Romeo Dallaire, A Man in Full.

John Sewell copy for eye weekly, December 23, 2004.

The most thrilling speech I heard this year was by Romeo Dallaire. He was the Canadian soldier in charge of United Nations peacekeeping efforts in Rwanda ten years ago when the genocide broke out and more than 800,000 people were killed. Dallaire's speech was part of an event in late October, the emotional impact of which rather caught me by surprise.

I had been asked by George Brown College to chair a day-long session entitled “Mental Health in the City.” I agreed to do it as a way to learn about mental illness, a subject rarely talked about in public even though all of us have friends and family members suffering from depression, substance abuse, stress and other kinds of mental distress.

The day began with greetings from the Queen brought by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, James Bartleman. One never expects people like Mr. Bartleman to be appointed to such a senior post. He's an aboriginal, a member of the Mnjikaning First Nation. He was raised in Port Carling, and became one of Canada 's very distinguished foreign officers in South Africa , Israel , Cuba , Bangladesh and other places.

His remarks first touched on his current role as an activist. As Lieutenant Governor he has used his position to initiate a book drive for First Native kids in Ontario , and has managed to attract over one million donated books that are now being distributed. He has also helped twin Nunavut schools with schools in Toronto .

Bartleman then turned to what he really had come to say. He said he wanted everyone to know that he suffered from depression. I was astounded. It was the first time I had heard such a prominent person be so open about a problem of mental illness. Once again, he was using his position and his personal example as a way to advocate for others. He said he was able to function because he took the necessary drugs. He said he wanted to lend his voice to the message that mental illness shouldn't be treated as a big thing, certainly no differently than any other kind of illness. He gave legitimacy to the whole day.

It occurred to me that if he had apologized for having a cold, none of us would have thought anything about it. I realized we should stop trying to pretend mental distress doesn't happen or that there's something embarrassing about it.

Bartleman was followed by a panel about mental health in the workplace. Ron Lalonde, Executive Vice President of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, talked about the importance of employers like CIBC responding well to issues of mental health. That means encouraging managers to recognize early problems with employees suffering from anxiety, depression and so forth, providing employees with opportunities for confidential self-assessments, minimizing stress on the job, and supporting employee success. He said that instead of employees being shunned when they fall into a funk and call in sick, every effort should be made to reach out to them to help them regularize their lives, including offering them very short work days and flexible hours. Not only is it good business for CIBC to reduce workforce absenteeism and keep trained staff, Lalonde said, but it helps employees deal with their challenges.

Too often when friends or fellow workers fall into a depression we tend to keep our distance - at the very time when we should be extending our friendship and concern to say we support them. Bill Wilkerson, who heads up a round table on mental health in the workplace, put the workplace stress on the mind in perspective. “The mind now does the heavy lifting in the workplace,” he said.

Then came Romeo Dallaire. He has a trim, compact body that one would expect from a soldier in his late 50s, and he speaks well, with a slight French accent from growing up in Montreal . He described changes in the world in the last century and changes in the armed forces. He talked about the stress of being in situations of conflict and killing. He noted how we feel sympathy for a soldier who is physically wounded, but have little compassion for the soldiers, as he put it, at the back of the legion hall hiding their inner torment in drink.

“Mental illness was not honourable in the armed forces,” he said, “”We have not shifted our culture to say that the mentally ill are honourable and that they deserve care and treatment.” In fact, Dallaire was released from the Canadian armed forces because of his mental breakdown after Rwanda .

Concluding his talk, he held a package of pills in the air. He said he had tried to commit suicide because of the horrors he had experienced in Rwanda , that whenever he went into a grocery store he was overwhelmed by memories of the killings he had seen in Rwandan markets. But, he said, after a failed suicide, he decided his life has value working to advance human rights. He said his pills keep him on an even track. “I am no different than someone with diabetes,” he said. “Respect and not just tolerance is needed to bring people like me onto the team.”

It was electric. His speech was followed by a deafening roar and a standing ovation. He had put it all out there in the public for everyone to see. Me, mentally ill? Who cares? It's human, and like many other illnesses it can be overcome.

Who would have thought Canadians would honor a soldier whose moral values had led him into the depths of despair and now recovery, to talk about the importance of dealing well with those suffering from mental illness?

The New York Review of Books , perhaps today's premier intellectual journal, recently contained a laudatory article on Dallaire and his book Shake Hands with the Devil, which was awarded this year's Governor General's prize for non-fiction. The article was titled “A hero of our time.” Exactly.

- end -