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Red Deer Advocate MONDAY, JUNE 29, 2015
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Schreiner focused on helping people BY MARY-ANN BARR ADVOCATE STAFF Since becoming the new MLA for Red Deer North, Kim Schreiner has been away more than she has been home. She’s not complaining. While it’s been a bit of a whirlwind since she became one of the rookie NDP MLAs elected when Rachel Notley’s “orange crush” won a majority government in May, Schreiner is certainly liking her new career. A relative unknown before, Schreiner has been a resident of Red Deer for the past 33 years. She raised her two sons, now grown, with husband Vern, a Red Deer College instructor in the Trades and Technology Millwright Department. Schreiner’s been difficult to catch up with. Up at 5 a.m. on Friday to prepare for another day of meetings, the soft-spoken Schreiner says her life has changed, although the business of helping people is not unfamiliar to her.Just prior to the election, Schreiner was working at Extendicare Michener Hill, a privately-operated, publicly-funded seniors facility in the city, as a health care aide. She was chief union steward there for the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees. Schreiner has a special place in her heart for seniors.
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RED DEER NORTH One of her very first “jobs” with seniors was when she was a kid. She loved weekends because her mother would let her come along to the seniors lodge overnight in B.C. She would sleep on a couch while her mother worked, and in the morning when her mother would help people get dressed “on the top half” with buttons and things, she would do the “bottom part,” putting their socks and shoes on. “It was one of my favourite things to do — to go and spend time with the seniors.” She continued to help people when she later became a hospital volunteer. Schreiner helped fight against the closure of Red Deer’s two nursing homes and Michener Centre. An “air force brat” now in her 50s, she said both her parents were in the Canadian Forces. That resulted in her being in 13 different schools in Canada and the U.S. through her schooling. That taught her to adjust well to change. “When you came into school your first day, it was like you were friends forever but you didn’t know anyone, and you knew that any time through the year your best friend could be gone.”
Please see MLA on Page A2
Photo by ASHLI BARRETT/Advocate staff
The Red Deer Titans rugby teams tried their hand at Tug of War during the 68th Annual Red Deer Highland Games on Saturday. See more photos on page C1.
Climbing out of a deep, dark place HARMAN WANTS OTHERS TO KNOW THAT THERE IS HELP AVAILABLE FOR MENTAL ILLNESS BY LANA MICHELIN ADVOCATE STAFF The last thing Stephen Harman remembers about July 25, 2014, was holding a bottle of anti-anxiety pills in one hand and a container of industrial alcohol in the other. He’d harboured secret thoughts over the previous six months about shooting himself in the head. Since he didn’t own a gun, these two bottles would have to do. The next few hours were — and still are — a complete blank for the owner of a sculpture foundry southwest of Red Deer. Harman doesn’t remember consuming the alcohol and pills. But he was found stumbling across his backyard towards his shop by a couple of his employees, who noticed his incapacitation and rushed him to hospital in Red Deer. They saved his life, but Harman — a married father of three who had everything to live for — had yet to figure out how to survive. Less than a year later, he believes he has climbed out of “a deep, dark place” of depression. He wants to tell his story to puncture any remaining stigma about mental illness, and to let others know there’s hope. “Once it all starts to come together for you, you want to shout it from the roof tops,” said the affable 49-year-old. “I know there are so many people suffering, and I want those people to know there’s help out there — a lot of help.” After spending 10 weeks in hospitals in Red Deer and Ponoka, Harman tried various therapy options in the community — including a free, very helpful group session run by Alberta Addiction Services (formerly AADAC) in the Provincial Building. He also did a lot of personal reading, and believes he’s found the way to happiness by combining meditation
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WESTERN CANADA
High temperatures increase fire risk BY THE CANADIAN PRESS
While he was in the grips of depression, he remembers entering his deadline-oriented foundry, which cast such high-profile statues as Douglas Coupland’s Terry Fox installations for Vancouver. He would immediately “shut down” from the profusion of stress hormones being released into his body. Harman used to think he was just tired, moody and unmotivated. To fully function, he would drink alcohol, which temporarily soothed his anxiety but caused other problems. Harman has now quit drinking and achieves serenity through the “mindfulness” technique he first learned through Alberta Addiction Services and continues to hone in yoga classes. The four-minute daily meditation exercise is best summarized by author Sam Harris in his book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion.
REGINA — An official involved in fighting wildfires in Western Canada says even the nights are hot. Steve Roberts with Saskatchewan’s environment ministry says high temperatures and low humidity are continuing through the nights and into the early mornings, which means fires in the province’s north continue to spread late into the evenings. Roberts says the province planned to use an aircraft from Ontario with infrared equipment to help track fires overnight in order to figure out the best places to deploy firefighters in the morning. Fires close to La Ronge and La Roche in the province’s north continued to burn over the weekend, and have already forced many people in those areas to leave their homes due to thick smoke. In Alberta, almost two dozen new wildfires were reported in a 24-hour period between Saturday and Sunday. The province says a small amount of rain fell on the western side of the High Level Wildfire Management Area in northwestern Alberta, but several fires continue to burn in the vicinity of the town of High Level. Temperatures reached into the 30s across much of Alberta and Saskatchewan on Saturday and Sunday. Further west, the temperature was in the high 30s in parts of B.C. over the weekend. “Our weather forecast is for continued hot, dry conditions, and low chance of precipitation,” Roberts told a media briefing on Sunday about the fire conditions in Saskatchewan.
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Photo by JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff
Red Deer sculptor and foundry operator Stephen Harman on his acreage south east of the city. with group therapy and anti-depressant medication. “It was like a light went off in his brain three months ago,” said his wife Jen, who’s relieved to be past the “devastating” events of last year. She feels she no longer has to worry about her husband’s state of mind, saying “he bounces out of bed in the morning and can’t wait to get up and see the kids.” By learning to live in the moment, Harman feels he can enjoy simple things, like the methodical process of making coffee, which he considers to be very like meditation. “You can think of your brain as a wide blue sky and all your thoughts — positive or negative — are like clouds that come and go,” to be acknowledged, but not obsessed over. He feels this allows him to suppress the overload of anxiety and fear chemicals released by his lower “fight, flight or freeze” brain, so his higher brain’s reasoning power can kick in.
INDEX Four sections Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A3 Business. . . . . . . . . . . . . C2,C3 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A5,A6 Classified . . . . . . . . . . . .D1,D2 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D4 Entertainment . . . . . . . . C5,C6 Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B1-B6
Mother Canada statue starts war of words Proposed monument causes heated debate between supporters and opponents. Story on PAGE A5
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