Update Live interview with Dan Perrins now:
Dan Perrins has just completed a 75 mile walk from Hamilton, Ontario to Toronto in order to draw attention to two major men’s mental health issues. The first is male suicide, which claims the life of eight Canadian men a day. This is an issue that has directly affected Dan. Today is the anniversary of his brother’s death by suicide.
The other issue is that of Canada’s governmental indifference to men who are experiencing abuse in intimate relationships. Earl Silverman tried for years to fight that fight with the Canadian government, with efforts to establish a funded shelter for male victims of DV. The government’s reaction was silence. The reaction of the already established, feminist based, DV service industry in Canada was to mock and ridicule Mr. Silverman. His fight ended with his own suicide two years ago.
Dan has already delivered his demands at the footsteps of the Queen’s Park Legislative Assembly, who at first refused to even accept his demands for review. After some discussion they reversed and accepted the documents.
Dan has vowed that he will remain on hunger strike at the assembly building, sleeping in the park across the street and spending daytime hours in the protest area in front of the building, until he gets a commitment in writing by the government to take action on his demands.
I will be interviewing Dan this evening and placing that interview in this article, unedited, once that is done.
I have instructed AVFM editorial staff that this notice will remain in the top featured spot on this website till this is over.
I also encourage all MHRAs, especially those in the Toronto area to contact local media and advise them that there is a hunger strike underway at their Legislative Assembly.
It is up to us to support Dan Perrins in any way possible. After walking 75 miles to bring attention to the issues we most care about, he did the unimaginable. He did not seek rest and comfort, but instead moved directly toward a hunger strike and sleeping in the rough.
AVFM will be tweeting this article, every eight hours, with updates, because every eight hours Ontario loses another, son, brother, father or husband while the Canadian government busies itself with any way it can to ignore the problem.
More to come.
