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4/7/2008: Culture of Shame
While researching and writing a book on video lottery terminals in Atlantic Canada, Peter McKenna says he was constantly frustrated by uncomfortable politicians, difficult-to-access information and public servants “terrified” to speak on the issue.
Particularly in Newfoundland and Labrador, McKenna encountered a “culture of shame” that kept stories of addiction underground and a government extremely reluctant to address the downside of VLTs.
“People in your province are absolutely terrified to go on the record,” McKenna tells The Independent from his home in Charlottetown, where he is a professor of political science at UPEI.
“They are terrified of Danny Williams. I couldn’t believe it. I had officials calling me back, saying ‘please don’t say that I said’ … oh God, it was horrible.”
Not that other provincial governments were much help, either. “All were very nervous and apprehensive and looking over shoulders and concerned I was naming them.
“It’s so politically sensitive, it’s radioactive.”
Not only the Atlantic provinces have a problem, Ontario is extremely senstive.
The VLT suicide rates: Peter McKenna:
As for anyone who dares ask questions about VLT-related suicide rates? Good luck to them.
“I had all kinds of difficulty getting the chief coroner in St. John’s,” McKenna says. “His office sent me e-mails, saying this and that, he was away, he was on vacation, he’d be back, then he wasn’t, it was ridiculous.
“The same in New Brunswick, they wouldn’t tell me anything. In Nova Scotia, they had stopped collecting the statistics … in P.E.I., it was simply unbelievable — I did speak to the chief coroner, he said they had added a line on the death investigation form, whether is was a gambling-related suicide.
“But he said they weren’t asking the question … and I thought ‘Oh my God.’ So I just ripped into him … he was emphatic that he hadn’t seen any red flags go off — but how would you know if you’re not even asking the question?”
But suicides are a real side effect, McKenna writes, stating that in Alberta gambling was considered a factor in 10 per cent of that province’s 2001 suicides. He firmly believes similar numbers are true in this province, where VLTs exact a “deadly toll.”
The head of the Canada Safety Council wrote all Canadian Premiers and coronors with concerns about the high rate of suicide from this form of entertainment. When we have equalizing formula provinces, it is hard to see your money pi**ed away gambling.
Professor McKenna’s conclusion is:
Throughout the writing of the book, McKenna says, he searched for solutions to the “scourge” of VLT addiction. As much as he tried, he says, he couldn’t find any recommendation “other than to get rid of them.”
He doesn’t have much hope of it happening, though. McKenna says he sees a sort of “resignation” within the public that gambling is here to stay. In Newfoundland and Labrador, more than the other Atlantic provinces, there is no concentrated anti-VLT lobby group to keep the issue alive; church and community leaders rarely speak out; media coverage is sporadic at best.
And, as much as VLT gambling caught on as a social activity, it proved difficult to find people to offer public accounts of the negative results of gambling.
I would wholeheartedly agree that in a true cost benefit study the provinces would be much futher ahead with out the slotterer house mentality.
Peter McKenna’s book Terminal Damage will be available this week.
Bill Clark
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:53 am
[...] Nearly fifty years of community parmacy gave me a little insight into addiction and side effects of drugs. The reluctance of the CGA to admit that the creation of nearly half a million gambling addicts, a number published for Ontario, is a fair price, not to mention anywhere from 2000 to possibly many more gambling suicides. Entertainment is not something one would suspect of an overdose, sure, one can overeat, one can drink a little to much, pass out… but cause suicide. Well, B F Skinner did warn, pigeon, rat, or human, gambling is addictive. Yes addiction has consequences But then, to turn around and blame the “player” that is a little too much. In Quebec, suicide warning appear over the VLTs. Don”t see those warnings with OLG products in Ontario. see previous post See related articles: General, Canada, Addiction and Recovery, Wisdom and its absence bill clark [...]