A Case of Recovery

Three decades ago, a naked man walked through a department store in downtown Toronto (Toronto Sun, November 15, 1996). 

Two decades later, a prominent American mental health scholar, researcher and social scientist who was a world-leading expert on stigma wrote the prime minister of Canada, stating that knowledge of the story of the man — who was then living in Australia —would “serve to challenge the stigma of mental illness, raise awareness of recovery, and inspire hope for people with mental health problems and their families” (Patrick W. Corrigan, February 22, 2016).

In the interim, the man living in Australia became a qualified social worker and advocated for an investigation into the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), resulting in a Member of Parliament stating in the House of Commons that citizens were “owed more than $1.2 billion” (House of Commons, February 8, 2008).   

Two months before the MP’s statement in the House of Commons, the man made a presentation to the World Psychiatric Association International Congress about his recovery from bipolar disorder. (A Case of Recovery, December 1, 2007). 

Fifteen months before he walked naked through the Hudson’s Bay department store in 1996, a respected news anchor on Global Television reported that the man was “widening his crusade against some of the most powerful vested interests in the country” (Peter Kent, August 8, 1995).  

Since I am that man, I can explain the context for my fashion faux pas.

During a seven-year corporate career in the Canadian broadcasting industry, I became concerned about the CRTC and the increasing concentration of ownership in the broadcasting sector. In September 1994, I publicly opposed the $3.1 billion acquisition of Maclean Hunter Limited by Rogers Communications Inc. (RCI). Months later, I advocated for an investigation into regulations enacted by CRTC officials in an op-ed published by The Toronto Star (Keith Mahar, March 17, 1995); subordinate legislation that was forcing millions of Canadians — without their knowledge — to subsidize the operations of private media companies. My campaign resulted in questions to prime minister Jean Chrétien two weeks later (House of Commons, March 30, 1995). However, the Chrétien government failed to address the scheme, one that was serving to unjustly enrich corporations controlled by some of the wealthiest and most powerful Canadians, including billionaire Edward (Ted) S. Rogers Jr.

So I took matters into my own hands.

With the assistance of a talented pro-bono legal team (Christopher K. Leafloor, Neil Milton and J. Blair Drummie), I initiated a strategic civil legal case in a provincial superior court and sued the largest beneficiary of the scheme. The company was  controlled by Ted Rogers, and I sued for the monthly cost of the scheme to me personally — and for a ruling by the judge that I had a legal right to notice about the regulator scheme.  The objective was to establish the legal right of millions of Canadian ratepayers to knowledge about the regressive wealth redistribution scheme, its beneficiaries, and its monthly cost to them. Ignorance is easily exploited by the less ignorant, especially when the ignorance is deliberately is manufactured by design. In this case, $600 million was to be collected from ordinary Canadians over the initial five-year period of the scheme under false pretence: a deceptive method of collection which I have described as “government-regulated fraud” (Keith Mahar, June 13, 2008).

My lawsuit against Rogers Cablesystems Ltd. became a precedent-setting legal case. However, it did not result in a determination about the right of notice to ratepayers of the scheme. The corporation won a precedent-setting decision on jurisdiction. Justice Robert J. Sharpe determined that Parliament had granted jurisdiction to the CRTC to rule on the legal merit of the case, subject to a review by the Federal Court of Appeal. However, weeks later, the judge designated me as a public interest litigant and made a precedent-setting decision in my favour on costs. Justice Sharpe determined that “the issue raised was novel and certainly involved a matter of public interest” and was the case was “brought on a bona fide basis” and “raised a genuine issue of law of significance to the public at large” (Mahar v. Rogers Cablesystems Ltd.).  

Given the findings and direction by Justice Sharpe, I initiated a complaint to the CRTC under Cable Watch Citizens Association (Cable Watch). The complaint was expanded to address all corporations involved in the wealth redistribution scheme and the CRTC itself; alleging the corporations and the quasi-judicial regulatory tribunal had acted unlawfully (Cable Watch, November 28, 1995). In response to the official complaint, the CRTC opened File 1000-121. This is the origin for the name of the case of long-term systemic corruption that continues today — “The File 1000-121 Affair” — although it started with the enactment of the subordinate legislation (“Regulation 18(6.3)”) that created the scheme.

Unfortunately, it remains an open question of law whether the CRTC and corporations acted unlawfully, and a modified scheme still exists.  My mental health significantly deteriorated over the extended duration of this process and I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder during a severe depression, and was highly suicidal. During this time, the CRTC finally made a decision to the Cable Watch complaint. Officials at the CRTC ruled the CRTC and the corporations innocent of unlawful behaviour without a public process, and the decision was unpublished  (CRTC, June 25, 1996). However, given my mental state, the unpublished CRTC decision was not submitted to the Federal Court of Appeal for review within the limited window for taking such action. Moreover, I returned to the matter far too soon, and pushed myself far to hard.

One month after MP Dan McTeague and I appeared together at a CRTC public hearing (Transcript, October 14, 1996), I was experiencing acute psychosis. Logic and reason totally abandoned me to a highly seductive delusion on November 14, 1996, that I was going to eradicate poverty and suffering in the world, by walking the world naked for the rest of my life: it seemed a fair tradeoff.  

Two years earlier, the Toronto Star reported that I had a 90-minute private meeting with Ted Rogers when I was opposing his $3.1 billion corporate takeover (DATE).

I simply cut through the Hudson Bay store that day on my way to Scotia Plaza, where RCI’s head office was located, as I intended to negotiate a solution to the wealth redistribution scheme. Clearly, I wasn’t dressed properly for such a meeting, and ended up as an involuntary patient in a mental health facility.    

The next day my walk through the department store was on page two of the Toronto Sun, a newspaper owned by the Rogers empire. Although I was not named, people in the broadcasting industry were aware of what had happened. A friend in the broadcasting sector phoned me at the mental health facility and asked what was going on, and said, ironically, aying, “people in the industry are going crazy.” 

Over the past two decades, since immigrating to Australia, I have shared aspects of my experience of severe mental illness and recovery in a variety of roles and settings to different cohorts, including as: a volunteer educator at Mental Illness Education ACT to high school students from 2002 to 2016 (MIEACT); a mental health advocate in a short film (The Naked Advocate – 2006); a peer worker in a community recovery program (PHaMs); as a mental health advocate a talk at The Street Theatre in Canberra in (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – 2011); a chapter in Coming Out Proud to Erase the Stigma of Mental Illness (Changing My Mind – 2015); a case study of the File 1000-121 Affair (One Media Law – 2016) and at a number of mental health conference. Recently, I co-facilitated groups about psychosis and recovery to individuals with psychosis.   

Recovery is possible, yet recovery is poorly understood and significantly impaired by stigma, discrimination and recovery-oriented services by governments  

It is a critical time to try to inspire hope by raising awareness of recovery. 

Eligibility for medical assistance in dying (either “MAiD” or “MAID”) in Canada is scheduled to be expanded for people whose sole medical condition is mental illness, commencing on March 17, 2027. 

Frankly, I am shocked at this legislation. 

Furthermore, the death of 26-year old Kiano Vafaeian on December 30, 2025, raises extremely serious questions about the implementation of MAiD in Canada and whether mental illness is already being used by medical practitioners to end the lives of vulnerable people.