It took the nauseating death of George Floyd, at the hands of four policemen in Minneapolis, to ignite the political imagination of people everywhere, not just in the United States. Oppressed by the pandemic, people threw off their shackles, even risking the coronavirus, as they gathered in protest: Floyd’s death was unnecessary, but it was also one more “negative” too much.
And as
Canadians today engage in hand wringing at their own apparent complicit
“racism” and “discrimination” against visible minorities, Blacks, Indigenous,
Asians, and others, let us not forget there are minorities for whom
discrimination is not based on the colour of one’s skin.
I am not
talking about the LBGTQ community, some of whom may or may not be apparent: I
am talking about the mentally ill.
Mental illness does not discriminate against colour or gender
identity. It can affect anyone,
regardless of social position.
Consider
the example of Gerald Le Dain, a former Supreme Court of Canada Justice who in
1988 was pressured to resign within two weeks of his diagnosis of clinical
depression, after four years on the job.
Recent indications are that attitudes at Canada’s highest court have actually
changed since then, though no apology has been issued to Le Dain’s family, but
can you imagine the number of lesser mortals in Canada also afflicted by mental
illness who have been similarly dismissed from employment chances?
How can the
mentally ill look up to Canada’s highest court when others have followed its kind
of example? Historically discrimination
against the ill has tended towards the implicit – as opposed to explicit. Discrimination against a mind and its person
can be rather subtle. It still has its casualties.
This is a
good time to restore to Justice Le Dain’s family his full legacy, and to
recognize the societal harm done by stigmatizing the mentally ill, chronic or
otherwise. Right reason demands it.
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