Ellie Chartier's DIS MON NOM, at Montreal Fringe this weekend

I went to see my friend Ellie Chartier’s wonderful bilingual Fringe show Dis Mon Nom last week. It’s about Paul Bernardo, Karla Homolka, and their crimes. But in this era of #MeToo and MMIW, it’s really about so much more. I thought I would catch up with Ellie and ask her about the origins of her piece. 

Where did the idea for this Bernardo-Homolka piece come from?

From a role that Lucas [Chartier’s son, also featured in this play] got a few years ago, playing Paul Bernardo. I started thinking about what it means to be this terrible person. A psychopath. I wrote a first version, Paper Thin Walls, that really centred on the actor-character relationship, two actors preparing to play Bernardo and Homolka. After getting some feedback, I thought of all the other people affected by the aftermath. Which led me to the Scarborough rapist’s victims, these women who did not get their day in court. All I could find out about them was general descriptions of what he had done to them. Some of these women prepared for months to testify. But because of the nature of the case, he was never confronted by them in court. I was really upset by that.

Does #MeToo come into this?

It’s addressing the choice. The choice to speak openly if YOU choose to.

So you feel the justice system let these women down?

Yes, the system failed those victims in general.

What could be done differently? You understand they charged him with the worst crimes, hoping to put him away for life, and sparing the costs associated with adding and proving "lesser" crimes?

Yeah sparing the cost, as you say. But these women needed that day in court.

Along the lines of those 150 victims of Larry Nasser speaking in court? Confronting their molester?

Something should have been done for them. I don't think plea bargains should be used in this kind of crime.

Would you say you were angry on their behalf?

Yes, I am. And also that she's out.

How important is anger to the creative process? That she and her lawyer played the system? Do you believe she was the real murderer, as he claimed?

It's a mix of anger--and I'll say astonishment, for lack of a better word. I was really amazed when I learned about these other victims. And about her. I was 20 once and had a younger sister and what she did to her sister, I'm sorry but as much you are in love with a guy, this was unforgivable.

The 13 victims he admitted to having raped as the Scarborough rapist? Do you think the police didn't care enough? Or were inept?

I think the police did a really crappy job [on the Scarborough rapes] and also when they searched their house.

Do you buy that she was a victim too?

Her best friend was working in a center for battered wives. She knew exactly how to portray one.

Do you think she hurt herself to pose like a battered wife (like in Gone Girl)? That she is the real murderer, as he alleged?

She knew how to push his buttons. If you read the transcripts of how the murder happened she played an active part in the torturing and murders.

So what is the kernel, here? Why is it important to see your play?

For the victims. To question our justice system. To question our rehabilitation system. To question our reactions when confronted with crime and the mythologizing of criminals like Bundy. Or Charles Mason. To let people know that she played the system. And won.

So what’s next? You mentioned continuing with this piece, taking it further.

In the next version, I want to explore more how she got out.

You’ve to mention the criminals’ names as few times as possible. The title of your piece: to whose name are you referring?

The title is for the victims.

The ones who survived or the ones who were murdered?

The rape survivors. The ones who were murdered, we all know their names.

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Dis Mon Nom plays Fri June 14 to Sun June 16. Tickets here.

Mise en scène/Directed by: Ellie Chartier

Paysage sonore et lumineux/Set and light design: Alex Gravenstein

Avec (en ordre alphabétique)/ With (in alphabetical order):

Émmanuelle Caron
Lucas Chartier-Dessert
Lizzie Chuprun
Miguel Doucet
Karine Kerr
Boris Kirimidtchiev
Dominique Noël

OÙ/WHERE
Théâtre MainLine (3997 boul St-Laurent)

Destroying SNC-Lavalin because of corruption is like bombing the village to save it

Millions of pixels have already been spilled on the Jody Wilson-Raybould SNC-Lavalin deferred prosecution brouhaha. Lines are being drawn, flamethrowers are being taken to the place, talking points are being honed to rapier edge, petards are being hoisted…you get the drift.

The essential question, though, is whether SNC-Lavalin deserves to be forced out of business (or out of Canada) for the actions of a corrupt few related to contracts in Libya between 2001 & 2011? 

That's 54,000 jobs, 9,000 of them in Canada. The vast, overwhelming majority of these employees (not to mention shareholders) are totally innocent. Given the above, Jody Wilson-Raybould is wrong and Justin Trudeau is right.

Ministers either toe the party line or quit. That's not what she did. She didn't quit when she was being subjected to "pressure," and she still hasn't quit after trying to incinerate her government. 

Loyalty is everything in politics. The PMO was only asking her to do what was in her rights to do, by virtue of her position. For the good of the country, she should have.

Spirited conversations are taking place on my Facebook page, and other places. I understand those holding the opposite position. The thing is, this is politics, “the art of the possible,” not abstract morality class. 

Don't get me wrong, I agree that the individuals who committed wrongs should be punished, just not the entire economy. The PM would be derelict in his duty to let it go under. It's a jewel in Canada's economic life, one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the world.

I'm actually more concerned that the penalties being handed down to the guilty are too lax.

But what did JWR think she was getting into, in becoming a politician? She should stick to the PTA if she can't handle the big leagues. Why didn't she quit when she was being pressured, if she thought it was so wrong?

Basically, this scorched earth/woman scorned campaign of hers proves (to me, at least) she is not cut out for government.

JRW herself has said “that while she believes she was inappropriately pressured, she doesn’t think any law was broken,” according to Chantal Hebert in the Feb. 28^th Toronto Star ("Trudeau’s waist deep in the big muddy," p.4). 

Politics is serious business and no doubt has a steep learning curve. Of course having a deferred prosecution law on the books means the government would want to use it. That is what laws are: tools to goose the art of the possible.

Women deserve better from the CBC than to be told their “bad attitude” can give them cancer

I rarely catch White Coat, Black Art, but I was intrigued by the subject of the January 19th program “After breast cancer and failed reconstruction, this mom found beauty by going flat”, which I listened to recently. 

Like most middle-aged people, I'm no stranger to cancer: in November, I accompanied a close relative to her second lumpectomy (and associated follow-up treatment), my aunt died of breast cancer nearly a decade ago, my mother-in-law died of breast cancer in 1980 (~12 years post-mastectomy, no reconstruction), and a friend who had reconstructive surgery post-mastectomy is experiencing post-surgical infection and necrosis. And that’s just the breast cancer stories.

What surprised me was the program’s attempt to balance the terrible experience of Joanna Rankin, who describes being bullied into reconstructive surgery in Toronto (frankly, needing a double mastectomy at 32 means reconstruction was not her greatest worry) with the pro-reconstruction attitude of the “expert” interviewed by Dr. Brian Goldman on the program, Dr. Angel Arnaout, breast cancer surgeon and Ottawa region director of breast surgical oncology.

Basically, Arnaout said being happy and well-adjusted after breast cancer surgery reduces the chances of cancer recurrence. Which is misinformation, coming from a layman, but flat out shocking when delivered by a breast cancer specialist. 

Between approximately 21:23 and 22:25 of the recording. Dr. Arnaout says:

The reason [for encouraging immediate breast reconstruction] is because there is a lot of evidence now, especially in breast cancer, that your psychological emotions and your outlook on life is a very strong predictor of how well you will do from cancer, prognosis-wise. And that linkage of how you feel about yourself and therefore how confident you are and how well you present yourself and integrate yourself back into a normal life, and breast reconstruction is supposed to help with easing you back into a normal life and getting out there and doing exercise and being happy. All of it is linked in a lot of studies to your survivorship and your prognosis from a cancer point of view. There is a lot of evidence to show that if you are happier and you’re exercising, because you’re happier you’re taking care of your body and you’re eating well, all those things reduce your chances of recurrence. And so having the option of breast cancer reconstruction is actually now considered part of cancer treatment.

In this rambling, slightly incoherent paragraph, Dr. Arnaout is actually saying that how a patient/survivor feels about herself will directly influence cancer recurrence and "survivorship". Now, this is a wonderful thing to believe (especially if you’re a cancer patient/survivor or surgeon) but unfortunately, it’s not true. Which makes it gobsmacking to have been uttered on CBC, and by an oncology specialist to boot. That Goldman has no problem accepting this proposition is equally staggering.

Because the corollary is: if you don’t feel good about yourself or you don’t have "a good attitude", you’re bringing the cancer (or recurrence) on yourself.

This is known as blaming the victim.

This isn’t just my opinion. The American Cancer Society website goes to great lengths to dispel these antiquated notions, on their page on “Attitude and Cancer”:

Treatment that deals with our emotions and relationships (sometimes called psychosocial interventions) can help people with cancer feel more upbeat and have a better quality of life. But there’s no good evidence to support the idea that these interventions can reduce the risk of cancer, keep cancer from coming back, or help the person with cancer live longer.

Further down that page, in a section on “Personality Traits and Cancer”, they go on:

For many years there have been those who were convinced that people with certain personality types were more likely to get cancer. The common thought was that neurotic people and introverts were at the highest risk of cancer. Along with that, some believed that personality affected the outcome of cancer – the likelihood that a person with cancer might die….In 2010, the largest and best-designed scientific study to date [on the question] was published. It looked at nearly 60,000 people, who were followed over time for a minimum of 30 years. This careful study controlled for smoking, alcohol use, and other known cancer risk factors. The study showed no link between personality and overall cancer risk. There was also no link between personality traits and cancer survival.

Finally, in a section titled “Does a positive attitude affect cancer?”, they write:

…many people want to believe that the power of the mind can control serious diseases. This is a comforting belief that can make a person feel safer from the risk of serious illness. If it were true, you could use your mind to stop the cancer from growing. But the down side of such beliefs is that when people with cancer don’t do well, they may blame themselves. To learn more about attitude and survival, researchers looked at the emotional well-being of more than 1,000 patients with head and neck cancer to find out whether it affected survival. Over time, those who scored high on emotional well-being showed no differences in cancer growth or length of life when compared with those with low scores. Based on what we know now about how cancer starts and grows, there’s no reason to believe that emotions can cause cancer or help it grow.

At Mayo Clinic.org, one finds, in a section on cancer myth-busting, the following:

Myth: A positive attitude is all you need to beat cancer

Truth: There’s no scientific proof that a positive attitude gives you an advantage in cancer treatment or improves your chance of being cured. 

Huge sums are no doubt being spent in the public system to provide reconstruction to mastectomy patients. Joanna Rankin’s story is that some women are bullied into accepting it. Maybe CBC journalists should be investigating that, and whether many/most oncology specialists have confused quality of life issues with the science of recurrence.

CBC Journalistic Practices related to Science and Health read, in part, “In matters of human health we will take particular care to avoid arousing unfounded hopes or fears in persons living with or close to those living with serious illnesses.”

Given the above, I would like Drs. Goldman and/or Arnaout to provide evidence for the notion they are putting forward: that breast reconstruction (and “a good attitude”) results in lower breast cancer recurrence rates.

And, if they cannot, I would expect the program to be corrected or pulled, and an apology to be prominently published on the White Coat, Black Art website.

Because people with cancer, and those who love them, deserve better from the CBC than to be told that their sadness, anger, or other “bad attitude” can give them cancer.