Patrick Gordon Framing

THE EXCEPTIONAL SERVICES OF Patrick Gordon Framing

Patrick Gordon isn’t kidding when his website says he’s been involved in Ottawa’s arts community since birth. The founder of the framing business that bears his name was born into a family of artists, both musical and visual. “My mother was the artist in the family,” Patrick reflects. “We were a total of eight kids and all my brothers and sisters were involved in the arts one way or another.”

As a teenager, Patrick attended a high school arts program and furthered his studies as a painter at the Ottawa School of Art. His mum worked in the framing shop in the basement of the former DenArt gallery at the corner of Bank and First in the Glebe.

After working in various framing stores, Patrick’s business ambitions turned to the conservation and installation of art collections. All this experience is summed up by the studio he runs at 160 Elm Street just east of the City Centre.

Patrick Gordon Framing (PGF) specializes in the framing and handling of original works. He and his staff manage complex projects by individual artists and for various, prestigious government art collections. PGF recently completed the 2019 collection purchase for the City of Ottawa, tallying over sixty pieces. The works were on show at Ottawa City Hall’s art galleries over the new year.

PGF frames the art collection of Global Affairs Canada that hangs in diplomatic missions around the world. The exclusive collection itself dates back to the 1960s and features pieces by living Canadian artists who carefully avoid political and controversial subjects. The Department of Crown/Indigenous Relations relies on Patrick’s expertise for its incredible collection as well.

The PGF studio uses the finest materials and the highest standards to insure the longevity and crystal clarity of every artwork it frames. “Museum-quality glass, coroplast [a brand of corrugated plastic] backings versus flimsy paper. We think of it as providing a really good, safe home for the art,” Patrick proudly says. Studio staffers are hired exclusively from professional art and museum backgrounds and know how to handle projects in a sensitive and meticulous manner. All of this is done at competitive market prices.

Patrick comes up with smart solutions for some peculiar requirements. “I think the most unusual thing I ever had to frame was a man-sized paper shirt,” he recalls. A local cabinet maker was hired to construct a deep box to act as the frame. A piece of acid-free foam core was shaped into a three-dimensional form and connected to the back of the box. The core also went through the sleeves and created the illusion of the shirt being worn on a man’s torso.

Maintaining an active and philanthropic presence is important to Patrick, who was awarded the Business Recognition for Contribution to the Arts award by the Ottawa Arts Council (OAC)

Patrick Gordon t

in 2014. The studio recently donated old frames to support local artists. In December, Patrick Gordon Framing was a “Packing Sponsor” for the OAC’s annual Luck!/Chance! art draw event, meaning Patrick and life partner Danielle Leavoy wrapped and packaged donated works for transport home by lucky ticket holders. PGF also tossed in a generous cash donation.

What sets Patrick Gordon Framing apart is its full catalogue of end-to-end services. Framing is the core offering, drawing on walls of pre-made options supplemented by creative, original solutions for any need. The studio works with the best consultants in the business for specialized conservation solutions. Crating and shipping preparations are available, and they’ll even assist in the tricky craft of installation. Basically, they’re really nice, really professional people who know how to handle art, from big collections and gallery exhibitions to whatever may grace the walls of your favourite room at home.

Check out the website for more information about Patrick Gordon Framing’s exceptional services, plus upcoming vernissage events in the PGF space like Toronto artist Graham Robinson on April 10, 2020 n

Dr. Micaela Fitzgerald, president of the Ottawa Dental Society

Ottawa Dental Society celebrates 125 years by giving back

On November 22, 1895 a group of dentists gathered at the Russell House Hotel on the corner of Elgin and Sparks Street. This was the inaugural meeting of the Eastern Ontario Dental Association, meant to serve dentists in Bytown and the Ottawa Valley. With only a handful of members they appointed their first President, Dr. C.A. Martin along with an honorary president, vice president, treasurer and secretary. A few other select members also played roles in what was then a very small association.

Following the first meeting the group met a few times before officially becoming the Ottawa Dental Society (ODS) in 1905. The society has continued to meet regularly since then, providing a social avenue for Ottawa dentists while also offering essential continuing education for all its members. This year ODS is celebrating its 125 anniversary serving dentists and the Ottawa community. Since its humble beginnings in the Russell House Hotel, the Society has grown to over 600 members. It is the third largest dental society in Ontario under the provincial body of the Ontario Dental Association (founded by Dr. Barnabas Day in 1867).

Over the past 125 years ODS has grown to be much more than a social group for Ottawa area dentists. Members have played a significant role in history like providing pharmaceutical and dental care to soldiers during the Boer War as well as WW1 and WW2. “As the city grew the association grew,” says ODS

President Dr. Micaela Fitzgerald.

Currently, one of their main roles is offering four different one-day lectures a year which help members meet the continuing education commitment which is required of all Ontario dentists. The lectures, which run in the Spring and Fall cover everything from practice management to clinical topics like

restorative dentistry, endodontics and pediatric practice. “Courses are offered on all aspects of dentistry to treat tooth, jaw and gum issues,” says Dr. Fitzgerald. “Other topics like infection prevention and control are also offered.”

ODS runs several services that are of benefit to both their members and the general public. Their Dental Emergency Service provides emergency dental care to Ottawa area residents 365 days a year from 9am-9pm. Members sign up to be the dentist on call, ensuring that the Ottawa community has access to emergency dental care year-round. They also have an online directory that makes it easy for people to find a dentist in their area. All ODS members have the opportunity to be listed as service providers on their website.

As part of the 125-anniversary celebration ODS is spearheading a number of initiatives on top of the services and programs they already offer. Not only do they want to celebrate with members, they also want to give back to the community that they have been a part of for over a century.

Mouth Guard Clinic

The first initiative they are running this year is a free mouthguard clinic for amateur football players in the Ottawa area, who may not otherwise have the resources needed to protect their teeth while on the field. “Not all amateur players can afford [mouthguards],” says Dr. Fitzgerald. “Whenever there is someone who gets tackled there is the possibility for tooth injury.”

ODS has teamed up with the dental program at Algonquin College whose students will be taking the impressions needed to make the mouth guards. Several local dental labs have also signed on to the initiative to produce the mouth guards once impressions have been taken. The Ottawa U Gee Gees and Ottawa Red Black’s Alex Mateus have generously agreed show their support and raise awareness for the initiative.

Oral Care Packages

ODS has grown to be much more than a social group for Ottawa area dentists. Members have played a significant role in history like providing pharmaceutical and dental care to soldiers during the Boer War as well as WW1 and WW2.

oral cancer. ODS is teaming up with the hospital to provide all oral cancer patients with an oral care package which will include a water bottle, oral rinse, soft toothbrush and lip balm. “It eliminates the step of having to put it together themselves,” Dr. Fitzgerald says, acknowledging what a difficult and overwhelming time this can be for many people.

ODS will be putting the packages together and delivering them to TOH to be distributed to patients. Screening for oral cancer is one of the many reasons to go to your dentist on a regular basis. “You are screened at every visit,” Dr. Fitzgerald says.

Oral Education

ODS has committed to providing an oral hygiene care program for people in Ottawa-area long term care facilities. The program will educate caregivers about how to address the oral care of their residents effectively. ODS members will be going into long term care facilities to deliver the program in

Mr. Tooth is spreading awareness for good dental hygiene and collecting high fives across the Ottawa area. person, but it will also be available in a bilingual printed version for caregivers to have on hand. “When teeth aren’t cleaned properly plaque builds up and causes cavities which are difficult to fill with this population,” Dr. Fitzgerald says. “The first line of defense is good oral hygiene.” The resource will also be made available on the ODS website for people who are caring for clients or loved ones at home. “Prevention and education is a big step,” says Dr. Fitzgerald.

Member Give Back Campaign

Finally, ODS is looking to its members to celebrate the organization’s milestone by reaching into their own pockets. They are asking members to donate $125 towards suppling much needed equipment to The Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus Dental Clinic. Dr. Fitzgerald says they have already received the hospital’s wish list which includes a dental chair and overhead lamp, an intra-oral camera and several smaller dental instruments. “I am confident that we will be delivering the entire wish list this year,” Dr. Fitzgerald says.

Dr. Fitzgerald says they are hoping to have all the initiatives rolled out surrounding oral health month in April.

As part of their 125-anniversary celebration ODS would also like to recognize some of their outstanding members who are continually giving back to the community where they work. Some of them have volunteered at the Ottawa Mission Dental Clinic to provide dental care to the homeless. Others have participated in donating equipment for the dental program at St. Mary’s Home in Vanier. “We have several members who have been incredibly active in volunteering,” Dr. Fitzgerald says.

Dr. Jaideep Lal began his career practicing dentistry in the Canadian Armed Forces before establishing his private practice, The Fallingbrook Dental Centre, in 1987. He is a Fellow of the international College of Dentists (FICD), Vice President of the Ottawa Dental Society (2019- 2020), and a councillor of the ODA. He is also a member of the Canadian Dental Association (CDA), Ontario Dental Association (ODA) and the Ottawa Dental Society (ODS).

As a new immigrant to Canada, Dr. Tanya Bracanovich took a leap of faith and opened her own practice. Now two decades later, she has a stellar reputation for providing exceptional and personable dental services in a beautiful and comfortable environment. Dr. Bracanovich and Sparks Dental Clinic are recognized for their significant community and charitable works.

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community will keep a look out for their mascot, Mr. Tooth, as he travels around to different Ottawa area events this year. His goal is to collect 125 high fives from children as part of their anniversary celebration. Winterlude, Ottawa Race Weekend and the Ottawa Parent and Child Expo are three of the many events where Mr. Tooth will be wandering around, spreading awareness for good dental hygiene and collecting those celebratory high fives.

The ODS has been around a long time and is committed to continuing to support their members and give back to the community that they have been part of for the past 125 years. Their website is a wealth of knowledge, not only for Ottawa dentists but also for the community as a whole. “Ensuring Ottawa residents have access to information to care for their teeth is important,” Dr. Fitzgerald says. “There is lots of information on the website to help promote optimal [oral] health.” n

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Ottawa man left destitute AFTER FAULTY OTTAWA POLICE SERVICE INVESTIGATION

If you google ‘police misconduct in Ottawa’ it is clear that the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) has a problem. From the high-profile death of SomaliCanadian Abdirahman Abdi at the hands of two Ottawa Police Officers in July 2016, to Constable Jason Mallette who faced a dozen charges of misconduct in 2018, the news is full of instances of Ottawa police officers behaving badly.

Ottawa resident Rodney Mockler says he has witnessed first-hand some of the questionable practices that some Ottawa police officers employ while on duty. In fact, lack of police oversight and commitment to due process has cost him his livelihood. was a woman and a man coming down the stairs from the bong shop next door. Mockler started up the stairs but stumbled, as he often does because of the arthritis in his hips. He regained his balance but then fell again, brushing the hand of the woman coming down the stairs. “She started screaming bloody murder,” he remembers. “Yelling ‘He hit me, he hit me, he hit me.’”

I was not permitted to speak or give my statement of what happened.

— RODNEY MOCKLER

When he got back to the scene the police had been called and after being asked if he was in an altercation, he was handcuffed immediately and taken to the police station. “I was not permitted to speak or give my statement of what happened,” Mockler says.

Mockler was arrested and charged with assault and uttering threats to cause bodily harm by investigating officer Constable Patrick S. Lafreniere.

The alleged victim, 22-year-old Ashley Ann McColl, told police that Mockler punched her in the breast, kicked her in the knee and then grabbed her by the neck and lifted her from the ground.

It was a hot summer day in July 2016. Mockler was not working because, as a man in his 50s with extreme arthritis and many other health issues, he was waiting for his first hip replacement scheduled for October. He decided to venture out from his apartment where he lives with his husband and dog to One in Ten, a local shop in Ottawa’s gay village. “I wish I would have never thought to do that, that day,” he says.

When he opened the door to the stairwell that led to One in Ten, there The situation escalated from there. Mockler says he tried to apologize but the woman wouldn’t stop screaming. Eventually he raised his own voice, asking her to back off, left the scene and went into One in Ten’s back room. “I leaned against the flat seat at the window for about two minutes,” Mockler says. “Then I heard screaming and yelling, and I thought I better go try and diffuse the situation again. I wanted to apologize for raising my voice and say it was a misunderstanding.” In a subsequent statement taken by Lafreniere over a year later the story changes significantly with McColl adding that Mockler threatened her, saying he hated women, kicked her down the stairs, jumped down the stairs himself, dragged her back up, and then continued kicking and hitting her.

She also adds more injuries to the mix like a scratched and bleeding neck and a purple bruise on her breast. Mockler says that because of the arthritis in his hips there is no way he could have

assaulted McColl in any of these ways. “All this led to a story that was fake from beginning to end,” he says. Police notes and some of the witnesses’ state that it seemed like Mockler was drunk on the day the altercation occurred. Lafreniere noted that he noticed a strong smell of alcohol on Mockler’s breath and that he had slurred speech and glossy eyes. Notes from another officer on the scene, Sergeant Claude Mallet, said that he was also unsteady on his feet and that his left eye was red. Mockler says that although he had the equivalent of 3-4oz of vodka with orange juice at lunch he was far from being drunk. He attributes his unsteadiness to the pain in his hips and he says the glossiness in his eyes was because both lenses were removed due to radiation therapy for a tumour. The operation he underwent to remove the tumour also caused his left eye to by visibly red. No breathalyzer test was taken to confirm the suspicions of Lafreniere and the other police officers on scene. Police notes indicate that McColl was asked to go to the station for them to take photos of her injuries, but she refused stating that she was late for work. Lafreniere provided her with an email address so she could email photos to him when she got home. None of the photos that were provided to Mockler in disclosures match the alleged injuries, although some of them were blacked out. Mockler’s trial date was set for November 2, 2017 and he spent the next 17 months going back and forth from the Ottawa Court House to the Ottawa Police Station, trying to get as much information as he could about his case. Mockler says both the Ottawa Police Service and the Crown were extremely unhelpful when it came to providing him with information. He was also not allowed to submit his statement, no matter how hard he tried. Executive Officer Superintendent of the Ottawa Police Jamie Dunlop says that sometimes the statement from the accused is not taken because their lawyer advises them not to give one. Mockler says this is not the case in his situation. He says he walked to the Ottawa Police Station 47 times in the months leading up to his trial to try and give his statement and also left many messages for investigating officer Lafreniere. An investigative report conducted by (Mockler) says he walked to the Ottawa Police Station 47 times in the months leading up to his trial to try and give his statement and also left many messages for investigating officer Lafreniere.

Professional Standards Investigator Stephen T. Jones states that Lafreniere denied ever having received any messages from Mockler.

Mockler was able to get his hands on several disclosures of evidence and witness statements before his trial. Unfortunately, the majority of the information came in only weeks before the trial date because the witness statements gathered at the scene were misplaced.

Over a year later Lafreniere made a last-minute effort to contact all the witnesses to get their statements on the events. Thomas Ramsay, the owner of One in Ten, who was working in his shop at the time of the incident says that Lafreniere came to him three times to get him to re-write his statement because it had been lost. “It was absolutely ridiculous,” he says.

This is not the first time Lafreniere has been involved in questionable police activity.

Back in 2014 he and Constable Kirk Baston faced a disciplinary hearing for tackling busker Denis Seguin to the ground before issuing a ticket for busking on Rideau Street. Seguin was injured above the eye and his wrists were hurt by tight cuffs. Lafreniere and Baston were charged with two counts of unlawful or unnecessary exercise of authority but were acquitted of using unnecessary force.

Both officers remained on patrol during the Police Services Act proceeding in the spring of 2014.

When it came time for Mockler’s trial Lafreniere did not show up in court and neither did any of the witnesses. Mockler was acquitted due to lack of evidence.

The professional standards investigation report cites the difficulties that Lafreniere had in gathering statements and the unwillingness of witnesses to participate in the court process as reasons why the Crown ultimately withdrew the charges against Mockler. say in a hypothetical situation,” Dunlop says. “There are yeses and no’s all over the place.” The crown dropped the charges against Mockler in November 2017; however, the incident continues to haunt him to the present day. An IT contractor for the government, Mockler has been unable to find steady work since the summer of 2016. He says he had a job at Defense Construction Canada (DCC) in 2017 but was terminated without a proper explanation after six weeks. “I had never not had a job in eight years,” he says. When he did some digging, Mockler found out that there was a mark on his record and the security clearance he needed to get a job with the government was in question. In May 2018, Mockler went to an interview with the Security Screening Investigation Unit of Public Services and Procurement Canada where they outlined that his clearance was being reviewed because he failed to tell them of his arrest in 2016. This is a requirement that Mockler knew about, but says it slipped his mind because of his health issues and impending Dunlop says it is not uncommon for witnesses to be asked to re-write statements and that in certain situations they do not to show up at a court date. He said he was unable to be more specific about the case because of an investigation spearheaded by several complaints by Mockler to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD). “It is difficult to trial. Security Screening Investigator Amanda Black told Mockler in an email that they were also concerned about alcohol-related issues based on the altercation as well as his dismissal from DCC. “It was a catalyst,” Mockler says. “My career is over.” Mockler says that even though the charges were dropped from the incident with McColl, he believes they are still sitting on his record. He says he was told by several people that it is up to police whether or not a charge is erased. “I was told by everyone that it is at the police’s discretion,” he said. “If the police don’t like you, they won’t take it off.” On April 16, 2019 the OIPRD submitted a letter to the OPS stating that they had found several deficiencies in the OPS’ review of Mockler’s complaints that Lafreniere had not acted appropriately in the investigation of his case. The letter found former OPS Chief Charles Bordeleau’s investigation “not reasonable” and asked that he complete another review of the matter, interviewing Lafreniere directly (instead of relying solely on his notes) as well as Sergeant Mallet and Constable Ross Griffiths who also played a role in investigating the charges against Mockler. The OPS conducted the review as mandated by the OIPRD but still came up with nothing, except Lafreniere admitted to having received one message from Mockler but didn’t return it because his superiors had already spoken to him. “Upon analysis of all the new information, the investigator has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to establish reasonable grounds to believe misconduct occurred on the part of the respondent officer,” wrote investigator Sergeant Mireille Clement in the report. On December 3, 2019 Mockler received a second report from the OIPRD who had conducted another investigation into whether the OPS An IT contractor for the government, Mockler has been unable to find steady work since the summer of 2016 . . . . Mockler found out that there was a mark on his record and the security clearance he needed to get a job with the government was in question.

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