PRE-EXISTING CONDITION

Canada Post

I was an employee of Canada Post from 1973 to 1995. 

I am affected by pre-existing trauma from my employment at Canada Post. Exacerbating that, is a similar, less extreme, but far more prolonged 30-year experience in the strata corporation.

In 1986, when I told the employer that I was born with hip dysplasia harassment became a condition of employment, and I didn't know what hit me. It was crazy making because it made no sense. I had a good work history, and in 13 years had never missed a day's work because of my hip condition. Jobs typing change of address labels that I could do safely, and was entitled to by seniority, were available but inexplicably withheld. I wouldn't take a buy out, because I had no transferable skills. What I did have was a computer spread sheet, so I knew that my pension indexed to the cost of living was worth about a million dollars, I just couldn't put the pieces of the puzzle together, and neither could my friends or family. It took 12 years to drive me to quit and 15 year before I found out what happened from a CKNW news report. The Auditor General was secretly hiding billions of dollars of undisclosed unfunded pension liabilities. The mandate was to replace high cost pension liabilies like myself with low cost new hires, and drive out the most vulnerable targets, such as the disabled, while advertising employment equity. A man with one leg was kept to discredit that insidious agenda, while most others with hidden disabilities were driven out, quickly and quietly. Nobody fought it like I did. The practice was repeated right across the whole country, year after year, endlessly. 

It was like walking through a mine field blind folded for 12 years. The extent of the harassment was unspeakable. When we bought our townhouse here, I had just lost my own home during Canada Post's prolonged game of repeated wrongful dismissals and reinstatements. If I was smart, I would have quit. But I'm not smart, I'm a fool who believed in the law and refused to abandon my job. It took 7 more years to destroy me psychologically to the point that induced me to resign.    

A psychiatrist, Dr. David Mackenzie, wrote to Sun Life advising that I was so severely traumatized by Canada Post's actions that I may never be able to work again, at anything, anywhere, ever.  He asked me if I wanted a copy of his letter and I said no, because I couldn’t believe it. That was the biggest mistake of my life. I was never the same again, and after making a mid-life career change, I lost 23 jobs in 6 years. I'm still unable to function efficiently or effectively. My aversion to anything resembling a paper war is so debilitating that I become hysterical and cannot defend my legal rights no matter how hard I try or how extreme the oppression. 

Over 20 years later, I tried to defend myself against strata oppression but my 2015 Supreme Court application for a stay of proceedings was denied "fundamentally" because I did not produce that retird doctor's letter, which I had never taken a copy of in the first place. When the CRT started operating I tried again, only to have my application for relief dismissed, in deference to the strata asserting the Limitation Act, in total disregard of the fact that there is nothing "appropriate" about spending $40,000 to bring a $3,000 matter before the Supreme Court when you are too traumatized to plead for relief effectively, or produce evidence efficiently, or at all.

The strata has exploited my vulnerability zealously and relentlessly for more than 30 years. Strata stress and lack of access to justice exacerbated pre-existing PTSD and inability to defend myself effectively, manage large volumes of evidence, or list documents in accordance with the procedural rules of court.  

 

If I was smart, I would have quit. But I'm a fool who refuses to abandon my home, give up on the law, or accept corruption.

Ulterior Motives - Hidden Agendas

In 1986, when I told the employer that I was born with hip dysplasia harassment immediately became a condition of employment, and I didn't know what hit me.

Despite being surrounded by inexplicable nationwide buyouts, I could not understand the actions against me. I really couldn't. Canada Post fired me, repeatedly, always without notice or severance, until I lost my home.

It was heartbreaking. I became so sickened with stress that I was never the same again. It took about 10 years of this kind of oppression to finally drive me to quit my job and give up a full pension that was indexed to the cost of living and only 10 years away. Instead of my pension I got a return of my own contributions, plus about 1% interest, during a period when bank interest was in double digits, leaving me to live out my old age (oh yes, and hire medical and legal experts for the convenience of the court) on OAS and partial Canada Pension.

Unbeknownst to me, the Treasury Board of Canada was operating under a hidden agenda to divest itself of more than 8 billion dollars of unfunded, undisclosed future pension liabilities, which was a fact not disclosed to the public, or me, until decades later. 

Canada Post bullied me out of my home, my job, my pension, and my health, but the most traumatic part of the whole experience was being unable to rely on the law or obtain reliable factual data in order to make reasonably informed decisions. Living through that crazy making stress for more than 10 years was like walking through a mine field blinded.

I refused a $10,000 buyout, and a $20,000 buyout because work that I was entitled to by seniority and could perform safely was available, and I did not want to quit my job, or lose my pension. I fought to save them until I was overcome with disabling anxiety from prolonged and repeated firings, obscenities, humiliation, embarrassment, bewilderment, fear, and exhaustion. So many years of not understanding why the corporate world suddenly demonstrated characteristics of a psychopath more than the Collective Agreement, Employment Equity Act, Human Rights Act, or Worker's Compensation Act was so traumatic that it was, quite literally, unspeakable.


In 1990, just before I attended a 2-year program of paralegal studies at Capilano College, which had a far more therapeutic effect than anything else, I attended a day program at Royal Columbian Hospital for nine months, where I drew this depiction of an experience that was to me beyond words

Members of the strata management team are engaging in a form of domestic abuse, shocking deprivation, and a painfully familiar combination of ulterior motives, hidden agendas, and persistent misrepresentations.  

No matter how much my brain wants justice, the cells in my body refuse to accept the health risks. Go figure.

Not that one-against-many is ever a level playing field anyway. Litigation is rarely an appropriate remedy to misconduct that is widespread and ongoing in nature. If it was, misconduct would be reducing, instead of expanding. 

Every human being has a breaking point;
So the question in brutal gang-ups is often the same:

How much can one person take? ... for how long?

Prolonged and repeated trauma experienced in the strata corporation not only interfered with my recovery, but exacerbated aversions to stress that developed during my Canada Post experience, which is currently overwhelming my ability to defend myself effectively and concisely, or even at all.

Who's Who
Different Hats - Same Payroll

The Workers Compensation Board had a hard time recognizing exhaustion from unlawful employment practices as an injury and paying my Review Board award for compensation - but at least they paid.

Exhaustion - One against 122
FOR 12 YEARS

This is the obscenity of how justice delayed is justice denied - while the left hand investigates the right hand - wearing many different hats - all on the same payroll. AND THAT INCLUDES THE RCMP THAT THE STRATA ATTACKED ME WITH.

These are depictions of me drawn by Ed Nicholles, my uniquely talented Shop Steward in the Treasury Board of Canada's campaign to shed unfunded pension obligations

More About A Marathon
FROM WHICH I NEVER HEALED

I can do all kinds of things, and never had a problem with stress before the Canada Post dispute. Since then I have a situational disability where I am unable to cope with boxes of documents, or function reliably under negative stress. As it is, I do more than many others would ever do, and that will have to be enough here.  

The psychiatrist who wrote to Sun Life saying that I was so traumatized that I might never be able to work again, at anything, ever, told me  that he could not diagnose PTSD because the injury did not arise out of a single life threatening event. So I was surprised when I accessed freedom of information records years later, and found out that he had told WCB that I had PTSD. Since then, what's called Complex Trauma Disorder or Continuous Traumatic Stress has been recognized. So just call it whatever you like, just don't expect me to do what I cannot do, and don't expect me to spend money that I do not have.

I was too befuddled to make sense of what happened to me at Canada Post, so I could not talk about it coherently for decades. Those experiences had an unspeakably disabling effect on my subsequent ability to function efficiently and effectively enough to hold jobs or represent myself properly in strata litigation. 

In 1990 a psychologist, Dr. Rick Bradshaw, advised me to prepare a 120 page Chronological Summary of Events which my husband, mother, and myself all got sick preparing, meticulously listing the contents of several banker boxes of supporting documents which decision makers never bothered to take the time to look at.

This 120 pages listing boxes of documents, along with a hurry up and wait 30-hour typing marathon that left me barely able to type for nearly a year, seemed to mark Stage 1 of my aversion to paper; Stage 2 seemed to be 900 copies the strata made to deny me access to information and records; Stage 3 seemed to be exploiting my desperation and vulnerability by burying me in boxes and boxes of rat chewed chaff. In combination the whole of the circumstances left me with a situational disability, for which I have found no cure, despite trying everything from day programs, to support groups, to EMDR, to Neurofeedback, to Art Therapy. BELIEVE IT NOT. I've already lost more than my share of privacy in trying to explain the disadvantages that I must cope with in any attempt to access justice. Let the chips fall where they may.


I have no intention of waiving medical confidentiality until the enemy waives litigation privilege. I apologize for any inconvenience but must ask others to respect my boundaries.

The misconduct of the strata corporation is not about me. None of this was ever a case of voluntary assumption of risk on my part. I have no control over those acting against me. The need to defend myself against abuse and do my best to access justice is not my idea of a good time either. My sense of aversion to documents is overwhelming. No matter how much my mind wants justice, the cells in my body refuse to accept the health risks. I apologize for my limitations, but that's all, I can't change them.

 
I fought for 12 years before the futility ultimately induced me to quit Canada Post when I was too exhausted, demoralized, sick and afraid to keep fighting blind in an unspeakably dangerous environment that I could make no sense of. 

Everybody but me knew I would be crushed. Penny Goldrick of the Canadian Human Rights Commission told me that "justice delayed is justice denied" before she was replaced with a parade of others who systemically fractured the facts over the next 6 years. I could not understand it; I really could not. My husband cried.

The last time Canada Post fired me in January 1988 forced the sale of my home when I could not renew my mortgage without an income. Starving me with no income for months also forced a premature disability insurance claim for my hips that did not pay a dime in benefits before Canada Post reinstated me for the third time in July 1988 and gave me a tortuous understanding that the coerced disability insurance claim had started a clock that ticked while I worked, artificially exhausted the benefits that I would most definitely need in future. Fear drove me crazy. Canada Post’s actions against me and protracted grievances that remained perpetually unresolved left me with well developed stress management skills, but a heightened sensitivity that severely interferes with my ability to function effectively under pressure or conflict.

Jim Sayre at the Vancouver Community Legal Assistance Society helped me win a test case forcing WCB to pay compensation for my psychological injuries, but it was just like Peter Carver, the lawyer for the BC Coaltion for the Disabled, had warned me right at the beginning. He said that Canada Post didn’t have a leg to stand on in law, it just relied on the fact that sooner or later, every human being has a breaking point. Add the requisite systemic bias to that, and its just like the strata corporation.

When Canada Post started to play games with my life I experienced, for the first time, migraine headaches, anxiety attacks, trembling, nausea, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, explosive bowel spasms, situational anxiety, and symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; all triggered by prolonged intimidation, repeated wrongful dismissals and reinstatement, and harassment as a condition of employment.

The Strata Property Act has no penalty provisions either.

The Canada Post experience was beyond belief to me. 

So is the Sunridge Estates experience. 

What makes them both so hard for me to believe is the LAW.