Mar 5

Written by: admin
05/03/2009 10:13 AM

RE: http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=8893afc3-18a8-4006-bf18-b418c1ec02cc&p=1

Colby Cosh, Columnist
National Post
1450 Don Mills Road, Suite 300
Don Mills, Ontario
Canada
M3B 3R5

March 5, 2009

Dear Colby,

While you may wish to reflect the views of the "experienced news consumer", you sadly lack the lived experience of a mental health consumer.

You lack the ability to report a factual and balanced view of mental illness, violence, addiction and the relationships between them. .

If we were to believe your article, the one in five prevalence of Mental Illness would mean that sheer anarchy would reign in the streets.

Here is a news flash:

Experienced mental health consumers work all around you, live next door to you already and go to work, pay taxes, raise their families and participate in the fabric of Canadian Society.

Even many people completely disabled by mental illness volunteer or take part in the world in whatever positive ways they can.

What we wonder is why, then, are we not seeing positive profiles and reports about people living with mental illness?

So I invite you to learn from us. I challenge you to profile an experienced mental health consumer each week for the next year.

Replace opinion with fact and hopefully prejudice with respect.

Yours truly,

Carmela Hutchison, Past President
On behalf of the Board of the National Network for Mental Health

cc.
Douglas Kelly, Editor-in-Chief, National Post
Paul Godfrey, President and CEO, National Post
The Honorable Michael Kirby, Chair, Mental Health Commission of Canada

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