Latest news with #Talbot
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
From outbreaks to mass casualty events, Alberta's health system preps for G7 summit
Alberta's health system is being prepared for a variety of scenarios, including disease outbreaks and mass casualty incidents, ahead of the G7 leaders' summit in Kananaskis later this month. According to Alberta Health Services (AHS), which has been planning for the event since last year, 150 health personnel will be deployed to various sites in Calgary and the Bow Corridor to support the high profile event. World leaders will gather in Kananaskis from June 15 to 17 and thousands of delegates, journalists and others are expected to descend upon the Calgary region. "AHS has robust emergency response plans in place for all hospital sites for scenarios such as mass casualty incidents, food-borne illness, protests, wildfires or extreme weather events," an AHS spokesperson said in an email. "These plans include co-ordinating with the provincial government, Health Canada, local law enforcement and other partners as appropriate." "It's a very large operation," said Dr. James Talbot, a former chief medical officer of health for Alberta, who is not involved in planning this event but understands the logistics of public health based on his years in the top job. In addition to security planning for an event of of this scale, a lot of work goes on behind the scenes to prevent illness and injury and ensure the health system can respond quickly and appropriately if anything happens, said Talbot. "Getting all your ducks in a row, so that hopefully you don't have to use any of it — but if you do, that it goes seamlessly — is really a labour-intensive and time-intensive operation," said Talbot, whose tenure in the top job ended in 2015. He is now an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta's school of public health. Ensuring the health and safety of heads of state is a complicated process involving local, provincial, federal and international governments and agencies, according to Talbot. He expects ambulances, helicopters, hospitals and ICUs will likely be prepared and on standby. Doctors, nurses and other staff will be needed to work in emergency rooms, ICUs, labs and diagnostic testing. Equipment such as masks are likely being stockpiled along with a variety of drugs and blood supplies, he added. Some world leaders may bring along their own health and security personnel, Talbot said, and that can require a high degree of co-ordination. "For instance, the American president often travels with their own ICU staff, a portable operating room, their own diagnostic capacity and obviously might decide that they would prefer to have a president or member of the staff stabilized and then sent directly, as quickly as possible, to an American institution," said Talbot. "But that will not be true of all of the nations that participate." In the months leading up events such as this, many steps are taken to prevent health problems such as outbreaks of infectious diseases or food-borne illnesses, according to Talbot. That would include repeated water quality testing at the venues, ensuring catering services are hygienic and safe and staff are healthy, as well as inspections of mechanical HVAC systems to ensure they can handle air quality issues such as wildfire smoke, he said. According to AHS, the RCMP handles the summit's overall risk assessments, and the federal government is responsible for ensuring all arrangements for the event and all costs associated with protecting the health of heads of state. A federal government spokesperson said Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) are working with all levels of government along with private sector partners on health and safety efforts. "Health Canada and PHAC are taking precautionary steps to be ready, if called upon by the Province of Alberta, to help respond to a range of incidents, including an infectious disease outbreak, weather related emergencies, or an event causing mass casualties at the summit site or elsewhere," the spokesperson said in an email. "Federal support available includes a highly trained team of medical professionals who would be the first medical responders on the scene in the event of any medical incident." A stockpile of personal protective equipment, biomedical equipment and pharmaceuticals is available to provinces if they run out or their supplies are not immediately available, the department said. Similar preparations were made for previous large events, including the G7 leaders' summit in Charlevoix, Que., in 2018. "It's really good to be prepared. It's really good to be thinking about this. But I would say everyone on the front lines is just hopeful nothing happens," said Dr. Paul Parks, past-president of the Alberta Medical Association. Parks, who is also an emergency room doctor in Medicine Hat, said hospitals are already under strain. "We don't have a lot of give in the system and it will have major impacts if we had to absorb something significant." Meanwhile, AHS said the health system routinely supports large events and "the summit is not expected to have any effect on Albertans' ability to access health services."
Boston Globe
5 days ago
- Boston Globe
Convicted former Catholic priest exposed by Spotlight investigation dies at 87
Talbot was one of the subjects of The Boston Globe's investigation into priest sexual abuse that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 and was adapted into the 2015 movie 'Spotlight.' The investigation revealed widespread sexual abuse, and coverup of that abuse, within the Catholic Church. Jesuits USA East did not offer a comment about Talbot's death. Related : Advertisement He pleaded guilty in 2018 to gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual for sexually abusing a 9-year-old boy at a Maine church in the 1990s. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Prior to the Maine conviction, Talbot spent six years in prison after pleading guilty to raping and sexually assaulting two students in Boston. He has settled lawsuits with more than a dozen victims in addition to the convictions. Talbot was a former teacher and athletic coach at Boston College High School from 1972 to 1980 before he was transferred to Maine, where he worked at Cheverus High School in Portland until 1998. Former Boston College High School student Jim Scanlan, 63, reported Talbot's abuse in Massachusetts. The Associated Press doesn't typically use the names of sexual assault victims without their consent, which Scanlan provided. His reports led to charges against Talbot. Advertisement Scanlan said he has reached out to others who were abused by Talbot. He said he holds people in positions of power within the church accountable for allowing Talbot to continue abusing children over many years. Scanlan said he has tried to deal with his anger at Talbot, but it's a long process. 'The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference,' Scanlan said. 'Maybe I just parked him away a long time ago, resolved I couldn't change what happened.' Jesuits USA East said Talbot had been residing at the Vianney Renewal Center in Dittmer, Missouri, prior to entering hospice care. The center cares for sexually abusive priests and provides other health care services. Talbot's case was emblematic of a pattern of behavior in the Catholic church about how it dealt with sexual abuse and priests. Accusations against him went back decades, and in that time he was transferred to new jurisdictions. Allegations of a cover-up went all the way up to Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston. The Globe investigation revealed Law and his predecessors had transferred abusive priests from parish to parish without alerting authorities, or parents. Law died in 2017. The investigation into the Catholic church opened up wider queries into sex abuse in other religious institutions that uncovered abuse in other faiths and the Boy Scouts.
San Francisco Chronicle
6 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Convicted former Catholic priest exposed by Spotlight investigation dies at 87
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — James Talbot, a former Catholic priest convicted of sexually assaulting boys in Maine and Massachusetts after he was exposed by the investigation highlighted in the movie 'Spotlight,' has died. He was 87. Talbot, a former Jesuit, appeared on a list provided by the religious order of northeastern Jesuits who faced credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. Talbot died on Feb. 28 at a hospice center in St. Louis, said Mike Gabriele, a spokesperson for Jesuits USA East. Talbot was one of the subjects of The Boston Globe's investigation into priest sexual abuse that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 and was adapted into the 2015 movie 'Spotlight.' The investigation revealed widespread sexual abuse, and coverup of that abuse, within the Catholic Church. Jesuits USA East did not offer a comment about Talbot's death. He pleaded guilty in 2018 to gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual for sexually abusing a 9-year-old boy at a Maine church in the 1990s. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Prior to the Maine conviction, Talbot spent six years in prison after pleading guilty to raping and sexually assaulting two students in Boston. He has settled lawsuits with more than a dozen victims in addition to the convictions. Talbot was a former teacher and athletic coach at Boston College High School from 1972 to 1980 before he was transferred to Maine, where he worked at Cheverus High School in Portland until 1998. Former Boston College High School student Jim Scanlan, 63, reported Talbot's abuse in Massachusetts. The Associated Press doesn't typically use the names of sexual assault victims without their consent, which Scanlan provided. His reports led to charges against Talbot. Scanlan said he has reached out to others who were abused by Talbot. He said he holds people in positions of power within the church accountable for allowing Talbot to continue abusing children over many years. Scanlan said he has tried to deal with his anger at Talbot, but it's a long process. 'The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference,' Scanlan said. 'Maybe I just parked him away a long time ago, resolved I couldn't change what happened.' Jesuits USA East said Talbot had been residing at the Vianney Renewal Center in Dittmer, Missouri, prior to entering hospice care. The center cares for sexually abusive priests and provides other health care services. Talbot's case was emblematic of a pattern of behavior in the Catholic church about how it dealt with sexual abuse and priests. Accusations against him went back decades, and in that time he was transferred to new jurisdictions. Allegations of a cover-up went all the way up to Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston. The Globe investigation revealed Law and his predecessors had transferred abusive priests from parish to parish without alerting authorities, or parents. Law died in 2017.
Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Boston Globe
When evil dies: Victims of disgraced priest James Talbot are indifferent to his death
James Talbot, who as a priest raped Scanlan and other boys when he taught at Boston College High School, then raped more boys after he was quietly shipped from Boston to Maine, was not worthy of an emotion so intense, so draining, so overwhelming, as hate; that Talbot simply is not deserving of Jim Scanlan's deepest feelings. 'There's an old saying, and I didn't know what it meant until now. 'The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference,' ' Scanlan said. Nonetheless that anger, that sense of enduring grievance, did eventually well up, and it was and is directed at Talbot's superiors, the Jesuit order and priests who knew, who covered up, who quietly moved Talbot out of BC High in Dorchester so he could rape more boys at a Jesuit high school in Portland, Maine, so he could sexually assault 'They were not just complicit,' Scanlan said. 'They facilitated it.' Advertisement James Talbot is shown in Suffolk Superior Court in January 2005, in Boston. Matt Stone/Associated Press Scanlan's anger was not assuaged by the fact the Jesuit order that produced Talbot didn't have the decency to inform the survivors of Talbot's horrific sexual abuse that he was dead. This from the superiors who for so long ignored the groundswell of evidence and even after Talbot pleaded guilty in two cases still took him and provided comfort at the Campion Center in Weston. Advertisement Scanlan heard it this week from a friend, who heard it from an old Jesuit, who heard it from someone else. There was no formal announcement, however, no formal obituary, from the Society of Jesus, as the Jesuits are known. When I called the Jesuits, looking for answers, they didn't offer much. Mike Gabriele, director of communications for the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus, kept it brief. 'All I can release about the death of James Talbot is that he died at the age of 87 on February 28, 2025. He had been residing at the Vianney Renewal Center in Dittmer, MO, for some years and died in hospice care in St. Louis,' Gabriele said. The Vianney Center is a behavioral health and addiction treatment facility for Catholic clergy and religious. Asked where Talbot was buried and whether the Jesuits should let Talbot's victims know he was dead, Gabriele added, 'The policy of the USA East Province is not to release a statement or obituary (including place of burial) for any Jesuit credibly accused of sexual abuse.' So, three months after Talbot died, armed with only hearsay because the Jesuits didn't tell anyone who deserved to know, Jim Scanlan took it upon himself to get the word out to as many of Talbot's victims as possible, through a network of survivors whose numbers are stored on his phone and computer. But as he texted and left messages, Scanlan realized he would only reach a fraction of those raped and wounded and hurt so grievously by Talbot. He remembers Talbot's hearing before the Massachusetts Parole Board, seeking release after serving six years for raping Scanlan and two other boys at BC High. The parole board members were questioning Talbot about the sex offender program he was enrolled in at prison, that Talbot was at a stage in the program where he admits to the number of victims he abused. And Talbot, in his own words, acknowledged it was 89. Advertisement 'I can't get to all of the 88 others,' Scanlan said, 'but they deserve to know. Maybe it will bring closure for some of them. Maybe it won't. But they deserve to know.' One victim Scanlan reached is Mike Doherty, who in 1998 was the first to publicly accuse Talbot of sexual abuse Doherty effectively blew the whistle on The civil lawsuit Doherty filed Given the malevolence of Dawber and others vouching for Talbot when they knew he was a rampant sex offender, it is ironic they inadvertently exposed him to criminal charges when they cleared his transfer to Portland. Of the thousands of priests who raped and molested minors, Talbot was among the few to face justice in a courtroom and years in a cell. Advertisement When Talbot moved from Massachusetts to Maine in 1980, the clock on the statute of limitations froze. That allowed then-Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley to f Using the premise that it would toughen them up, Talbot, a soccer and hockey coach at BC High, would wrestle his charges, sometimes when they were clad only in jockstraps, sometimes after plying them with beer. In that compromised position, he sexually assaulted the boys. Doherty was the victim of another ploy; Talbot ingratiated himself to Doherty's family to the point where he had his own room in the Doherty home in Freeport. Talbot used that trust and access to molest Doherty. He did the same to another family in Freeport, sexually assaulting the 9-year-old son of a couple whose marriage he had presided over. After Talbot offered to hear the boy's first confession, the grateful mother waited outside as Talbot assaulted the boy inside a church. Jim Scanlan and Mike Doherty were in the courtroom in Maine in 2018, showing support for that boy, now a man, and seeing off Talbot to prison for three years. Doherty told me he has a different take on the Jesuits taking Talbot at the Weston center and the treatment facility in Missouri. 'If they hadn't taken care of him, he would have been out there in the wind, with no one keeping an eye on him,' Doherty said. Advertisement But, like Scanlan, Doherty feels the Jesuits had an obligation to inform Talbot's victims of his death. 'I stopped wanting 10 minutes with a baseball bat in a room with Talbot a long time ago,' Doherty said. 'I pitied him more than anything. A man of such talent and intellect, squandered all that to further his proclivity. He ended up being a sad individual.' Doherty has been working on a book about Talbot and the lies, the coverup and life-altering harm done to him, Jim Scanlan and at least 87 other boys. He already has a working title, a play on words from the Jesuit motto of 'Men for Others.' Doherty's book will be called, 'Men for Others, Boys for Us.' Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at
Toronto Star
6 days ago
- Toronto Star
Convicted former Catholic priest exposed by Spotlight investigation dies at 87
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — James Talbot, a former Catholic priest convicted of sexually assaulting boys in Maine and Massachusetts after he was exposed by the investigation that led to the movie 'Spotlight,' has died. He was 87. Talbot, a former Jesuit, appeared on a list provided by the religious order of northeastern Jesuits who faced credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. Talbot died on Feb. 28 at a hospice center in St. Louis, said Mike Gabriele, a spokesperson for Jesuits USA East.
