Communications Parousia

583, rue Guizot est, Montreal (Quebec) Canada H2P 1N4

 

Wednesday, August 4th, 1999                                                                      PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION

Next Wednesday Toronto will be the scene of a quite unusual event. An ex-psychiatric patient all dressed in red crossing the town carrying a cross and a 57 pounds bag.

After having been arrested and held against his will in a psychiatric hospital for 57 days (without any court order) following a police identification mistake, Serge Lacombe who had to change his name to Serge Bourassa-Lacombe in order to avoid any further confusion, is walking across Canada in order to protest against the abuses and tortures toward psychiatric patients in many Canadian institutions.

His walk, started in Lennoxville, Quebec on April 1, 1999, will lead him to Victoria, B.-C. later this year. A walk of 5700 kilometres.

Serge arrived in Toronto on June 20th.  After meeting psychiatric survivors and concerned citizens he took a five weeks break to spend time with his wife before the long stretch that will lead him across Ontario to Manitoba.

Serge will be at Finch and Yonge street (metro Finch) Wednesday 11th, at 15h00, where he stopped his walk last month.  From there he will be walking north toward North Bay.

Everyone are invited to join him in his walk to support the human rights of the most defenceless persons in our society, the victims of mental illness.

Testimonies and donations received by the Serge Bourassa-Lacombe Foundation during this walk will be used to call for a Royal Inquiry Commission on human rights abuses in the Canadian mental health institutions.

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Contacts :	Daniel Cormier
	Communications Parousia
	514-389-8889
	dcormier@parousie.com