Summer school in a care home
CBC
This article is part of the CBC/QWF featured columnist program. More information can be found on this page.
They told me I would lead bingo for the summer. Naturally, I expected a life lesson.
I wanted to be taught the wisdom of age on manicured lawns, by a hundred variations of Homer Simpson's father and ladies with neat white bobs who'd smirk at me for a week before we'd speak.
"Alright, kid. You pass. We deem you worthy of our knowledge. Screw our grandkids," I imagined they'd say.
But on the cloudy summer morning of my first day, I found no Simpsons, no smirks and no kernels of wisdom. Instead, I heard distant screams.
Those wails sounded a lot like the inside of my head after I realized this is where I'd be searching for my life lessons. I would learn in hallways with flickering lights (which smell like excrement, but is actually just another gassy senior) study through open doors leading, occasionally, to empty rooms and, more often, to motionless bodies.
Sleeping bodies, I told myself. Normal, non-metaphorical.
"Does everyone get their own room?" I asked my guide.
"Not usually. Half of them died last winter so a lot of them are missing roomies."
We passed by a white-eyed man in a wheelchair, his head thrown back to gaze at the ceiling. He was screaming. She patted his head.
"Looking good, monsieur," she said, before leading me through another pair of steel doors.
"So, you've been studying physio for how long?"
"I don't study physio."
My guide, a physiotherapist, stilled. "But you're the student?"
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.
The toxic drug crisis has taken more than 47,000 lives in Canada since 2016 and the synthetic opioid fentanyl has become a household name. But now, what's believed to be an even more potent class of synthetic drugs is showing up in drug busts across the country: nitazenes.
The Liberal government and the NDP have agreed to introduce a two-month GST vacation on certain items before the holiday season, Radio-Canada has learned.
Veterinarians are warning Londoners to make sure their dogs are vaccinated and keeping clean after a deadly virus outbreak was declared in London this week.
Registered nurses rallied in St. John's Wednesday as part of a week-long convention, again calling on the Newfoundland and Labrador government to create permanent solutions to staff shortages and workplace violence.
New poll results released by Narrative Research suggest the Progressive Conservatives are heading into Tuesday's provincial election with a commanding lead over their political rivals.
A measles outbreak in New Brunswick is set to push Canada's annual case count to the highest it's been in five years, highlighting how infectious the disease is and how low vaccination rates have allowed it to take hold, says an immunologist.