Cancer patient who filled Winnipeg meter with spray foam to protest hospital parking fees dies

A Winnipeg man who filled a city parking meter with spray foam to protest the high cost of parking for sick people near hospitals has died.

Collin Kennedy, 50, lived with multiple myeloma — a type of blood cancer — for 19 years. He died Tuesday evening while in hospice care in Vernon, B.C., said his mother, Julia Berschley, over the phone.

"[He was] a very good man. A kindhearted person," she said. "He will be sorely missed by a lot of family and friends. He touched everybody that he met."

Kennedy moved to B.C. to live with his mother last year after his health declined. Berschley said his condition worsened again in the last few weeks.

"The cancer started eating away at him to the point where he couldn't even talk," she said,

"Two days ago, when I was in there, I came in and I kissed him on the forehead and kissed him on the cheeks, and then I sat down on a chair beside him to hold his hand."

"And he turned around and looked at me and he said, 'Mama,' and that was the last thing he said to me."

Kennedy took fight to Ottawa

In May 2016, Kennedy filled a parking meter outside Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre with spray foam to raise awareness about the high costs of parking for cancer patients and other sick people getting treatment.

He invited media to watch him do it, and video of Kennedy vandalizing the meter was widely shared on social media. It led to a Canada-wide petition to end the practice of charging for parking near hospitals.

The petition garnered over 12,000 signatures and was tabled in the House of Commons in 2016, but was dismissed early the following year.

The federal government said at the time that hospitals were not in their jurisdiction.

"I really want to be around to see this whole thing to fruition and my goal is still to be around until this is done to fruition," Kennedy said in a late 2016 interview with CBC News.

"After that, this is up to my family and the powers that be."

Robert-Falcon Ouellette, the Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre who sponsored Kennedy's petition, said he will continue to raise the issue in Ottawa.

"When I think about Collin, I think about a man who fought for the rights of each and every one of us (and) did his best to make the world a better place," said Ouellette over the phone from Ottawa.

"I hope one day that we continue to believe in a free health care system which is accessible to all Canadians and we don't just consider the services which are offered inside the health care system but services that lead up to actually obtaining treatment," he said.

Ouellette said he admired Kennedy's passion for his cause and said he was a man who fought the only way he knew how, even if that meant taking matters into his own hands and disabling parking meters.

"He was a fighter, someone who really was attempting to improve the lives of I think a lot of Canadians," he said.

"He wasn't in the boardrooms or corridors of power, he was on the streets trying to make a difference."

'Parking meters are a barrier'

Berschley said many cities and hospitals have stopped charging for parking. Delta, B.C., banned hospitals from charging for parking in 2010.

She says her son hoped the rest of the country would follow those examples.

He believed charging for parking violated patient's rights laid out within the Canada Health Act, his mother said.

"It says … there should be no barrier or burden between you and your medical treatments," Berschley said.

"Parking meters are a barrier to people who can't afford to get to the hospital."

Berschley says that over the course of his treatment, Kennedy spent over $17,000 on parking fees outside of hospitals.

"Sometimes treatments lasted six to eight hours and that meant six to eight hours of parking," she said.

Both Kennedy and his mother lived on pension and disability payments at the time.

Berschley said her son couldn't take the bus because of extreme discomfort due to a collapsed spine, and the costs of taking a cab were too high.

Celebration of life planned

Berschley said there will likely be a celebration of life for Kennedy, who friends often called Theo, in Vernon next year to coincide with his birthday in April, but there is no funeral planned.

"He doesn't want us to spend money on a funeral," she said.

Berschley said Kennedy wanted to donate his brain to scientific research and wished to be cremated.

His wife died four years ago. He's survived by a son and a stepson.

Berschley said she wasn't sure yet if there will be a celebration of life held in Winnipeg, because her own health conditions won't allow her to travel.