July 21, 2009

It's Tuesday, July 21st.

This is the fifth week of Toronto's garbage strike.

Currently, or as it is known in the racoon world---Thanksgiving.

This is The Current.


Mad Pride

July is officially Mad Pride month-- a series of events taking place all over the world to help people with mental health issues celebrate - and take pride - in who they are... "madness" and all. And like other pride movements, part of it is about reclaiming a term that has long been a stigma. But while the movement has gained a lot of ground over the years, it still faces some resistance.

Geoffrey Reaume is among those who support the idea of Mad Pride. He is an Associate Professor in Critical Disabilities Studies at York University. Among other things, he teaches a course in Mad People's History. And he was in Toronto.

Despite the success of the Mad Pride movement, the idea of celebrating mental illness at an event that includes rejecting psychiatry, is a difficult thing for some people to accept.

Hershel Hardin is the president of the North Shore Schizophrenia Society -- a support centre for family and friends of those with mental illnesses in Vancouver. He has a son who is schizophrenic.


Marya Hornbacher has written a memoir about her experience living with a mental disorder. It's called, Madness: A Bipolar Life and she was in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Last Lawyer Standing

Lawyers as we'd recognize them today first started popping up in Roman times.
The first lawyer joke is said to have followed a few weeks later. Still, for all the popular disdain for the profession, the idea that you really should get a lawyer for anything more than the simplest of court cases has become widely accepted wisdom.

But according to Beverley McLachlin -- the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada -- 44 per cent of the cases in some Canadian courts involve litigants without a lawyer-- people who are representing themselves.

Vancouver freelance broadcaster Ian Clayton looked into this phenomenon and what it means for Canada's legal system. His documentary is called, Last Lawyer Standing. It first aired on The Current in April.

Follow-up

Since that documentary first aired, there has been a spike in legal self-representation in Ontario after a number of lawyers began a boycott of legal-aid cases.

They are protesting the wages they earn, which they say have been frozen for the last 20 years. Lawyers in Toronto, Barrie, Sudbury and Hamilton are involved in the boycott. As a result, there have been several cases where defendants have had no choice but to represent themselves in court.

Music

artist: Junior Boys
cut: "Animator"
Album: Begone Dull Care
Label: Maple