The Winning Hand: West End Times Article - September 12, 2009
My Mazel!
Two of the nicest days of the summer (what summer?) were spent 2 floors below ground level Thursday and Friday, September 3rd and 4th, at the International Gambling and Addictions Symposium, this year held right here in our hometown at the Delta Centre-Ville Hotel. And quite the conference it was! Approximately 250 of the world leaders in the area of gambling, from suicide experts and researchers, to a plethora of clinicians, therapists, counsellors and social workers...and a "Cleaner" like me who helps clean the mess the gambler has left behind, not just financially.
Concordia University, McGill University, Université De Montréal and the Fonds De Recherche Sur la Société et la Culture de Québec (that name is about 275 points in scrabble) and other educational bodies sponsored the event and were well represented. But, for Loto Quebéc, the hometown boys did not show up. Why be surprised?
The CEO of Loto Québec and the communications director seemed to have taken the days off. What the heck...Why should they show up to a Symposium on Gambling where 100's of folks from around the world travelled to be here to exchange ideas and work together to better understand the problem gambler. After all, with traffic, it might have taken them well over 15 minutes to go from their downtown offices to a downtown hotel. Guessing they could have sold one of their paintings hanging in their offices (our taxpayer offices, actually) and get 2 taxis, not 1, to take them!
Instead they sent a Loto Québec lawyer (why send a lawyer?) that had the skills of speaking in front of a crowd as well as Joe Pesci spoke to the courtroom in the great film "MY COUSIN VINNY". She gave OY-VAY a new meaning. Speaking for 35 minutes, of which 15 minutes were spent applauding herself and the Loto Québec staff for doing such a great job, another 10 minutes telling the giggling crowd how Loto Québec was a leader in the world of states/provinces that have lotteries, another 5 minutes tripping through her speech with UMM-UMM-A-A-UMM-UMM and the remaining 5 minutes figuring out how to use the clicker to change frames in her power point presentation (French only).
Yup, I wasn`t terribly impressed.
I had a better speech from the lady on how to use the headsets to translate the conference into English.
Oh yeah, my favourite part of the Gambling and Addiction Québec-hosted symposium was that at lunch we were offered white wine or red, but couldn't get a Coke or 7-up. Got to love this province!
Québec...Ya made us proud!
Congrats though, to all the wonderfully talented speakers who showed us that there are some very talented folks taking the world of Problem Gambling quite seriously, and are dedicating their life to doing so.
As someone that lives their life to help others get their lives back, a GIGANTIC THANK YOU, and a job exceedingly well done. Special thanks to some of the leaders in the world of Gambling and Gaming research, such as Robert Ladouceur of the Université De Laval, Dr. Isabelle Martin and her team at Mc Gill, Louise Nadeau the Symposium President and Mr. Jaques Babin, the President of the Fonds Québécois De La Recherche Sur La Société Et La Culture, and lastly the doorman at the Delta that let me park my car in front of the main entrance for 10 bucks for the whole day...2 days in a row!
