houses in the province for the Board’s review. The Department of Community Services had indicated that the other facilities met or exceeded all government standards and the Board hoped to use the documents as government-approved templates. To date, the Board has received neither documents nor response on this matter from the Department of Community Services.
The Minister has indicated that she “stand(s) by” the organizational review and believes it “followed the standard and appropriate processes.” The Board of Directors of Talbot House maintains that both the review process and report remain fundamentally flawed. The Board has requested that the Minister publish the Board’s written response on our government’s website. There has been no response.
Peterson-Rafuse reneges
For four months this spring, Community Services Minister Denise-Peterson Rafuse blindly defended her department’s slandering of an innocent priest, and its incompetent intervention into the operation of Talbot House, a much-admired, 53-year-old community-built addiction recovery center forced to close after the department engineered the removal of its executive director on specious grounds.
Then in June, when she finally deigned to meet with the Cape Breton institution’s board of directors, she had a momentary and welcome change of heart. As I wrote then:
Contrary to expectations expressed here Monday, today’s meeting between Community Services Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse and the Directors of Talbot House brought the two sides closer together, and may lead to the reopening of Talbot House under the leadership of a vindicated Fr. Paul Abbass.
Peterson-Rafuse, persistently criticized here over the last two months, took a crucial step back from the brink. For now at least, she has cancelled her department’s plan to issue a tender for the addiction recovery services formerly provided by Talbot House. The two sides will negotiate terms for Talbot’s reopening with government funding. The Cape Breton Post’s Julie Collins has the optimistic details.
It didn’t take long for the department’s bureaucrats to whip this weak minister back into line. Contrary to her promise, she held no further meetings with the Talbot Board. As further proof that her word counts for nothing, the department today told the Cape Breton Post it would proceed with the RFP Petereson-Rafuse had promised to put on hold.
According to George Savoury, the department’s executive director for family and community support, there have been no further meetings with the Talbot House board, but the minister has looked into several of the issues raised in the report.
“That has been completed and we decided we will be proceeding with the RFP as was announced earlier,” he said. “We did send a letter to Talbot House advising them of our decision. Talbot House is very aware that they can apply, if interested.”…
“And we felt that a RFP would be an opportunity for an enhanced and improved service for individuals who needed this service in Cape Breton.”
As always, the department insists the Talbot House Society is “free to apply,” an empty bit of sanctimonious twaddle if ever there was one. Talbot House is history.
It will be interesting to see the if the department-imposed terms of reference make the use of methadone a mandatory part of the new addiction center’s treatment program. Deposed Executive Director Paul Abbass’s refusal to accept clients on methadone was a bone of contention for the methadone-pushing addiction professionals who anonymously defamed him in the department’s notoriously incompetent review.
This issue needs a thorough review by someone independent of the department. I am currently appealing to the NS Supreme Court over the department’s refusal to release documents that might shed light on the motives behind the department’s clumsy assault on Talbot House. Stay tuned.
Minister Peterson-Rafuse presses pause
Contrary to expectations expressed here Monday, today’s meeting between Community Services Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse and the Directors of Talbot House brought the two sides closer together, and may lead to the reopening of Talbot House under the leadership of a vindicated Fr. Paul Abbass.
Peterson-Rafuse, persistently criticized here over the last two months, took a crucial step back from the brink. For now at least, she has cancelled her department’s plan to issue a tender for the addiction recovery services formerly provided by Talbot House. The two sides will negotiate terms for Talbot’s reopening with government funding. The Cape Breton Post’s Julie Collins has the optimistic details.
Full credit to Peterson-Rafuse for directing the department’s about-face.
The meeting was closed to the media, and I don’t know what happened there. It seems reasonable to speculate that when the minister finally got in a room with someone other than her department’s senior officials, she discovered there was much she had not been told, and much of what she had been told was less than forthright. This likely extended beyond the complicated facts of the case to the calibre and heft of the Talbot directors her officials had treated with such disdain.
It’s not the first time. A year ago, the minister cancelled the department’s plans to implement a series of devastating cuts to medical benefits for Nova Scotians with disabilities. DCS officials planned to impose the cuts on the Friday before Canada Day weekend, without having consulted caregivers, operators of special needs homes, or the disabled residents themselves.
A media call alerted Peterson-Rafuse, who halted the cuts 24 hours before they were to take place. She later apologized to stakeholders and ordered two months of consultations before implementing a revised set of guidelines.
The Talbot affair could be a teaching moment for the NDP Government. Why was the minister not accurately briefed on both these operations? What does this say about the culture of the Department of Community Services? About its relationship to the clients it is ultimately supposed to serve, a group of Nova Scotians the NDP has long championed? What does it say about this department’s exercise of the deference civil servants are supposed to show ministers of government?
A brazenly self-serving exercise of bureaucratic power
Community Services Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse will finally sit down with the Talbot House board of directors Tuesday, but only after her department’s shrewd mandarins have pre-empted any actual purpose the meeting might serve.
The Talbot board asked for the session months ago, seeking a peaceful resolution to her department’s reckless assaults on the half-century-old, community-built addiction recovery center. Peterson-Rafuse readily agreed to the meeting in principle, then bobbed, weaved, and stalled until her officials rendered it meaningless.
First she couldn’t meet because the legislature was sitting. Then she postponed again, just long enough for the department to announce the RFP* it hopes will kill any chance of Talbot House reopening.
DCS announced the RFP to replace the services Talbot provided on the very day its bureaucrats gave the legislature’s Community Services Committee a selective and distorted account of events leading to Talbot’s closure, an account that depicted department functionaries as blameless for and even shocked at the sordid sequence of events.
When George Savoury, Executive Director of Family and Community Supports, emerged from that hearing, a reporter asked whether DCS had any mea culpa to offer.
“No,” he replied.
Another reporter asked what lessons the department had learned from the Talbot imbroglio.
“We will be, as a result of this experience, doing more frequent reviews,” Savoury said.
It was a brazenly self-serving conclusion. The DCS review of Talbot House is hardly a template anyone would want to replicate.
- It led to the closure of a valued community institution that had served some of Nova Scotia’s most tormented citizens.
- It promoted false allegations of sexual impropriety against an innocent man, the organization’s executive director, Fr. Paul Abbass.
- It based these allegations on vague hearsay from anonymous third parties—allegations for which police could find no basis in fact.
Even after an eight-week police review cleared Abbass, DCS saw fit to publish a report that repeated the sinister-sounding innuendo—still anonymous, and described in a manner so vague it would be impossible to refute, no matter how innocent the target.
Compounding the slander directed at Abbass, the DCS report contained additional inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and outright falsehoods. To cite but a few:
- It said the recovery house had no budget, when in fact, a budget was attached to its annual application for funding.
- It said the annual financial statements submitted by Talbot’s accounting firm were unsigned; in fact, they were signed.
- It criticized aspects of Talbot’s financial management in a manner so uncomprehending as to betray broad ignorance of not-for-profit accounting practices
- It complained that Talbot House had no formal orientation for new staff, when Talbot had not hired a new employee for six years.
Stripped of bias and errors, the report boiled down to a complaint that Talbot had been slow to implement personnel procedures such as job descriptions and performance reviews.
In short, DCS carried out a review and released a report that was slanderous, error-filled, and biased, yet the man in charge offered no apology, and proclaimed the only take-home to be that more frequent reviews are needed.
Meanwhile the minister responsible dithered and stonewalled long enough for her officials to render today’s meeting meaningless.
What a disgrace.
- – -
* An RFP is a request for proposals, the first step in a tendering process. DCS will request proposals to provide recovery center services in Cape Breton. The RFP will set forth the criteria the winning bidder must meet. The department will evaluate submissions and select a winner, who will then get government money to provide the very services Talbot House pioneered in Cape Breton on a volunteer basis 53 years ago. DCS has said Talbot House is free to compete for this tender, but I will be surprised if the criteria do not include features tacitly intended to exclude Talbot—such as a willingness to accept clients on Methadone, use of which is contrary to Talbot’s philosophy. If effect, the Talbot House Society is being forced to compete for the right to supply the service it pioneered.
The shuffle: big losses; missed opportunities
Wednesday’s smoothly orchestrated cabinet shuffle could not hide the central fact of the event: It is a big loss for the Dexter Government.
Graham Steele has been the strongest member of Darrell Dexter’s cabinet, turning in a sterling job at Finance while displaying a rare knack for speaking plainly, persuasively, and with conviction.
Bill Estabrooks’s departure likewise represents a big loss. He was the cabinet minister with the commonest touch, a popular, unpretentious man who did solid work putting systems in place for rational decision-making about road work. The province’s roadbuilding oligopoly was apoplectic over Estabrooks’s decision to set up a civil service paving plant, but taxpayers have already benefitted from sharper bidding in parts of the province where one contractor had buffaloed the competition.
Estabrooks was frank about the toll Parkinsons has taken on him; perhaps a more restful pace will slow its cruel progress. Steele was more coy about his reasons for leaving, insisting he has no job lined up but wants to chart a new, as yet undefined career course. The man most often touted as Dexter’s successor pointedly did not rule out an eventual return to elected office at the provincial or federal level.
As the only other minister approaching Steele’s stature, Maureen MacDonald is the logical choice to succeed him, but that leaves the important Health portfolio in the hands of rookie Dave Wilson, about whom I don’t know enough to venture a forecast.
Considering the number of under-performers who fill out the cabinet table, Wednesday’s shuffle was surprisingly minimalist. Several strong MLAs continue to languish on the back benches — Gary Burrill (Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley) and Clarrie MacKinnon (Pictou East) are two obvious examples — while Denise Peterson-Rafuse heads the list of ministers who have shown they are not up to the job.
Competence is only one of many factors that go into crafting a cabinet, and Darrell Dexter knows his caucus far better than I. But his continued willingness to countenance incompetence in a 12-member executive council is the most disquieting feature of his government.
