I’m afraid I don’t know Jennifer Lavallee personally, nor have I ever met her. If she’s ever willing to change that, I’m available for coffee and baked treats on my dime should she ever be tempted by such a generous offer. Then, of course, I could get a look at this nasty labour dispute through her eyes. In the interest of fairness and all of that.
All I know of Renfrew’s Executive-Director for Community Living Renfrew County South is what I’ve heard from others with experience with her, but that’s all second-hand stuff and not the best hook to be hanging my hat on.
But I do feel I know one thing about her, in that it appears she has a really bad public relations problem with the community at large.
I’ve not commissioned any polling, haven’t done any on-the-ground rigorous research, nor have I stood anywhere and asked Joe and Jane Public what they think as they walk by. But I did apply what I guess I could call the eye test. And while not the deciding factor in anything, it sure seemed to me, from what I witnessed anyways, that she’d have a tough time getting elected as class president.
A group of local parents all impacted by the labour dispute between CLRCS and OPSEU Local 472 gathered together this morning in front of the offices of CLRCS and formed their own picket, including a rolling picket up and down both sides of Raglan Street, the main drag of Renfrew, Ontario.
It was like a carnival, if around twenty people could generate that kind of feel. They were in good spirits, shared those good spirits with others, and were met with the same from the general public, if such a thing is measured with any accuracy by the number and frequency of honks they received as they went about their mission. They even managed to pick up additional bodies as they demonstrated, I suppose in part because they made it look like fun.
But there is no fun in it.
We’re in the middle of an irresponsible political tragedy, and the people I saw today on the sidewalk in Renfrew are the victims of it. They’re not union and they’re not management, they’re just stakeholders caught in the middle.
They are hurt and they’re afraid.
And in no uncertain terms they support the union.
Reading their signs and speaking with them as they went about their business, there can be no doubt that, of all the things shared with me Friday morning, one thing rang through loud and clear. When it comes to identifying who they think is most responsible for the strike in the first place, or identifying the party responsible for keeping it going, they are universal in their opinion that it all originates from a single source.
And that’s the Executive-Director. Board of Directors please take note.
It’s interesting talking to these people, because, while they support the unionized workers that have become part of their family, they don’t sing from a union songbook in terms of the issues they consider to be theirs.
Of the many things I heard, extraordinary wait times to access programming and the threat of the demise of CLRCS’s day program topped the list.
As to that second item, that’s what was discussed most. To a person, they feel the labour dispute is cover for something they allege the Executive-Director really wants to achieve, that being the elimination of a popular and important program.
I was told Mrs. Lavallee previously worked for Community Living Upper Ottawa Valley, and while there, tanked their version of a day program. They tell me they see the writing on the wall, the machinations already in place to eliminate people and programming to save money, while at the same time benefiting from a 10% pay raise personally. They feel that when it comes to the person they refer to as “Jenn” or “Jennifer,” when cuts need to be made, it will be people, cients, and programming that gets chopped first.
If there could be any such thing as a public relations campaign, she and her Board appear to be losing it, and they appear to be losing it badly.
I could spend a lot of time talking about what it might be like to be the parent of a developmentally challenged child turned-adult, but I won’t. I can tell you that heroes aren’t hard to find in life, they’re all around us, and these people I met today qualify to be painted with that brush.
I’ll share one little story.
I was talking to a parent impacted by this labour dispute. I visited the person at their home, where they live alone with an adult client of Community Living.
I spoke to the person in their driveway and noticed immediately that they had left their front door wide open for the entirety of my 45 minute visit. I was kind of worried that the dog that appeared at the door periodically would bolt, but it didn’t, it hung around.
Good puppy.
At one point, maybe 30 minutes in to the conversation, I noticed the dog return and have a seat at the open door. She was attending to us and our conversation, but it was obvious to me, as a lover of dogs, that the puppy’s attention was split, as I could see the dog’s body language while it sat there. It would look into the interior of the home, and even when directly focussed upon us in the driveway, it was clearly paying attention to something happening in the home’s interior. Her ears would move to better track what was happening inside while she checked out what was happening in the driveway.
And then it all became clear, as the client child of the person I was speaking with appeared at the open door. The dog was tracking this individual the entire time, which I suppose one might expect from a dog that sleeps with the client every night, and recently often during the day as well. I should actually say sleeps “under” rather than “with” since the little puppy has a habit of sleeping directly under the client’s pillow, as in directly under the client’s head. That’s dogs for you. Always have to know where everyone is.
What struck me in this instance was the fact that the dog was being, well, a dog. Possessive and protective both, but seemingly understanding that there was a bit of a supervisory role needed to ensure the well-being of the client, one with the potential for self-harm.
It seems that in the absence of a day program, it’s all hands on deck. And that includes the family dog.
I mention the dog because I wish to make the point that people do everything they can to be resilient in the face of daunting challenges, and that would include being the single parent of a developmentally-challenged child. That resilience isn’t an easy thing, by any means, but you play the cards you’ve been dealt, understanding that these are your children and further understanding that their cards are even worse.
Having that day program disappear would be a devastating setback for people such as these. For a few who are still in their working stages of their lives, everything turns upside down when the dealer shuffles the deck in such a way that your really bad hand is replaced by an even worse hand. And for the others, mostly retired and senior citizens, the respite that the day program provided is beyond measuring in terms of value and health, not to mention it provides rich opportunities that any parent would want to have for their kids, no matter how old those kids are.
These people, regardless of circumstance, are burned out. Yet they seem to be at the pointy end of some accountant’s pencil.
And in the apparent absence of any sort of sensitivity from management, I suppose it’s a good thing that the family dog is willing to step up and do its bit when the so-called adults in the room play what seem to be political games with the lives of disadvantaged people.
Again, this is one side of a story.
It’s just that the other side doesn’t seem to have a side at all.
It’s like that old saying:
The more I see and hear of some people, the more I love my dog.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 