Archives for March 9, 2018

Province’s jobless rate down 1/10th of a point to 4.7% over past month

Statistics Canada figures released this morning shows that British Columbia continues to have the lowest unemployment rate in Canada.

B.C.’s jobless rate for February was pegged at 4.7 per cent, down one-tenth of a point since January and well below the national rate of 5.8 per cent — which also dropped one-tenth of a point last month.

Canada’s unemployment rate nudges down to 5.8% in February
Since February 2017, the B.C. unemployment rate has dropped four-tenths of a point, from 5.1 per cent.

Statistics Canada says the economy added 15,400 net new jobs across the country last month, although most of those positions were part-time jobs.

Across B.C., only Victoria saw a hike in unemployment, with its rate up half a per cent to 4.4 in February, compared with 3.9 the month earlier.

Kelowna’s jobless numbers dropped dramatically to 5.8 per cent — seven-tenths of a point below January’s 6.5 per cent mark.

‘I was expecting it to be like 1970’

Kier Kenny thought he would never return to Vietnam, but after a friend talked him into it, he is so glad he did.

“[It] made me realize that these people have totally moved ahead and it’s about time for me to do the same,” Kenny said.

Kenny, an American by birth now living in Prince Edward Island, was drafted and did two tours of duty during the Vietnam War: one in 1969 and one in 1970. He was just 20 years old on his first tour. It was a traumatizing experience that took him years to even begin to recover from.

War veteran searching for peace in return to Vietnam
He had no desire to revisit, but late last year a friend bought him a ticket and told him they were going. Kenny said he “didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter.”

‘I was a bit nervous’

They left P.E.I. on Feb. 6 for a two-and-a-half-week trip. He was still uncomfortable with the idea when they landed.

“I was a bit nervous. I was expecting it to be like it was in 1970, I guess,” he said.

“We got off the plane. Everybody was so friendly. They don’t have any police or army or anyone that’s there to put the fear of God in you.”

They visited a lot of the places he had been, including the air force base where he had been stationed, which is still in use by the Vietnam armed forces.

“The hangars, the tower and the mess hall and all the stuff I remember. It’s still there,” he said.

“That was really pretty traumatic.”

‘Don’t worry. That was a long time ago’

It was outside the gate of that old air force base that he met a veteran of the war, one who had been fighting for the north. They had a beer together. Those meetings were the beginning of a new stage of healing for Kenny.

“They were all very forgiving. They hugged us and said, ‘Don’t worry. That was a long time ago.’ That to us was a really good feeling,” he said.

It was a one of a number of meetings he had with veterans. Many of them asked him what the war was about, and he had to admit he still didn’t know. But none of them held grudges, he said. He said they knew that he, like them, was just a young man at the time, doing what he was told to do.

There were difficult times, said Kenny, such as the visit to the war museum, but there were good times too. He remembers the colourful clothing of the people in the cities, and all the new construction.

And there were a lot of hugs with war veterans.

It took a lot of that burden that I was carrying for many years off of my shoulders,” Kenny said.

“The first time I went there I was scared to death the entire time, and this time I went there and I just felt the love of all those people.”

Now that he has gotten over his fear of the country, Kenny said he is keen to visit again.

Jane McLaughlin is a nursing student and basketball star who has battled mental illness

Mental health issues kept Jane McLaughlin from returning to university after her first year, but she came back to complete her nursing degree and co-captain the varsity basketball team.

And now she is the Atlantic University Sport nominee for the Tracy MacLeod Award, which rewards determination, perseverance and an unwavering spirit. It’s a fitting award for a young woman who at one point was unsure she would reach her 23rd birthday, which she celebrated Friday.

McLaughlin knew there was something unusual about the way her brain worked years before she came to a crisis point in 2015.

“In high school, and even in middle school, I was really sensitive to things,” she told Island Morning host Matt Rainnie.

“I knew something was different with me.”

‘I just felt not important’

McLaughlin did well in her classes in her first year of university, and made the basketball team, but by January her mental health was deteriorating. She was highly self-critical, and felt other people were criticizing her as well.

“In May, that was the first time where I was like, ‘Yeah, I think I want to be dead,’ which is a gruesome thing to say, but I didn’t want to be around anymore,” she said.

“Not because other people made me feel that way. I just felt not important.”

Sitting in her residence room on her own, she called a mental health hot line, and they told her to go straight to the hospital.

When doctors there felt it was safe to let her go, at about 3 a.m., she called her mother.

“She lives out in Fortune and she was in Charlottetown very quickly and took me home,” she said.

“There’s been a lot of hard things I’ve had to tell my mom over the phone. I really did hear hurt, and scared.”

Days in shambles

Despite being home, and away from the stress of school and the basketball season, she struggled through the summer, with her doctor trying different medications to get her back on a more even keel. But come September, she was not ready to go back to school.

She continued to deteriorate. She spent the days in her mother’s bed, and the nights on the sofa, unable to rouse herself even to eat. She lost about 20 lbs.

‘I can’t suffer like this anymore.’
— Jane McLaughlin

“February was when it all went to shambles. I didn’t want to die, but I guess you could say I did try to kill myself,” she said.

“I wanted to sleep, so I just knew in that moment, I can’t suffer like this anymore. It’s literally so agonizing that I tried to do something to make that stop.”

Her boyfriend called her mother, and they came to a realization that it wasn’t safe for her to stay at home.

“I was admitted to the infamous Unit 9, which I am really grateful for,” she said.

Building unexpected friendships

McLaughlin didn’t know what to expect at the psychiatric unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

“You’re just curious. What goes on there?” she said.

‘There’s no chains, and it’s not a bedroom with one bed on the floor and no one’s tied up.’
— Jane McLaughlin

“There’s no chains, and it’s not a bedroom with one bed on the floor and no one’s tied up. That sounds so horrific but I feel like that’s what some people are thinking. Or that there’s people running and screaming down the hallways all the time.”

What McLaughlin did find is a place where she could feel safe, and a surprising bond with the other patients there.

“Maybe we didn’t come from the same background or didn’t have the same values but we shared the core: our brains have something wrong with them, and I can relate to this person beside me,” she said.

Her time in Unit 9 helped her return to a more balanced state, and by September she was back at school, and back on the basketball team.

Excellent care, but some shortcomings
She has remained steady since her return. She will complete her nursing degree this spring, and she helped her team make it to the AUS final.

While she is grateful for all the help she received, she is also aware of the hard time her mother went through, and she wishes there had been more support for her.

‘Probably in my life again there’s going to be another dark time.’
— Jane McLaughlin

“She struggled on her own trying to find ways to help me. Sometimes P.E.I. is this amazing little place that is so community-oriented and everyone gets along, but then there’s a lot of stigma, there’s a lot of judgement, everyone knows your business,” she said.

“We’re lacking in some areas for sure.”

MacLaughlin wasn’t comfortable talking about her mental health when she first returned to school, but now that she is talking about it, people are reaching out to her to let her know how she inspires them.

“It definitely does get better,” she said.

“But as a person living with mental illness … you always live in that fear that probably in my life again there’s going to be another dark time. I have to be conscious enough that I got through the last one and I’ll get through the ones to come.

“Anyone who’s struggling, reach out, and be happy.”

Like the shoes he designed, Paul Kasdan’s insoles are created with an earth-friendly vision

A Saint John local shoemaker could give Dr. Scholl’s a run for its money. Down the road, anyway.

Paul Kasdan, who was last in the news for his kung-fu-inspired shoes, is back at it with matching, eco-friendly insoles.

The bright colours might pop out at potential buyers, but the soles represent Kasdan’s mission to help bring industry back to the province.

“We’ve just seen manufacturing shut down,” said Kasdan, who is producing the insoles in a small north end studio. “And nobody really talks about it.”

In his lifetime, Kasdan watched the T.S. Simms brush factory, the Lantic Sugar refinery site and the Scotsburn Frozen Novelty Plant — commonly known as the Popsicle Factory — shut down and the buildings demolished.

With the loss of these jobs, Kasdan believes the province’s ability to create has diminished.

He finds beauty in the repetitive work of manufacturing. Some people may turn their noses up at the blue-collar jobs, but Kasdan looked down to his feet and tried to innovate.

Wants to bring jobs to province

Although he wants to support manufacturing in the province, Kasdan’s shoes are made in a factory in China.

His footwear was inspired by two shoes traditionally worn in China and designed to offer maximum flexibility and the feeling that one “can’t get any closer to the ground.”

He began selling the shoes last spring.

Researching the two styles, the New Brunswicker studied Mandarin. He then hiked the Chinese mountainside to find a suitable factory.

But Kasdan laments that his shoes are produced abroad.

“I get really passionate about that,” he said. “I think that’s actually where we should be focused in New Brunswick — manufacturing.”

That’s why his insoles, which he hopes to start selling online next week, are made in his studio on Adelaide Street.

“If someone looks at how many people are working here, they’re not going to be very impressed,” he said. “It starts here. It starts small.”

Earth-conscious

Like his shoes, the soles are designed with an earth-friendly vision. Made out of jute and multiple levels of felt, they contain no plastic.

Kasdan imports the Canadian and German wool he uses from Ontario. He then binds the material together with rubber.

“I’m trying to meet the need for people who are hiking, running, so on, and want to be active in a much more natural environment,” he said.

What’s different about his wool insoles, he said, is they will naturally mould to the user’s foot over time.

He’s also designing what he calls the world’s simplest vacuum former.

The primitive system pushes a sheet of plastic over an insole onto a mould of the human foot to give it shape.

“They’re typically $500,” he said of the machine. “If you’re going up in scale, that’s going to be a huge investment.”

While his insoles are just about to hit the market, he’s already found joy from the research and development stages of his product.

He’s learned a lot about what still exists across Canada.

“I want to source as locally as possible,” he said.

“You actually get to find out what other industries there are in your local area.”