Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2020

The Current Transcript for March 10, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The conclusion from us is that the games are going ahead. The games will go ahead. You can ask me many ways around the same question and I will give you more or less the same answer.

MATT GALLOWAY: Well, a spoiler alert. The questions will likely keep coming. At this moment, the Summer Olympics are still a go in Tokyo. Not so for many other big events from the Arctic Winter Games to a 30,000 person tech conference in Toronto to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin. That would be Dublin, Ireland. In an hour, the cost of pulling the plug in the face of the coronavirus and whether that is smart thinking or an overreaction. Before that, something completely different.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Even in the diner, I felt way better than in these fine dining restaurants, which was strange because I thought that the better the restaurant, the better the environment would be.

MG: Victoria James is the youngest person to become a certified sommelier in the United States. In 30 minutes, an inside look at the world of wine, the harassment she faced in becoming one of the best in her business, and why she says the restaurant world is overdue for its MeToo moment. We begin though, with a meltdown on the markets, tremors in the oil patch and fears of a recession at the door. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Oil crash is catastrophic for Canada in the short term, but won’t last, says analyst

Guests: Martin Pelletier, Benjamin Tal

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of bell at the New York Stock Exchange]

MG: That is the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. In less than a minute, though, stocks were down more than 17 hundred points. And then this.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of bell]

MG: That sad little ding, trading was halted when the markets reopened 15 minutes later, the sell off continued and by the end of the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 7.8 percent, the worst drop since the meltdown of 2008. The TSX was down more than 10 percent, led by oil stocks. Now it looks like there may be some degree of recovery today after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would be asking Congress for measures that could give the economy a quick boost. All of this is having a major impact on the Canadian energy sector. Martin Pelletier is a portfolio manager with Trivest Wealth and a columnist with the Financial Post. He is in Calgary. Martin, good morning.

MARTIN PELLETIER: Good morning.

MG: Big drops in the financial markets yesterday. A lot of people spooked. From your perch, what is going on?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Well there's, you know, I mean this is a pretty serious event. It's the biggest drop in the TSX since Black Monday in 1987. If you look at the drop from, 20 percent drop from its high, from its high session, all-time high, it took only 17 trading sessions to get to see that kind of a drop when throughout history the average is 155 trading sessions. And so it was quite ferocious in regards to its its total sell off and that's why, you know, it deserves a lot of attention and it deserves a level of seriousness that I really don't think it's getting out of Ottawa.

MG: It was interesting. I want to get to that in a moment. It was interesting in hearing about this yesterday. People pointed out this is the era of Twitter, which seems obvious and you can take or leave social media, but people see something happening in social media and then they react to it. Does that have anything to do with what we saw yesterday?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Absolutely, 100 percent. I mean, this is the first kind of crisis that we've had in the social media age, especially with the coronavirus. And so nobody really knows what the information is. There's so much misinformation as to its impact and even looking at oil markets and how that's reacting. And so, I mean, I think it propagates fear and that results in people, you know, panic selling. And, you know, we're seeing that with, like I said, the verociousness of the sell off that we've witnessed the last couple of weeks, espeically yesterday.

MG: Let's take a look at the oil situation. Saudi Arabia flooding the market with cheap oil. Why would that country do this?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Well, they're going to war with Russia. You know, they're tired of taking the head to to balance global markets and they're looking for partners to help them share that burden. And Russia's the first place that that they're looking for some help with. And they didn't get a 500,000 a barrel a day commitment and so, boom. You know, I just read this morning that they're going to supply 12.3 million barrels a day, up from 9.7 million, and that's 300,000 barrels a day above its maximum sustaining capacity. So it's actually going into inventories to oversupply the market.

MG: What does that mean? If you're taking a look at the Canadian oil sector, what does what you just said actually mean for us here in Canada?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Well, it means that prices are going to stay low for a little while here and actually could go even lower depending on how long and what the impact is on the demand side from the coronavirus. And so what it is, is it's basic supply demand economics. And if you look at the supply, we're over, they're going to oversupply the market and bring on an initial two to two and a half million barrels a day. At the same time, the coronavirus is estimated to decrease demand by 3.8 million barrels a day. And you do the maths. You know, you've got 6 to 7 million barrels a day of imbalance. The price has got to falls far enough to bring that market back into balance. And so for Canadian producers, that means, you know, a big drop from oil prices are off 40 percent from beginning of the year and that's catastrophic.

MG: Catastrophic?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Absolutely. And we've had three of these. We had it 2008. Six years later, 2014. Six years later, here we are again with drops to $30 a barrel below.

MG: You're in Calgary. How are people feeling there? I mean, it's been a series of hits over the last couple of weeks, months. What's the mood in Alberta right now?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Well we're in the final round and I think we've got the knockout punch. I mean, it's we're just being hit with with left and right hooks for the last decade or so. And just when we get back up again, we get hit with something like this. And so it's been very, very challenging. And, you know, there are those saying we need to diversify. Well, you can't diversify the economy when you know you're facing these kinds of consequences in these kinds of volatility. It's nice to do that, but we need a sustained rally in oil prices so we could take those revenues and deploy it into other areas. But it's hard to do that when you're getting these kinds of moves every six years.

MG: Are the Canadian oil companies well prepared for something like this?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Yeah, they are. They're better prepared, canadian companies are, the U.S. not so much because they're over levered, but Canada. They've I mean, we've we've more fighters when we get in the trenches and we make some adjustments. So if you look at cash costs and oil sands projects like Canadian Natural Horizon Project, their cash costs on that project have been cut in half over the last five years, down to $20 a barrel. So, you know, break evens on these projects are still $10 a barrel higher than where we are right now with this collapse in oil prices, but it sure as heck is a lot better than it was five years ago.

MG: I was just, I'm asking for that specific reason, because the general sentiment is that oil produced in this country is more expensive to produce than perhaps in other places. And I wonder whether that puts those Canadian companies at a disadvantage?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Not as much anymore. Oil sands can now compete against shale, it can compete against global projects, and it doesn't have the same kind of sustaining capital that shale would have. And what I mean by sustaining capital is you need capital to keep that production flat. Their maintenance capital and sustaining capital is a lot lower. So we're actually could if this continues, we could be at a competitive advantage. And I don't think a lot of Canadians realize that. That, you know, we can take, we can compete if we do have the infrastructure to get our oil to international markets. We can very much compete against those other jurisdictions.

MG: Strange thing to ask in the midst of talking about, you know, a meltdown and catastrophic reactions on the market, but gas is going to be cheaper and you could see more money in people's pockets. Is there any silver lining? It's again, people are worried about the health of their jobs and what have you, but is there any silver lining to this?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Well, it is good economically, globally from a global economy, especially those importing regions of the world. So China, for example, this is a great financial stimulus for them. For resource producing and export producing countries like Canada, not good news at all. If you take a 10 percent drop in oil price, that impacts impacts Canada's national put by 1 percent. We're down 40 percent. You do the math and we're already flirting with 0 percent GDP growth. We actually are at zero if you look at real GDP growth per capita, you know, we have a 40 percent drop in oil, we're going into a recession. There's nothing otherwise, if oil prices stay what we're at, Canada is going into a recession.

MG: To talk about Alberta again. The premier there, Jason Kenney, was saying yesterday that these are unchartered waters. His government just put out a budget. A lot of people wondering how they're going to dig themselves out of a situation that they find themselves in now because of what we saw yesterday. Have a listen to what Sandip Lalli, the president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, said.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: There's really that reliance for example, our provincial budget, you know, it's been the Achilles heel of our dependence on the commodity price of oil. And we've had resiliency you know built in, but from the history of our province, we've had this issue. And so it's just come more into light now as the budget 2020 was tabled and how do we really forecast now with OPEC negotiations being the way they are and COVID-19 still playing itself out in the global economy and in Alberta here?

MG: Martin, if Alberta bets on oil revenues and something like this happens, is that, as she said, the Achilles heel?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Well, yeah, I mean, it's not that we're betting. It's just that we didn't, we didn't, when oil prices back from the run from 2001 all the way to 2014 and we had a dip in the 08 situation, but we didn't do things like implement a PST.

MG: Which he said yesterday would not be happening.

MARTIN PELLETIER: No, it would be terrible. That would be an awful thing to do right now. It's ridiculous to put it in a tax in the middle, a consumer tax, while you're trying to, you know, stimulate and prevent a major contraction in the economy.

MG: Even if your government needs more revenue?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Even if the government needs more revenue. One hundred percent. You do not put a tax in when you're in a recession. You need to do the opposite. You need to flood the economy with fiscal stimulus. So there isn't a lot the province can do, but this is the time that Ottawa needs to step in with some fiscal stimulus for the western provinces and then, you know, maybe use that stimulus to not only stop trying to slow down the impact of this oil crisis, but also, you know, help diversify and get maximize your dollars that you're spending.

MG: Just before I let you go, what specifically do you want to see from Ottawa?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Well, I mean, I'd like to see a response acknowledging the seriousness of the situation. Morneau basically shrugged it off yesterday, in my opinion, saying we'll take measured steps. But we need to.

MG: Well he has a budget that's coming. So, I mean, is it fair to say that he shrugged it off?

MARTIN PELLETIER: Well, I think he should put the budget off. I mean, this is a major event when you're, you know, like oil companies, for example, they have their budgets, but when something like this happens, they say, let's you know throw that in the trash and start over again. And, you know, we need to say, you know, I was looking for someone to say, you know, for Ottawa, say we'll be here for Canadians and we'll support them during this time of crisis and we'll respond with something that, you know, factors in the seriousness of the situation. And we're listening, but we didn't hear that. And so we need to see from all parts of Canada recognizing the seriousness of this and not just oil, but with the coronavirus as well. And so you know taking measures, steps is fair, but we need to, you know, get a grasp of the magnitude of this. I mean you had bank stocks that were off 11 percent yesterday. You had oil companies that were off 50 percent. Yet $25 billion of market cap erased from three companies.

MG: Which a lot of people have in their pension funds and their RRSP funds.

MARTIN PELLETIER: Yeah. I mean, if you own the TSX, you're 15 percent in energy. I mean, you're participating in that. And so, you know, we need to take some you know, we need to to get some sort of leadership in addressing the situation. I'm not looking for, as an investor, not looking for immediate answers or solutions, but just acknowledging the fact of what happened yesterday.

MG: Martin, good to speak with you. Thank you.

MARTIN PELLETIER: Thank you.

MG: Martin Pelletier is a portfolio manager at Trivest Wealth. He was in Calgary. There are, as you can imagine, a lot of Canadians worried about their money right now. Talk of a market meltdown, these are nervous times. The deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, acknowledged that in question period yesterday. Here she is speaking in the House.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The coronavirus is having a serious impact on the global economy and on the Canadian economy. Canada's strong fiscal position means we have the firepower to support our economy and we will.

MG: Benjamin Tal is Deputy Chief Economist at CIBC Capital Markets. Benjamin, good morning to you.

BENJAMIN TAL: Good morning.

MG: You just heard the view from the West and how rattled people there are by what happened yesterday. How worried should Canadians broadly be about their investments right now?

BENJAMIN TAL: Well, I think that the first thing to do is not to panic. We've been through it before, you know, during SARS and 2008, the crisis. And when you're in it, you're not sure how you can get out of it and then you get out of it. And we will get out of it. This is a crisis that will be over. We don't know exactly when. Nobody knows. Nobody even pretends to know, given the fact that each virus has its own story, its own trajectory. However, this should ass. And I think that panicking now, when it comes to selling your holdings in the stock market will be a mistake.

MG: Is that easier said than done when you see the markets stop yesterday because the emergency brake is pulled when they drop so quickly?

BENJAMIN TAL: Absolutely and people are panicking and rightly so because we haven't seen it in a long, long time. But against selling at this point of the game is a big mistake. People do it all the time and then they regret it. So I think that we have to take a long term perspective here and if you have a long term perspective, namely beyond the next two or three or four months, if a year from now you and I will not be talking about the virus. It is very possible that there are many, many opportunities in this market today.

MG: Martin Pelletier talked about how wrapped up people's investments may be in the energy sector for example, how heavily are those Canadian mutual companies, mutual fund companies invested into the oil sector?

BENJAMIN TAL: Well, the energy sector is big, but it's not as big as it used to be and that's actually a good thing when it comes to this kind of crisis. In 2014 when we had the crisis in those sectors, the impact on the TSX, the impact on the Canadian economy as a whole was much more significant than it is now because the oil sector is not as big. It is still significant, however, again, we have to look at the duration of this crisis. We have to remember that this issue between Russia and Saudi Arabia probably will not last forever. Nobody wins in this kind of crisis, Not the US, not the Chinese, not the OPEC and not Russia. Eventually, they will come to their senses. This is a political game that will pass. And I think that a few months now, prices will go back to about 40 dollars above, that will help Alberta. So again, we tend to panic and we don't see the way out, but there is a way out. Those kind of prices of energy, they are not good for anybody.

MG: We heard talk from Martin that he believes this will lead to a recession. Are we there already, do you believe?

BENJAMIN TAL: Yes, I think that it's very possible that we are already in a recession. You have so many things happening at the same time. You have the energy story happening just recently. Clearly, the virus is a major issue and we don't know. It probably will get worse before it gets better when it comes to the virus. So it is possible that we are already in a recession. And the trick is, of course, what do you do? So interest rates are going down and this is very important math to communicate. The effectiveness of monetary policy is diminishing, namely the ability of low interest rates to help the situation is not as it used to be.

MG: Why is that?

BENJAMIN TAL: Well, even before the crisis, that was the case because we have a generation of Canadians that never experienced high or even rising interest rates. For them, those extremely low mortgage rates, that's the norm. So it's not as exciting as it used to be. What I mean by that is that when interest rates are very low to start with and you cut them, the effectiveness is not there and now we have the crisis. We see negative interest rates in Japan, in Europe, and it's not helping. I really hope we will not get negative in the U.S. or Canada. It's simply not helping. and therefore, fiscal policy is the only solution for this kind of crisis. And you just mentioned that the budget is coming. I'm not sure it's coming. I'm not sure that the finance minister is ready. Remember, this budget is already written and we have to update it. So I would not be surprised if they would postpone it and come up with all kinds of measures and I think that those measures would be significant.

MG: Have a listen to what Bill Morneau, the finance minister, said yesterday.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: What I want people to know is that we have a very strong fiscal position. The Canadian economy, of course, has produced significant benefits over many years. We also know that we have a very strong banking system. So that is a positive. I've been in touch with banking leaders, in fact, pretty well every day and that system is strong and continues to be a source of strength for our economy. We're working on some responses right now. So I think what you'll see from us is a continued approach, where as we have measures that we think are appropriate to roll out, based on the facts, we will do so and you'll see some things this week.

MG: Martin Pelletier suggested that the finance minister was brushing off the situation that Canadians find themselves in. Benjamin Tal, is that the case?

BENJAMIN TAL: No, I don't think so. I think that they are taking it very seriously and he's absolutely right that our situation is much better than many other countries. Our fiscal situation is much stronger. Clearly, banks are much stronger. So I think we will see something coming from finance from Ottawa.

MG: Something what? You said that the budget could be delayed or perhaps postponed. What specifically could come from Ottawa?

BENJAMIN TAL: Well, I don't think they will go with tax cuts because you have to go with something that you can reverse. Yes. So maybe some sort of modification to the EI system. Basically make sure that people get paid if they are sent home. Maybe a one off transfer of health money to provinces. I'm not so sure. They have to be creative, but it's something that you have to be able to reverse because this is just responding to a crisis. If you stop cutting taxes, you cannot raise them again. And that would be a mistake. But going back to our position, our position is actually very healthy fiscally. We can allow the budget to go up and we will be OK. Two years ago, three years ago, in the U.S. president Trump spent money that he didn't have in good times and now they will struggle to find the money to support the economy. They will do it, but they will get into even deeper deficit. We are in a good position to do so.

MG: You said that things are going to get worse before they get better, that we're already perhaps in a recession. I don't think there are a lot of people who are encouraged by what they're hearing. So just in the last minute or so that we have, what should people be doing? Should they be preparing for further shocks? Should they be worried about employment? Should they be worried about perhaps putting some money away just in case?

BENJAMIN TAL: First of all, I think that this kind of crisis is a wake up call for make sure that we raise our savings rate. The savings rate in Canada is way too low. And if you're able, you have to put money aside for this kind of situation. So this is a wake up call. This is basically something that we have to learn from this crisis. I do believe that we will get out of it and I think that there are many opportunities in the markets panicking now is not the right thing to do. It's possible that two or three months from now, the virus hysteria will not be there and things will go back to normal. Either suggest the energy story will not be with us for too long. So just follow the situation. It might get worse before it gets better because more people will be tested and we will get some more results, but I think that panicking now is a mistake.

MG: Benjamin Tal, good to speak with you. Thank you.

BENJAMIN TAL: My pleasure. Thank you.

MG: Benjamin Tal, Deputy Chief Economist at CIBC Capital Markets. The CBC News is next. And then, she was just 21-years-old. That's the age that most Americans are legally allowed to start drinking alcohol. By that point, Victoria James was the youngest certified sommelier in the United States. Wasn't all glorious though. She will expose the ugly side of fine dining, everything from bad bosses to out of control patrons. Plus, got to taste a bit of wine with her. Her advice on what makes wine drinkable is pretty concrete.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: So swirl it a bit. If you don't smell any cardboard or cat pee or vinegar.

MG: That's what I'm looking for cardboard or cat pee.

VOICE: That's what you're looking for. Then you know it's sound.

MG: Wine advice coming up. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Stay with us.

Back To Top »

Victoria James, America's youngest sommelier, says the wine world needs a culture shift

Guests: Victoria James

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, it took down the famed South by Southwest festival and even the St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin. As fears of COVID-19 shutdown major events, we'll look at what's being done and whether it's actually necessary. But first, we're off to wine country. Don't be shy. Get your nose right in there.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Citrus. Maybe some strawberry. Passionfruit. And there's just like the faintest soupcon of like asparagus and there's a just a flutter of like on like a Edam nutty cheese.

MG: Soupcon of asparagus that is from the movie Sideways and like a fine bottle of wine, the film just gets better with age. Few people in the United States know more about what makes a fine wine fine than Victoria James. She was the youngest certified sommelier in the United States. And she's the author of a new book called Wine Girl: The Obstacles, Humiliations and Triumphs of a Young Sommelier. Victoria, good morning.

VICTORIA JAMES: Good morning.

MG: Thank you for being here.

VICTORIA JAMES: Thank you for having me.

MG: That's a 16-year-old film now, I think.

VICTORIA JAMES: I believe so.

MG: Does it still hold up, do you think? The way that they describe wine, the way that they talk about what you might or might not get from a wine?

VICTORIA JAMES: I think certainly the humour is still there.

MG: Is it accurate?

VICTORIA JAMES: I, you know, the wine he's describing is probably, the tasting notes don't match any wine I've ever heard of.

MG: So you don't get the hint of asparagus or anything like that?

VICTORIA JAMES: That's, you know, very traditional for Sauvignon Blanc, but there wouldn't be notes of cheese in that as well. So, it's a mystery.

MG: Does not actually, the maths doesn't work.

VICTORIA JAMES: The maths doesn't work.

MG: People who go to a restaurant might know vaguely what a sommelier does. You know, somebody might say, we'll bring over the sommelier and you'd sit there, you wait and somebody arrives and they tell you about what's in the wine list. What actually do you do?

VICTORIA JAMES: So, yes, we sell wine to guests. But more than that, you're there to make sure that the guest has an amazing experience. You're pairing the wine with food. And also, most people don't know sommeliers are responsible for all beverage, everything from water to coffee to saké. And the idea is that by the time the guest leaves, they've had the most wonderful experience because the sommelier has taken care of them from A to Z.

MG: The certified piece is important though.

VICTORIA JAMES: I think to me especially was quite important because I was so young in the industry and I really wanted to be taken seriously. Also, I'm a woman, which is, you know, quite unusual and so I really thought it was important to become certified so I could have, you know, the pin to prove it.

MG: The path that you take that you document in the book to get to where you are now is a wild story. And it's hard to predict the future when we're young, we would never perhaps imagine that we end up where we are. Tell us about your family growing up. What were the conditions like when you grew up?

VICTORIA JAMES: So yeah, I was not exposed to wine at a young age and certainly did not have aspirations to be a sommelier. My father struggled throughout his life with drinking and my mum's a teetotaller actually, and doesn't drink at all. And when I was seven, I was separated from my mother and grew up with my father and eventually a stepmother as well. And for me, the more, the home life became difficult. I really wanted an escape. And so when I was 13, I started working at a greasy spoon diner in an effort to escape, but also to make money. We came from a low income household and it was something I sort of had to do.

MG: You mentioned your father's relationship with alcohol. What stands out to you about how alcohol changed him?

VICTORIA JAMES: Yeah, when he was with my mother, he actually didn't drink at all as well. We grew up in a very Christian household. It wasn't until later with the separation that he leaned in towards alcoholism I think also as a means of escape. And the thing that's I think most sad about this addiction is that you lose your sense of self and, you know, slowly, like seeing my father slip away over the years and become someone I no longer recognized.

MG: You talk about going to work in the greasy spoon. You were what? 13?

VICTORIA JAMES: 13.

MG: When you go in there? Most 13-year-olds aren't looking for a job. What were you looking for in trying to find that work?

VICTORIA JAMES: Well, the diner was sort of this place in the town where all of the cool kids went to hang out after school and it seems like such an interesting community that I so wanted to be a part of. And growing up, also, we never went out to restaurants. I mean, ever. And so the idea of even a diner seemed so sophisticated to me and so far away. And so I really wanted to be in that place and I wanted to be in a place that felt exciting and and safe.

MG: What do you remember about the first time you went in trying to find work there?

VICTORIA JAMES: I remember the owner. And, you know, I was 13 at the time, but I think it's something young women learn right away. A way you know, people look at you. And it was one of those looks that instantly makes a woman feel uncomfortable. You know, I think I might have gotten the job because I was a go getter and very enthusiastic, but, you know, there's also only one reason you hire a 13-year-old because, you know, they need it and they need the money.

MG: Restaurants end up being and whether it's a fancy restaurant or it's a greasy spoon. I mean, you end up building a bit of a family in terms of the people that you work with. And there are, there's the owner and then there are the people who might be working in the kitchen and there are the people who might be working at the back of the kitchen. And you develop this relationship with the dishwasher, but also the cook. Talk about those two people.

VICTORIA JAMES: Yes. So I learned very quickly that sometimes the more honest the job, the more honest the person and the cook in the dishwasher. I really wanted to earn their respect. They seemed at first, especially the cook, incredibly scary. You know, he would just chew on t-bone's throughout service and take the tickets, the food tickets and throw them through the window spitballs. But it happened one night where I forgot my keys and I went back to the restaurant. And just those two gentlemen were there and they took me in under their wing and threw a very unusual way. I helped them with their chores at the end of the night. Their last duties were the last ones for a reason. They were they were the worst. And this include snaking the drain and putting out traps for mice and there's cockroaches everywhere. So, you know, it was definitely not the most glamorous entry into the restaurant world, but it did teach me to really appreciate the cook and the dishwasher, the porter before anyone else in the restaurant, because they're the hardest working people.

MG: You could have run screaming from that. You didn't. I mean you get down on your hand, like literally down on your hands and knees with them as they're Can you describe this as they're trying to clean out the crud that is accumulated in the drain?

VICTORIA JAMES: Yeah. So the cook, his job was you'd get on the floor at the end of the night and you've to look underneath the stove where there are like leftover burger buns and crumbs everywhere and the floor is thick with this oil and grease throughout the day. So if to get down there and I have this long brown hair and it just kind of soak up all the oil and look down underneath the stove and he shined a flashlight and I saw this pair of red eyes and all of a sudden had this rat trap came also flying towards us. He used a broom handle to flick it towards us and smushed in the trap is this dead rat. And, you know, I think that I don't know why, but it maybe it's also training for my home life. Whenever there's a difficult situation, you have a, you have a choice. You can run from it's screaming or you can face it head on and I find if you face it head on, there's so much to learn and you become stronger.

MG: One of the things that you learned working in the greasy spoon was about service. And I mean, restaurants are built around that whole service industry, but you learn about this and about this this cycle of love that that service and serving customers really entails. What did that mean, that cycle of love?

VICTORIA JAMES: So at the diner, there was this character called Frankie. And he was, you know, just over five foot, anywhere from 60 to 90 years old maybe, and had one of those moustaches that looked like a comb. And underneath he had, you know, no teeth at all except for a few grey ones. And he was always very excited to give me advice when I would come in for my shift. But the best piece of advice he ever gave me was something he called the love cycle. And the love cycle is a way to find purpose and fulfilment in the hospitality industry and to also give your guests excellent service. It entails finding a way to love everyone and for anyone who's ever worked in restaurants, they know it's incredibly difficult to love every guest. Some people you know maybe are not, you know, as lovable and quite difficult, if not downright mean, but that'swe can't just sit in a corner and complain or, you know, talk about how horrible our guests are. That's actually not damaging to the guests as much as it is to the person. It eats away at you. It's toxic. And so Frankie said what we have to do instead is with the most difficult guests, this is even more important. To find a way to love them. And it's something, it can be something small, but it's not as if you have no love, their outfit or their hairstyle. It's about looking for their humanity and seeing them as another human being and being able to then offer them empathy and therefore good service.

MG: There's a story in the book about what happens one night when you're leaving the diner and you write about it in a in a really, it's a really straightforward way and it's really difficult to read and say as much as you want to say about it, but tell us what happened that night.

VICTORIA JAMES: Yeah. And I think, you know, there were certainly a lot of difficult parts to write in this book and this was probably one of the hardest, but I chose to include this scene in which I was raped by a customer because I thought it was important to do so. And you know, so many women, one in four women in North America are sexually assaulted. But we're kept in silence and we feel the shame and this humiliation because it's something so, so awful. And I hoped that, you know, if I had the courage to write about this, that maybe other women would come forward as well and share their stories and hopefully put an end to this behaviour, which is so common in restaurants. And for me, it was especially devastating because I was so young and I had just started fully embracing Frankie's love cycle of loving guests. And I really thought that was the answer to everything. And this person who assaulted me was a customer. And I thought, as many women do, that I brought this upon myself, that I asked for it, that maybe I was too nice to him, that maybe he thought I was flirting with him or something. And, you know, I think for a while that really made me question everything and it wasn't later until I discovered wine that I really fell in love with hospitality again and fell back into the love cycle and realized, no, it wasn't offering good service and being kind to people that brought this on. This was a bad person and I think that it's incredibly difficult to speak about, but the more we do so, I think the more change that can occur.

MG: It's really brave is an overused word, but it is brave of you to write about it and to talk about it. And I can imagine just how difficult it would have been to go in there and write about something like this. But it is important and it's important in part because the way that you talk about the industry as well. When you go through this industry, in the title of the book, you talk about the humiliations and the obstacles that you face, a lot of them are around the culture of that industry. How would you describe the culture of of the hospitality industry when it comes to how it treats women in particular?

VICTORIA JAMES: So I can only speak from my own experiences, and I think I started working in fine dining restaurants, especially Michelin starred restaurants. And there's so much pressure. You're on an international platform and stage and all eyes are on you and there's millions of dollars that are being poured into these restaurants. And so it's like walking into a pressure cooker and as a result, I think sometimes those at the top lose sight of their employees humanity and what it means to treat people like human beings. And that was what struck me the most as odd, because even in the diner, I felt like I was treated way better than I was in these Michelin starred fine dining restaurants, which was strange because I thought that the more accolades I accumulated and the more I built my career, the better the restaurant, the better the environment would be. But it seemed almost like this interesting dichotomy where the better the restaurant, the worse the environment.

MG: But this even goes back to when you, I mean you talk about falling in love with wine and then you go to wine school and where the nickname, I mean, where wine girl comes from. Who started calling your wine girl?

VICTORIA JAMES: Well, mostly customers. I think it was this sort of slur, a derogatory term that the meant to hurt me with, you know, send over the wine girl or I guess they only, you know, send over the real sommelier when you start spending money. So I think that I chose to call the book Wine Girl as a way to sort of reclaim that title.

MG: In wine school, how did people treat you when you showed an interest in this and an aptitude and said, I really want to learn? And you talk about this in the book. You throw yourself into this. Having no nothing, you really want to be at the height of the profession. How did people react to that?

VICTORIA JAMES: I think this is something so many people can relate to in many different fields, really wanting to be a part of something and really wanting to rise to the top and facing pushback. And I really felt as if I was on the margins of the society and I wanted in, but I didn't belong. And there were so few women that were a part of this. And at times, I felt like I was a lamb being thrown into a den of wolves. People would either make fun of me or take advantage of my youth and naivete. And that, I think, is what hurt the most. Even in the school, I felt as if, I always felt as if I was belittled or sexualized.

MG: Even when you become certified sommelier, when you are somebody who has gone through all of these steps, you are at the height of your profession, people still treated you that way?

VICTORIA JAMES: Yeah. And we were talking earlier about the pin you get when you're a sommelier. And so, of course, as many women know, when you know, a pin lies just above your breasts and so whenever I was wearing that and so proud that I had this amazing thing I could wear now, you know, and show our guests, it would just turn to people mocking me and saying, oh, you have such nice, oh, I mean, great pin.

MG: Has there been a moment of reckoning in that hospitality world? We hear the stories of Mario Batali. We hear the stories of Ken Freedman, two big American restauranteurs. Here in Canada, Jen Agg, who runs a number of restaurants, has spoken out very loudly about this in her books and online. Has there been that moment of reckoning, that MeToo moment for the restaurant industry that we've seen in other cultures?

VICTORIA JAMES: So, yes, a lot of the kingpins and the big Harvey Weinstein's of the restaurant world have been taken down, but that's not a change in culture, really. I mean, those are reports of people that are newsworthy. The persons I've encountered in my career that were some of the most damaging persons you would never see in The Times because they're not a big name and it's the culture that needs to change.

MG: Has the culture changed yet?

VICTORIA JAMES: I don't think so. I think that there's more fear now. People are maybe worried they'll get caught, but I think it's just as bad as ever. We started a non-profit that offers tuition free wine education to women and persons of colour called Wine Empowered and through that, we're aiming to change the industry. And I have a lot of friends that are now starting to hire more female sommeliers. But still, there's this almost fetishization of cruelty and this thought that maybe in order to make it, you have to make others feel small.

MG: And this happens in the book. You talk about, I mean, women and men belittling you to the point of tears because this is going to toughen you up somehow.

VICTORIA JAMES: Exactly.

MG: You also tell a story at the beginning of the book of what happens when somebody sends a bottle of wine back. You see this sometimes in restaurants and you wonder what's going on there, what happened in that moment?

VICTORIA JAMES: So I actually truly love the experience when you pour a taste of wine for a guest. You're not tasting the wine to see if you like it. I mean, preferences should have been established beforehand. You're just sort of checking the wine. But this process evolved from a historic thing that sommeliers would do with her guests and what it is, is it's the sommelier bowing down to the guest in respect and then hopefully the guests will then bow back down and return. It's a really beautiful process and one which I really love to honour. However, in the prologue, the beginning of the book, I include the scene in which I'm 21, this Michelin starred restaurant and this guest sends back a bottle because he says it's corked. And I probably cannot tell the difference because I probably have too much perfume in my nose as a young woman.

MG: This is an expensive bottle of wine?

VICTORIA JAMES: It's a $650 bottle from Burgundy. It's a very fancy Chardonnay. And I had no idea what to do, but I knew that it wasn't corked. And so as a result, our wine director would not be able to get credit for the bottle and it would be a huge loss. And the owners of the restaurant were already putting so much pressure on us to meet these unattainable costs. And so I just thought I was going to be in trouble if I took back the bottle and I was going to be in trouble if I served it. So what do I do? So I present him with an unopened bottle of the same wine and then I serve him the first bottle that was, that he thought was corked. And of course, he says it's marvellous, it's amazing.

MG: It's the same bottle that he sent back.

VICTORIA JAMES: It's the same bottle he sent back. It's the best thing ever. And then he goes on, you know, to insult me and all women everywhere. That's rare that that happens. I think most people, when they're sending back a bottle of wine, they just don't really know what they're doing, but it does happen. And there's a lot of discrimination that women can face in this industry.

MG: Can I ask you just a couple of quick questions just about choosing wine?

VICTORIA JAMES: Yes.

MG: If you're sitting in the restaurant, you have the wine list in front of you. It's a Bible and you don't know where to go. What do you do?

VICTORIA JAMES: So ask if they have a sommelier. Ther sommelier is there to help. They're not there to rip you off. Show them a wine you enjoyed recently on your phone maybe and point to a price point on the list you're comfortable with. Say you want to spend around this amount, whatever it is other than that. Figure out what it is you'd like. Use terms like something bright and crisp or heavy in full. And there's always like safe bets like. So, for example, if you ask for crew Beaujolais, it's usually always to be delicious and fresh and easy drinking. If you ask for Groer champagne, you know that it's made in a sustainable way. In fact, if you ask for wine made by a grower in general, the chances are it's going to be organic or sustainable.

MG: One of the things that can freak people out about wine is price. They think I can't afford this and so I'm not going to be able to afford anything good. Can you get good, cheap wine?

VICTORIA JAMES: Yes. I think there can be just as much pleasure in a $20 bottle as there can be in a $2000 bottle.

MG: Really?

VICTORIA JAMES: I think so, yes. Having had a lot of both. Yeah, but again, it takes some digging. So, you know, definitely find a wine shop. You trust somebody you trust to give you this advice. It's just you know, it can be as complicated sometimes as music or art. So do find a trusted friend.

MG: We here at the CBC have a vast wine cellar. We have no wine cellar at all. But we brought in this bottle of wine and I wanted you to just run through. What's the price. I mean. This is, it's Spanish. I don't know. I'll give it to you. You're the sommelier. This could be embarrassing or it could be enlightening. Who knows?

VICTORIA JAMES: Yeah. I've not had this producer before, but it is Vino Tinto. It looks like it's a blend from [wine titles], as they call it, France. So pretty traditional Spanish blend and it's looks like it's quite full bodied, 14 percent alcohol. So the fuller and body, the higher the alcohol.

MG: there used to be a time when it has a screw top, when a screw top was a sign of a lower level. Is that, that's changed?

VICTORIA JAMES: I think that there are still a lot of wines that are lower in quality that are bottled with screw cap. However, there's some amazing wines under screw cap and theoretically it's actually better for the wine. But I do love the romance of the, you know, the cork.

MG: I don't know if this is the right time to open it.

VICTORIA JAMES: Should we open it.

MG: Sure you could. Why not? It's time somewhere, as they say.

VICTORIA JAMES: OK. Well, let me serve you.

MG: OK. Am I like to do this on the radio? I'm not entirely sure.

[Pours wine]

MG: So if I wanted to, now there's a lot in there, but if I wanted to begin, you order a bottle of wine, the sommelier comes. You get a taste of the wine. What are you supposed to do? What's the step one.

VICTORIA JAMES: So you can actually tell if the wine is flawed pretty much just by smelling it. So swirl it a bit and then smell it. If you don't smell any cardboard or cat pee or vinegar.

MG: That's what I'm looking for, cardboard and cat pee.

VICTORIA JAMES: That's what you're looking for. Then you know it's sound.

MG: OK.

VICTORIA JAMES: And then that means it's delicious.

MG: And then you'll see people, there's a whole ritual. People will swirl it around. They'll slosh it around it. Does any of that matter? Or is that the theatre of it?

VICTORIA JAMES: I think, you know, it certainly is theatrical. You can suck in a bit of air while tasting it. That's called trilling and it helps errett the wine. But honestly, you can tell right away just by smelling if it's sound or not. You don't need to hold it up to the light,.

MG: Which people always do.

VICTORIA JAMES: Which people always do.

MG: Just finally, what do you love about wine?

VICTORIA JAMES: I love that it brings people together just like a good meal can as well. It's about sharing. A bottle of wine is not just a bottle of wine. You can only make it once a year. And it represents not only people and a place, it represents centuries of tradition and history and it captures the weather of the year and all of the cratic, things that go into making wine. And it's such a unique product, there's nothing else like it.

MG: It's a real pleasure to meet you. Thank you.

VICTORIA JAMES: Thank you.

MG: Thank you very much. Cheers.

VICTORIA JAMES: Cheers.

MG: Victoria James is the author of Wine Girl: The Obstacles, Humiliations and Triumphs of a Young Sommelier. Well, coming up in about 90 seconds, whether it's over a glass of wine or maybe a cup of tea, humans are social creatures. Gathering is what we do. It's getting more difficult to do that though, due to COVID-19. Up next, we'll take a look at events cancelled because of this virus and whether that reaction is prudent or perhaps premature. That's on its way. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. Stick around.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Infectious diseases specialist warns of 'overkill' when cancelling events over coronavirus fears

Guests: Megan Williams, Paul Cullen, Veronica McDonald, Abdu Sharkawy

MG: Hi. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current. Around the world, the coronavirus is changing how people are living their daily lives and leading to a number of cancellations of public gatherings and big events. In a few minutes, I'll speak with an infectious disease expert on whether this is a sensible precaution or perhaps an overreaction. But first, a look at what's happening or perhaps isn't happening around the globe, starting in Italy, where the government is taking unprecedented measures to stop the spread of COVID-19. The virus has already killed more than 400 people in Italy, making it the worst hit country outside of Asia. Yesterday, Italy's government put the entire nation under lockdown, meaning that people will only be allowed to travel for work, medical reasons and emergencies. All public outdoor gatherings are forbidden. Megan Williams is the CBC's Rome correspondent. Megan, hello.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Hi, Matt.

MG: You are in Rome. It is a city that is normally jammed cheek to jowl with people. What is it like today?

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Well, I'm standing in a Piazza, a square just in front of one of the more famous Catholic universities in Rome, and I'm thinking of that expression, you know, Mad Dogs and Englishman, so in the new noonday sun. Well, in an epidemic, it just seems to be nuns and police officers. Everybody else is, you know, has fled, either left the city or gone in two wars as per this decree directives, I mean, it's radically transformed the sound of the city and the view of it. You know, you can see all the monuments without having to kind of push through crowds to get to them.

MG: Are the monuments are there, are restaurants open, are cafes open? Can people actually go out and get a bite to eat or anything like that?

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Yes, they can. Although they're closed. They close at six o'clock, which for Italians, of course, means before dinner time. So they are open. I passed a few just a few minutes ago and, you know, they're all keeping that distance of one meter. The patrons of restaurants and, you know, gelato ice cream places, they're letting and even cafes, for that matter, they started letting people in just two at a time. So, you know, all these public places are publicly controlled spaces. From what I've seen seem to be respecting that one meter rule of distance to keep the contagion down.

MG: How are people reacting? Are they resigned to this? Are they panicking because they have been locked down and this lockdown could continue for weeks?

MEGAN WILLIAMS: I don't see a lot of panicking. I mean there were people getting groceries last night. But, you know, Italians don't have huge homes, so there's not the stocking up in basements that that can happen in North America. In my neighbourhood, in Rome, which is not a touristy place, this morning I just saw a lot of older people. I mean, this is a country of old people. About one in five Italians are over the age of 65. They were out, you know, slowly getting their groceries and I you know, I don't see panic, but the latest news that has just come in is that the northern region, which is the epicentre of the outbreak, they're now thinking about completely shutting down that area. So shutting down stores, cafes, restaurants, even public transportation and places of work. They say they can't cope. They were talking about the medical system. They can't cope with another two weeks like the ones that they've had so far.

MG: There are questions as to how people would here to these restrictions, whether they would follow the rule of the law or whether they would say, well, that's the rule, but we're still going to go out. What's your sense as to whether people are actually going to do what they're told to do?

MEGAN WILLIAMS: You know, it's funny, like when I was on Sunday, just to get a sense of how people were following the directive that twas announced in the early hours of Sunday morning, which was in Rome, you know, that the schools and universities had already been closed. But they said they were telling people, don't, you know, try not to go out and keep the distance. The parks were packed. Now, part of that is just desperate families wanting to go out with their kids and get some fresh air, but, you know, Italians are gregarious people. These people, you know, it's warm weather. There are people who congregate in Piazzas. When you go out at night, you go to the piazza and you meet your friends at the piazza. And you have a drink or a chat or whatever. So, you know, it is different from other cultures, perhaps more northern cultures where people live more of their lives indoors, where, you know, so much of the social life doesn't take place outdoors in large groups. So I don't know how Italians are going to be able to do that. I mean, it really goes against all the cultural instincts here. That said, I think with the dramatic situation in northern Italy, it's finally sinking in here in Rome.

MG: Megan, good to speak with you. Stay healthy. Thank you.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Megan Williams is the CBC's correspondent in Rome. What's happening in Italy is drastic, unprecedented. Elsewhere in the world, fears of COVID-19 are driving the cancellation of major events though. Concerts and conferences are being postponed. In Ireland, in many ways, the unthinkable has happened. The threat of coronavirus has shut down the massive St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin. Paul Cullen is the health editor for The Irish Times. He's in Dublin. Paul, hello to you.

PAUL CULLEN: Hello Matt.

MG: It almost seems like an obvious question in some ways, but how big is the St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin?

PAUL CULLEN: Well, in fact, the same Patrick's Day parade is many parades. Every small town in Ireland, up and down the country has a small parade. It might be just two tractors and a few boys and girls doing Irish dancing, but they all have a parade. Of course, the biggest one is in Dublin and that can attract up to a million people. So it's a massive event. It's a massive date on our calendar, actually, obviously, because it's our national holiday and its consulation is a big blow. It's not unprecedented, but it's a big blow.

MG: There have only been at this point a couple of dozen cases of coronavirus in the country. Why did officials in Ireland decide that they would cancel these parades?

PAUL CULLEN: Yes, we've gone from zero to 24 cases in the space of about 10 days. And obviously the authorities feel that they're at a fork in the road. And the big worry is that they might end up on the road that leads to the Italian scenario that you've just described there, which is a huge increase in cases and deaths and public disruption and economic cost, which would be ruinous. And the other alternative is that if they act now, that they can clamp down on the number of cases, that they can contain the disease, that they can limit the number of cases to isolated and sporadic cases that they can follow up on and remove the wider danger of community transmission. That's where we are at that moment. And that's why the Patrick's Day parade along will be the first of many large gatherings to be cancelled. In fact, it was a rugby match, which was cancelled last weekend. But apart from that, the parade is the first big casualty of the measures that we're about to introduce.

MG: You'd imagine, we know there are people who have travelled all over the world for St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, and that's a huge boost to the economy. Was there any opposition to this decision?

PAUL CULLEN: No. If anything, the public mood is that why did it take so long to cancel it? And in fact, some of the smaller parades, the organizers had already decided to cancel them because they felt it wasn't right in public health terms. So the reason it wasn't cancelled until now was because the authorities here didn't judge the situation to be as serious as it was, but they now realise how serious it is with the news coming from Italy. Also, our European neighbours, there is clearly community transmission of this disease in all the large Western European countries now. And we're only across a small body of water from them. So they had to act and they had to act quickly. They are trying to time their actions correctly so that to minimise the economic impacts while maximising the public health benefit and that's a difficult line to walk. And it's difficult to convince people on either side of the argument that either we should be doing more and more quickly or we should be allowing business to everyday life to continue because of the ruined, potentially ruinous economic impact of some of these measures.

MG: I'd read that the Irish government is going to be offering people sick pay if they are forced to stay home?

PAUL CULLEN: Yes our Prime Minister, very grim-facedly, yesterday held a press conference in which he announced a three billion euro aid package to deal with the crisis. And most of this money will go on, as you say, organizing immediate sick pay for anybody who's have kept out of work because of the disease and other measures to ensure that the health service can be geared up to meet what might happen with a large number of cases. There's a lot of doubts whether our overcrowded health care system will be able to cope with a large number of cases. And we've already had a number of our hospitals affected with the result that large numbers of staff had to go home and self isolate several hundred already. So that was an indication of how bad things could be and that's another factor that forced the government into the measures announced yesterday.

MG: Just briefly, we were talking about Italy and the fact that it's a very social culture, Ireland, same sort of thing. Are you expecting perhaps that the pubs could be closed, that people won't be able to gather if it's not for a massive parade, then at least to get around for a pint, if this continues?

PAUL CULLEN: Yeah, I mean, I wonder about this, particular night clubs The problem with St. Patrick's Day wasn't particularly the outdoor parades. In my experience the 17th of March in Dublin can often be a rather chilly experience, cold and still wintry. And the problem really was about the post parade festivities in the pubs, in the nightclubs and all the kiss me, I'm Irish kind of happiness that goes around on that day. And that was the danger for transmission of the disease, if it's out there. So if it applies to it will be at a large event like that then I think questions are going to be asked and it may affect kind of pubs and nightclubs. And we are hearing more and more calls for people to maintain social distancing, particularly people with compromised health systems to stay away from public places. So I think even if they don't close pubs, I think they're going to be a lot emptier than they have been up to now.

MG: Paul, good to speak with you. Thank you.

PAUL CULLEN: Thank you.

MG: Paul Cullen, health reporter at the Irish Times. Should note as well that Boston has also cancelled its St. Patrick's Day parade. The cancellation of these events is happening around the world. The world of sports has been particularly hard hit. In Canada, northern athletes have been told that the Arctic Winter Games in Whitehorse are being cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak. Veronica McDonald is an athlete and coach. She runs a sports club in Yellowknife. Veronica, good morning to you.

VERONICA MCDONALD: Good morning.

MG: What went through your mind when you learned that these Arctic. Winter games were going to be cancelled?

VERONICA MCDONALD: At the time, it was kind of more like I thought it was a joke. I was more kind of surprised and almost didn't believe it.

MG: Once it sunk in because you were going to be going and competing, what did it mean to you?

VERONICA MCDONALD: It just meant that, like, I guess they took, you know, the coronavirus more serious than, you know, I initially thought it was supposed to be taken serious. You know, you're gathering a bunch of young, healthy athletes, so it just kind of, it didn't really make sense to me at the time. And it was honestly just more shocking and took a while to process through my brain. And there were so many questions that I had and just it didn't seem right at the time.

MG: We'd heard that a lot of athletes found out about this, not from the organizers or from their sports organizations, but from social media. Is that correct?

VERONICA MCDONALD: Yeah. Which is why it was kind of so surreal. You know, you at the end of the day you go on Facebook and you see all these articles saying that the Arctic Winter games are cancelled. And, you know, your immediate reaction is that, you know, it's false, right. Especially as athletes who are going to attend the games, you would have expected and a little bit more professionalism to be notified directly rather than having, you know, the public notified immediately, rather, it just didn't seem like the best approach to it. I feel like there could have been steps to take to notify, you know, especially the athletes, coaches for everybody that found out, you know?

MG: Tell us about, for an athlete what these games mean. You train for months to get to this point. What do the games mean to you?

VERONICA MCDONALD: It's more like not only that, the training aspect of it, but it was also a social aspect. You know, that Arctic Winter game bring a lot of the northern circumpolar people together and especially the sport that I compete in, that it's really about gathering and learning from each other. And of course, all the hard work that you put into it also goes a long way, but just to have it cancelled in a second kind of, it kind of makes you think of like, what do you do now?

MG: What sport would you have been competing in?

VERONICA MCDONALD: I would have been competing in the Arctic sport, so the traditional games.

MG: The traditional games. And so is there any other venue for you to be able to compete in at this level?

VERONICA MCDONALD: Yes, there is. Not necessarily at that level. There is and the world olympics happening in Fairbanks, Alaska, but with all the travelling restrictions that are going on, who even knows if that's even a possibility in the future.

MG: What are you hearing from other athletes and what are you saying to other athletes who, like you, are upset about the cancellation of these games and are wondering what this means for future competition?

VERONICA MCDONALD: I've been chatting with a couple people that, you know, obviously I coach. And they're kind of surprised and asking about, you know, future competitions that they can compete in as well. Obviously the hard work is there, but now we just don't have any way to implement it. So I am kind of looking at places that we can go, but everybody that I've talked to says exactly the same thing. That it's pretty heartbreaking. You know, some of these people it's their last year competing and some of these people it's their first year competing. And you know, they don't get the opportunity to compete, you know. Sometimes they could be at such a young age and being ready to showcase their talents, but don't have the opportunity. And so a lot of people have just been, you know, wondering maybe like maybe the Arctic Winters games should take a different approach as to maybe postponing it for a later date or, you know, another year or I don't know. It's just, it's there's a lot of questions that I feel like could be answered, but I also understand the precautionary measures that the Arctic Winters games are taking.

MG: You can hear the frustration in your voice. And I'm sorry that you have to go through this, Veronica. Thanks for talking to us.

VERONICA MCDONALD: Yeah no problem. Thanks so much.

MG: Veronica McDonald, an athlete who competed in the Arctic Winter Games and she was set to compete this year as well. She was in Yellowknife. When it comes to cancelling these public events during this outbreak, there doesn't seem to be a one size fits all solution. Dr. Bonnie Henry is the provincial health officer in British Columbia.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Each of these large events is taken on a case by case basis and we do a risk assessment about who's attending, what the environment is, how long it is and all of those different measures.

MG: So in B.C., there is no blanket policy in cancelling public events, but a lot of them are being shut down anyway by their own organizers. There are some might say that a little caution is a good thing. Others perhaps worry that this may do more harm than good. Dr. Abdu Sharkawy, is an infectious disease specialist with the University Health Network, and he's with me in Toronto. Doctor, good morning to you.

ABDU SHARKAWY: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

MG: Why could it do more harm than good to cancel big public events like this?

ABDU SHARKAWY: Well, first of all, I want to qualify the statement by saying that I think we need to assess things on an individual basis. I don't think a blanket statement about complete cancellation versus non cancellation is appropriate. I think there are very serious implications, obviously, to the local and global economy. If across the board we see that every public gathering and every form of public venue is compromised and we've already seen some of that unfold. On the other hand, I do worry that with time there's going to be increasing isolation to people who feel that they can't leave their homes. I worry about the mental and social unrest from that and why I worry about the implications that go beyond that. If we're talking about reasonability, I think when we're talking about scales of thousands of people, it's it makes very good sense from a public health perspective to cancel events. We've seen the Saudi government now cancel the visitation of Mecca. The St. Patrick's Day parade, as was just mentioned previously, these are events where you're going to be seeing thousands upon thousands of people with varying levels of immunity potentially coming from different parts of the world. And I think that poses a not insignificant risk to who might be there to cause rapid transmission of this fire.

MG: What about other events though? We've seen concerts being cancelled. Big tennis tournament cancelled. The parade gets cancelled. What's next in this? I mean, people have, you know, talking about whether we would see professional sports teams play in empty arenas. Whether large public, we're just getting into the spring, summer months are coming, there's going to be festivals there going that may happen across the country and around the world. Are they on the chopping block as well?

ABDU SHARKAWY: They may be. And that that worries me. I mean, from a personal level, I'm an avid sports fan. And, you know, I went to the Raptors game a week ago. I was at the 905 game yesterday with a good friend of min. And the crowd was pretty thin. And I do wonder if we're going to see the possibility of movie theatres closing? Are we going to see every sporting event being played in front of nobody? I do wonder if the reasonability of that. I understand the reaction from organizers and from owners of sports franchises that they don't want to see irreparable harm associated with their product. I do wonder if it is a bit overkill at this point in time.

MG: So let me stop you there. You're an infectious disease specialist.

ABDU SHARKAWY: Correct.

MG: You use the word overkill. People would say that you cancel these events because you're going to have, to your point, thousands of people in the same space. A range of different levels of immunity, some people might have a compromised immune system. Why doesn't it make sense to temporarily shut these things down so that people aren't all there in that same area?

ABDU SHARKAWY: I think the concept makes sense, but I think we have to examine the specifics of each particular event. And that's why I think it was particularly helpful for the Public Health Agency of Canada to put out this decision making tool and guideline. I think it's very logical and makes sense to think about exactly how big as the event is at an indoor event or an outdoor event. What's the age range of the people that are going to be there? What's the situation in terms of hand-washing facilities and dispensers that are available there? Is there a possibility of perhaps staggering entrances and exits so that you don't have swarms of people entering and exiting the facility at the same time? These are questions that I think need to be answered and maybe we need to go through a trial period where we see what works and what doesn't. But I don't know where would you draw the line?

MG: Once the ball starts rolling though, can you make those measured, reasoned decisions? Because it seems as though every, not every day, every hour, there are more events that are being cancelled.

ABDU SHARKAWY: Correct. And that worries me. That worries me that we're going to see a serious hit to our global economy and it worries me about the social and the mental health unrest that may evolved from this as again, from people isolating themselves and being more fearful. We want people to be concerned, we just don't want them to be panic stricken to the point that they don't really know how to cope with this in a positive manner.

MG: You wrote a Facebook post that was shared all around the world. And in it you said, I'm not scared of COVID-19. I'm scared of a loss of reason. What did you mean by that?

ABDU SHARKAWY: I think it means that I'm worried about people really losing their perspective about this. Recognizing that there are a whole host of other threats that exist in our daily lives that go well beyond coronavirus. And that's not to de-legitimize this virus or to trivialize it in any way. I have a great deal of empathy and concern for places that have been hard hit, including parts of the United States more recently and of course, northern Italy, Iran and China and elsewhere. But we have to recognise that 80 percent or more of people that are afflicted by this are not going to be very sick. They're not likely to to die. And if it can be a message where we can develop a very good sense of hand hygiene and break the chain of transmission, we'll protect that vulnerable segment of 20 percent that will be more likely to succumb to this infection and its complications.

MG: Pull the curtain back a little bit. We here on this program have been talking a lot behind the scenes about how we discuss this issue and how much is too much and whether you run the risk of of sensationalization or whether you are being prudent in talking about the fact that events around the world are being cancelled and people are worried. What do you want to see and hear from the media?

ABDU SHARKAWY: That's a question I've been asked many times and I think it's a difficult balance to play. The media certainly has a huge responsibility to keep the public at large informed. I think obviously the tone in which things are delivered is quite critical and I guess when I tell others what to concentrate on, what to pay attention to, my message is pretty simple. Don't look at the tally. Stop looking at the numbers. Expect that the numbers are going to continue to grow. They're going to grow internationally. They're going to grow in front of your own doorstep, in your hospital and your community. So pay attention to what you can do. What's your individual response going to do. What behaviour is appropriate? That means simple things that you can do in your own home, vis-a-vis hand-washing, using handprints, avoiding touching your face, social distancing within reason. And if you're sick, avoiding others and not hoarding N-95 masks.

MG: What about living your life? I mean, again, trying to, march break is around the corner. People are trying to figure out whether the travel people are figuring out whether they should go out and be with other people. What's the message there?

ABDU SHARKAWY: My message is live your life. I don't think it's practical or sustainable to hole ourselves up in our basements with an endless supply of toilet paper and canned tuna. That's not going to win this. This is going to perpetuate more fear. It's going to perpetuate the idea that we cannot combat this with a positive strategy and that's absolutely not true. We will get through this, but we all have to be of the same mindset that we need to create a system of solidarity and a system of respect and a system of patience, not one of stigma and fear.

MG: Doctor, thank you.

ABDU SHARKAWY: It's a pleasure to be here.

MG: Dr. Abdu Sharkawy is an infectious disease specialist with the University Health Network and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Toronto. That is it for The Current for today. Stay tuned to CBC Radio One. Q is just around the corner. Given these conversations around what is and what isn't happening, a bit of advice, if you have a concert ticket in your drawer, double check the listing because there are a lot of shows being postponed because of coronavirus. Ciara just rescheduled a show in her hometown of Fort Hood, Texas. She's pregnant. Says her doctors want her to limit her travel. Other artists changing tour dates include Madonna, Avril Lavigne, Mariah Carey, Pearl Jam, Green Day and New Order as well. New Order, great English Group, was one of the first bands to put shows on hold because of the coronavirus. So if you can't go and see them, you can at the very least listen to them. Here's a bit of New. Order. Age of Consent. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Song: "Age of Consent" by New Order]

Back To Top »

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

Mar. 10, 2020 episode transcript

More Stories Like This