Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien repeatedly accused mayoral candidate Jim Watson of being a big-city career politician during a televised debate Tuesday night at the National Arts Centre.

O’Brien went on the offensive after Watson criticized his plans to extend Ottawa’s urban boundary by building a ring-road through the city’s Greenbelt.

“Thank you, Mr. Watson. You’re no longer in Toronto,” he said, alluding to his rival’s former role as Ontario cabinet minister. “The idea that we can make a decision and cut roads is absolutely impossible to implement in a city this big.”

O’Brien defended the ring-road as part of a “unique” transportation plan that includes mass transit, light rail, cars and bicycles. He said that the road would be beneficial and suitable for Ottawa’s car culture, reiterating his oft-repeated statement that personal vehicles are essential “in a city that’s half the size of P.E.I.”

But Watson countered that “the farther we go out and the farther we extend the urban boundary, the more expensive it is and the worse off the environment is.” Instead, he emphasized the need for a “balanced approach” that focused on intensification and public transit.

Although the two leading candidates both support city council’s $2.1 billion plan for light rail, Watson has previously said it is contradictory for O’Brien to back the transit initiative and propose a new ring-road.

“I think one of the tell-tale signs of Mr. O’Brien’s commitment to the environment was in his opening speech when he said, quote, ‘I want to work to make Ottawa an auto-friendly place to live,’” he said in an environmentally-themed mayoral debate last Sunday, referring to a speech O’Brien made in September.

Their heated exchange happened during the environmental portion of Tuesday’s debate, which also touched on four other topics: transportation, governance, arts and culture, and a forward-looking section called “Imagine the Future.”

Aimed at youth voters, the 90-minute bilingual debate allowed viewers to interact with mayoral candidates through online platforms. Participants could upload their questions onto YouTube or submit them via Twitter.

Rosemary Thompson, the NAC’s director of communications, described the debate as the first of its kind in Ottawa: “I think we’re going to make a little bit of history tonight,” she said.

The lively debate also made a little bit of trouble among the top four participating mayoral contenders, which included city councillor Clive Doucet and Andrew Haydon, a former mayor of Nepean.

Although moderator Sheila Copps reminded the candidates to “keep it civilized,” the event was marked by moments of tension between Watson and O’Brien with Haydon often caught in the middle. Seated between the two leading candidates and caught between their bickering, Haydon yelled “Help!” at one point during the environmental “free-for-all” when candidates had the opportunity to refute their competitors’ comments.

Another big surprise of the night was the interruption by candidate Jane Scharf who protested her inability to participate in the debate. As the discussion turned to governance issues, Scharf climbed onto the stage where her four competitors sat.

“This is a public institution,” she said while facing the cameras and live audience. “It is not fair or reasonable.”

In response, Doucet gave up his seat, allowing Scharf to share her views for nearly 15 minutes.

Earlier in the evening, Scharf was protesting outside the NAC along with Carleton University journalism student Charlie Taylor, another mayoral candidate.

Organized by the Institute on Governance, the NAC and Ottawa blog Apartment613, the debate was broadcast on Rogers TV.

Such real estate development is an example of a winning approach to crime reduction, explains Rideau-Vanier Coun. Georges Bédard.

“We have encouraged urban development, especially on Rideau Street,” he said.

“The more people there are in an area, the less crime there is normally, because criminals look for places where they won’t be disturbed in their work.”

Bédard, the incumbent in the upcoming municipal elections, is also a strong supporter of an increase in police patrol time – something the Ottawa Police Services Board recommends in its 2010-2012 business plan.

But contender Andrew Nellis sees this as an attempt to drive poor people out of the ward. He says police resources should not be used to further marginalize the homeless.

“I believe that the police should be given more money. But the money should be to hire nurses and psychiatric professionals, who should be out on every single [police] patrol,” he said.

“A lot of the problems the police are dealing with are more easily solved through social work than they are with a hammer.”

Advocating for the homeless is what pushed Nellis to run for council. In his civilian life, he’s the spokesperson for the Ottawa Panhandlers Union.

Social development is a particularly important issue in Rideau-Vanier. With a median, after-tax family income of $50,393 in 2005, the ward ranked as the poorest in Ottawa. Citywide, the median family income was $72,433 in the same time period.

Bédard agrees it’s trivial to enforce bylaws against homeless people, recognizing that they don’t have money to pay fines.

But he contends social services alone won’t get people off the streets either. That’s why, in contrast to Nellis’s approach, he thinks a hammer should be used – to build more affordable housing.

“Providing more services to homeless people won’t help them, because they [don’t have a permanent address],” he said, speaking in French – the ward has an important francophone population.

“It is difficult to provide them services when they don’t have a place to stay. We need to find them housing and then provide them services in their housing.”

But in the context of a cash-strapped city, federal and provincial governments need to foot their share of the bill, Bédard says.

Asking upper levels of government for help in tackling poverty and homelessness is also something another major candidate in the ward suggests.

“The city could invest [money from the provincial government] to come up with a comprehensive strategy of social development in Ottawa,” said Mathieu Fleury between sips of coffee.

The 25-year-old thinks he has a good chance of winning against Bédard. The latter won by a narrow 203 votes against his main opponent in the 2006 elections.

While many could see his age as a sign of his lack of experience, Fleury believes his involvement in the community puts him in a perfect position to address local issues.

Like Bédard, he sees social housing as a key factor in reducing homelessness, but says strategies to prevent crime and poverty should go further.

His proposal: Invest in youth – the city’s future driving force.

“Young people nowadays are in school 20 per cent of the week. The other 80 per cent of their life is a critical moment,” he said.

“We have to make sure that during this 80 per cent, there is a form of education – be it physical, moral, civil – to show these young people the path and the advance of an individual in our society.”

Fleury suggests the creation of municipal drop-in points where youth could seek the services they need. For instance, they could request access to a soccer field or ask for help doing homework.

Nellis does not have as many concrete proposals as his opponents to reduce criminality and poverty in Rideau-Vanier. He instead sees the role of a city councillor as one of community organizer. If he’s elected, he says, he plans to bring together the community members who have a stake in a given issue and work with them towards a consensual solution. He hopes to apply this approach to most of the city’s administration.

“Councillors are not qualified to be voting on the things that they are currently voting on,” he said, barely hiding his bitterness towards the current city council.

Now he’s fronting a major political protest, along with fellow political science student Jesse Root.

“We wouldn’t know each other if it weren’t for prorogation,” said Hill last week as he and Root plotted their strategy to organize a rally condemning Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s prorogation of Parliament until March.

Soon after Harper’s decision on Dec. 30, tens of thousands of Canadians expressed their disapproval via a Facebook group, Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, set up by Chris White, a University of Alberta student.

Pundits whose formative years were pre-internet were quick to question the significance of this cheap and easy method of protest.

But Hill and Root didn’t stop at clicking “join group.” They reached out over Facebook, found each other, and called a public meeting to organize the Ottawa version of a planned cross-country rally set for Jan. 23, two days before Parliament was to resume sitting.

They said their movement is non-partisan and disavowed ties to any political party.

Hill said people of all political stripes, or none, are coming together for a cause above partisanship.

“One of the basic features of Canadian democracy is the principle of responsible government,” he said, invoking a term many Canadians will remember from middle school. “The government is responsible to the (House of Commons), and the House is in turn responsible to the people.”

“If there is no Parliament, there will be no accountability.”

Hill predicted attendance of about 20 for last Friday’s planning meeting. About 100 people turned up for the discussion in a common area at the University of Ottawa.

The start of the meeting was delayed while Hill and Root posed for pictures in a corner, sudden media stars.

Root struggled to keep the assembled company on track. It was a bit of a ragtag band, with at least half announcing their affiliation to the Green Party, NDP, or an assortment of unions and left-wing groups. If these were the grassroots, they were more wild meadow than manicured lawn.

One admitted Conservative voter was in attendance.

“I don’t like what I see as an abuse of our democratic process by Stephen Harper’s government,” lamented Brian Harding, who assumed a leading role in the discussions.

Though a bit nervous, Jesse Root made it through all the questions, comments and non-sequiturs, sending his unexpectedly large crowd off to “breakout groups” of their choice to discuss specific aspects of planning the rally. He was still in control.

There were some axes being ground in the breakout groups along with more practical discussions. Root surveyed the scene, listening politely to a woman with a red star on her beret explain in great detail the song she’d composed for the movement. A lone volunteer marched around the room, trying to drum up some helpers for the fundraising group.

Root was clearly too elated to dwell on these democratic imperfections.

“It’s just really great to see everyone putting their individual talents to work for this great cause.”

Here are some photos The Graph Newsmagazine’s Jean-Sébastien Marier took minutes ago while grieving police officers walked in memory of their colleague.

(Jean-Sébastien Marier/Graph News)

Wangari Maathai. Portrait by Martin Rowe

She started a movement that has so far planted 40 million trees in her native land. She’s been to jail for her activism. She’s won the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, at the Copenhagen climate talks, Wangari Muta Maathai accepted her new status as the twelfth UN Messenger for Peace.

“I will give my all to ensure that I succeed in this mandate,” the Kenya native said to an applauding audience.

But more than anything, Maathai showed the world what a crucial role women play in the climate change debate.

On average, women and girls in developing countries walk 6 km a day, carrying 20 litres of water, according to UNICEF. This extra burden takes time that could otherwise be spent studying or earning money. Droughts caused by global warming will force these women to walk farther, eating even more time out of their days.

The world’s poor already face catastrophe from climate change, as they have no back-up plan when droughts and floods ruin their land. For women in particular, matters are worse. They make up 70 per cent of the world’s poor, and they suffer for every minute of abnormal weather.

“Climate change is not just a future threat. It’s a current catastrophe in many poor countries and women are bearing the burden of this,” said Mark Fried, policy coordinator at Oxfam Canada.

“They grow most of the food, they find the water and the fuel,” said Fried, and these activities will become much more difficult in a harshening climate.

Oxfam and a host of other humanitarian groups hope for two outcomes at the Copenhagen climate change conference, beyond the obvious desire that countries reduce carbon emissions.

First on the list is that rich countries fund poor ones “so communities can adapt to climate changes that are already happening and are inevitable,” said Fried.

Environmental organizations in developing countries could use the money. The 40 million trees Maathai and her Green Belt Movement have planted across Africa since 1977 absorb carbon and restore fertile land, and members ache to plant more.

Second, groups want the legal documents that emerge from Copenhagen to mention gender explicitly.

“It can be as simple as inserting the word ‘gender’ in there,” said Fried.

“If there is something explicit in the international treaty that says ‘women should benefit from adaptation financing’ or ‘women have a part of the solution to climate change’ or ‘countries agree to take into account the differential impact on men and women of climate change,’ then these are tools that activists can use to oblige more favourable policies from their governments.”

Thanks to the diligent work of activists worldwide, those words may make it in. This morning, seven mentions of “gender” and “women” adorned the latest draft text.

“We were pretty excited this morning to see all the gender language that’s still in there,” said Cate Owren Tuesday in Copenhagen. She coordinates advocacy for the Global Gender and Climate Alliance, a conglomeration of 13 UN agencies and almost 30 civil society organizations from around the world.

The alliance, founded in 2007 with the Copenhagen conference in mind, has worked tirelessly to make climate negotiating teams aware of how important gender is. Now it scrutinizes every change to the draft text for gender issues.

“We’ve re-drafted our recommendation documents pretty much every couple of hours,” said Owren.

Though Copenhagen’s final outcome may look nothing like the drafts, Owren doubts all the progress toward gender equality will be erased because so many negotiators now know that women are a necessary part of the agreement.

More urgently, countries may not reach an agreement at all. Monday morning several African delegates boycotted the talks as poor countries criticized rich ones for refusing to take responsibility for their emissions.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and British prime minister Gordon Brown landed in Denmark Tuesday, leading the crowd of at least 120 world leaders who have promised to douse fires and steer through the final stretch of the conference, which ends Friday.

Each delegate or organization has its own views on whether the leaders will agree on anything.

“We’re cautiously optimistic,” Owren said, nursing a sore throat as she boarded a train to the next proceedings.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty mused last month that costs for the new Tunney’s Pasture-to-Blair Road project were getting out of hand, having risen to $2.1 billion from $1.4 billion. That threw up another red flag in Ottawa’s long-running light rail saga, since the city is counting on the province to kick in a third the project’s cost, along with another third from the federal government.

The only clear way to save a sizeable chunk of money is to ditch the downtown tunnel portion, which likely means reverting to the idea of running trains on either Albert Street or Slater Street, or both. That’s the plan that was summarily dumped in 2006 by the newly elected city council and Mayor Larry O’Brien, costing the city about $100 million in wasted expenditures and penalties for breaching a contract.

Coun. Alex Cullen, the transit committee chair, hated the old plan, and says businesses on Albert and Slater that would have lost parking and front delivery access hated it too. “It was a trolley car,” says Cullen – not real rapid transit in his estimation. He thought it would do little to ease the congestion wrought by up to 185 buses choking the corridor at peak times.

But according to Dennis Gratton, an urban planner and Senior Project Manager at the City of Ottawa, the 2006 plan was a “very viable” cheaper option to a tunnel. It would have worked for about 15 to 20 years before a tunnel was needed. Surface light rail can move close to the speed of underground trains to a certain capacity.

These days, though, council wants to build a tunnel first, a decision Gratton says came from new data showing more people than expected commuting downtown and using the Transitway bus routes on Albert and Slater. “The tunnel really seemed to be best option not just for the short term but for the long term, for something we can keep using for 100 to 150 years,” says Gratton. Ottawa has big plans for expansion of the system over time, so the thinking at city hall is to do the full job to begin with, rather than going with the interim solution above ground.

“If you’ve got enough money to do the full job and build a tunnel, well, why not?” Neil McKendrick says this with the joking tone of a guy who’s been in the business a long time and knows there’s never enough money. He is the Manager of Transit Planning with the Calgary Transit System, but also has an Ottawa connection. Before Calgary he was at the former Gloucester Township – now amalgamated into Ottawa – and worked on laying out the Transitway rapid bus system before heading west in 1980 to work on their C-Train.

McKendrick wears his bare-bones, incremental approach to expanding light rail like a badge of honour, and gives presentations across North America – including Ottawa – about the Calgary approach.

McKendrick tells how in a sprawling, car-oriented city, transit planners had to constantly prove their light rail system was worth further investments. “We focused on spending money on things that were going to generate ridership.” A whole downtown street was closed to traffic and turned into a dedicated “transit mall.” Two lines – making what will soon be a rough “X” across the city – converge in the mall. Trains are timed to hit all the green lights and only stop at their stations. Normal traffic flow on cross-streets isn’t affected, and Alex Cullen’s fear that trains downtown in Ottawa would cause congestion doesn’t exist in Calgary.

“We at the time recognized that to build a tunnel with the funds that were available, we wouldn’t have had a system that went very far,” says McKendrick on the transit mall. “We would have ended up with a lot of money sunk into underground stations and very little money providing service.” Compare that to Edmonton, which built a downtown tunnel early on. “They ended up with one line,” says McKendrick.

In Calgary, investing minimally in the downtown core with simple outdoor platforms meant more funds for expanding the system across the city. That meant more support for the system, which meant more money, which meant even more service.

Within 15 to 20 years, Calgary will also need a subway. Increased ridership on the two rail lines will overcome the transit mall’s capacity. Even then, Calgary plans to keep costs down where possible. Only one line will move underground while the other stays above. McKendrick explains that from a technical standpoint this is much easier than having trains from different lines converge together in the tunnel, as Ottawa intends to happen eventually.

McKendrick says “there are some pretty good people in Ottawa” working on light rail and he respects the conclusions they’ve reached. He just points with pride to his own system, which has top ridership among similar systems in North America for the lowest cost. And while Gratton says Ottawa is still working to reach a target of having 30% of commuters going downtown via transit, Calgary boasts 42% using its train to get to work downtown, and they’ll run a tunnel-free system for another 15 years.

Edmonton, for its part, is finally expanding its light rail system but projects its downtown tunnel will actually run out of capacity, forcing some routes to operate above ground.

Dennis Gratton warns that comparing cities is “never apples to apples.” For one thing, Ottawa in 2009 isn’t Edmonton and Calgary of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they opened their light rail systems to build on existing local bus service. Ottawa’s Transitway could be considered comparable to a light rail system.

And while McKendrick in Calgary had to carefully entice riders to justify expanding his system, Ottawa doesn’t seem to be hurting for riders – too many people using the downtown Transitway on Albert and Slater is the problem.

But whether or not funds will come through for the tunnel project remains to be seen. It’s slated to finish in 2017. How to pay for it or something to replace it will have to be worked out soon. So many buses will be needed downtown by 2018 that Gratton predicts a “system failure” of the status quo.

Although Viola Wun is aware that contracting H1N1 “is very dangerous to the body,” she has no plans to take the vaccine that combats the pandemic flu virus.

“I will not take the shot,” she said, speaking in Cantonese over the phone. “I have never taken any [flu shots] before.”

Wun, a vibrant 61-year-old woman, said she does not need the vaccine because she maintains a healthy and active lifestyle. As an avid ballroom dance enthusiast, Wun takes weekly classes at Toronto’s St. Paul’s L’Amoreaux Centre for exercise and personal enjoyment. Wun is also a stickler for hygiene, washing her hands frequently. “I take care of myself,” she said.

But getting the vaccine may be the most effective means of curbing the spread of H1N1, according to Canada’s chief public health officer. In a press release Wednesday, Dr. David Butler-Jones encouraged “all Canadians” to get the flu shot when it becomes available in their provinces and territories.

Following the announcement that Health Canada had approved H1N1 vaccines for use in the country, the federal government is preparing to roll out its largest-ever nation-wide immunization campaign.

In addition to launching an H1N1 preparedness guide last week, the Public Health Agency of Canada will broadcast radio ads and mail information pamphlets about flu symptoms to households across the country. But at a parliamentary health committee meeting Wednesday evening, the agency’s director general of communications, Elaine Chatigny, admits the agency has “primarily focused on making all of [its] information bilingual—English and French.”

Tim Uppal, a Conservative MP who attended the meeting, brought up the question of “[an H1N1] plan for new Canadians” who speak neither of Canada’s two official languages.

“I think definitely there are some cultural [and language] barriers,” he said. “So there needs to be a way for [people from ethnic communities] to get the same information that everybody else is getting because it’s information that’s going to give [them] confidence in this vaccine, [and] gets [them] washing their hands and sneezing into their sleeves.”

In response, Chatigny said it is up to the municipal and provincial governments to ensure ethnic groups are getting access to H1N1 information, as the federal government is “not on the ground with these communities.” Local governments, she said, “know where their communities are at [and] how they like to receive information, so it’s much more tailored and much more pertinent.”

She said the agency ensures “a coherency of messages by working collaboratively with provinces and territories,” citing Ontario and British Columbia as examples of places that “have translated virtually all of their social marketing products in multiple languages.”

Karen Sun, executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council’s Toronto Chapter, agrees that reaching out to ethnic communities on a local level is effective. On Tuesday, she attended an H1N1 pandemic planning session held by Toronto Public Health representatives to “discuss H1N1 as it relates to ethno-racial communities” and to collaborate with these groups to “ensure they receive appropriate information and services,” the invitation said.

Sun said the City of Toronto will be translating all of its H1N1 materials into 18 languages as well as reaching out to ethnic media in the coming days. The city will also be implementing a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy at upcoming vaccination clinics so that “non-status people [who do not have health cards] will not have any fear of coming out and getting vaccinated.”

Although Sun said she believes Toronto Public Health “is doing a really good job” she added that the H1N1 information targeted towards ethnic communities is not as timely as it could have been, but ascribes the delays to the municipal strike that occurred in Toronto this past summer.

Sun also emphasized that there is uncertainty in both the ethnic and larger communities surrounding the nature, necessity and accessibility of the vaccine: “There’s a lot of confusion about ‘Should you take the vaccine? Should you not take the vaccine? Where do you get the vaccine? Is the vaccine going to give you the flu?’” she said. “As far as how that message is getting out into the public, we’ll have to see how that translates in a week or two.”

As a member of Toronto’s ethnic Chinese community, Viola Wun said she feels the government is “providing a good amount of information about H1N1” by placing ads in local Chinese media outlets. But she added that she receives most of her information from news coverage of the virus.

Sun agrees that the Chinese community “tends to get a lot of their information from Chinese media…because it’s very well developed in Canada and in Toronto in particular.” She said she “strongly encourages” the city to talk to media because “they can get a lot more detailed information out [to ethnic communities] by getting stories in the news instead of just ads.”

In the meantime, Wun is taking her own precautions. “If I know somebody is sick, I try not to come into contact with them.” She laughs, “Or I just tell them to stay home.”

She had moved to Portugal in 1995 to pursue a PhD, and had been away from China for three years. Zhi’s absorbing new life in the picturesque port city of Aveiro kept her unaware of the rapid changes occurring in her constantly evolving homeland.

One such change was visible during the regular walks Zhi took through China’s parks. Here, she noticed large gatherings of people who moved their bodies in sync to the gentle melodies of traditional Chinese folk music floating through the air.

Drawn to their soft, flowing arm movements and serene expressions, Zhi was curious. “Why are there so many [exercisers]? What is it?” she said she thought at the time.

Since then, Zhi has come to know these exercises as part of Falun Gong, a popular Chinese spiritual movement founded in 1992. An amalgam of mysticism, Buddhism and a traditional Chinese breathing exercise known as qigong, Falung Gong was banned by the Chinese government in 1999 following a silent protest mounted by 10,000 practitioners outside Zhongnanhai, the Chinese Communist Party’s central headquarters in Beijing. Since the demonstration, which was staged to condemn state-run media reports the group said were defamatory, Chinese authorities have continued to suppress the activities of Falun Gong supporters.

Zhi, who moved to Ottawa in 2000, first began practising Falun Gong herself shortly after her trip to China.

“I started listening to the Falun Gong founder [Li Hongzhi]’s speech, and it just came into my heart,” she said, eyes widening through her circular framed glasses. “It teaches people to become better [human beings], which I’m very, very interested [in].”

After hearing Li speak about “truthfulness, compassion and forbearance,” the movement’s three major tenets, Zhi said she thought, “Oh, this is what I want to follow.”

A slight, almost frail woman, Zhi exudes energy when speaking about Falun Gong. “I found this practice brings me happiness and also a kind of confidence in myself,” she said, speaking at a rapid-fire pace. “I feel my life [has] become more solid…I got rid of all those feelings [of doubt].”

The Chinese government, however, sees the practice in a significantly different light.

In a phone call Tuesday, a spokeswoman for China’s embassy in Ottawa declined to comment directly on the country’s Falun Gong policies, but later provided links to government-sponsored websites via email that she said present China’s “perspectives.”

The English-language version of one website, mingjing.org.cn, features the headline, “Truth on ‘Falun Gong,’” and includes a database of hundreds of articles condemning the movement.

An article entitled “Falun Gong Evil and Harmful” labelled Falun Gong as “an evil force with an anti-society, anti-mankind and anti-civilization nature,” and called the Chinese government’s decision to outlaw the practice as a “righteous and legal action.”

Another article entitled “Heretical Cult – The True Colors of Falun Gong” details the experience of a Chinese doctoral student who, after taking up Falun Gong, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and subsequently admitted to a “mental hospital.”

Gong Cho, 22, a member of the Algonquin College Chinese Students’ Association in Ottawa, agrees with the government’s characterization of the movement. “Sometimes [Falun Gong] will make people crazy, I think,” he said, citing a friend who “thought he could become a god after he died, so he wanted to kill himself.”

Cho, who is originally from China, said that he avoids Falun Gong, and added that neither his friends nor his family back home “like” or practise it.

David Kilgour, a former MP and Canada’s former secretary of state for the Asia-Pacific, said statements in support of the Chinese government indicate that people like Cho have been “watching the non-stop propaganda from the Chinese government media—which is all the media in China—for probably more than 10 years.”

“And unfortunately, a lot of people who don’t know better begin to believe [the allegations against Falun Gong] when they see nothing but non-stop propaganda.” Kilgour said heatedly over the phone.

Lucy Zhou, 46, an Ottawa-based Falun Gong practitioner, said that the propaganda in China has led to tensions between local supporters of the Chinese government and local followers of the movement. “There’s a campaign to eradicate Falun Gong in China and outside. So basically, you feel the pressure right here [in Canada],” she said. “Since 1999, there has been lots of hate propaganda [against Falun Gong] inside the Chinese community in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, everywhere.”

She added that the propaganda aims to ostracize and spread fear amongst practitioners, citing an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal case in which the court found that the Ottawa Chinese Senior Association discriminated against a senior by refusing her membership into the organization because she practised Falun Gong.

However, the Chinese government’s activities extend beyond harassment, Kilgour says. Along with David Matas, a Canadian human rights lawyer, Kilgour conducted an independent study into allegations that the Chinese government was harvesting organs of Falun Gong practitioners. “What we discovered to our horror was that these allegations that the party-state in China was killing [thousands of] Falun Gong practitioners for their organs were true,” he said.

An article on mingjing.org.cn refutes these allegations, quoting Zhang Weidong, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Ottawa, who said they are “based on rumours and totally groundless.”

John Zheng, 25, a Canadian citizen who emigrated from China to Canada in his early teens, said he does not doubt that the Chinese government is harassing, torturing and killing Falun Gong practitioners. But he added that he is skeptical of the movement. “It’s not a true religious movement,” Zheng said. “I think it’s a movement with political agenda as its first priority, and uses religious rhetoric to [influence] everyone.”

“Traditional martial arts can also be classified as having spiritual-slash-physical enhancements…but how come none of them get prosecuted?”

In contrast, Kilgour said he believes that Falun Gong is a genuine spiritual movement, and cites conflicting ideologies with the Chinese Communist Party and its rapid growth in size and popularity as reasons why the Chinese government is specifically targeting Falun Gong practitioners. The CCP sees Falun Gong as a threat to its power, authority and legitimacy, Kilgour concludes.

As Jean Zhi speaks, she clutches a sky blue book inscribed with the words “Zhuan Falun” in gold lettering, the core text of Falun Gong practice. Although she said she firmly believes that the Chinese government is committing atrocities against Falun Gong practitioners, Zhi emphasized that she is “not afraid.”

“Why?” she pauses, smiling. “Because I did nothing wrong.”

First jailed at 15 for throwing crabapples at a neighbourhood postal worker, Smith racked up a series of minor offences while in custody, expanding her sentence from four months to four years. Before committing suicide she had tried to harm herself in 168 documented incidents. In the year leading up to her death, the Moncton, N.B. teen had spent over two-thirds of her prison time in segregation.

In a report released this spring, Canada’s correctional investigator Howard Sapers called Smith’s death “preventable”, saying that it was “the inability of federal and provincial health-care and correctional systems to provide her with the care, treatment and support she desperately needed.”

The issue of mentally ill offenders in Canadian prisons was something Sapers had sounded alarm bells about before. But Smith’s death, he said, put everything into sharper focus.

Sapers is a serious man. His previous political experience as a member of Alberta’s Legislative Assembly comes across in his steady speech. This is a man who chooses his words carefully. These days, he’s paid to be critical of the country’s federal penitentiaries, investigating grievances, pointing out systemic flaws and making recommendations to the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), and, in turn, the federal government.

In a recent interview, Sapers said that too many Canadians with mental illness end up in prisons, and once they’re there, the system is failing to meet their needs.

Sapers is quick to point out the situation is not the making of our corrections system. “The prison system does not choose its clients,” he said. “The correctional service receives what the police and prosecutors and courts send it.”

On Monday, Sapers tabled his annual report on Parliament Hill. In its pages, he shines a glaring spotlight on the increasing “criminalization of the mentally ill”, whereby pathological behaviors become crimes and produce convictions, and the failures of a system that, he admits, was never intended to manage them in the first place.

The report outlines how the number of offenders with significant mental health issues behind bars has doubled in the past five years, now making up 12 per cent of the prison population. One in four inmates is currently taking prescribed medication for a psychiatric condition.

The situation is most dire amongst women, with over 30 per cent having previously been hospitalized for psychiatric reasons. According to the report, federal prisons are now warehousing the largest psychiatric populations in the country, with very little capacity to treat underlying mental health issues.

“Criminalizing and then warehousing the mentally ill burdens our justice system and does nothing to improve public safety,” says the report.

Sapers argues that a few issues have combined to create the burgeoning problem of the mentally ill behind bars.

“The first is that we’re seeing an increasing number of mentally ill offenders being sentenced to federal penitentiaries. The second is that the capacity to treat those people, to deal with their illness, has not increased at the same rate as the demand for those services has increased.”

Many criminal justice experts have argued that trends in recent decades to de-institutionalize mental hospitals, resulting in the closing of thousands of psychiatric beds across the country, has contributed to the flux.

“There are people in need of long-term treatment and hospitalization who aren’t getting it,” said Dr Helen Ward, clinical director of the forensic service at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group. “They end up on the street, they start acting out or doing something illegal, or even something considered a nuisance, and they end up getting arrested and thrown in prison.”

It’s an issue public safety minister Peter Van Loan has addressed as well. “Over the past three decades, we have progressively moved toward a community and outpatient system of de-institutionalizing the mentally ill from provincial facilities, only to discover that we are re-institutionalizing them as prisoners,” Van Loan said during a standing committee on public safety and national security this spring.

Having been sent this vulnerable population in greater numbers, prisons are grappling with how to best manage them.

Craig Jones, prisoners’ rights advocate and executive director of the John Howard Society, admits that meaningful change within prison walls is difficult because its counter-intuitive to what we as a society think prisons ought to be. “Prisons are essentially about security, so every other issue has to be subordinate to that,” he said.

Sapers agrees. “If you have a population of offenders who are locked up, held in segregation and have restricted access to the outside where community members come in contact with prisoners less frequently, then running the prison is actually a little bit easier.” He adds that Canada’s prisons have been “hardening” in this way for quite some time now.

Sapers advocates for what he calls “dynamic security,” a balancing act between security concerns and concentrating on helping people to eventually cope in open society.

“What we know about correctional practice is that offenders will come back to prison less frequently when they are held in an environment that is constructive. Where their physical and mental health needs are addressed, and where they have access to programs that deal with the issues that brought them into conflict with the law in the first place,” he said.

The CSC declined a request for an interview. But did say in an email that one of their key corporate priorities in the last few years has been to improve their capacity to address and treat the mental health needs of federal offenders.

For Sapers, these initiatives could go a long way if there were resources allotted to back them up. “There is a thrust to build up program capacity and to get inmates into programs more quickly … Correctional Services Canada has about a $2.3 billion budget. It spends about 2 per cent of its budget on correctional programs. I don’t think that represents a very good balance between security and correctional treatment,” he said.

Dr Stan Yaren, President of the Canadian Psychological Association, has considerable experience working with mentally ill offenders. “Corrections has recognized this and they have made serious attempts to deal with it. But in terms of trying to develop a policy of initiatives to deal with it. The experience I have of being in the system is that these initiatives have fallen short in terms of implementation. It’s due to poor resources, but also in part to a lack of integrated planning.”

Both Sapers and Yaren say there needs to be a greater emphasis placed on recruiting and retaining qualified mental health staff, and more resources devoted to bringing together a variety of social services that could provide a more strategic approach when dealing with mentally ill Canadians who come in contact with the law.

This September, Ashley Smith’s family launched an $11 million lawsuit against the federal government, who, they say, is responsible for her death. Her mother, Coralee Smith, will never get her daughter back.

For Sapers, the system “must and can do better.”

“It’s so I don’t get lost,” he announced, stepping gingerly around a muddy trail.

Armed with a detailed topographical map and a compass, orienteers like Noah jump over streams and slide down rock faces to reach the bright orange and white flags that signal control points. The goal for the racers is to find each hidden control and make it back to the finish line.

And the key to winning – as Noah Robin will tell you – is not getting lost.

At four years old, Noah was one of the youngest participants in the Ottawa Orienteering Club’s 2009 championship meet Sunday morning. The meet was held in Stony Swamp Conservation Area, just west of the city, and was the last of the fall season for the Ottawa club.

Although the club has some elite athletes who are serious competitors, many others just consider orienteering a good way to stay healthy and get outdoors.

“Running for the sake of running can be a bit of a grind,” said Peter Laurich, a long time club member and meet organizer. “But if you’ve got a map in your hand and you’re trying to orienteer and navigate as you go, the time just flies by and it just keeps your mind and your body going.”

Noah’s mom, Kelsey Robin, was introduced to orienteering in high school. Although she forgot about the sport for a number of years, she said she was re-introduced to it when she came back with her kids and their friends.

“It’s a great sport for kids,” Robin said. “[It gets] them out in the woods, they learn how to read maps, and they get really comfortable to be out on these trails, just walking around.”