ON GRATITUDE AND MENTAL HEALTH

ON GRATITUDE AND MENTAL HEALTH

This  was written as a message to the staff of the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

As I reflect on my tenure with the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC), I want to share some thoughts on the meaning of words – actually, of just one word: gratitude.

As parents, we teach our children that words matter.  As we ready them for the playground or the classroom for the first time, we share some of the lessons we learned about words. For example, we tell them that angry words hurt, and caring words heal.

Of course, we share some of the lessons with them, but not all the lessons.

We don’t tell our children to beware the sting of fulsome flattery or the habit of spreading words like a coat of cheap paint over the cracks in our lives. We don’t tell our children because we know those are lessons for another time — lessons they have to learn on their own, just as we have.

And what parent hasn’t told their children to be grateful?

“Be grateful for the broccoli on your plate — you could be having liver and onions”!

Reflecting on the meaning of gratitude reminded me of a Quebecois expression that sums up this word exquisitely: Quand je me regarde je me désole, quand je me compare je me console. When I look at myself, I feel sorry, when I compare myself [to others], I feel better.

Life teaches us that gratitude is often a very relative, broccoli vs. liver and onions proposition.

But sometimes, life gives us something to be grateful for in the absolute: our children, a loving partner, our health. I am grateful for all of those, and now I am grateful for one more thing: having had the opportunity to work at the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

My gratitude stems from having experienced firsthand that which truly sets MHCC apart from any other organization I have worked for and with: the space it provides for real talk about personal mental health.

Never before have I worked in an environment where it was ok to be vulnerable; where it was ok to speak up about one’s struggles. Never before have I worked in an environment where colleagues proactively reached out to check-in with you, and with whom you could talk about the stressors in your life without fear of judgment or retribution.

As someone who has struggled with mental health issues since high school but had been afraid to acknowledge them until a very few years ago, working in an environment where it is ok not to be ok has been liberating; starting to shed the cloak of self stigma has been transformative and healing.

For that I am grateful.

PASSENGER RIGHTS TURBULENCE PREDICTABLE

PASSENGER RIGHTS TURBULENCE PREDICTABLE

When Canada’s air passenger rights regime was announced last May, Transport Minister Marc Garneau called the new rules “world leading”, but recent confusion and consumer frustration around what the rules actually cover suggest that the minister’s self-congratulations might have been premature.

In a move reminiscent of a building contractor who tells a dissatisfied customer to take it to the Better Business Bureau,  the Transport minister’s response to the growing confusion and frustration has been to advise travellers “who feel that they did not get an adequate response,” to complain to the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA). Transport Minister Marc Garneau

A   CBC report  of passengers being denied compensation for delayed or cancelled flights prompted Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) spokesperson Ian Jack to comment, “If the [passenger rights] system were working properly, people wouldn’t be feeling this level of frustration”.

But Mr. Jack should not have been surprised by the turbulence hitting the government’s passenger rights regulations. It was totally predictable; the result of a rushed process designed to meet a political timetable and agenda — in this case, last fall’s federal election.

In representations made last year to the CTA, to whom the minister had given responsibility for drafting the regulations, the National Airlines Council of Canada (NACC) warned that the government’s rush to regulate passenger rights by July 1, 2019 would  produce “rules that reduce[d] consumer protection and convenience through higher fares, reduced service, and market confusion”.

While the government ultimately agreed to delay implementation of the more complex elements of the new rules by five months, this was not nearly enough time for airlines to train thousands of staff and roll out new systems.

NACC had cautioned that the draft regulations not only lacked the clarity needed by airlines to translate them into day-to-day commercial practices but they were often at odds with global airline operating realities. In practice this meant that implementation would be more difficult because of new airline systems and procedures that would be required.

Pointing to troubling parallels with the government’s disastrous rush to implement Phoenix, its still-not-functioning payroll system, NACC urged the minister  to delay implementation in order to give the CTA time to get the new rules right and industry time to ramp up.

As much as Marc Garneau might want to deflect consumer dissatisfaction by getting unhappy travellers to complain to the CTA, coming from the minister who rejected repeated industry warnings and who justified the regulations by saying they were needed to make air carriers treat their “passengers like people and not numbers”,  this advice, like his regulations, falls well short of the mark.