Monday 8 September 2014

Familiar Faces; who's Debbie Arcand, and why is she here?

It started with a facebook comment.

After Artspace members held a silent vigil to commemorate 100 days under siege, AUPE retaliated against us for holding out for so long by invading our community, then bragged about it on their Facebook page.

Which is where this comment was left.


Which in turn left us wondering, who is this Deb Arcand, for whom being here has been her "life for the past 100 days", with intentions to remain here longer?

There have been a few paid picketers who've been here from the start, and for whom being here was clearly a full time job.

Which one of them was she?


Her Facebook page didn't tell us much more, though we see that she's friends with AUPE's fake lawyer, William Rigutto, and the current picket captain, Desiree Schell.

Wait a minute.

Works at Revera?

Revera was just in the news recently; news that led to some dueling letters to the editor that got posted about here.

So how can someone who has made it her life to be here, yet have a job somewhere else?

That got us curious enough to do some searches.

Which led to this article.










The article was written shortly before SAIL's staff walked off the job on May. 7.

This is Deb at St. Thomas.

They are on Edmonton's list of Community Homes for Seniors.

And there's Deb, at the senior's community, on a bull horn.

Well, we sure recognized her!  She's been one of the most abusive of the picketers, right up there with David Malka.












Here's an example of the side of her we got to see.




Here, you can hear her verbally abusing some Artspace members outside the main doors, including a SAIL user member.

Around the :45 mark, you can hear her saying, "you think you're above them? blah blah blah blah (she's mocking a woman with aphasia, there) You think you're above them? You're not above them! You don't deserve to have these good workers.  I'll be here 'till [unintelligible]... " and on she rants.

Her verbal attack on our members is very personal in nature, and she eventually drives people away from their own front patio.

This is someone who would regularly harass one of our user members whenever she used DATS, and would taunt a non-SAIL user member on her balcony; someone with self-managed care and who is non-verbal.

Interesting that she deliberately taunts and targets women in wheelchairs who have speech difficulties.







Going through the slideshow of photos, we found a whole bunch of familiar faces.

Including the Heather Gillard on her friends list.



















Oh, looky.  Here she is, just last month.

She spent many a day in a folding chair, knitting.

Which made her the only productive person on the picket line.







Still trying to figure out how this Deb Arcand could be here, day after day, on weekends, and still be a Revera employee.  She even stayed here when everyone else left for their 4 hour lunch breaks.


Like on the day this photo was taken.

Another day, she was seen eating her lunch in the union's rental van, watching as an ambulance came to help an injured Artspace member.

We have an incident report of a Sunday morning, where she and others deliberately blocked a couple of Artspace members for what turned out to be pure spite, because one of them never said "good morning" to them
.
Still other days, she would just be there, alone or with 1 other person, just watching the high rise.

It wasn't hyperbole for Deb to say her picketing of our home has been her life.

The search to figure out who she is, however, lead to some interesting finds.



Here she is in an AUPE propaganda video, at an Edmonton Extendicare rally.



This screen cap of another AUPE propaganda video goes back a few years, at Revera.

While here, she talked about how long they spent picketing Waterford; they were there for well over 200 days, and clearly, she's prepared to do the same here.


Which still doesn't answer the question:

How on earth can this person be here so constantly, and still have a job at Revera?

The other questions is, why is she here?

I suppose it's because she's the chair.

Which means her job with the union is a higher priority over her job as a health care aid at Revera.

That's right.  Deb Arcand, seen in the video above, verbally abusing our members, including SAIL user members, is a health care aid.

I shudder to think of the poor people who have to have her "caring" for them.

So, Artspace, Waterford, St. Thomas, Revera, Extendicare - was she at Hardisty, too?

She hasn't actually been around, lately.  Perhaps she's been drawn off to Shepherd's Care.

These are all places that provide care for the vulnerable, with the exception of Extendicare, which is a company that provides care services for seniors centres.  Their focus is on seniors.

With one significant difference; Artspace.

Artspace is the only one on the list that is a co-op.

Artspace is the first time they've deliberately targeted a community where the majority of the people who live here have NOTHING to do with the labour dispute, nor do they receive assistance from SAIL.  Even Extendicare, the company, is quite different from the SAIL model of care.

Thanks to Deb's Facebook comment, not only do we now know who she is, that has been harassing us for so long, a few other fascinating things were found - and more familiar faces.

More on those, later.




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