Did you know that British Columbia’s handling of the “open” Riverview
review process has left the Tri-Cities in conflict where municipalities (in the
plural) are now pitched against the Kwikwetlem First Nations? Oddly – some may say
cynically - B.C. Housing gave minimal voice to the Indigenous peoples while refusing to
consider the City of Coquitlam’s wish for a restoration of a Mental Health
Admissions Hospital, pushing instead for its own idea that any new development
must “break even”.
It is difficult to walk a fine line between the interests of
two much neglected and often misunderstood minorities: the Indigenous peoples
and the mentally ill. Both groups have
been victims of condescension, prejudice and social evolutionism, considered
the necessary corrective. Both groups frequent
our jails and are prone to very high rates of suicide. And It should be noted
that there remains a very high proportion of Indigenous people (who are ill)
languishing in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side.
Likely they would have fared better – and we all as a society - if
Riverview had not closed down in the first place. And it would have kept people from going in
and out of jail.
The old prejudices of the past overturned by the currency of
post-colonialism, the economic value of native land - and the Canadian Charter
of Rights and Freedoms - give, I think, the Indigenous peoples an edge over the
mentally ill in terms of representation, at least in the Tri-Cities. And I
would like to invite the Kwikwetlem minority, rising in influence, to consider
the plight of another minority who are without the security of a specialized
hospital in this province.
The mentally ill are not the cultural oppressors of the
First Nations, nor can they be. Nonetheless they do expose of the ills of
society (for example the apparent excesses of capitalism)[1]
while the First Nations have been perceived to stand in the way of a certain
idea of Canadian nationhood. To some it
may seem commonplace, but given the provincial government’s lack of
understanding on the issue, maybe the Kwikwetlem First Nations also need a
certain reminding as they begin to assert their sovereignty: no one is immune
from mental illness. A restored Riverview Hospital is in everyone’s best
interest.
[1]
See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A
Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, tr. Brian Massumi
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994).
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