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Alberta

What My Brother’s Suicide Taught Me About Living

Published

3 years ago

7 minute read

My brother Brett died 3,285 days ago today. 9 years. It feels like a hundred. It also feels like yesterday. But whereas others have moved on with their lives, I am one of the few left counting. Please don’t get me wrong, I am glad others have moved on. He would be glad too. But my life and how I see it has changed forever.

The morning I learned of my brother’s passing was a day I will never forget. I miss him very much and at times I am still overwhelmed with enormous grief and paralyzing sadness. All these year later when I think about him, warm tears instantly well up in my eyes and roll down my cheeks.

Typically, those feelings catch me off guard: a song, a memory, a family event like our Uncle’s 70th birthday last year where for me his absence is always felt. Or a wedding or the birth of a baby, events that bring so much joy and happiness, yet I always remember that my brother will never experience two of those life’s greatest moments.

It may not make sense to some but my most of my hardest hitting moments are at times when I am happy, not times when I am sad. I am forever left with the feeling of “I wish my brother was here.”

The last time I saw my brother is etched forever in my mind.

A surprise 43rd birthday party for me in December of 2011 filled with love and laughter. That cold, snowy evening ended as usual—a hug, a kiss on the cheek.

“I love you,” I whispered in my brother’s ear.

“I love you, too,” Brett replied to me, like a thousand times before.

That was the last time I would ever see my brother.

Nine years ago, a little after 3 a.m., on March 19, 2012, I was awoken by my husbands’ words, “Jodee, I think someone is here.” I still remember vividly the image of four black pant legs with yellow stripes on the doorstep as my husband opened the front door.

My brother had taken his own life.

The World Health Organization estimates that each year approximately 800,000 people die from suicide, which accounts for one death every 40 seconds. Some sources predict that by 2021 that will increase to one death every 20 seconds.

These deaths are our sons, daughters, moms, dads, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. And in the approximately five minutes it takes you to read this article, seven people will have taken their life. Seven families, friends and loved ones will very shortly feel a pain like no other, their lives changed forever.

My brother’s death taught me so much, not about dying but about living. I try to remember to cherish life every day, to be open-minded, empathetic, and understanding, and to tell the ones I care about that I love them. I strive and am successful in not being bitter, angry and blaming as those emotions serve no purpose other than to break my spirit and keep me stuck. I work hard to remember that not everyone has the same opinion, that we all experience life and the circumstances surrounding it differently. So, I never get argumentative when others do not agree with my perspective. They have not lived my life, nor I theirs. Without realizing it, my brother and his complicated journey taught me that you never know what someone else may be going through, so I try to be kind.

Because of my brother and his absence, the beauty of life is always fresh in my mind.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t wish he was here, or that I don’t love him. It doesn’t mean I’m not feeling an underlying sense of sadness. But in his memory, I try to appreciate and enjoy life everyday.

I have made a conscious choice to celebrate how precious life is. That it is filled with so much beauty at the same time can be filled with heartache, challenges and hardship. I am blessed to live in the small town of Sylvan Lake; the water brings me joy and peace. It always has, which I believe stems from my childhood with my brother. Family vacations where we were blissfully happy and constantly in the water.

As much as I can I breathe the fresh Alberta air; I swim in the water and feel the warmth of sunshine on my face. I love the sand between my toes. Because of my brother, I remember how short life is and you can’t take any day for granted. You never know what tomorrow may bring. In fact, you never know if there will be a tomorrow at all.

Today, I celebrate the lives and memory of everyone who has lost their lives to suicide and the families that love them.

Today, my sweet brother, I celebrate the memory and love I have for you.

 

Jodee Prouse is a sister, wife, mom, and author of the powerful memoir, The Sun is Gone: A Sister Lost in Secrets Shame & Addiction & How I Broke Free. She is an outspoken advocate to help eliminate the shame & stigma surrounding addiction & Mental Illness. Follow her on facebook @jodeetisdaleprouse

If you or someone you know needs help, call the Canadian Suicide Prevention Service at 1-833-456-4566. If you think someone is in immediate danger, do not leave them alone, stay with them and call 911.

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Author of the powerful memoir The Sun is Gone: A Sister Lost in Secrets, Shame and Addiction and How I Broke Free. Outspoken advocate to help eliminate the shame + stigma surrounding Addiction + Mental Health. Visit www.jodeeprouse.ca or follow on instagram @jodeeprouse

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What My Brother’s Suicide Taught Me About Living

Alberta

Alberta awash in corporate welfare

Published on July 26, 2024

By

From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

To understand Ottawa’s negative impact on Alberta’s economy and living standards, juxtapose two recent pieces of data.

First, in July the Trudeau government made three separate “economic development” spending announcements in  Alberta, totalling more than $80 million and affecting 37 different projects related to the “green economy,” clean technology and agriculture. And second, as noted in a new essay by Fraser Institute senior fellow Kenneth Green, inflation-adjusted business investment (excluding residential structures) in Canada’s extraction sector (mining, quarrying, oil and gas) fell 51.2 per cent from 2014 to 2022.

The productivity gains that raise living standards and improve economic conditions rely on business investment. But business investment in Canada has declined over the past decade and total economic growth per person (inflation-adjusted) from Q3-2015 through to Q1-2024 has been less than 1 per cent versus robust growth of nearly 16 per cent in the United States over the same period.

For Canada’s extraction sector, as Green documents, federal policies—new fuel regulations, extended review processes on major infrastructure projects, an effective ban on oil shipments on British Columbia’s northern coast, a hard greenhouse gas emissions cap targeting oil and gas, and other regulatory initiatives—are largely to blame for the massive decline in investment.

Meanwhile, as Ottawa impedes private investment, its latest bundle of economic development announcements underscores its strategy to have government take the lead in allocating economic resources, whether for infrastructure and public institutions or for corporate welfare to private companies.

Consider these federally-subsidized projects.

A gas cloud imaging company received $4.1 million from taxpayers to expand marketing, operations and product development. The Battery Metals Association of Canada received $850,000 to “support growth of the battery metals sector in Western Canada by enhancing collaboration and education stakeholders.” A food manufacturer in Lethbridge received $5.2 million to increase production of plant-based protein products. Ermineskin Cree Nation received nearly $400,000 for a feasibility study for a new solar farm. The Town of Coronation received almost $900,000 to renovate and retrofit two buildings into a business incubator. The Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada received $400,000 for marketing and other support to help boost clean technology product exports. And so on.

When the Trudeau government announced all this corporate welfare and spending, it naturally claimed it create economic growth and good jobs. But corporate welfare doesn’t create growth and good jobs, it only directs resources (including labour) to subsidized sectors and businesses and away from sectors and businesses that must be more heavily taxed to support the subsidies. The effect of government initiatives that reduce private investment and replace it with government spending is a net economic loss.

As 20th-century business and economics journalist Henry Hazlitt put it, the case for government directing investment (instead of the private sector) relies on politicians and bureaucrats—who did not earn the money and to whom the money does not belong—investing that money wisely and with almost perfect foresight. Of course, that’s preposterous.

Alas, this replacement of private-sector investment with public spending is happening not only in Alberta but across Canada today due to the Trudeau government’s fiscal policies. Lower productivity and lower living standards, the data show, are the unhappy results.

Author:

Matthew Lau
Adjunct Scholar, Fraser Institute
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Alberta

‘Fireworks’ As Defence Opens Case In Coutts Two Trial

Published on July 25, 2024

By

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy 

By Ray McGinnis

Anthony Olienick and Chris Carbert are on trial for conspiracy to commit murder and firearms charges in relation to the Coutts Blockade into mid-February 2022. In opening her case before a Lethbridge, AB, jury on July 11, Olienick’s lawyer, Marilyn Burns stated “This is a political, criminal trial that is un Canadian.” She told the jury, “You will be shocked, and at the very least, disappointed with how Canada’s own RCMP conducted themselves during and after the Coutts protest,” as she summarized officers’ testimony during presentation of the Crown’s case. Burns also contended that “the conduct of Alberta’s provincial government and Canada’s federal government are entwined with the RCMP.” The arrests of the Coutts Four on the night of February 13 and noon hour of February 14, were key events in a decision by the Clerk of the Privy Council, Janice Charette, and the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, Jody Thomas, to advise Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act. Chief Justice Paul Rouleau, in submitting his Public Order Emergency Commission Report to Parliament on February 17, 2023, also cited events at the Coutts Blockade as key to his conclusion that the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act.

Justice David Labrenz cautioned attorney Burns regarding her language, after Crown prosecutor Stephen Johnson objected to some of the language in the opening statement of Olienick’s counsel. Futher discussion about the appropriateness of attorney Burns’ statement to the jury is behind a publication ban, as discussions occurred without the jury present.

Justice Labrenz told the jury on July 12, “I would remind you that the presumption of innocence means that both the accused are cloaked with that presumption, unless the Crown proves beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements of the charge(s).” He further clarified what should result if the jurors were uncertain about which narrative to believe: the account by the Crown, or the account from the accused lawyers. Labrenz stated that such ambivalence must lead to an acquittal; As such a degree of uncertainty regarding which case to trust in does not meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold for a conviction.”

On July 15, 2024, a Lethbridge jury heard evidence from a former employer of Olienicks’ named Brian Lambert. He stated that he had tasked Olienick run his sandstone quarry and mining business. He was a business partner with Olienick. In that capacity, Olienick made use of what Lambert referred to as “little firecrackers,” to quarry the sandstone and reduce it in size. Reducing the size of the stone renders it manageable to get refined and repurposed so it could be sold to buyers of stone for other uses (building construction, patio stones, etc.) Lambert explained that the “firecrackers” were “explosive devices” packaged within tubing and pipes that could also be used for plumbing. He detailed how “You make them out of ordinary plumbing pipe and use some kind of propellant like shotgun powder…” Lambert explained that the length of the pipe “…depended on how big a hole or how large a piece of stone you were going to crack. The one I saw was about six inches long … maybe an inch in diameter.”

One of Olienick’s charges is “unlawful possession of an explosive device for a dangerous purpose.” The principal evidence offered up by RCMP to the Crown is what the officers depicted as “pipe bombs” which they obtained at the residence of Anthony Olienick in Claresholm, Alberta, about a two-hour drive from Coutts. Officers entered his home after he was arrested the night of February 13, 2022. Lambert’s testimony offers a plausible common use for the “firecrackers” the RCMP referred to as “pipe bombs.” Lambert added, these “firecrackers” have a firecracker fuse, and in the world of “explosive” they are “no big deal.”

Fellow accused, Chris Carbert, is does not face the additional charge of unlawful possession of explosives for a dangerous purpose. This is the first full week of the case for the defence. The trial began on June 6 when the Crown began presenting its case.

Ray McGinnis is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy who recently attended several days of testimony at the Coutts Two trial.

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