Video clip is copyright of CTV News, used under Canadian copyright law as fair play / fair use. October 2009

When Lennie Gallant visited Afghanistan on an troop entertainment tour, he was moved by the courage and the danger our troops faced.

He also came face to face with the men and women who return from Afghanistan with visual and hidden wounds from war.

In honor of these veterans with disabilities, Gallant along with J.T. Harding  wrote Wounded.

Gallant captures the real lives of our veterans in his touching song, which is his forte.

Filmed in July 2009 at the Harmony House in Hunter River, PEI during Rendezvous Rustico.

You can hear the studio version of Wounded on Lennie’s Reverbnation site along with the lyrics.  For more about Lennie Gallant see his official website.

Lennie Gallant on NJN Network

Lennie Gallant nouvel album – Le cœur hanté

Lennie Gallant relaxed and happy hosting Hunter River Songwriter’s Circle

If We Had A Fire, Lennie Gallant

Lennie Gallant, the Island’s singing storyteller

Robert Ghiz, Premier of Prince Edward Island, broke ground in Rustico Monday on the new French school, L’Ecole St Augustin, ending more than a decade of effort by local parents to educate their children in a French language school of their own.

The 23,000 square foot school is being built on land adjacent to the Farmers Bank, Doucet House and St. Augustine Church in one of PEI’s oldest Acadian communities.  

The school will house classes for children to grade six including an “Early Years Centre, Conseil Acadien de Rustico offices,  and a cultural development office.”

Everyone was all smiles at the groundbreaking ceremony. Construction had already started with the footings in and some of the building rising above the former farmer’s field.

The Premier highlighted to need to educate children for the future and the importance of the French language and culture to Prince Edward Island. He gave his speech in both English and French.

Doug Currie Minister of Education said the school provided for French education and culture while preparing the children for the technological changes ahead.

The right to educational and cultural institutions in the French is contained of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Province of Prince Edward Island refused to grant French language education outside Charlottetown or the Acadian region until two Island mothers won the right in the Supreme Court of Canada. That court decision in favour of Madeleine Monpetite and Noella Arsenault paved the way for the construction of a French school in Summerside.

Opposition Leader Robert Ghiz promised to build a French school in Rustico, a fishing and farming community west of Cavendish on the north shore of PEI. Once elected, Ghiz assigned the task to local MLA Carolyn Bertram. Bertram sided with the local Lions Club who saw the new school as a loss of annual rent from the government. The Lion’s Club had been rented out as a temporary school for nine years.

The French school board, French parents and community leaders waged an intense battle with Bertram and the government to have their promises kept. Ghiz replaced Bertram in the Francophone portfolio this year. He assigned new Education Minister Doug Currie to a find consensus and build the school.

On NJN, the story spawned a running series of biting, satirical pieces by an anonymous writer, Donnie St. Pierre, who regularly hammered the government and Bertram over breaking faith with the French community.

La Voix Acadienne, the Acadian newspaper, took the government to task in an editorial saying the Ghiz government had lost the confidence of the Acadian community. La ministre Bertram a perdu notre confiance The Acadian leadership rattled sabers, threatening to re-open the Supreme Court lawsuit.

In the end, the government relented and agreed to the school in the historic setting of Rustico, where one of the first French language schools in PEI had been established.

Engineers on site hoped the building would be closed in by winter. No one was predicting when classes would begin.

A father was accompanying his son home from the temporary school in the Lion’s Club as we left Rustico. In the coming years, the community hopes to expand and flourish with the facilities being built for them by the Federal and Provincial governments.

In June a woman with a disability was pushed to the street in Vancouver by a police officer. He walked away without helping her up.

While the Vancouver police department claims the incident was under investigation, the officers are still on the beat.  We expect some official response that exonerates the officers will appear many months from now.

It’s clear from the video the woman has a disability. She has Cerebral Palsy (CP) which gives her a distinct walking pattern and affects her speech. She may sound intoxicated however anyone who has experience with CP can easily spot the symptoms.

This is not the first incident of police brutality nor is the it the first time an adult with CP has been abused.  Physical and passive aggressive abuse is a way of life for many people with disabilities.

Cute as children abused as adults

Children with cerebral palsy and down syndrome are the favourite poster children for Easter Seals telethons and charity fund raisers. When they grow up, they become easy, adult targets for bullies and human rights abuse.

No longer cute and cuddly,  adults with disabilities are victims every day. How many people spend the time to grant a person like Sandy her dignity? How many strike up a peer conversation with a person with a disability? Sandy is a human being and besides not deserving policy brutality she deserves respect.

How many social groups invite the disabled to join? Does Rotary want people with disabilities in their membership or do they just want cute kids to raise money? Other than a few Easter Seals ambassadors who are giving the royal treatment, Rotarians are ill-at-ease having the disabled in their club. Rotary is not unique in ostracizing the disabled.

Half of all people living below the poverty line are disabled, which is the probable reason Sandy is living on Vancouver’s East Side. In the CBC National video Ian Hannimansing tries to weakly blame the disabled for their abuse by the system. “Part of the problem is where the encounter took place.”

OK, so if the disabled weren’t poor and living on the down side of town they could expect better treatment.

All Sandy has to do is get herself an $50,000 plus annual salary working in a white collar office job and the abuse will disappear. The reality is employers discriminate against Sandy and other people with disabilities and get away with it. Canadians living with disabilities are routinely discriminated against in employment, housing, and in their contact with government.

What’s worse, the cop pushes Sandy to the ground once or Canadian society that keeps her on the ground for her whole life?

Video is copyright CBC News