Narconon Trois-Rivières: Disturbing testimony from former employees

Translation of a French article by mnql1 posted on April 18, 2012 on the website of the Trois-Rivières daily newspaper Le Nouvelliste:
Des constats inquiétants

Narconon Trois-Rivières: Disturbing testimony from former employees

by Paule Vermot Desroches
April 18, 2012



Photo caption: From left to right: Émilie Marin, Sylvain Bérard, Julie Ann Pagé, Odette Poulin,
and Sylvie Houde, former employees of Narconon Trois-Rivières.
(Photo by François Gervais)

(Trois-Rivières) Things weren't sailing very smoothly inside Narconon during the past few months. This, at least, is what emerges from the testimony of Narconon employees who, after their sudden dismissal, felt the need to speak out in public about the situation to Le Nouvelliste.

First and foremost, the employees wished to defend the program offered by Narconon as an effective program that has time and again produced excellent results, but they said that the center's administration left much to be desired and sometimes even endangered the safety of certain residents and employees.

Sylvain Bérard, the Ethics Officer, said that Narconon had already been experiencing financial problems for some time, to such an extent that, in recent months, the organization had even been admitting clients with more serious problems of a psychiatric nature.

"Some of these cases weren't admissible to the program because it requires cutting off their medication. But the administration chose to keep them anyway. There were several instances of attempted suicide during the past few months. By law, immediate medical assistance should have been provided, but management decided to keep these persons without calling for an ambulance," says the former employee.

His colleague, Julie Ann Pagé remembers a female resident who, less than ten days earlier, made at least two suicide attempts in one day, but she was not referred to a hospital. Ms. Pagé says that incidents like this were blamed on the employees for supposedly "not delivering enough."

"We believe in what we are doing, and we do it for the sake of our residents, for the families, because we believe that everyone can be rehabilitated. But we were treated like assholes, as less than nothing," says Julie Ann Pagé, who was responsible for the withdrawal phase at Narconon.

All of the employees gathered around the table said they had received no pay for at least six weeks, and neither had they received the 4% of salary due to them at the termination of employment. Yesterday morning, they went to the labour standards commission office to inquire about their possible recourse.

"There were several times we didn't get paid on time. But they promised us all sorts of things. It was lie after lie. We weren't supposed to talk about it with each other, otherwise we risked getting fired," remembers Sylvie Houde.

Narconon's finances were so badly managed that Julie Ann Pagé and another co-worker were forced to get rid of the center's trash because Narconon couldn't afford to have its garbage bins emptied. Sylvain Bérard also recalls that, in 2009, clients were compelled to eat ground beef for a whole month, even though the clients could spend between $20,000 and $30,000 for their stay.

"We had no right to have a personal opinion. The only thing that mattered was their teaching of Scientology. Don't do to others what you wouldn't want them to do to you. This was one of their internal rules, but they themselves don't apply it. They have no respect for us or for the residents," says Sylvie Houde.

"We're playing with people's lives"

While the Narconon employees were at Le Nouvelliste, one of their cell phones rang. On the line was a woman from the Maritimes who was worried because she hadn't heard from her brother who was in therapy in Trois-Rivières. The man she was referring to had been relocated to the Narconon center in Calgary. His family members had not been notified and no one at Narconon Trois-Rivières was answering the phone to reassure them.

Discouragement was perceptible around the table. "There's no better example to show the kind of management that goes on there. Right now, they're taking away all of the center's records, confidential files they don't want anyone to see because of the crooked way they manage," says Odette Poulin.

Odette Poulin points out that every employee had to sign a contract with Narconon that prohibits them from speaking to the media. "We weren't supposed to reveal anything to the press. We're speaking today anyway for the sake of the parents and the students, but also for the employees. We were treated as less than nothing," says Julie Ann Pagé. "We didn't even get a thank you or a letter of reference," laments Odette Poulin.

Émilie Marin, who resigned from Narconon last March 30, emphasizes however that their criticism of the administration only concerns Narconon Trois-Rivières and does not necessarily apply to the other centers around the world.

Sylvain Girard, for his part, suspects that the Narconon Trois-Rivières administration is now turning to Toronto to open a new center. "I think this is the biggest danger, because they'll open somewhere else in Canada. The whole country needs to be aware of what's happening. As far as the program is concerned, I firmly believe in it. I believe that a person should not be cured of an addiction by taking other drugs. The Narconon program is a logical program. But it was time for the government to close down Narconon Trois-Rivières because psychiatric cases are out of line with our capabilities. The situation had become dangerous," said Mr. Bérard. "We're playing with people's lives," adds Julie Ann Pagé.

Le Nouvelliste tried again to contact the administration of Narconon Trois-Rivières by telephone and by email to offer an opportunity to respond, but without success.

Narconon practices risky, according to regional Health Agency

Translation by mnql1 of a French article posted on April 17, 2012 on the website of radio station 98.5 FM in Montreal:
Des pratiques risquées chez Narconon selon l'Agence régionale

Narconon practices risky, according to regional Health Agency

by Jocelyn Ouellet
April 17, 2012
CKOI 106,9 Mauricie

The Mauricie and Central-Quebec Health and Social Services Agency gave details on Tuesday about the reasons that led it to deny certification to the Narconon Trois-Rivières detoxification center.

The center was ordered to cease its activities and to relocate the twenty-four residents who were there. Seventeen of them were transferred to Narconon centers in the United States. The organization has ten days to send its comments to the Agency, which will then issue a final decision. The center will then have sixty days to contest the decision before the Quebec administrative court.

Of the fifty-five criteria required for certification, the Quebec Accreditation Council identified forty-six deficiencies, twenty-six of them considered high-risk. One of the procedures that represents a health risk is the sauna sweating sessions combined with massive doses of vitamins.

Narconon's methods are based on the teachings of the Church of Scientology, which, according to the Agency, perceives drug addiction as moral depravity and associates it with dishonesty.

Marc Lacour also confirmed that the regional complaints commissioner has received a certain number of complaints about Narconon. Clients who wanted to end their stay prematurely complained that their identity cards, passports, and money were taken and withheld to make departing more complicated.

Closure of Narconon announced

Translation by mnql1 of a French article posted on April 17, 2012 on the website of the Journal de Montréal: Fermeture annoncée pour Narconon

 Quebec is expected to close the detoxification center linked to the controversial Church of Scientology

The Health and Social Services Agency for the Mauricie region met yesterday with the directors of Narconon, a drug detoxification center linked to the controversial Church of Scientology. According to our sources, Quebec is expected to put an end to Narconon's activities.

By Émilie Dubreuil

Spending seven to eight hours a day in a sauna for 21 days, shouting at an ashtray, ingesting massive vitamin doses - this, among other things, is the treatment that Narconon Trois-Rivières offers drug addicts.

This peculiar detoxification method is based on the writings of the founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard.

A typical two-to-three-month stay at Narconon Trois-Rivières costs $23,000.

Many families of drug addicts do not hesitate to invest this amount to help their loved ones deal with their addiction.

Moreover, Narconon Trois-Rivières claims that its success rate is 80%, which is far above average.

Multiple complaints

The center's clientele comes mainly from the United States and English Canada.

The latter is the case for David Edgar Love, who arrived at Narconon Trois-Rivières addicted to cocaine and medications. He emerged one year later weaned off drugs, but completely traumatized.

Since then, with the support of the Anonymous group that campaigns worldwide against the activities of the Church of Scientology, Love has filed multiple formal complaints with the College of Physicians, the Human Rights Commission and the Canada Revenue Agency.

David Love has also organized various protests to draw media attention to Narconon's questionable methods.

Certification

At the same time these efforts were unfolding, the regional Health and Social Services Agency conducted an investigation and met with former dissatisfied patients.

This investigation was part of a certification process for detoxification centers located in the province of Quebec.

This initiative began in Quebec in 2007. It was learned that Narconon employees were offering courses in certain Quebec schools, teaching basic Scientology principles to young students.

The Health and Social Services Agency convened the media this morning to report on this case, but news of the closure had already reached David Love and he is very pleased about it.

"I feel I did my duty," he said.

Narconon: Health Agency feared for the safety of the residents

April 17, 2012 translated by mnql1

The Narconon detoxification center fails to satisfy 42 of the 55 criteria needed to obtain certification from the Quebec Department of Health, 26 of which are deemed high risk factors. This is the assessment presented this morning at a press conference by the Health and Social Services Agency for the Mauricie-Central Quebec region.

The Health Agency brought up several questionable procedures used by Narconon, for example its sudation method combined with massive doses of medications, as well as the absence of medical supervision. Residents spend five or six hours a day in a sauna during twenty-five days. These methods are not recognized by the Quebec Department of Health.

Moreover, some residents have said they were prevented from leaving the center.

Narconon has ten days to send its comments to the Health Agency. Following this, Narconon will have sixty days to contest the decision before the courts. As was previously reported, the Narconon Trois-Rivières detoxification center was forced to shut down because the Quebec Department of Health refused to grant it certification.

More details to come.

Published in Trois-Rivières daily newspaper Le Nouvelliste:
Narconon: l'Agence de santé craignait pour la sécurité des résidents

Signs of winning

In today's Google Taiwan search results, anti-church of Scientology websites occupies half of the 10 entries on front page.  The top entry has always been the Wikipedia page of Scientology.  It is supposed to be neutral but in fact the data in it are overwhelming unfavourable to CoS, making the overall results 6 to 4 against.

More importantly, it is not just the number of websites, we are winning in different fronts - Wikipedia, website, Global and local blog platforms, Youtube, Facebook.

Taiwan is one of the 5 countries in the world that Google isn't the top search engine.  But here Google handles about half of the searches and growing.

Another died in Narconon Arrowhead

On April 11, 2012, Hillary Holten, 21, of Carrolton Texas, was found dead at about 4 a.m. in her room at Narconon Arrowhead. She had been staying at the facility for less than two days when she was found face down on her bed.

Less than six months earlier, in October, the body of Gabriel Graves, 32, of Kingfisher, was also found in his bed at the facility, according to a police report. He had been at Narconon for months.

 

Narconon deaths under investigation

Worse than KONY 2012—Youth for Human Rights International Taiwan

The president of Youth for Human Rights International Mary Shutterworth visited the President of Taiwan.  It was very upstat at first sight but this is right after the presidential election.  It's pay back time.  What else did the President do?  Force eviction of homes for redevelopment.  Big increase in gas and electricity.  And greeted Mary Shutterworth.  Scientology is that unpopular.  And because of the visit, I commented that the church of Scientology is a convicted international criminal organisation, at the Presidential Office online.  The board is moderated and my comment got through.  It's not a big deal but Scientologists can't say "It's not true", "I sue you".

Youth for Human Rights International Taiwan has one full time employee 林佩臻.  The only activity is for her to go to schools and lecture about human rights. Since she does not do press releases, we have not filed complains recently.

They used to have a Human Rights carnival on Human Rights day every year.  It was busted some two years ago.  Then they invited "celebrities" instead to tour universities.  First it was once a year, then every six months and now just three months.  It was as if they want to stop the downward spiral but failed miserably.

All these celebrities are offspring of big donors and dedicated OT's.  There were also some without a single talent who came along.  They don't come any more because they can't do anything and looked like idiots. 

As I predicted, Nikki Lanik can't continue to fake being a formula one driver when nobody hire him to drive any race any more.  Instead, came the bizarre "Hollywood photographer" Felix Kunze, who is actually based in London, and his only photo shoot session with a movie star is, guess who, Juliette Lewis.  I still want to vomit thinking about her recently leaked sex pictures.  He did a session with Catherine Bell recently, before he set off for Taiwan.  But Bell isn't a Hollywood star, all she did was TV shows and TV movies.

As for Dustin McGahee, he claims to be a singer and he can sing, although the biggest run of his album is 300 CD's shipped to Taiwan for sale. I would think a lot are still in the office drawers.  There's nothing to fake but there's not enough pulling power either.  So this time they find another singer to make up a party of three celebrities.  But the trouble is that this singer, 郭育麟, is a wedding singer.  That doesn't stop them from signing autographs and sell them as if they are Hollywood and Nashville stars.  But sooner or later people will realise that Dustin McGahee is not even as good as a wedding singer, and the Hollywood photographer has nothing to do with Hollywood, except for Juliette Lewis that he would rather has nothing to do with.

This year they managed to tour three universities.  Only a few people turned up in one of them, just enough for them to take group pictures.  May be because they brought a wedding singer in the other one, so the crowd was bigger.

The repeat offender is Kun Shan University.  When I made a comment on a Facebook page of this university about the event, my link to the Presidential Office was deleted.  That gave me an option to complain to the highest level.

Also, people are not stupid. Someone were bound to ask, "Human rights ambassadors, can you help with the force eviction for redevelopment?"  The answer should have been, "We are worse than KONY 2012.  We take your money, travel all over, make epic videos, and raise awareness.  But we absolutely don't spend any money on others."

With nothing much to do, these celebrities hijacked a concert.  The location is like Avalon in Catalina Islands, Land's End in Cornwall.  There are pictures of a lot of audiences.  There are videos of our celebrity singing on his own.  The only video with the singer singing in front of some audiences, was probably filmed when they gave him the stage after the concert finished, and there were still some people left who didn't go home yet.