Sudbury newspaper responds to Blatchford story

Right-wingers’ ‘scoop’ shows no compassion

Northern Life - Aug. 15, 2002
EDITOR'S OPINION

By Vicki Gilhula

A National Post columnist reported Thursday Kimberly Rogers died of an overdose of anti-depressants.

In case you have been out of the country for the past year, Rogers is the Sudbury woman who died on a very hot day last August in her apartment. She was eight months pregnant at the time and under house arrest. She was doing time for her crime. She admitted to collecting $13,500 in welfare while going to school on student loans.

National Post senior columnist Christie Blatchford writes in a front-page story that Rogers overdosed on prescription anti-depressant pills.

"The Post has learned toxicology tests clearly indicated Rogers has overdosed on the prescription drug she took for depression, though whether deliberately or accidentally isn’t known, were completed and sent to the coroner’s office by early last September," she writes.

The results of the coroner’s report were never revealed, not even to Rogers’ family. The results were to be made public at the coroner’s inquest, which starts Oct. 7 in Sudbury.

Blatchford, while getting a few kicks at The Globe and Mail, takes delight in her column as she announces, "The state did not kill Kimberly Rogers."

She goes to chastise social activists and opposition politicians who have suggested Rogers died as the result of conditions she endured during her house arrest—conditions imposed by the state.

For a time her welfare benefits were cut off and when they were reinstated she had to pay a good chunk back. In addition to living on very little money, she wasn’t allowed to leave her home except for medical appointments and other necessities.

As Mick Lowe reported last year, Rogers was a model "prisoner." Although no one was watching her, she obeyed the conditions of her sentence. This means she didn’t leave her apartment except for the three hours she was allowed by the courts every Wednesday morning.

Laurie McGauley, a member of the Committee for Kim Rogers, would not comment on Blatchford’s allegations about Rogers dying of an overdose.

However, she would say that the committee has "focused on the way she lived" during the last months of her life, not the way she died.

Rogers would have been afforded more protection if she had been imprisoned as she would have received three meals a day and adequate medical help for herself and her unborn child and psychiatric assistance for her depression.

Blatchford, to her credit, doesn’t condemn journalists who wrote about Rogers death, noting the provincial coroner's office would not reveal the cause of death in the days after her body was found.

Blatchford’s article, however, does not prove the state did not kill Kimberly Rogers. In fact, she furthers the case.

The woman had struggled during life with depression. She tried to better herself by getting an education despite her handicap.

She did something wrong, but she was dealt with so harshly she was driven to desperation.

Many others have committed far worse crimes and received much more lenient punishment.

To say Mike Harris’s policies didn’t play a part in the Rogers tragedy is simplistic, misleading and not worthy of the front page of one of Canada’s leading newspapers.

Every word she writes convinces people with heart to fight back.

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PLEASE NOTE: Northern Life is a community newspaper in Sudbury
with three editions per week. It has a large circulation.