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Homicide attempt due to medication induced mania
No full textBipolar disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by fluctuations in mood, with depressive symptoms generally dominating the course of disorder. Research on the efficacy of serotonergic antidepressants in bipolar depression is controversial and as a result, treatment of depressive symptoms in bipolar disorder is difficult. A particularly difficult situation arises when bipolar disorder is unrecognized and the depressive state is treated as major depressive disorder with the use of serotonergic antidepressants, which can result in the phenomenon of antidepressant induced mania (AIM). In this report, we present a case of antidepressant induced mania (AIM) with homicidal ideation after initiation of serotonergic antidepressants. Here, we discuss the importance of monitoring for bipolar disorder after prescribing serotonergic antidepressant therapy as well as medico-legal considerations
Geriatric Emergency Care in Canada: Present and Future
No full textWith the growing senior population in Canada, geriatric emergency care becomes an emerging field of importance in medicine. This article will provide an overview to the current state of geriatric care in the emergency department (ED) in Canada by reviewing recent peer-reviewed literature. Although emergency medicine (EM) physicians have a series of sophisticated triage tools and algorithms, Canadian EM residents report feelings of ill-preparedness to treat geriatric patients in ED. High levels of burnout and frustration have been reported by EM staff including physicians and nurses regarding their attitudes towards elderly patients in the ED. The article concludes with several areas to focus on in order to improve geriatric EM in Canada, such as more efficient resource allocation, geriatric exposure in EM resident training, and room for respectful mutual decision-making between EM physicians and the elderly patient and their families
Perspectives des enseignants et des enseignantes en formation sur leur préparation à l’enseignement inclusif : implications pour des changements à apporter dans l’organisation de la formation des enseignants et des enseignantes:
No full textThis single case study examined the perspectives of 12 pre-service teachers in one Ontario teacher education program towards their preparation for inclusive teaching using Sensemaking theory as a theoretical framework. Semi-structured interviews as well as document analysis for inclusive education policies were conducted. The findings showed that pre-service teachers perceive inclusion as a collaborative policy practice that requires the possession of a positive mindset, respect towards all learners, and the necessary resources. Moreover, the findings suggest the need for the examined program to critically review its curricular structure in terms of how course designs and requirements would further support future teachers’ knowledge and practices around inclusive teaching. In addition, completing the field-based experience component under the supervision of inclusion-oriented associate teachers and in K-12 classrooms that exemplify students’ diversity was found crucial.Cette étude d’un cas unique a examiné les perspectives de 12 enseignants et enseignantes en formation inscrits dans un programme d’éducation en Ontario concernant leur préparation à l’enseignement inclusif dans lequel la théorie du Sensemaking (la prise de conscience) a été employée en tant que cadre théorique. Des entrevues semi-structurées ainsi que l’analyse de documents relatifs aux politiques d’enseignement inclusif ont été menées. Les résultats ont montré que les enseignants et les enseignantes en formation perçoivent l’inclusion comme une pratique de politique collaborative qui exige d’avoir un état d’esprit positif, du respect envers tous les apprenants et l’accès aux ressources adéquates. De plus, les résultats suggèrent qu’il est nécessaire de revoir de façon critique la structure de cours du programme examiné pour que la conception et les exigences du cours puissent améliorer davantage les connaissances et les pratiques des futurs enseignants et enseignantes en ce qui concerne l’enseignement inclusif. Par ailleurs, il a été constaté que le fait de compléter l’expérience sur le terrain sous la supervision d’enseignants et d’enseignantes formés à l’enseignement inclusif dans des salles de classe de la maternelle à la douzième année où la diversité des élèves est exemplifiée serait primordial
Status Quo Sorrows: The Failures of Energy Project Consultations and Reconciliatory Paths Forward
No full textCanada’s prevailing Aboriginal consultation regime for major energy projects is not working. Indeed, Indigenous peoples, industry proponents, and the Crown have all expressed increasing frustration and dismay at the uncertainty and acrimony that a legal regime intended to facilitate reconciliation between Canada and Indigenous peoples has counterproductively generated. In this paper, I describe the underlying principles of a process-oriented reconciliation that animate the Court’s jurisprudence on section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. I then identify the failures in effectively translating these principles to the major energy context, focusing in particular on the harms generated by the lack of accountability and transparency of the National Energy Board/Canada Energy Regulator administrative scheme. I finally consider two alternatives or additions to contemporary resource project consultations – namely, Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBAs) and a proposed Indigenous veto – finding that an Indigenous veto may be an especially effective means of introducing greater equity, fairness, and certainty to major energy project development in Canada, to the benefit of all relevant stakeholders
The COVID-19 Pandemic and Structural Barriers for Migrant Agricultural Workers in Ontario
No full textCOVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated many longstanding barriers and shortcomings in labour protections for migrant workers in Canada. This paper focuses on the situation of workers under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) in Ontario, demonstrating how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and greatly aggravated the already precarious conditions of migrant workers. It explores the employment, labour and immigration law frameworks that render SAWP workers particularly vulnerable to exploitation and harm, both during pandemic and non-pandemic times. While some government policy and legislative responses have sought to respond to the increased vulnerability of migrant agricultural workers to the virus, fundamental changes in both the immigration and labour spheres are necessary to fix the structural causes of migrant agricultural workers’ vulnerability.
This paper suggest that the pandemic has created not only an unprecedented urgency for systemic change, but also an unprecedented opportunity. Given the current broad shifts in public ideas about employment, health, and vulnerability, as well as mainstream public attention to the plight of migrant farm workers, I suggest that there is now an unprecedented space in Canadian public policy discourse to advance the urgently needed structural changes to protect the rights of migrant farm workers
Moralizing Hunger: Cultural Fatphobia and the Moral Language of Contemporary Diet Culture
No full textIn this paper I examine and analyze the moral language surrounding food and eating in contemporary diet culture. I look to three dieting subcultures - 'thinspiration' (or 'thinspo', the idolization of extreme thinness), 'fitspiration' ('fitspo', the idolization of 'fit, toned' bodies) and contemporary 'wellness' culture. I argue that the vocabularies of these three subcultures are on a continuum, in that their moralizing messages reflect and embody the same gendered and racialized social prohibitions, taboos, and normativity around food, eating, and bodies. All three dieting subcultures reflect and reproduce cultural fatphobia - the social and material discrimination against fat people, and the gendered and racialized ideology in which fat bodies are seen as threatening and cast as socially abject. I argue that thinspo, fitspo, and wellness subcultures emerge as spaces which recognize fat abjectness and provide their members with different strategies for managing or mitigating the social 'danger' of food and the risk of becoming fat and socially abject. I also argue that the different moral vocabularies these subcultures use to discuss food and eating reflect these different strategies.
Arguing that these three vocabularies are on a continuum with regards to the bodily and behavioral normativity they transmit is significant because while thinspo is popularly regarded as extreme and damaging, and while there is some popular critique of fitspo, mainstream ‘wellness’ culture receives much less popular critical scrutiny and is presently socially normalized. Seeing these rhetorics on a continuum enables us to see how the same social prohibitions and taboos against fatness (particularly against women's fatness) are just as operative in mainstream society as they are in ‘fringe’ spaces recognized as harmful.
 
A Review of Literature on the Involvement of Children from Indigenous Communities in Anglo Child Welfare Systems: 1973-2018
No full textA series of recent legal and policy developments in Canada have potential to contribute to reconciliation efforts, particularly related to the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in child welfare systems. However, systematic collection, analysis, and synthesis of research knowledge—particularly, research that is locally grounded—on Indigenous child welfare involvement is notably missing from these efforts. With the aim of collating existing research knowledge on this topic, this scoping review of literature includes a broad swath of literature spanning decades (1973-2018) and countries with similar settler colonial histories (Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand). Our search yielded 881 unique research publications. There was an increase in the number of publications over time in all four countries and a trend toward more empirical literature than non-empirical literature. We found that a plurality of publications focused on programs and services (n = 191), and policy or legal (n = 168) themes. While our review highlights a large base of literature on Indigenous child welfare involvement, it also illustrates the limits of the academic literature in representing the knowledge and experience of Indigenous Peoples and the need for more comprehensive synthesis and broader dissemination of the research related to Indigenous child welfare. These limitations restrict the extent to which existing research can inform the meaningful development of Indigenous child welfare policy in Canada. Due to these gaps, we advocate sustained investment in efforts to synthesize diverse sources of knowledge, support for open source publications, and structural support for Indigenous control of knowledge collection and dissemination regarding policy development related to their communities
Indigenous Governance Systems and Democracy in Ethiopia: Yejoka Qicha System of the Gurage People
No full textIndigenous governance systems within the Eastern African nation of Ethiopia are often dismissed by Western political elites as undemocratic. We assessed the nature of and level of democracy in Indigenous governance systems in Ethiopia by focusing on the Yejoka Qicha of the Gurage people. We found that, while the Yejoka Qicha system includes democratic elements that can support national efforts to consolidate democracy, it also marginalizes some groups, such as women, from political and economic benefits. As such, we recommend the implementation of policies that eliminate the oppressive aspects of the Yejoka Qicha system, while also recognizing the role that these Indigenous governance systems can have in promoting democracy within Ethiopia.
Truth, Fact, and Uncertainty in Docufiction
No full textThe primary goal of docufiction is to inform and clarify some aspect of the world that isworth noting. However, the interaction between documentary and narrative components indocufiction films creates a unique relationship between the viewer, the film, and reality. Sincedocufictions make no claim to complete accuracy and even emphasize the constructed nature oftheir images, viewers are left in a state of uncertainty as to what is “real” and what is “fiction,”with some works going so far as to suggest that there is no particularly meaningful distinctionbetween the two. This ambiguity forces viewers to be actively involved in the process ofinterpreting the film by drawing on their knowledge of both documentary and narrative forms,allowing for greater subtlety on the part of the director. The interplay between these modescreates a state of uncertainty, allowing docufictions to create an experience that goes beyond thereal to communicate lived experiences and abstract concepts that would otherwise beinaccessible
‘Je me souviens’: Negotiating Quebec National History through the Family Melodrama
No full textThis paper will explore how two Canadian films, Mon Oncle Antoine (Jutra 1971) and Le Confessionnal (Lepage 1995), adapt the family melodrama as a cinematic space to negotiate the traumas of Quebec history and the formulation of a national identity. Both films emphasize a dialectic relationship between the past and the present, presenting an image of Quebec that is haunted by its national past. In addition, both films present visions of a Quebec that link the coming of modernity to a secularized province, as Quebec works to negotiate its tumultuous relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. Drawing on Australian film scholar Tom O’Regan, who proposes “national cinemas film-makers indigenize genres, artistic movements and influences”, I will explore how both Mon oncle Antoine and Le Confessionnal transform Hollywood conventions of the family melodrama to tell uniquely Canadian stories, specifically by negotiating a Quebec national identity (1). As American film scholar Rick Altman acknowledges, “the notion of genre parallels that of nation” (86). Much like film genres, which are characterized by their mutability and hybrid nature, the nation too is characterized by its constantly changing state. Drawing on O’Regan’s statement, this paper will explore how québécois filmmakers have utilized the cinema as a space to differentiate a specific québécois sensibility that is distinct from Anglophone cinematic conventions. It is through this indigenization of film genre that Jutra and Lepage’s deviation from conventions of the family melodrama marks a “difference in repetition [that] is complicated by a desire to communicate national and cultural differences to the dominant Hollywood cinema” (Gittings 113)