Steve Mantis

Steve Mantis
Steve Mantis interviewed by media after winning the NDP nomination in Thunder Bay-Superior North, June 30, 2011
Born	Reading, Pennsylvania
Citizenship	Canadian
Education	Standford University,
Occupation(s)	Small businessperson, community organizer
Years active	over 30 years
Known for	Community Work/Disability rights activist
Political party	Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP)
Board member of	Ontario Workers' Compensation Board (1990-1994), Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario Workers (2003-present), Lakehead Planning Board, Bay Credit Union Board (2002-2008), Community Support Services Council (1999-2003), Canadian Injured Workers' Alliance (1990-2001), Summer Solstice Festival Board (1982-1988), Lakehead Rural Planning Board (1980-1989)
Awards	Judge George Ferguson Award, Credit Union Central of Ontario Social Responsibility Award
Website	www.stevemantis.ca

Steve Mantis (born 1950) is a Canadian advocate for injured workers and people with disabilities. Best known for years of volunteer efforts to build a "fair and comprehensive" system for workers injured on the job, Mantis organized injured worker self-help groups locally in Thunder Bay, then regionally in Northwestern Ontario by co-founding the Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups and nationally by co-founding the Canadian Injured Workers Alliance. Mantis was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Ontario Workers Compensation Board from 1991 to 1994.

Mantis was nominated as a candidate in the provincial electoral district of Thunder Bay-Superior North in the 2011 Ontario general election. He is a member of the Ontario New Democratic Party.

Background

Steve Mantis was born in 1950 in Reading, Pennsylvania, the second of five children to James Hamilton Mantis and Georgina Mantis. After immigrating to Canada in 1972, Steve Mantis and has lived and worked near Thunder Bay, Ontario ever since.

Early Years

Though both Mantis' parents were born in the United States, both grandfathers emigrated from Greece in the late 1800s, leaving the same small village in the Peloponnese. Until age 12 Mantis grew up on a small farm in Lessport (near Reading).

In his mid-teens Mantis saw an ad on the back page of Field & Stream magazine placed by a Toronto land company that had purchased tax lands near Thunder Bay: “Tax Sale – Buy Land in Canada for a $1 an acre!” In 1968, at age 18, Mantis paid $11 an acre to buy 82 acres in Kaministiquia, Ontario.

In 1968 Steve Mantis commenced studies Stanford University, California, majoring in history. The growth of the ‘Free Speech Movement’ with frequent teach-ins, music concerts with social justice themes and other new social phenomena of the era influenced the young Mantis, who shared a skepticism of the Vietnam War with other young students on campus. After two years, Mantis left Stanford to start a house painting company with a school friend, always with the intention of eventually building a home in Canada.

Kaministiquia

During the university years, Mantis would be a frequent summer visitor to his Canadian property. Mantis started building a log cabin on the acreage in 1970. By spring 1972, Mantis had left California for good and moved permanently to Kaministiquia.

Over the years the property has grown from a single cabin to a farm that has raised a range of animals such as goats, sheep, pigs, turkeys, ducks, geese and bees. The Mantis farm always has chickens and a country garden that supplies most of the family vegetables. A cow was milked for the children. Of the farm, Mantis has said: “Our focus was to be conscientious citizens of the world. With the farm we knew we could produce safe food.”

Family

Mantis married Barb Lysnes, his partner of 20 years, in a ceremony in Quetico Provincial Park in 2007. The blended family has five adult children: Sabina, Sage, Juan, Nikos, and Theo.

When an older brother died in 2009 of complications from AIDS, Mantis said he "felt the lack of universal health coverage in the United States of America and the up-front health care costs for treatment had a major role in his brother’s late diagnosis and rapid disease progression."

Work

In his professional life Mantis has worked as a carpenter, founded and operated his own construction company, and managed vocational training for the Northwestern Ontario March of Dimes. Since 2004, Mantis has been the Community Co-lead in the Community-University Research Alliance on the Consequences of Work Injury with McMaster University, a large research project to study the life changes among workers after a permanent injury on the job with the aim that future workplace safety regulation and compensation legislation will match employees’ experiences. Mantis credited the first steps of organizing the project was to "create a positive working relationship with the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board." A final report is to be submitted in March 2012.

Before 1996, Mantis was an Employment Services Manager in the Thunder Bay Regional Office of the Ontario March of Dimes during a time of transition for the organization into one providing modern vocational training.

In September 1978 Mantis was injured in an industrial accident, losing his left arm. The same year he started his own small construction company, named Evergreen Construction, undertaking construction projects from renovations to residential home construction. Of his rehabilitation, Mantis said: "A key stage in my return to work as a carpenter was building my parents new house in Arizona in January 1979, five months after my injury. My rehabilitation therapist said it was the perfect situation to be able to try out my new artificial arm without being in a competitive workplace."

Community Engagement

After serving on local area roads boards in the 1980s, Mantis went on to represent rural residents on the Lakehead Planning Board.

Mantis has spent 30 years in efforts to build a "comprehensive, fair system for all workers injured on the job." After organizing locally, Mantis organized regionally by forming self-help groups and undertaking ongoing government lobbying through a provincial group he co-founded - the Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups. Mantis then used links built with organized labour and injured workers groups in other provinces to create the first National Injured Workers Conference in 1990, which led him to co-found the Canadian Injured Workers Alliance (CIWA). Mantis was elected National Coordinator of CIWA from 1996 to 2002.

Mantis was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Workers Compensation Board (now called the WSIB) from 1991 to 1994, and currently serves on the Board of the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers, a WSIB-funded network of clinics providing comprehensive occupational health services to injured workers across Ontario.

More recently, Mantis has developed and taught a Speakers School for vulnerable adults, such as people living in poverty, single moms, First Nations and Métis people, people with disabilities and the unemployed, in order teach skills the disadvantaged may use to have more control over their lives and address social inequities. Steve Mantis is founding Chair of the Board of Directors of the Speakers School in Thunder Bay.

Awards

Mantis has received the national Judge George Ferguson Award for "contributing in an outstanding way by enabling equality and full community participation for people with physical disabilities throughout Canada.", the Credit Union Central of Ontario Social Responsibility Award, the Canada 125th Anniversary Medal from Veterans Affairs Canada for Canadians who have made "a significant contribution to their fellow citizens, to their community, or to Canada," and the Ron Ellis Award from the Ontario Bar Association for "exceptional contributions and achievements in the field of workers' compensation law".

External links

• Steve Mantis