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The Current Transcript for June 7, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

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Union's defence of Elizabeth Wettlaufer was 'grossly disappointing,' says employment lawyer

Guests: Muneeza Sheikh, Hassan Yussuf, Beverly Mathers

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Did you see or happened to see when you were on the floor how she was with residents?

VOICE 2: Yes, she was very caring. She interacted well with residents. She liked to laugh. She liked to joke. She would interact with them.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: In This first week of a Long Term Care Inquiry in St. Thomas Ontario. Elizabeth Wettlaufer was described by her former boss as a respectful employee, someone who brought treats to work and got along well with her colleagues. But of course there was another side to Elizabeth Wettlaufer. Last year she was convicted of killing eight nursing home patients in her care and attempting to kill six others. And that same boss we just heard, Brenda Van Quaethem, an administrator at the Crescent care home in Woodstock Ontario, had to discipline Wettlaufer many times for medical errors and other mistakes. In 2014 after a series of warnings and suspensions Elizabeth Wettlaufer was finally fired but her union the Ontario Nurses Association came to her aid. They struck a deal with Caressant that included a two thousand dollar payment and a letter of reference. Wettlaufer's departure was also reclassified as a voluntary resignation. This was all before she was ever accused of murder. All this has some wondering if the union went too far in defending a member who put her patients at risk. Beverly Mathers is the senior director of labor relations at the Ontario Nurses Association. We've reached her in Burlington, Ontario. Hello.

BEVERLY MATHERS: Good morning.

AMT: What are you thinking as you watch and read about the inquiry into Elizabeth Wettlaufer's murders?

BEVERLY MATHERS: I'm sickened by the tragedy. I'm Also a registered nurse. I'm sickened to think that somebody who could go into a profession like nursing could do something like this. It's devastating for us. It's devastating for every nurse in the province. And we can only imagine what the families are going through and our hearts really do go out to them.

AMT: So can you walk us through how the Ontario Nurses Association came to her aid after she was fired from Caressant?

BEVERLY MATHERS: We came to her aid, after the employer had made a decision, finally I suppose, to discipline her again. We were not involved in many of the early disciplines. We have not filed grievances in any of the early going. It really wasn't until the last discipline and then ultimately the termination that we were involved with Caressant care.

AMT: And so you grieved after she was terminated?

BEVERLY MATHERS: We grieved first a five days suspension and then, yes, the termination.

AMT: And you helped negotiate a 2000 dollar payment and a reference letter. Why did you go to those lengths?

BEVERLY MATHERS: The Labor Relations Act requires unions to first and foremost have a clause in every collective agreement that provides a dispute mechanism and - dispute resolution system, sorry - that includes the grievance arbitration system and then the Labor Relations Act goes on to provide a duty of fair representation by trade unions. So we have to be there to represent them in a manner that's neither arbitrary, discriminatory or in bad faith. We filed grievances to get facts and information from the employer. We as I said we were working on a void. The employer had all the information. The employer had been dealing with Elizabeth Wettlaufer throughout her career there and we were not involved at any level where we would have no one any details.

AMT: And yet you grieve did you grieve the suspension and the firing. If you did not know the details why did you have them reclassify the firing?

BEVERLY MATHERS: We were able to get some facts through the grievance process to be able to determine that going through an arbitration process would be very lengthy and difficult. It would be very difficult for the union and ultimately Elizabeth Wettlaufer to win because there were so many. There were a number of disciplines that had happened prior to that and that we were not involved in and had not grieved. We made a decision in conversation and working with Ms. Wettlaufer. She didn't want to stay or fight to go back to and care. So the settlement really was very minimalistic. It allowed her to get a little bit of money and the employer wrote the letter a reference ONA did not.

AMT: That's right there I wrote the letter of reference because that was the deal with owner. But ONA, in 1996- In 1995 she was fired from the Geraldton District Hospital and again ONA grieve debt. And again the firing was changed to resignation for health reasons. So twice she was fired and twice ONA had them, had the employer changed the reason.

BEVERLY MATHERS: Well at Geraldton she was ill and she got to walk to seek medical treatment. In all honesty the depth of what happened- It's easy to sit and judge months later.

AMT: I'm not judging. I'm asking. I'm asking why the union twice reclassified - would have reclassified - a firing on offenses for: the first one stealing medication and the second time a firing for misconduct, to resignations.

BEVERLY MATHERS: We did it to settle a grievance. We did it in a minimalistic way. The employer was agreeable. We didn't know all of the facts. The information we had released to us was not extensive and we just made decisions based on the facts we had available to us and our best judgment at the time.

AMT: You make the point that you have an obligation and a duty to your members but do you not also have an obligation to learn what the facts are, if you're going to change them.

BEVERLY MATHERS: We had some disclosure. We didn't have complete disclosure. We certainly didn't know all of the details but I will tell you that our collective agreement also provides that any employee who leaves the employer, and is entitled to a letter outlining her employment from that employer to be used in other cases of employment, so that they can get credit for their past work history. And really at the end of the day that's all Caressant care was required to provide. The extra details they provided in that letter was a decision Caressant care made...

AMT: Excuse me. Excuse me. The Association actually had them reclassified that to a resignation. So that would have been in the letter that it was a resignation not a firing. That was the union. That was part of the negotiation.

BEVERLY MATHERS: It was part of the settlement. You're right.

AMT: Yes, okay. So in retrospect did the Ontario Nurses Association go too far in helping her over the years?

BEVERLY MATHERS: I think legally we fulfilled our legal obligations and I don't think we went too far. We did what we needed to do legally we did what we needed to do to represent a member. And you know, in hindsight being 20 20, it's easy to look back but at that time we did the right thing we did what employers and unions do in every sector.

AMT: And so let me ask you, have you looked back now? Have you gone through and are you doing a review of your own practices given what you know now?

BEVERLY MATHERS: We are looking back. We would be wrong not to look back. But having said that the law, the Labor Relations Act, is still the same. We still fulfill the same role to our members. We still file grievances. We gather facts and we determine grievances whether we're going to go forward and either deal with them in a minimalistic way or in a more comprehensive way based on the merits of every case.

AMT: Okay, Ms. Mathers we'll leave it there. Thank you for your time today.

BEVERLY MATHERS: Thank you.

AMT: That is Beverly May senior director of labor relations at the Ontario Nurses Association. She spoke to us from Burlington Ontario. While in Canada unions are required by law to represent their members in a way that is not arbitrary not discriminatory and not in bad faith, they do have broad discretion in the way in which they do that. The Wettlaufer case has raised some important questions about whether they sometimes do go too far. Joining me to talk about this are two people with different perspectives on the issue. Muneeza Sheikh his a labor and employment lawyer and partner with Levitt LLP. She is in Toronto. Hassan Yussuff is the president of the Canadian Labor Congress. He is in our Vancouver studio. Hello to you both.

HASSAN YUSSUFF: Morning.

MUNEEZA SHEIKH: Hello.

AMT: Hassan Yousef. Ms. Wettlaufer departure from Caressant was reclassified as a voluntary resignation. Her firing earlier in the 90s was also reclassified as a resignation for health reasons. How unusual is it for a union to ask for reclassification of a firing?

HASSAN YUSSUFF: Well it depends on the circumstance in which the unions and the employer are dealing with a grievance that might end up in arbitration. In this particular case - based on what I just heard - the parties are obviously seeking a way to avoid an arbitration process and if that is what is required to the employer would agree to it, then its normal practice and employers will say 'yes we'll give you a letter' or would sign the letter. In some cases the employee may decide that the best thing rather than having to go to an arbitrator where they may end up getting terminated and having that on the record. So this is not an unusual practice in labor relations. I think it's quite common labor relations because the parties are trying to avoid the costs involved and more importantly the litigation not knowing what the outcome might be.

AMT: And Muneeza Sheikh. Do you find anything problematic about such reclassification?

MUNEEZA SHEIKH: I find so much to be- I find a lot of it to be problematic. I mean at the end of the day when we're talking about a reclassification that's a conversation that's going to take place when we've got the union putting significant amounts of pressure on the employer, telling them that look you know unless we're able to come to some sort of resolution here, we're going to be taking this to grievance arbitration. And I must say and you'll forgive me for this, I found the conversation that you had with the ONA representative to be grossly disappointing in terms of much of what she had to say. It sounded like a lot of empty platitudes as far as I'm concerned. And not a lot of accountability which is on the one hand, she said that we didn't know too much about the discipline that was happening earlier on. Well I want to know is management side labor lawyer, well why would why didn't she know about it? If you have an employee a member who is being disciplined, if there's some sort of performance issues and you're in the employer sitting down and having a disciplinary meeting somebody from the union should be there. But on the other hand 'oh well she got a minimal payout. She just got a letter of confirmation of employment - letter which we know is not really the case because we did take the earlier discipline into consideration. So I thought a lot of it to be just pretty grossly disappointing. And at the end of the day the union has some very serious obligations here while they certainly have a legal obligation to represent their members, as you pointed out a little bit earlier, they also have a significant amount of discretion and latitude and there's nothing that precludes them from pulling back and saying you know something about this doesn't smell right. Let's delve a little bit into some of the performance history, some of the issues the employer has raised. And as far as we're concerned there is not going to be any likelihood of success. And so we are not going to be filing this grievance. No one is really going to know today what sort of conversations took place between you know ONA and the old employer was it ONA not asking the right questions? Was it the employer not disclosing concerns they had about you know this nurse and the patient because they were worried about PR issues? I really don't know. It's a lot of conjecture. I think a lot of it's going to come out during this inquiry but I will say unions have an obligation to their members. But the problem with the structure is the nurse is not the client. You know for the lawyer the client is the union. And I really take issue with the comments made by the ONA rep stating that 'we file a grievance to do fact finding'. That to me is grossly unacceptable.

AMT: I'm going to stop you there because we on a limited time and I want to ask Mr. Yussuff some questions as well. I've got another example. Last week in Halifax a human rights board found a pattern of aggressive and racist behavior by one unionized municipal transit supervisor when he was fired for threatening a black colleague, also a union member. The union successfully fought to get him his job back. The victim in this case has since died. His widow Marie Simmons is angry with the union. Listen to this clip.

SOUNDCLIP

Shame on them. A union is supposed to protect you. They didn't protect them but they sure did put a lot of work into this gentleman. And it'll be interesting to find out why they put a lot of work into bringing back that type of person. It's very- it's very sad.

AMT: So the supervisor has now been fired but only after the Human Rights Board findings. Hassan Yussuff, the union defended one of its members at the expense of another member. How common is that? W.

HASSAN YUSSUFF: Well Quite often when you have those kind of situation what the union who need to do this is to, of course it makes sense, that harassment cannot be tolerated. And if a member is involved in grossly abusing another member with his racial, sexual, sexual orientation away any form of harassment they should ensure that that comes to an end. But more importantly the employees should have clear policies to say we're not going to tolerate it. And more importantly...

AMT: So how did a union defend one member against another?

HASSAN YUSSUFF: I can't speak specifically to this case and what processes the union has but fundamentally I think where such behavior is been a pattern of of an employee. The union need to take into consideration the employee who's being abused and try to balance of course the responsibility to noth employees. No worker go to work to be harassed or to be humiliated by a federal union member.

AMT: So let me ask you. You talk about a legal obligation. Is the is the duty sometimes blinded? How how much does the union look into the details? We can get back to Wettlaufer.

HASSAN YUSSUFF: What I think it's unions of course operate very differently. Some have very clear policy defines when they will represent a member. To what degree do would go to represent that member. In other cases. Some have processes that if grievances are going to go to arbitration they have an internal mechanism where it gets screened before it goes all the way to the final process. So each union have a different mechanism for dealing with this. But fundamentally of course, legally, they entitled of obviously have an obligation to be fair in representing a member because it's their livelihood. It's been taken away. And ultimately that's what you're trying to remedy. But at the same time they also have an obligation to ensure when two members are in conflict in this particular situation they need to balance that in a very committed way that the harassment policy, if there is one, they're going to give it integrity.

AMT: Muneeza Sheikh.

MUNEEZA SHEIKH: I would probably say in response to that. I mean the obligation. I mean you can assume there is a harassment policy. I mean for the union to you know essentially and again want of conjecture here to the position that well you know we have to see if there's enough harassment policy then of course there's one in place and presumably there'd be something in the collective agreement that would speak to that as well. Well I can certainly appreciate that if a discriminatory misconduct. Maybe it's the first time maybe we're looking at an employee who has a clean disciplinary record. And if the union takes a step back and says 'okay based on all the circumstances you think the relationship is not completely unsalvageable', then you move forward. I think the bigger overarching problem here is that a lot of unions are kind of trigger happy and filing the grievances. And again it's the comments that were made by the ONA rep earlier around, you know using a filing of a grievance to do fact finding. And that's really not what you're supposed to do. You have an obligation, yes, to represent your members but that also means you have to have open line communication with the employer.

AMT: So let me ask you Mr. Yussuff and I asked the Ontario Nurses Association if they're reviewing this. No one knew about the murders but in what we're learning now about the grievance procedures and how those firings disappeared from the record, is your organization reviewing how is how it works?

HASSAN YUSSUFF: Well I think in this particular case much will be learned once the inquiry is concluded.

AMT: But some of this was learned. Are you reviewing anything? Your plan too.

HASSAN YUSSUFF: These are issues we discussed with our affiliates and by the way we have thousands of members who provide service every day to Canadians across this country.

AMT: We know that but I'm asking if you're reviewing.

HASSAN YUSSUFF: Well of course we will review and I think it provides an opportunity for us to figure out how we can do things differently and given the fundamental responsibility to provide care in a way that does not compromise patient or put their lives in jeopardy. These are the things we learn from these kinds of experience. I'm sure ONA would learn lots from this kind of experience. But more importantly I think the employers also have a responsibility that they need to share jointly if they see there's a problem employee they're engaging in behavior that are very fundamentally attracting the care of patients. They need to figure out how they're going to sit down with the union to ensure they can jointly address that situation and have that continue.

AMT: We have to leave it there we're out of time. Thank you both.

HASSAN YUSSUFF: Thank you so much.

AMT: I've been speaking with the Muneeza Sheikh a lawyer an employment lawyer and partner with Levitt LLP. She's in Toronto. Hassan Yussuff is president of the Canadian Labor Congress. He's in Vancouver.

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The crisis in Puerto Rico has not gone away, says woman fighting to help her community

Guests: Tayna Fernandez, Gabriela Camacho

SOUNDCLIP

NEWSCASTER: Now at 11:00 the fury of Hurricane Maria. Tonight we have a better look at the catastrophe still unfolding in Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria...

NEWSCASTER 2: 150 mile an hour winds ripping buildings apart knocking out power everywhere all of electricity is out day.

[Sounds: Sirens].

NEWSCASTER 3: Army trucks went back and forth through the floodwaters bringing out people who'd spent a terrifying 24 hours.

AMT: It has been more than eight months since we heard those reports about the devastating power of Hurricane Maria as it hit the island of Puerto Rico. It was a storm that uprooted most of the island's trees and left a barren landscape scattered with debris from destroyed houses and buildings. And though the original official death toll from the storm is 64. A new study by Harvard University suggests the actual number of deaths resulting from the storm to be much much higher an estimated 46 hundred people. Across Puerto Rico, recovery has been slow. About 11000 residents on the island still do not have electricity for many who do it was only restored in the last few weeks. And with a new hurricane season underway there's renewed anxiety over what is yet to come. Tayna Fernandez lives in a Naguabo remote region on the southeast corner of Puerto Rico. She's among those leading local recovery efforts in her community with a group called Naguabo Family Contact and we've reached her in Barrio punya. Barrio Pena Nobre, Puerto Rico. Hello.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Hello. Good morning to everyone.

AMT: Tell us what it was like for you when Hurricane Maria hit?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: It was devastating. I have never seen- I have been in Puerto Rico since 1990 and the only hurricane I have seen was Hurricane George in 1998 and this was so much powerful than that. It was horrifying.

AMT: How much damage did you see in your area?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: 60 foot trees just felt like they were a little branch. I saw cement houses destroyed. They just blew up from the inside. In my home, it almost happened. Three time. I felt like the house was going to explode because all the panels in my windows that I had put up were just taken away by the wind.

AMT: And Tayna what about the area? What does it look like where you live?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: I live really next to El Yunque the national rain forest and it looked like a bomb went off and it was all like debris, like it was burnt.

AMT: Well how long would you say your community was in crisis mode after that hurricane hit?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: It was like three months. Electricity got back on almost four months after.

AMT: So in that time what were the biggest challenges that people in your community faced?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Supplies, water specifically, because the water supply comes through a [unintelligible] system and we had no electricity. The generators were put very very very long after the hurricane. After we got the generators when the diesel will run out we will have to wait sometimes even seven days for the government to put diesel in it. And after the hurricane I started reaching out to people and that's where I found Naguaba Family Contact. It's people from the United States that wants to help out Naguabas, are people from Naguaba who live in the United States. That's how I get some efforts to bring supplies to my community.

AMT: Still today.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: And still today I'm still working with them. But right now I do have power but they are very remote areas in Naguaba that still have no power. Thousands and thousands of people and we are taking supplies and mosquito nets, because you know that Dengue and Chikungunya and all these type of mosquito diseases people are getting sick.

AMT: So you know there's new research from Harvard University that estimates the number of deaths associated with this hurricane could be as many as 70 times what the official estimate is, more than 4600 people. What did you see in your community when it came to people dying? What was going on when you were in this crisis mode in the first couple of months?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: I had a friend who died because he couldn't get his dialysis. It's so hard because I used to listen to him like I'm going to my dialysis center. And the lines are so wrong because people did not were not receiving their dialysis. The ambulances couldn't get here. And it was hard for a lot of people.

AMT: So your friend died because he couldn't yet continue dialysis.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: And he was just 36.

AMT: It must have been so hard.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Very hard very hard. [Crying] Very hard. And you can see this all across the island, people with suicidal thoughts. We are trying to take relief efforts. We did a health fair in Naguabo and we took a psychologist because people are so tired. And when you take this little relief of water filters and mosquito nets and solar light bulbs you see how happy they get because at least somebody remembers them. It's so hard you try to keep it together. But it's really hard.

AMT: I can hear all that emotion in your voice. And officially they're saying there are real mental health concerns right now.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Yes I'm still working on getting people help. And now we are trying to centralize our efforts to [uninelligible]. And right now we are working to get there because in [unintelligible] the suicide rate has gone up and the suicide intent have really gone up. I know a lot of people from [unintelligible] and they are desperate.

AMT: Well I have a statistic here that says the number of calls to the islands suicide prevention hotline went up by 246 percent. So you're saying it's the ongoing lack of help that people are just giving up?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: It is not only the lack of help. Speaking by experienced FEMA has made it so hard for people to get help. I put in my documentation and the people came in to inspect and in my case, I'm talking from my case, the social worker who came here just took three pictures of all my damages only three pictures. And I submitted my appeals and they said that I don't need any help. I don't need any assistance. This very hard.

AMT: So FEMA of course the Federal Emergency Management Agency that was criticized at the very beginning for its response. So you're saying that over all of this time you have all these barriers to actually getting help when you're trying to fill out the paperwork to get help to rebuild to live on.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Now they are asking - They closed my case. Right now my case my case is closed - They asked me to get a document from a contractor and I was like why do I have to go to a contractor. I am responding for my personal things not the house structure. It's been very very very difficult to deal with FEMA right now and this is happening all across the island.

AMT: So of course we know in the news that there's another hurricane season. So what do we need to understand about your community and Puerto Ricans and what they're going through right now?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Right now we are trying to get prepared handing out information how to get prepared because there are some large areas that do have electricity I do have electricity right now but we still have homes with FEMA tarps.

AMT: That's not going to be much protection.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: No it is not. I go through the road at night. See those blue tarps, till this day, almost nine months after and I'm like how are these people going to protect themselves. Because we have another problem. Schools are closing and the schools where the refugee centers. My community has no refugee center.

AMT: It's a lot to think about when you're still in the midst of it all. Tayna it's really important to hear your voice. Thank you for speaking with me.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Thank you for this opportunity to shine the light in our current situation. This is still not over and we are just beginning a new hurricane season.

AMT: You take care.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Thank you Anna Maria for this opportunity. I appreciate it.

AMT: Tayna Fernandez lives in the Naguabo region of Puerto Rico. The Facebook group she's been working with to help provide aid is called Naguabo Family Contact. Well the new Harvard University study that I mentioned estimates the number of hurricane related deaths to be more than 70 times the official count. And it found that one of the major causes of death was that access to health care was delayed or blocked altogether. That's what happened to Richard Garcia Junior's father.

SOUNDCLIP

My father who had been on dialysis. He also had problems with abdominal hernias. And the problem was that he was in the hospital the hurricane came and there was a direct hit. And they put him in an ambulance three times according to their records that we have, but three times the ambulance just came back with him. They couldn't find a place.

AMT: His father died and that left his mother in need of care she had Alzheimer’s disease and her husband had been her primary caregiver. After some difficulty finding a spot his mother moved into an assisted living facility in San Juan.

SOUNDCLIP

Five months later as you developed pneumonia and she passed away. We've put her to rest last March. What has been very sad in the process though is that you don't get anybody to everything you listen we are very sorry that this happened, we know that this death was connected. There is just have to be away of somewhere, at least publishing a list off to people. I guess that if somehow the government or whomever is in charge or the social services department or whether, to contact us and let us know that they are aware of what happened but everything has been hush hush which is a shame really. It is a shame.

AMT: That is Richard Garcia. He's a school principal in Florida. His parents died in the days and months following Hurricane Maria. Last week on June 1st the start of the hurricane season Richard Garcia's father was one of the thousands of people memorialized at a demonstration on the steps of the Capitol building in San Juan. A pair of brown leather shoes was placed on the steps in his name. They were placed with thousands of other pairs of shoes in tribute to the people who had lost their lives as a result of Hurricane Maria. Shanti Lalita is a musician from San Juan who took part in the demonstration and she recorded some of that for us.

SOUNDCLIP

SHANTI LALITA: I see a group of people dressed in black with umbrellas. It's a very funeral vibe I'm getting here. And as more people come in they bring pairs of shoes to be part of an installation in the Plaza that's in front of the Capitol building. There's families, there's artists,,,,,, there are people who have lost loved ones. [To guest] Could you please state your name?

CHRISTINA: Christina [unintelligible].

SHANTI LALITA: I noticed Christina first because she has a sign that her father is one of the deceased.

CHRISTINA: They were together at my apartment. He wanted to go back to his house to see that everything's fine. And since then I lost connection with him. I knew he passed away. He was in the Shower I think the people here in a bubble, even the government doesn't want to tell the truth.

MELISSA: Melissa [unintelligible] For me the one thing that's really important is to be here and have time to mourn because we don't make a lot of spaces like that. We were unable to because everyone was just trying to respond to this gap, to what the government refused to recognize. People stepped in and they were the ones who helped one another, who created resources out of nothing. So it's a direct consequence of the relationship that we have with the United States I think and Maria was a catalyst that kind of review of these longstanding forms of inequality.

ROSA: Rosa Luisa Marquez I'm a theater person and a professor. It is important for a country like the US. They know how many veterans died in the war. In order for people to honor the dead. But it is also important because we are seeing here a statement through death of the incompetence of this government, on how this government was not able to provide with the U.S. government the support, electricity, water, medical support that this country needs. There is an author here who says that Eduardo Lalo that we are an invisible country. Latin America does not consider us Latin American because we are part of the US, and the U.S. does not consider us part of them because we are Latinos and we speak different language and have a different culture. So it's important for us to state that we are here and that the dead are going to speak for us.

AMT: Yesterday Hispanic members of Congress called for an independent commission to investigate how deaths from Hurricane Maria were counted and whether underreporting slowed the government's response. Meanwhile U.S. President Donald Trump congratulated FEMA for its response to Hurricane Maria never acknowledging the controversy. All these months later the federal agency FEMA is still processing financial compensation applications from those whose homes and properties were destroyed and hundreds and thousands of those applications have been denied. Gabriela Camacho is an attorney who's been working with NGOs providing legal assistance to victims of the hurricane. She joins us from San Juan Puerto Rico hello.

GABRIELA CAMACHO: Hello Anna Maria.

AMT: We're hearing a lot of sadness and incredulity eight months on.

GABRIELA CAMACHO: Well yes it's not surprising at all. Most of the stories are stories I hear on a daily basis on my work.

AMT: And so tell us more about the FEMA applications. Why is FEMA rejecting so many of them for hurricane assistance?

GABRIELA CAMACHO: It's a very complicated situation, that should not be. The main problem is people being able to prove their ownership. People are expected to navigate a constant changing bureaucracy maze that even for attorneys is difficult. I'm talking instructions as to what type of documents and the content of the documents changing on a weekly basis. People are being requested to get documents like for example Tayna Fernandez the one who was speaking before mentioned in Naguabo and in her case how she was asked to get an estimate from a contractor. And those range upwards the 250 dollars. And we're talking about people without basic needs. And FEMA is asking them to you know find 300 dollars that they don't have to get someone to certify something done maybe that certification will be required to have something else next week, and then it will be worthless.

AMT: Well let me let me just take you through some of the issues you've raised here. First of all what proportion of applications are being denied?

GABRIELA CAMACHO: I think it's 50 percent of them have been denied.

AMT: And you're saying that they change the rules weekly.

GABRIELA CAMACHO: Yes. FEMA has a basic guideline as to how to prove your ownership of your house and your occupancy. If you don't have what they call a regular ownership meaning you have a deed to your house. There is a way to prove that it is your house. For example if you inherit that your house and you haven't done the paperwork to switch it to your name, there is a way to prove that. But people have submitted those documents and they keep saying it's not enough.

AMT: Tell me a little bit more than about some of the people you're trying to get help for who have been denied.

GABRIELA CAMACHO: For example we get a lot of elderly people. Perfect example I had last week an 85 year old man who was born in the house he's living right now where. He lived there all his life with his father and his brothers. He's the only surviving heir. He can find the key to his house. Every neighbor everyone knows he has there that's his house, and FEMA won't believe leaving. And this is an 85 year old man who fell weeks ago on his back because his roof is destroyed. And every time it rains it's a pool inside his house. He doesn't even have a tarp. They won't even approve a blue tarp for his house.

AMT: So they won't even accept something from the neighbors to say we know he's here, like something that proves it in a sort of in a different way.

GABRIELA CAMACHO: Right now we are in the process of waiting to see what has worked.

AMT: And in the meantime there is another hurricane season. Is there a deadline on when you can apply for help for the last hurricane?

GABRIELA CAMACHO: They keep extending. The deadline the new deadline is I think mid-June most people have already done their applications which was a nightmare to get done at the beginning because FEMA expected people to either call or do it online. And there was no power and no signal here anywhere. So some attorneys like myself we got together and we went to the most damage areas including [unintelligible] and Naguaba, which were mentioned before, with release forms to get the information on paper so that we could go back to someone - that was like month 2 and 3 after Maria - find a place with power, find a place with Wi-Fi and submit their application so at least the process could get started. FEMA he did send some people to some areas but they would send people who only spoke English. And I can't conceive how in this day and age they don't know that they need translators.

AMT: You're talking about an agency that was actually set up to hit the ground running when a big emergency happens. It sounds like it didn't happen at all.

GABRIELA CAMACHO: No not at all. Most things were activated late. Even our medical help, which is one of the biggest problems we've had in, the U.S. and as Comfrey which is a medical ship from the Navy was activated but it was activated late when the earthquake hit Haiti. They arrived to Haiti earlier than they arrived to Puerto Rico after Maria. And we are a territory of the United States. There is a responsibility of the fact that we are American citizens and we should get help anyway because we're humans. But that is the responsibility.

AMT: Who do people blame for all of these delays and for the lack of help when they needed it most?

GABRIELA CAMACHO: Both the federal government and the local government. They blame the communication between the federal government and the local government. The disdain in which the federal government has always treated us. I mean the president came here and threw paper towels at us. Also the amount of bureaucracy that both, both, had for everything. I mean there are people who died because of customs paperwork and release for medications that were donated.

AMT: So let me ask you mentioned the elderly man whose house still needs help. What conditions are other people living in? What are you seeing?

GABRIELA CAMACHO: We have people who have basically, some of them there's only one area of their house where it doesn't leak when it rains. So they are all sleeping in that room. We have people who - because they don't have any power or their powers back - but the electrical damage to the house is so bad that they don't turn anything on for fear of catching fire which has happened. We have people that the little money they have because the poverty rate here is very high, it's just flowing out of their houses in ice and canned food and gas for the generator. It's so expensive. It's terrible and it's honestly it's a humanitarian crisis it's completely inhumane.

AMT: And you know we've heard about the emotional toll it's taking on people. What are you saying?

GABRIELA CAMACHO: The emotional toll. It's very very hard. The best example I can give is that when I'm working on one of the disaster centers and it starts raining and you can see in their faces they are shell shocked. They have trauma. The moment they hear rain they start- you see it in their eyes. They are trying to hold back their tears. They're shaking. When they're trying to explain to you the damage you see it and then from legal services you send them to counseling services. But at the end of the day you know there's so much one can do. And then also the people on the ground working, either voluntarily, with NGOs, we are also exhausted because when you have to hear 20-25-30 horror stories in the in the Lapps eight hours, you know, you go home and you still don't have power. I didn't have power for a long time. You're also dealing with your own things while at the same time not being able to ever disconnect from the tragedy. So some people live in a bubble but a lot of people are very much still in big one.

AMT: Gabrielle Camacho thank you for talking to us today.

GABRIELA CAMACHO: Well thank you for having me.

AMT: Gabriela Camacho is an attorney in San Juan Puerto Rico.

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Actors in new play don't see script until they get on stage - and it's in a language they don't understand

Guest: Nassim Soleimanpour

AMT: Back in 2011 the Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour found himself unable to leave his country, having been denied a passport. Yet he still managed to take the theater world by storm. Determined to see his work produced, he conceived of a bold experiment. He sent a script out in envelopes to cities around the world. Each night a different actor would perform it, sight unseen, with no rehearsals. White Rabbit Red Rabbit premiered simultaneously in Toronto and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Later the show was a hit in New York. It's been delighting audiences all over the world ever since. Stars including Whoopi Goldberg, Alan Cumming, Stephen Fry have all taken their turn. Now Nassim Soleimanpour is going a step further with a new show. This time each night a new performer is forced to learn to speak a new language.

SOUNDCLIP

Kha - Jee. Kha - Re - Jee.

[Laughter]

Kharejee means foreing. Kharejee is waritten with an A. In Farsi A is read with a long A in the British.

[Laughter]

Tomato.

AMT: Well that's the American actor Harry Dhillon from This is Us learning some Farsi onstage in London. The show is called Simply Nassim and tonight it opens in Toronto as part of the Luminato Festival. Performers will include Lee Maracle the indigenous storyteller author Michael Redhill and Amanda Paris hosts of Marvin's Room here on CBC. And right now Nassim Soleimanpour joins me in our Toronto studio. Hello and welcome.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Hello. Good morning, Anna.

AMT: So you can hear from the laughs as Harry Dhillon reads your script and realises he's pronouncing- he's making the wrong pronunciation. What's it like to create moments like that?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Well I think we're creating one. I'm not a native English speaker so probably I would make funny mistakes and her audience would laugh at me.

AMT: What is it about language that appeals to you that you like to play with?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Well it's probably one of the most beautiful things on the planet. Last night I managed to meet with my cousins who are based in Toronto and one of them has now a very beautiful daughter who is still very young. So this beautiful girl can speak both Farsi and English but still you know learning more complicated warts. To look at a human being going from mute, or just crying into something so sophisticated as like any intellectual in the history of human being Buddha, I don't know, any profit, even sometimes there is some very good politicians is something really amusing to me.

AMT: What's the hardest thing for you about learning new languages?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Patience I think.

AMT: How many languages you speak?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: I speak English, I speak this is my mother tongue, some Arabic and I live in Germany I speak German. I speak some Kurdish as well.

AMT: So you live in Berlin right now and you work in Germany. Right.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: I live in Berlin but I work at the airports. Travelling from [laughs].

AMT: So you speak travel speak. Is it looking for the plane.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Yes, true.

AMT: When, in the midst of all different languages especially if you're if you're at the airport a lot, in a place probably Frankfurt than, where there's people coming and going, when do you feel most like quote unquote foreigner? I.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: T's I mean this term foreigner is a very very strong and tricky word to me. You can live inside your country and feel you're a foreigner. You can live inside your house having a discussion with your parents and for a few seconds you feel oh my god I don't belong here. It's very deep. It's something really really human I would say. But moving to Berlin I think that was the biggest hit. Waiting actually and we have like a chain there called DM trying to buy a kind of cream for my wife, where I couldn't find any descriptions in English. I was like oh my god I look like my mom who cannot speak English and trying to find a way around products. That was a very heartbreaking moment for me I can see it as 2015.

AMT: There are studies that show people have different personalities when they speak different languages. Is that something you notice in yourself?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Totally agree. My wife would ditto that. She is just like 'you're more fun in English'. I'm boring in Farsi.

[Laughter].

AMT: And The work you're best known for White Rabbit Red Rabbit is so interesting. I tried to read some reviews and I don't know what you did to theater critics around the world that they all fell in line. But the theater critics talk about it. They talk around it but they won't say, because you've asked that that people don't talk about it. But tell us a little bit about it. So every time it is performed there is a new performer, am I right?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Yes that's basically it started with White Rabbit Red Rabbit followed up with other plays that I did. It's called like called readings. So if you're going to be performing in one of those shows that would be my honor. I would tell you shouldn't listen to this interview. You know you're not allowed to Google them. You're not allowed to show up and watch them unless you performed in them before. And honestly yes we ask people but people are smart you know they come and see the show specially the critics. So they basically understand this is a gimmick. Why would I spoil it. So they just try to find a way. It puts me in a very funny situation if I can say you often ask people to write about your shows, invite friends to come and see your shows, while I have to ask my friends 'hey don't come and watch it. Maybe you will you want to perform it later'.

AMT: So why do you think it's resonated so much?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Because I think it's more similar to life you know like you and I we didn't have rehearsal we just met like two minutes ago and we were just talking. And it makes it exciting it proposes to go forward to see what's happening. And to put the audience and the actor on the same boat to be in the same spot to explore together. It somehow hopefully binds them in and in a moment of the show.

AMT: And that's something really interesting because you're trying to, I guess, join the audience and the actor in a way that maybe they're both interacting in a way that they don't normally when they go to see you.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: True yes. I Mean in my head is like oh there's this question of like okay who is who. Like who is the performer? You're performing, even like a classic like Hamlet you're on stage and on the first row you get an audience member who is not feeling like really happy. If you want to ignore this person you can, but if you look at them then you'll become the audience, and then they would show you that they're less happy. So they would perform more. So were basically switching our roles every second in a theater. And I'm curious to explore this possibility of how could we switch roles.

AMT: It's interesting. I mean I'm interested to explore your creativity too because part of the approach you took with White Rabbit Red Rabbit was out of necessity. Why had the Iranian government denied you a passport?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: That's a rule if you are in Iranian man once you're 18 you have to go and do a military service for two years, which is not a very fun rule. So many young people decide not to do that. And I wasn't a hero I was just like busy doing other stuff so I never actually showed up to do the service and the punishment was my passport.

AMT: And eventually you were allowed to leave because?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: I am half blind. That's another play of mine called Blind Hamlet. I wouldn't spoil it.

AMT: Okay but so in other words you got a waiver.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Yes, I got invalidated for the service.

AMT: So you've been painted as a dissident artist in some media. How do you feel about that?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Well I'm not very good with labels. I mean any type of labels you know it's very important for me to describe to you why someone should might decide to be a writer. There are of course different versions my version is just like it takes me five- Like Rabbit was like basically 16 years to finish to finalize. Nassim was three and a half and it is only one hour. You know it's probably three times more than this interview and it takes me three four years to write it, that's because I'm very slow to find the words and I can't find the words so I write sentences and then I write paragraphs. So to reduce someone into one word whatever it is I'm not a big fan of it.

AMT: And how about politics? I'm going to do another word there. Do you consider yourself a political artist?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: I think I am a political artist but I wouldn't call myself an Iranian political artist. This is where the confusion starts. This is where some people want to portray this pre made pattern of 'oh the poor Iranian artist who is struggling' and it's not any me. I'm more in to form. I went to play with forms. And playing with forms- You have an election today. This is political by nature. If you ask the actor that you are not ready or prepared, if you ask a random audience member did you have to sit here and share things with us. This is by nature very political. So you're not someone who's writing because of the way you feel about the Iranian government. You're writing about the politics that you see in the world as things play out.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Not about Iran but like look I mean it got me four months to get my Canadian visa you know.

AMT: What's that about?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Oh my god I don't know. I mean it was the longest process ever. I changed to stage managers because we were like on the road with this show. Each of them one German one British, it took them three, four minutes to get their visa four euros. Mine was like four months, around 200 dollars. Still I applied for like a multiple visa because I had to come back and go to Italy and I got a single one. So that deeply would affect my mind. So what is this paperwork someone wrote those forms. I'm a writer you know. I could give you a bit of form. You could do it like in half of that time that I wasted filling in into forms. So yes but I would never make a play against the bureaucracy in Canada. It's deeper than that. It's something deep.

AMT: Talking about these. What does Donald Trump's travel ban meant for you?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Oh my god I'm in disguise. I can handily change many things. It's not official I can give you any details but we probably will have a very long run in New York with this show. And the deal with seem is that I should be around. It's almost impossible if we can we can perform it when I'm not around. So now the biggest problem is not like to rent a place in New York for the show, or to cast you know hundreds of actors to do it. The biggest deal is just like how to get me to New York.

AMT: So Nassim it's the same idea that they won't know ahead of time.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Yes there is a new actor every night. They don't know what they're going to do. They show up and yes.

AMT: When you first started did you have to beg people to do it?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: That was the best term that you said.

AMT: And now do they beg you?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: They don't. I mean I would say it is just like I tried so hard to find my way you know into this. But being in Toronto, I have to mention it, I got lucky to meet with two Toronto based artist Daniel Brooks and Ross Manson. They became dramators of Rabbit at some point and they really helped to put it on, so their credit really helped.

AMT: And then this one you have to be there. But can you tell me why? I.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: I can tell you the whole show but it would spoil it. What I would say is just like if Rabbit was an attempt to try to see if we can fly. It was an experiment. So it's proved that we can fly. So this is the bigger flight. So we're carrying more people on the board probably flying like a bit longer from Berlin to Toronto.

AMT: And it's still a one person show?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: One and half I would say.

AMT: Talk to me a little bit more about audiences and how you see that that relationship between the person who is on - it may not even be a stage - but the person who takes that position there, that everyone comes to see and how you see that interaction.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Well in my head I always thought like theater is like a party it's. So if you're lucky- I did both with Rabbitt is a good example. The Broadway version or like as a smaller theater with some young performers and audience. It's like a party. If you're a rich kid yes you have a bigger room, better lights, some help, good food. Still at the end of the day it's it's a matter of how fun it is and how deep, how much you will remember that night. So IO always start with this like we're gathering here and I'm the lucky person who can ask for a monkey or a tank or some drinks you know. And hey I got lucky I'm in Toronto. My aunt is coming to see the show. What does she want to see? It's really important to me. Does she want to speak? Does she want to keep her phone on? Does she want to walk out? What does she want to do? How can I serve them? So this and the combination of obsession with a form of like Who says we should have fun 14. Who says a place should be 40 pages. It should be portrayed, lay out. This I think, yes, this combination maybe.

AMT: It's interesting at a time of so much technology when we are globally connected, when we can do so much electronically, there's still something about being in a space with other people.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: This is very true. I wish you could all be here with us now listening to this.

AMT: What is it that makes people still want to gather like that, that stays timeline?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: It's a very smart question. I think we are feeling really lonely and it's both with the concept of life, you know, human life, this period of time. But even with the forms. Look we used to sit together talk together when there was like - back in the day - when there was no radio, TV, anything. Looking at each other at dark cold nights. We had to come up with stories, laugh, whatsoever. And then radio came in. We have theater and then radio comes in. We're listening to some people who cannot listen to us but still we're looking at each other. Then TV comes in. So now we are not even looking at each other. We're looking at some people on TV who cannot see us and we're listening to them, but we're still sharing one point. We're both looking staring at TV. Then smartphones come in. This is where it's like we're all lonely. This is where like you sit in a room I'm watching something really funny on YouTube and laughing and you're reading some bad news and crying. We are not any connected.

AMT: We're not sharing.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: No. Not anymore.

AMT: Or we share so that they can look at it alone too. So before I let you go, can you teach me some Farsi?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Oh you want to say.

AMT: I don't know. It's actually I don't even know one word of Farsi so be kind.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: I will. How about we go with [Farsi speech].

AMT: [Repeats Farsi speech].

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Wow. Very good accent. If we have actors like you people would really enjoy your performance. But I hate my shows.

AMT: What did I say?

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: You basically said 'hello coz' because probably my cousin is listening to us in Toronto.

AMT: Okay. Give me another one. Give me another one.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Oh you pick one. I will teach you.

AMT: Well can I. Well how about...

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: How About 'go vote'.

AMT: That's a good one.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: [Farsi speech].

AMT: [Repeats Farsi speech].

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Well done.

AMT: Okay. Go vote. Okay so if you're listening in Ontario you should vote today. Everywhere else in the country remember to vote later when you can okay. Thanks for coming in. Good luck with this play.

NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR: Thank you very much. Pleasure.

AMT: Nassim Soleimanpour an Iranian playwright. His latest Work is called Nassim it opens tonight in Toronto as part of the Luminato Festival.

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Thursday June 7, 2018 Full Text Transcript

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