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The Current Transcript for July 1, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Inuktitut speech]

MARK KELLEY: A bilingual governor general, is nothing new, but one whose languages are English in Inuktitut. Well, that sure is. Mary Simon will take on the role vacated by Julie Payette, what that means to indigenous people in Canada in 30 minutes. Also this morning, Canada is getting hotter, prompting urgent questions about how to prevent deaths in the next inevitable heat wave. I'll speak with a seniors advocate in B.C. about how to protect our most vulnerable. And then.

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I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. Because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn't need a motion in the House of Representatives. He needs a mirror. That's what he needs.

MK: You remember that speech? It was a classic. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard put up with plenty of sexism during her time in office. In that moment, she'd had had enough. And she says not a whole lot has changed for women in power since she spoke out nearly 10 years ago. We'll revisit Matt Galloway's conversation with Julia Gillard, but we start with Canada's hesitant unmasking. I'm Mark Kelley, in for Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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Concern as some provinces start to relax mask mandates

Guests: Katy Ingraham, Dr. Kwadwo Kyremanteng, Dr. Stephanie Smith

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VOICE 1: I just don't feel that we should be taking off the masks this soon because a lot of people who are not vaccinated, there's a lot of people who are choosing not to get vaccinated.

VOICE 2: Why don't we just wait and keep the mask mandate just to have that little bit of extra reassurance? Is it worth risking the health of the public just so you don't have to wear a mask?

VOICE 3: Personally, I'm not going to be wearing my mask anymore. I'm just I'm done with it. I went to a rodeo on the weekend, nobody to wear a mask. And it was awesome to see it for me personally.

VOICE 4: Some people in my circle of friends are like, hey, fully vacc'ed, let's have a dance party. I don't know if I want to go to the dance party.

MK: To mask or not to mask. It's been so long since we've actually had that option. Most people in British Columbia and Alberta now have that choice and Saskatchewan isn't far behind with that province's mask mandates set to end on Sunday. But as we just heard, not everyone is convinced the time to unmask is now. There are variants, unvaccinated people, and we're just not used to showing our faces anymore. Katy Ingraham owns Flyest Delicatessen in Edmonton. Good morning, Katy.

KATY INGRAHAM: Good morning.

MK: How are you? I'm doing well. How are you feeling about do you think the time to unmask is now? Give me your perspective.

KATY INGRAHAM: No, not necessarily. I think it's a little bit too early. And yeah, I think, you know, it's been interesting in Alberta, just a few short months ago, we had the highest per capita case counts in North America. And now we are the fastest to remove not just Marfin, but all of our restrictions. So it's an interesting place to be.

MK: That's where it always is. Alberta, why why does that make you uncomfortable, Katie?

KATY INGRAHAM: Well, I think, you know, what we have seen in our in our own experience through the last couple of waves, as well as staring down the barrel of a potential fourth wave, is that we didn't act soon enough and we didn't do enough. And so to have something as minimal an intervention as wearing masks just completely removed, just feels very, very rushed. And and hopefully, hopefully I'm wrong about it, having severe consequences. But but knowing what we know and what's happening in other jurisdictions, I don't think that's the case. It makes me nervous.

MK: Did you feel this is more a political decision then than a public health decision?

KATY INGRAHAM: Yes, absolutely. I think, you know, as we've seen throughout the Alberta provincial response to covid has been largely political and largely swayed by people who are making decisions on behalf of a voter base that doesn't believe that covid, as is either real or as big of a risk as it really is, or the intervention needed to contain the pandemic infringe upon their rights and freedoms.

MK: Now you've decided to keep a mandatory mass policy in your delicatessen. How how is that going over?

KATY INGRAHAM: So far, so good. I mean, we've set a tone throughout the pandemic that we're taking a very safe and cautious approach, very worker centred. So, you know, it is a large responsibility to require people to come to work and not just, you know, cook food or serve food, but to also potentially be in grave danger if they're in public facing jobs. They're interacting with a lot of people every day and we take that very seriously. So we've set that tone throughout the pandemic. So our community at large has come to expect that from us. So for us, it's been OK. We had a fairly serious incident the week just prior to the mask mandate ending. And that prompted us to say, you know, we are still going to require masks, but we're going to ask our staff not to engage or confront anybody that's refusing. And I sort of just a harm reduction approach that if it's going to be an aggressive interaction, that it's just a process the person as quickly as possible to get them out of there.

MK: Is that what you said, there was a serious incident? Is that what you had to do? You had some angry pushback?

KATY INGRAHAM: Yeah, definitely so as soon as the Edmonton City Council had agreed that they were dropping the mask mandate in the city of Edmonton, it was almost as if a switch had flipped and people were were immediately done with masking. And and again, we don't normally have that in our community, but these are people that were there and not interested in following our rules, I guess you could say. And yeah, it turned rather aggressive. I was glad that I was there to deal with it. But had I not been, it's not a situation that I would want any of my staff to have to deal with.

MK: Yeah, I can see that putting in a tough position. Katy, I hope you don't have any more serious incidents in the road ahead. And above all, please stay safe.

KATY INGRAHAM: Yeah. Thank you.

MK: Thanks for talking to us this morning. Katy Ingraham is the co-owner of Fleisch Delikatessen in Edmonton. Well, the medical community is also divided on whether it's too soon to be lifting mask mandates. Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng is an intensive and palliative care physician at the Montford and Ottawa Hospital. Good morning, Doctor.

DR. KWADWO KYEREMANTENG: Morning, Mark.

MK: You just heard Katy talking about her experience. In your opinion, do you think the time is right now to lift the mask mandates?

DR. KWADWO KYEREMANTENG: Yeah, it's a great question mark, and, you know, I think from my perspective, like you, you want to have first of all, I want to say, as you mentioned, as a frontline staff, it is really great to finally be in a position where we could be having this conversation going on and seeing what we've seen over the last eight, six months to be in this position, I think is really we're really grateful to be able to have this discussion. Second, you know, I think we've got to consider where we are in terms of vaccination, community spread. And luckily, you know, Canada is one of the most vaccinated, at least first dose vaccinated countries in the world at this time. And, you know, I look at our situation, for example, in Ottawa in terms of communities spread. We have 50 active cases in the city. That's just over a million. So that's reassuring. And when we put in these mask mandates, it's typically in a situation where our our well-being, our lives are at risk of being threatened. And luckily, we're in a situation where we can be having these conversations. And I'll be very clear, I'm a big I'm a big fan of masks. I was in very early to advocate for this, especially in the use of hospitals that we really think are effective. But I think we're in a situation now where we've got to start thinking about which restrictions are we going to come off of. And currently, I could speak of, especially where I live in Ottawa, coming off of these restrictions with the current level of vaccinations and the current level of community spread, certainly leaning towards it being a positive move.

MK: I guess, though, the X factor in all of this is the Delta variant. Even the WHO continues to recommend people still cover their faces indoors because of the spread of that Delta variant. You're a physician. How do you square that and the threat of the spread of the Delta variant?

DR. KWADWO KYEREMANTENG: Yeah, I think it's a very good point. And luckily, I think when it comes to the Delta, it's we need to keep a close eye on how it's behaving. And luckily, it hasn't overwhelmed over burdened, you know, cases and hospitalisations within this country. And the thing that we got to always remember is that the vaccines are extremely effective, not only with other variants, but with the Delta variant as well, especially when we talk about hospitalisations. And for me, this is a main concern. If I get covid, will I end up hospitalised or die from it. And the vaccines that we have in Canada are extremely effective against that. And so when you add it all up, yes, you know, can we relax some restrictions? I think we're in a position to but from my point of view, it's always important to be monitoring the situation. Are we OK? Are we seeing a rise in hospitalisations? What's happening within the community? Because we need to be responsive. And the other thing that I really appreciate what Katy mentioned is that, you know, because it might not be mandated, but there's still that opportunity for those that feel that they want to have that mask to add that extra layer of protection that's still available, especially if you're high risk, especially if you haven't been vaccinated, especially if maybe your early in your vaccination, like you recently, only have been similarly vaccinated. Like there is still that option. And I think that's an important reminder.

MK: Kids, as we know, kids under the age of 12 can't be vaccinated. Are you worried about that for your own children and other children?

DR. KWADWO KYEREMANTENG: Yeah, and I think it's a great cause I'm a father of three and unfortunately maybe you hear a few of them in the background, I apologize.

MK: No problem at all.

DR. KWADWO KYEREMANTENG: But, you know, I think luckily we had some data, though, to look at when we we saw how the vaccine strategy in Israel went over, where they were focussing on 16 and above, and the fact that you were able to really curb community spread, seek to really protect the kids. We also care. It's important to remember that kids really are low risk of becoming sick of covid. They appear to spread it less than are older adults. So for me, I must say, I'm not anxious about my kids, but I can understand where people might be apprehensive. And once again, it's a situation where we just got to keep a close eye on how covid's behaving. Luckily, we're getting more and more data and availability for vaccines for our adolescents. So, you know, keep a close eye. But for me, I think because of the community spread being so long, because we're able to vaccinate so many Canadians, I'm not as anxious.

MK: OK, I want to bring someone else into the conversation. Dr. Stephanie Smith is an infectious disease physician at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton. Good morning to you, Dr. Smith. And give me your view on whether you feel it's time the time is right to unmask.

DR. STEPHANIE SMITH: Yeah, I think that personally, I feel that the Mafeking should continue, at least in public spaces. You know, given that we have just come off of, you know, an incredibly large third wave and yes, our community spread certainly is lower, but we are not at the point where we have a large proportion of the population fully vaccinated and we do have Delta variant circulating in the community. And these are all things that worry me. So I think that, you know, as your initial interviewee said, it's a simple thing. So putting a mask on when you go to the grocery store or a restaurant or a deli really is should not be a political thing. It should be just a simple thing that protects everyone. And I think that, you know, until we see full vaccination at about probably, you know, closer to 65, 70 percent, then I think that's the time when we can ease that particular restriction. I think given the community spread that well, I think, you know, easing of other restrictions, gathering, small gatherings, those kinds of things do make sense.

MK: Well, there's a big gathering about to happen in your province said, of course, being the Calgary Stampede, as you well know. And I was reading today how in some venues at the stampede, they're going to be asking for proof of vaccines, like a vaccine passport or or they'll be supplying rapid tests on site. Does that give you some sort of from a public health perspective, some sort of comfort?

DR. STEPHANIE SMITH: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, they have put some restrictions in and I believe there are there are massive mandates in some enclosed areas. So I think that they're trying their best to mitigate risk. But it certainly is a very large venue with large numbers of people. And I think it will be very difficult to police all of that. So, I mean, who who are they going to test? Who are they going to ask for a vaccination status? Who's going to do that? You know, all those kinds of things. I think the operationalisation of trying to to put in place those those measures, I think would be difficult. So, you know, I think there is risk. And again, I mean, I don't think that we need masks forever. I think that, you know, we we just need to be a little bit more cautious in terms of our approach to easing restrictions. And again, I mean, the masks to me feel like the least restrictive in terms of, you know, you can still go about your business, you can still go to stores, you can still interact with people. We're just asking you to take that one extra layer of protection until we really see that people are fully vaccinated, that, you know, we're not seeing outbreaks of the Delta variant and we're not seeing hospitalisations. And I agree that. I mean, the key I think one of the key metrics is hospitalisation. If we continue to see some community spread, but people are just getting a sniffle or a cold and no one's coming into hospital, then certainly the restrictions aren't necessary.

MK: Dr. Kyremanteng, you know, it's interesting here because you're both physicians, you're both looking at the same statistics, and yet there's not a consensus on both masking. Why is that?

DR. KWADWO KYEREMANTENG: I mean, I think to be honest with you, Dr. Smith and I are. That's right. I mean, I think we both agree that so effective. I think the real question is just where the values are, where the line is drawn for a community and and when are they ready to make the leap. Like we don't have data to say when your present vaccination is X percent now it's safe to take off mass. So to me, this is why it's so important to be nimble. And this is one of the things that's been so wonderful to see when it comes to covid responses, especially as an ICU doc, is that being nimble when the new data comes through, you know, how do we respond. And so, I think it's just a matter of what are people willing to accept. I would agree that personally with Dr. Smith, it is a low like it's not an invasive step. But I think for me, the most important part is that we move towards removing restrictions because once again, these vaccines are amazing, the extremely effective, especially when we're talking about hospitalisations. And then when we also look at this, might not be a fair comparison. Some might say but when we look at other jurisdictions that have alleviated some of them, including mask, there has been a resurgence of hospitalisations. And so, you know, can it be done? Maybe and we're about to see, I guess, in Alberta and British Columbia, but to say that, you know, it's an absolute mistake. I don't know if I could say that confidently.

MK: Yeah, well, let me pick up on that, because I was curious about the same thing, looking at other jurisdictions. So I took a look at the state of Texas population, 29 million. They unmasked on March 2nd there. And at that point, there were 7500 new cases a day. But this past Monday, there now 537 cases a day. So, Dr. Smith, do you take some comfort when you look at the success rate in other jurisdictions?

DR. STEPHANIE SMITH: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, I think that there are certainly examples of of areas that have removed the mask mandate and have continued to do well. I do think that we really need to drill down into the data to understand how much data is circulating and that because really I mean, that's the wild card to a large extent, given that the vaccine with one dose is only about 33 to 35 percent effective against the Delta variant, whereas, with other strains, we have much higher vaccine efficacy, even with just one dose. So I think that certainly I mean, I don't no one has a crystal ball. And so, I mean, yes, you can look at other jurisdictions. Is that how it's going to play out in Canada? Hard to know. But I think that I mean, I guess my concern with lifting the mask mandate too early is that, yes, we have proven that we can be nimble, but I think that there will be a lot of resistance to going backwards.

MK: Which was seen in Israel where they had to back-pedal after unmasking there.

DR. STEPHANIE SMITH: So, that's my concern.

DR. KWADWO KYEREMANTENG: So just real quick one, in terms of the even single dose with the hospitalisations with Delta, we recently prepared from the Iesus group ICS Group in Ontario showing that it's still effective with reducing hospitalisation. Quite effective. And second, you know what, in my humble opinion, like I know I think, in fact, when we release a mandate. And it actually for me, it gains trust in the public. Because if our public health officials and the leaders are saying, you know, we see that the threat has decreased and we're willing to to respond accordingly, that, to me, says a lot. Like, you know, and I mean, this is just my personal opinion, like if, once again, we're seeing that resurgence of this and people see that threat to themselves, they know that they can have that trust within the public health and our decision makers that when other threats are there, we need to respond. When they aren't there, we could also respond accordingly. And once again, whether that's mass, whether that increasing your amount of outdoor gatherings or indoor gatherings or whatever might be within your community. But I think the restrictions have to match the threat, in my opinion.

MK: OK, well, we will have to leave it there. Great conversation with you both. Thank you for your both for your time. Dr. Kwadrwo Kyremanteng is an intensive and palliative care physician in Ottawa. Dr Stephanie Smith, an infectious disease physician in Alberta. The CBC News is next. And the prime minister has decided that ability to bridge Canadians is a necessary one in our next governor general. It's bound to be a tough task in six minutes. The challenge facing Mary Simon as the first indigenous person to step into that role. I'm Mark Kelley. This is The Current.

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Provinces start to relax mask mandates; Mary Simon will be Canada's first Indigenous governor general; how to prevent deaths in future heat waves

Guests: Rebecca Kudloo, Niigaan Sinclair, Isobel MacKenzie

MK: Hello, I'm Mark Kelley, and you're listening to The Current.

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MK: Still to come, nearly 10 years after Julia Gillard delivered her now famous misogyny speech in Australian parliament, she is still game to talk about it because not all that much has changed for women in power. We will revisit Matt Galloway conversation with her in about 30 minutes. But first, an Inuk woman is taking up a powerful role in this country and it will no doubt be a daunting task.

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[Inukitut speech]

MK: An extraordinary moment yesterday as the new governor general addressed the country in Inuktitut, Mary Simon is a long time Inuk leader and former ambassador. She will be the first indigenous person to serve as Canada's governor general. Joining me now to talk about this, Rebecca Kudloo. She's president of the Pauktuutit Intuit Women. And Niigaan Sinclair. He's an Anishinaabe writer and professor and columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press. Good morning to you both.

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Good morning, Soledad.

REBECCA KUDLOO: Good morning.

MK: Rebecca, let me start with you. What did it mean to you to hear the new governor general designate deliver those those opening remarks in her language?

REBECCA KUDLOO: First of all, if I can say that, our people would like to extend their heartfelt congratulations to Mary Simon on her historic and inspirational appointment as the first governor general of Canada. Those venues were uplifting yesterday after what we have gone through for the past month or so after the, you know, unmarked graves were found.

MK: Niigaan, what does it mean to you, as Rebecca is pointing out, we're going through a difficult time right now? I what what impact do you think this will have with Mary Simon now holding this office?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: You know it's been a remarkable two months in which there's been tremendous trauma that's come to the surface for many Canadians, of course, for indigenous people. It's been a reminder of our ongoing experience of violence in this country. And yesterday was a mark of hope. It was a mark of optimism. And it was a mark of a person, a leader who has been dedicated to change and areas of reconciliation before reconciliation was really something talked about someone who's been there going back to the 1970s, invested in Inuit rights, have been voted upon by her own people, and then has created relationships, diplomatic relationships with not just the Canadian government and members of both the conservative and the Liberal Party, but throughout the world, throughout Denmark and in Russia and the Circumpolar Conference. And, you know, the international ties that Maori Simon brings to this position is quite remarkable. And I want you to think about this for a moment. Imagine for a moment that you had an indigenous woman on the side of the crown, influential position, a powerful position of decision making position on the side in which the treaties were being negotiated or racist laws were being put into place or the residential school system was. And if you think about that, the world would have turned out very differently. So to have an indigenous woman on the side of the crown to influence the Crown's decision making abilities is a pretty remarkable moment. It's not going to change the trajectory of this country much currently. What's going on with the ongoing violence that we're seeing both in history and today. But it is a remarkable moment.

MK: Rebecca, you've met Mary Simon. Tell us about but about her. What kind of person is she?

REBECCA KUDLOO: She's very caring, respect that person, a woman that has achieved a lot in her life for the betterment of not only Inuit, but other people. I met her once or twice, but she came to our leadership training that I was on and I told her that I admired her work and that I respected her very much. And she's a role model for Inuit women also and girls, which is much needed.

MK: Tell me about that. What kind of role model, what kind of impact do you think that she can have on on indigenous women in general, but in you women in particular?

REBECCA KUDLOO: I'm also a residential school survivor, and when we were going to school, we were taught to be secretaries and housewives and those roles. But for her to be involved in, you know, an internationally. It's very- like, young women can look at her and say, I can do that to.

MK: Niigaan, there are some indigenous groups expressing concerns about Mary Simon's appointment, the Native Women's Association of Canada said yesterday that: "Miss Simon is being asked to serve the senior role in what is still a colonial system of governance". How widespread is that feeling, do you think, amongst indigenous peoples?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Oh, absolutely, I mean, there's there's ample reason to be suspicious of this appointment, particularly on a day in which the Liberal government is basically announcing a fall election in that the governor general position is the last piece that needs to be put into place heading into an election campaign. Two also really remarkable announcements, almost seconds followed afterwards: the self-government agreement for the Metis in Manitoba and then, of course, the jurisdiction of child welfare being handed to Cowessess First Nation -- no coincidence, of course, where unmarked graves were found just a few weeks earlier. So there is clearly an election style effort being put in by the liberals accompanying this announcement. So there is ample reason for suspicion that Mary Simon may not be as influential. We see the history of the current Liberals, there is, they haven't done very well with a very strong Indigenous woman when it came to Jody Wilson-Raybould, so it may be a reason to be suspicious. And I certainly understand why indigenous peoples would feel that way. And I, too, feel very suspicious as some some hesitancy involving celebrating. This is some kind of remarkable moment of reconciliation, which is why I said just a minute ago, this is not going to change Canada's trajectory of policy. But what it will do is it provides in the ear of the prime minister, an ear of cabinet will be an indigenous voice and a very strong one, a very competent one, and also one that it has a history of diplomacy, a history of ways in which they are able to navigate. She has been able to navigate Canadian law. She worked under the Constitution. She helped negotiate the Charlottetown Accord, Indigenous Peoples into the Charlottetown Accord, for example. That indigenous rights can be incorporated within Canadian law, can manipulate and change Canadian law in various different ways, and indigenous peoples can be heard. Now she's only one voice. Will the liberals listen? That's the big question.

MK: Indeed, and heard. Let's talk about that for a second too, Rebecca. She is bilingual, but that's in speaking English-Inuktitut, not French. I took a look in the French newspapers this morning in Quebec, and that's a point of concern for Francophone Canadians, because traditionally the Governor-General has always been bilingual English-French. Do you think it's important, Rebecca, that that that the governor general speak French?

REBECCA KUDLOO: All I can say is that not all of us are trilingual. When we went to residential school, we were forced to speak in English and was punished for speaking our language. So our language is disappearing and not something that we've been really fighting for is for our children to be able to speak our language and if she didn't get that chance to have be trained in France, I don't think it's it's going to be an obstacle.

MK: Rebecca, I want to ask you to pick up on Niigaan's point that, you know, his concern, as he says, is suspicious about her, Mary Simon's appointment here, that perhaps this is more about symbolism than substance. Are you concerned about that, that in a way, she's being put there in a position to be symbolic but really not make a difference at the end of the day?

REBECCA KUDLOO: I've been hearing, too, that this might be a distraction from the recent residential school discoveries. What I can say, as Inuit are not easily distracted. We won't be easily distracted from this residential school discoveries. And I also sit on the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which we made with the crown. I'm sorry. I have a meeting today with federal ministers. We have a meeting today. Knowing Mary Simon and her 40 years of dedicated work, she's not just going to be a symbol sitting there. She's going to do some work. And I like the fact that she wants to do she her priorities, healing and reconciliation, which goes in line with what this mandate and our priority areas are.

MK: Niigaan, given the notion that some see the governor general job, as sort of a ribbon cutting responsibility, what difference do you think she can make in this office in terms of building those bridges, in terms of promoting reconciliation?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Yeah, I think that the governor general position really profoundly changed with Adrian Parkson, who really didn't make it a ribbon cutting position but was quite influential and and did some remarkable work while in that office, put an ad into what Rebecca was talking about in terms of trilingual ism for indigenous peoples. I mean, it is so profoundly racist to expect indigenous peoples to speak to colonial languages and then at the behest or at the loss of our own. And she is officially bilingual, of course, with it being an official language in Nunavut. And it's really important to recognise that she's you know, she's only been in the office for 24 hours, but she's already changed it profoundly. And one of that ways in which she started by speaking in Inukitut and speaking in her language and introducing herself, using her traditional name, talking about her parents in that introduction, talked about the land and all of those things.

MK: And why was that important for you to hear? For you to hear that? What impact did that have on you?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Well, that's exactly the way that we introduce ourselves in the lodge, introduced ourselves when we are in ceremony, when we're when we we're in our you know, and our indigenous political gatherings, we talk about our families as the parts that we bring to the job. It's not something we're expected to leave at home, like many Western politicians might do. And the fact is that, you know, she's done other remarkable things. Like I want Canadians to sit with this for a moment. One of the very first things she's going to be asked to do is to dissolve parliament and call an election. And I want everyone just to sit with that moment and think you're going to see an indigenous woman end Canada's government. And just think about the remarkability of that moment. It may be symbolic. It may be something, of course, that, you know, an election will be and Canada day will continue following that election. But it is a sign where an indigenous woman is the head of Canada's government that if anything, is a moment to ponder and to think about and to see change is occurring in the country.

MK: Rebecca, how are you feeling about this today, I wonder, are you hoping that Mary Simon can come to the north and come to Nunavut, can, you know, can visit and and how important will that be?

REBECCA KUDLOO: I think it will be immensely important for our people to see her in person when the time comes. Also, I would like to add that, as you know, and many Aboriginal people, family is very important. And for her to bring her family up was, you know, really good. Way to get to know her, who she is and where she came from. As we look at things holistically, especially when I say family is very important, a lot of us were taken away from our families when we were very young and now we're trying to keep our families together and. I think she will do a good job in uniting people, whoever they are. She's not going to be only a governor general for any but all of Canadians. So I can see her working towards uniting the country.

MK: Let's hope. Thank you both. Wonderful conversation. Thanks. Thanks to you both. Rebecca Kudloo was in Baker Lake, Nunavut. Niigaan Sinclair an Anishinaabe writer, columnist. He is in Winnipeg.

[Musiuc]

MK: I'm Mark Kelley, and you're listening to The Current, people in British Columbia are just coming out of a harrowing heatwave. For days, temperatures were in the 40s, heat that high and for that long goes beyond uncomfortable.

SOUNDCLIP

So I was really concerned about the heat because it was going to be like over 40 degrees. And her apartment in Richmond is really hot. So we decided to bring her here, her and my brother, to spend the day to kind of shelter out the heat. And I guess the heat, even in my apartment, was too much. And so she collapsed. We tried to call 911 one after we had been on hold already for five minutes, she stopped breathing. We rolled her on to her back and she started breathing again. We waited on hold with 911 for almost an hour, for 50 minutes. My grandma had a couple of really close calls. If she hadn't started breathing again, but an ambulance had been here, she would have been fine if she hadn't like- she very easily could have died in my backyard.

MK: Jacqueline Irvine's grandmother recovered from that close call, but she was lucky. The B.C. coroner's early reports suggest that heat contributed to more than 700 sudden deaths in a week, many of them seniors. Isobel MacKenzie is the B.C. seniors advocate. She joins me this morning. Good morning, Isobel.

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: Good morning.

MK: What went wrong?

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: Well, I think it was a combination of things. I think here on the west coast of Canada, the Lower Mainland and southern Vancouver Island, we are not accustomed to very high temperatures for any period of time. So most places are not air conditioned, for example, as opposed to other parts of the country that that have hotter summers. And I think we've had heat waves in the past. We've had warnings of heat waves and people have taken precautions and we've been uncomfortable, but we've muddled through. And I think what happened here is we've just never experienced the temperatures that we experienced in this particular heat wave. And we're not talking one or two degrees higher, but eight and 10 degrees higher than what would be a heat wave in the past. And we simply went from this is uncomfortable to this is dangerous and unfortunately, in some cases fatal. And I think we have a lot to learn about what we have to do in advance of the heat wave. We do generally know they're coming not by weeks, but by days and a better job of understanding just how dangerous these temperatures can be.

MK: What were you thinking, Isobel, as you watch the temperatures you mentioned it wasn't just one or two degrees higher than normal. It was significantly higher. What were you thinking as you watched the temperature go up and up?

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: Well, I was most concerned about the people, just like the woman's grandmother, those seniors who lived in apartments. You know, there was a lot of focus on long term care, but for the most part, those folks, I was confident we're going to be OK simply because there were people around them to make sure they stayed hydrated and and that their body temperature was as cool as possible. But what you have in these apartments as anybody who lives in one will know is a bit of a greenhouse effect. And here on the lower mainland in southern Vancouver Island, most don't have air conditioning. Many don't even have balconies. So there's no shade over the windows and no ability to really get outside. You can't get cross ventilation, et cetera. And then you're more likely to live alone if you're in these apartments. And certainly when I looked at the fatalities, the sort of the common denominator in the list was, you know, apartment and then the age tended to be in the 80s. And we forget that it's easy enough for us to figure out, OK, I've got to get up and have some water or I'll go to the cooling centre or go to the mall and cool off. These folks in their 80s and sometimes in their 90s don't have the ability to do that very easily, if at all. And they may not even realise that they're overheating. So when somebody calls them, how are you doing? Oh, I'm doing fine. But really, they're not. And they don't realise it. And they they don't have the ability to call the ambulance. They don't know they should. Those are the people that I was and still continue to be the most worried about because it's also a group of people, how do we reach them and get ahead of time the assistance we need to get in, which sometimes is about relocating them for a few days.

MK: And you mentioned this is certainly unprecedented for B.C. to have that kind of sustained heat but it's not unprecedented elsewhere. Other parts of the world have experienced heat waves like this before. And I spoke to Mark Maslin earlier this week. He's a climate change. A scientist at the University College in London

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After the huge heat wave in 2003, northern Europe, where 70000 people died, the French realised that they got it completely wrong and restructured how they thought about health care. So these are really simple things you can put in. One, you work out where are your vulnerable people and that is your elderly people. And if you have your wonderful meteorological agency saying there's a heat wave coming, you contact them and you make sure that you can move them into places that have air conditioning. OK, so you start to look after them and you make sure that the vulnerable are then picked out.

MK: is about what do you think? I mean, are are you hearing the conversation in Vancouver now after what you've gone through there, to start making structural changes like like people are doing in places like France?

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: Yes, and and he's exactly right. That is exactly what we need to do. We have a lot of ability to identify the vulnerable people. We know who's on our home and community care list. We know who's getting our rent subsidy for elderly renters. We can work with our apartment owners associations. We can we can systematically develop that list and do exactly as he suggests. We reach out in the days ahead of the impending heat wave and and understand what arrangements need to be made. And my understanding is and I'm continuing to work with the ministry on that, we are doing that for this summer. We're just at the beginning of summer. We might see this type of heat wave again before we're through this summer. And then I think attention will turn to certainly when it comes to to new builds and retrofits and all these other things, what's the cooling system we're going to put in, as well as the heating system we're going to put in, which is not something we're accustomed to thinking about in this part of the country, but clearly is something we we do have to start thinking about.

MK: Isobel, as you point out, I mean, it's early days. We're early July. There may well be another significant heat wave. Do you have anything you want to say to elderly people who may be listening and perhaps worried about getting through the next heat wave?

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: Yes, and I think the the advice is to have the plan. So recognise that heat waves now are about more than being uncomfortable. They are about being unsafe. And so we have to take seriously the fact that they are going to be some people who are living in a place that you simply can't live in for the days when we're at the apex of of the heat. And then there are going to be people for whom they could continue to live where they are. But you have to make the plan. What's going to be the plan for getting the cool air in? Who's going to come and make sure that I'm hydrated and getting the cool cloth and the the cooler, tepid showers that I need? That is what I think individuals need to be thinking about. But governments also need to. And I think that the B.C. government does recognise their role around proactively reaching out, identifying people and helping those who do not have the ability to make and execute the plan. Because we have to recognise that in the elderly population, there are going to be people who are not going to be able to get themselves to a cooling centre or to a hotel room or to family. We're going to have to assist them in doing that.

MK: Isobek, thank you for your time. Isobel Mackenzie is a British is British Columbia's seniors advocate. Coming up, your regional update. I'm Mark Kelley. You're listening to The Current.

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Julia Gillard on how to tackle gender bias and sexism in leadership

Guest: Julia Gillard

MK: I'm Mark Kelley, sitting in for Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current,

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I was offended, too, by the sexism, by the misogyny of the leader of the opposition catcalling across this table at me as I sit here as prime minister. If the prime minister wants to, politically speaking, make an honest woman of herself, something that would never have been said to any man sitting in this chair. I was offended when the leader of the opposition went outside in the front of parliament and stood next to a sign that said, Ditch the witch. I was offended when the leader of the opposition stood next to a sign that described me as a man's bitch. I was offended by those things. Misogyny, sexism every day from this leader of the opposition.

MK: nearly 10 years later. And the words of former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in her now famous speech to parliament still have the same fire. Maybe it's because not much has changed. Women in public life around the world still face sexism and misogyny. That is the subject of Julia Gillard's book, Women and Leadership Real Lives, Real Lessons. It was co-written with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Nigerian finance minister who is now head of the World Trade Organisation. Julia Gillard spoke with Matt Galloway in March. Here is their conversation.

Julia Gillard joins me from Adelaide, Australia. Good morning.

JULIA GILLARD: Good morning. Great to be with you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Thank you for being here. What were you feeling as you made that speech?

JULIA GILLARD: I was feeling a cool anger. Not a hot anger, a cool anger. I hadn't expected to give a speech in parliament that day. So the speech was off-the-cuff, it came from the heart. And I think it had in it all of the frustration that had been welling up in me over time about my treatment as a woman in politics. I decided early on in my time as prime minister that there would be a lot of interest in me being the first woman. But I thought the treatment of me as a politician would equalize over time. What I actually found was that the gendered insults and the like increased. And so I had just tolerated that and tolerated that. And when a moment came to speak out about it, I think all of that frustration and cool anger showed, in the moment.

MATT GALLOWAY: You say in the book, in some ways, that you'd been honing the skill set behind that speech for... for a number of years. Are you surprised a number of years later that it is still, as they say, a viral sensation?

JULIA GILLARD: Absolutely astonished. If you had said to me on the day that I gave that speech that we'd still be talking about it a fortnight later, [chuckling] I would have looked at you with skepticism, let alone all of these years later.

MATT GALLOWAY: How much do you think has changed in leadership for women in the decade since that speech?

JULIA GILLARD: In some ways, quite a lot, and in other ways not nearly enough. I think we are absolutely having the right conversation now. And people are onto just that there is differential treatment of women in politics and women in generally in life. And people are increasingly energized around changing that. But I'm also frustrated about the degree of change we're seeing. We've got to have this conversation with intensity. But we've also got to adopt all of the change agenda that will make a real difference for women.

MATT GALLOWAY: This book came out of conversations. You write that... that in the travels that you had around the world as a leader, you would have these conversations at the sides of meetings, at the sides of conventions, the sides of summits. What was the substance of those conversations? What was it that got you thinking that there was something larger that could come out of those discussions?

JULIA GILLARD: I would go to international meetings like the G20, various security summits, and often I'd be one of very few women in those meetings. Indeed, at one APEC meeting, I was the only woman. But at the meetings where there were a few women, we did take the opportunity to seek each other out in the margins of the meeting. And often, the conversation would turn to various frustrations. You know, the fact that we'd done something really important for our nation. We were announcing it publicly, and all the publicity had been about what we were wearing or the fact that we entered rooms where we felt like we had to acquit a differential burden. That we were entitled to be in those rooms by virtue of our position. We thought that there was a special extra entry test for us because those rooms had not historically been open to women. So I left politics informed by those conversations that this experience wasn't just my own. You know, there were these whirring questions in my head. How much of my experience was Australian politics at that moment in time? How much of it was about decisions the government and I made? How much was simply because I was a woman? That question intrigued me so much that one, it led me to establish the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College London. And two, it led me into a set of conversations with my co-author, Ngozi, who I would see at the meetings that I was going to post-politics. And we got so intrigued, fascinated into this conversation with each other that ultimately we decided to write the book.

MATT GALLOWAY: In the book, you interview eight powerful women who are current and former leaders to learn from their experience. Given those conversations, as you say, that you were having at the margins of those meetings, how eager were they to... to step into this discussion, to... to offer not only their own experience, but a way out of the situations that they were encountering?

JULIA GILLARD: I think women leaders are eager to have this discussion, but they're also very aware of the risks. And so if a woman leader goes out and complains about sexist treatment, and this certainly happened to me in the wake of the misogyny speech, people respond by saying, heavens above, you know, she's prime minister of Australia. She's living one of the most privileged lives on the planet. Like what has she got to complain about? Or people accuse you of playing a gender card, starting a gender war, trying to distract from other issues in your political life. Well, she would say that, wouldn't she? Because something else is not going very well and she's trying to get us to look over here. So I think women in politics, women in public life feel all of that. What gave women special permission to talk in this book is that they knew we weren't just talking to them and they knew we were asking eight women exactly the same questions, so that it wouldn't come off as one individual complaining. Rather, it would be eight women talking about these issues together. And there's both power and protection in being in that kind of collective.

MATT GALLOWAY: I want to ask you more about what comes out in the book, but we're speaking in the midst of... and, I mean, I know Australia is ahead of us here in Canada, but we're still in the midst of this global pandemic. And this is a pandemic we know that has disproportionately affected women. On our program, one of the economists has referred to it as a shecession, not a recession. As we start to think about a recovery, what needs to be done in a meaningful way to address that, shecession, do you think?

JULIA GILLARD: I agree with you that whilst, of course, the disease, COVID-19, disproportionately kills men and we shouldn't forget that. When we look at the ripple effects of this pandemic, the impact is disproportionately on women. So the first ripple effect, women tend to be the greatest percentage of our caring professions who are uniquely at risk. The next ripple effect, women are the ones that have to step up when domestic labour is increased by lockdown's and home schooling. And, as you say, the economic effect has disproportionately played out against women's jobs. I think to recover from all of that, we have to put gender at the centre of the analysis about how we want to rebuild. You will sometimes hear people talk about, look, we just want to make sure that we're back in the days like they were before the pandemic. I frankly think that's naive. I don't think we are going back. I think we're going forward to a new future. And the decision for us is what is it going to look like? Is it a future in which every pre-existing inequality, including gender inequality, is reinforced because we are in economically difficult times after the pandemic? Or do we take this opportunity to say we've been doing a lot wrong in the past, we need to rebuild, let's rebuild in a way that enhances equality, including gender equality.

MATT GALLOWAY: Do you think those strategies and that approach would be different if there were more women leaders around the world?

JULIA GILLARD: Yes, I do, but I'm always really careful about how I answer this question. I am not a believer that men are from Mars, women are from Venus, to use the terminology that was much in vogue many years ago. Men and women's brains aren't different. Neuroscience tells us that. So it's not like there is an inherently female way to lead. But, of course, men and women have been subject to different social conditioning. We react to men and women leaders differently because we've still got some sexist stereotypes whirring in the back of our brains. And that means that women tend to come through for leadership and succeed at it if they can merge together strength and empathy as a leadership style and research does show that more women in politics is correlated with less corruption.

MATT GALLOWAY: Let me ask you about leadership. Your co-autho, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is the new director-general of the WTO, the first woman, the first African to hold that post in the 25-year history of that organization. Take a listen to what that accomplishment means to her.

NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA: I'm very proud to be the first African. I'm proud to be the first woman. But I always tell people that the important thing is to have the competence to deliver the results. In other words, if you are the first woman and the first African, and you can deliver, that doesn't... that doesn't help. So I'm focusing on delivery. I'm focusing on getting results. And I want to make sure that people remember my continent producing the first leader of the WTO that made a difference.

MATT GALLOWAY: She says that the first won't matter if she doesn't deliver results. And so people talk about a glass ceiling, but they also talk about a glass cliff. When women do gain power, to what extent do they face greater performance expectations and perhaps scrutiny, especially women of colour?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, to give you a real-life example involving Ngozi right now, there was a German-Swiss newspaper that reported the news about her appointment to the WTO under a banner headline which read 66-year-old grandmother appointed to lead the WTO. Not world-leading economist. You know, of course, we're used to men being appointed to things. When Antonio Guterres became the leader of the United Nations, I don't remember any headlines which described him as a grandfather and gave his age as if that was his qualification for the job. But more specifically, on the glass cliff, that terminology might be familiar to everybody. It comes from an analysis that resulted from a newspaper article in the U.K. The Times of London had published a piece saying female CEOs lead to lower share prices. And a wonderful researcher, Michelle Ryan, looked at that and thought, that's not right. And she delved into it. And what she actually found was that low share prices predicted the appointment of a female CEO. So an organization, a business that was going well, who needed a new CEO, would say to themselves, you know, let's get one that looks a fair bit like the one we've got now. That's probably a white man. So we'll get another white man. Job done. It was only when an organization was in trouble that they said, oh, we've got to shake things up here. We've got to do dramatically differently. What can we do that's just never been done before? Ah-ha, we'll get a woman! So women get handed these hard jobs. And given all of the issues in the global economy and the trade rules and regulations right now, it's pretty fair to say that the WTO job is a bit of a glass cliff moment. And, of course, that puts Ngozi and women in comparable positions and differential pressures. If she wins through, then people will say, well, that's good. But if the circumstances are so tough that she or any other woman doesn't win through, then there will be an inkling in people's heads, even if they don't express it, that it was an error to put a woman in the job.

MATT GALLOWAY: That headline, I mean, speaks in some ways to the chapter in the book, "It's All About the Hair", in which you talk about how women are judged by their appearances in ways that... that male leaders would not be judged. You speak with the former British prime minister Theresa May. What did Theresa May tell you about what she had gone through?

JULIA GILLARD: Theresa May is a woman who's very interested in fashion. It's just a hobby, a sideline. She saw this as both a benefit and a burden. She talked to us about a moment when she was in a lift in the House of Commons, and she was standing there with a very young woman she didn't know. And the woman was wearing a very fashionable pair of shoes, so she said to her lovely shoes. And the young woman said, I'm in politics because of your shoes. And what she meant by that is Theresa May first came to mainstream public attention when she gave a very hard-hitting speech at her political parties' conference wearing leopard skin kitten heels. And these very groovy shoes were seemed to encapsulate her call for a different kind of Conservative Party. And the young woman had read that publicity. She'd followed what Teresa was wearing. That had got us so interested in politics. There she was, she was working at the House of Commons. So a wonderful upside. But Theresa May also had to go through moments like when she was prime minister. She was meeting with the woman who leads Scotland. They were talking about whether the United Kingdom was going to stay together as a nation because obviously Scotland has been through and is continuing to go through this major debate as to whether it should seek independence. They were both sitting, they were both wearing skirts. And one of the major newspapers the next day had a headline which invited you to compare their legs and decide which one of them had the better legs. Obviously, something that would never happen to two male leaders who were talking about something important dressed in their suits.

MATT GALLOWAY: The headline was "Never Mind Brexit, Who Won Legsit". Take a listen to what the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said in the wake of that headline.

SADIQ KHAN: You know, we've got to recognize that for the last few hundred years now, men have been in positions of... positions of power and influence. And women haven't found it easy to come forward and into the boardroom of businesses to become politicians and become first ministers or prime ministers. And when they do, we should treat them the same as we treat men, which is taking aboard views on important issues like Brexit, not commenting on... on their legs. And I think, you know, you compare and contrast photographs of, for example, Boris Johnson and David Cameron. Nobody comments on the trousers they're wearing on their legs. And similarly, I want to judge Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May on their politics, their values and their vision rather than their legs.

MATT GALLOWAY: How important is it for men to call that out?

JULIA GILLARD: Critically important? Absolutely critically important. And to be frank, one of the things I think we as women, activist, feminist women like myself haven't done well enough is we haven't been as clear with men that they need to be in this space with us. I think many men have concluded, well, you know, the women are working on that and it's not for me to get in the middle of it. But the research actually shows that if a man calls sexism out, that he will be listened to with even more seriousness than a woman doing it. And it is because if a man calls it out, people don't see him as having some inherent conflict of interest. You know, he's not calling it out because it will be better for him. He's calling it out because he sees that there's a serious problem. And so to all of the men out there, if you get active around this agenda, you will have a real impact.

MATT GALLOWAY: Part of this falls into what you call and describe in the book as sort of a likeability trap, where, again, women leaders are facing expectations about their personality. They should be nice, but not too nice. They should be firm, but not too tough or too ambitious. And you speak with the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, about how she tries to be her authentic self. But again, that can be difficult. What did you learn about that in speaking with her?

JULIA GILLARD: Jacinda and all of the women we spoke to was intuitively aware that they were on this sort of tightrope between strength and empathy, and they were constantly getting cues from their environment that if they came across as too tough, too commanding, people would go or she's a bit over the top, not very likeable. But if they were too emotional, perhaps cried too readily at difficult events, then people would say, look, you know, she's too much of a softy to have the backbone to lead. And the research definitely bears this out that because we expect men to have certain characteristics and women to have certain characteristics, that if we look at a woman, we have a skepticism in our mind about whether she's going to be strong enough. So she's got to pass that test. But we also expect her to have the female traits that we believe women should have, like empathy, nurturing, putting the team first, not being too ambitious for self. So if she doesn't get this cocktail right, then we will find it in some way offensive because of the sexist whisperings in the back of our brain. Jacinda Ardern was intuitively conscious of all of that, but she also was very aware that she's got a bit more political space than many other women leaders because she is the third woman to lead her nation. There are only two countries on Earth that have had three women leaders. New Zealand is one, Iceland is the other. And so in her nation, the question, can a woman be prime minister? That's already done and dusted. It's answered. Everybody knows the answer is yes. And so it's given her a bit more space to foreground. And the project she's on is to show that you can lead with kindness and empathy as your watchwords.

MATT GALLOWAY: You just used a really interesting phrase in put the team first. There's a quotation in the book from Abby Wambach, who is a great legendary soccer player, and she talks about how you won't always be the goal scorer. And when you're not, you better be rushing towards her. Why did you include that phrase in the book?

JULIA GILLARD: It made a big impact on me. That was from a college commencement address. And she gave a wonderful speech about soccer, of course. But about what soccer had taught her about women's empowerment and women coming together. She uses in that speech another phrase, which I think is absolutely so resonant. She talks about the politics of scarcity and how women, because we've been coming from the outside into male-dominated spaces, currently, we tend to have the smaller slice. So if it's a boardroom, a cabinet, a senior management team, women will be down at the 10, 20, 30 per cent end of the number. And so it's easy for women to get into their heads that if you want to be in that room, your best way in is to replace one of the women who is there. So Abby uses the phrase that the politics of scarcity isn't our fault, but it is our problem. And we've got to try and shed this competitive behaviour where women get pitted against women and actually say, how can we work together, so a fair share of the positions are allocated to women?

MATT GALLOWAY: I want to ask you just a few more things before I let you go. One is as somebody who and part of it is that speech, which still gets a lot of attention. You see it popping up on my daughter's TikTok feed, for example, [laughing] but also, as somebody who has co-written in a book like this that is about offering lessons. When you speak with young women and girls about leadership, and they are concerned about everything that we've talked about. What do you say to them about what they need to be thinking about if they're curious about leadership?

JULIA GILLARD: I am always very careful to talk about these barriers, to tell young women the truth that we're not in a gender equal society. We won't be in a gender equal society by the time they're in their adulthood. There will be barriers they face solely because they're women and to be ready for those barriers. But I'm also very careful to talk about the joys that come with leadership, because if I don't, if we don't, then I think young women might listen and say, wow, if it's going to be as tough as that, why on earth would I do it? And there is an incredible joy, a real privilege that comes with being in a position to put your values into action, to make change for your community, your nation, for the world. If I had a time machine and could be transported back to the decision-making moments that took me into politics, even if I knew everything that was going to play out, I would do it again in a heartbeat because the things I got to do that endure in Australia and have made a difference for my nation's future are well and truly worth it. And Ngozi, if she was here, would say just one of the things, just one of the things she did when she was finance minister for Nigeria was she enacted a program for women subsistence farmers which increase their economic independence and brought two million women out of poverty. Who wouldn't want to do that?

MATT GALLOWAY: The last thing is we were speaking earlier about more women as leaders and how that could have changed, perhaps the calculus around the decisions in this pandemic. Some people would joke that if more women around the world, everything would be better because women are more communal, more efficient. The CBC comedy show "Baroness Von Sketch" imagined what that would be lucky. Take a listen.

WOMAN: Hello, greetings and welcome. Thank you so much for coming today. This is our First World Summit since the revolution where we ascended to power, replacing our male counterparts. It's been a busy few years, yeah.

WOMAN#2: To say the least! What's on the agenda?

WOMAN: Yes, first of all, the economy.

WOMAN#2: Well, actually, everything's great here.

WOMAN#3: Yep, us too.

WOMAN#4 Us, too.

WOMAN: Same here, Jill?

WOMAN#5: Yep. All good here. No problems.

WOMAN: Great, OK. Environment. Is anyone having any environmental problems? Anyone?

ALL: No, no, no, no, none.

WOMAN: And what about conflict, social justice, any war or any hardship, conflict in their continents?

WOMAN#4 No, we just talk it out these days.

WOMAN: Well, I think that's it, ladies. Everything seems to be in order.

WOMAN#5: I can't believe that this summit used to take days.

MATT GALLOWAY: I'm assuming that none of the G20 meetings that you went to sounded like that?

JULIA GILLARD: None of them did sound like that. [chucling] And I love it. Love that sketch. But I think we have to be a bit careful that we don't break the sexism in to how we see a future that women have a more equal role in. You know, there are real tensions, real conflicts in our world that changing the gender of leaders involved will not wish away. And I think, too, if we say to ourselves, well, we want female leadership because women are going to be more empathetic, more kind, more nurturing, we're going to put a real value on that. They need to be strong to, you know, they're amazing. Women will vote for women if they're amazing. The problem with that is if you're only going to vote for women who get that absolutely right, who are amazing, well, ithere's not going to be that many women like that. Meanwhile, you'll be voting for a whole lot of mediocre men. So I do think we've got to say to ourselves, if we're going to value empathy and nurturing social justice, those kind of things in leadership, then we need to demand them of women and men, not just the women. Otherwise, we are kind of baking in a disproportionate hurdle, a disproportionate burden for the women.

MATT GALLOWAY: This is an important book, and a really powerful book. And I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. Thank you very much.

JULIA GILLARD: Thank you. I've enjoyed it.

MK: Matt Galloway spoke with Julia Gillard in March - and her advocacy has not stopped. Just last week, she lent her voice to a campaign calling for more to be done to stop online abuse. Citing her experiences as the first female Prime Minister of Australia as part of her motivation to do so. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. It is the fashion conversation you've been waiting for... Are Crocs the ugliest footwear trend of all time, or a harbinger of comfort-driven fashion trends to come? Q fashion contributor Mosha Lundstrom Halbert will be speaking with Tom Power about the rise of Crocs. One other note, its a big day in Montreal - and I'm not referring to the Canadiens in their quest for the Cup. Today my Aunt Helen Morrison is celebrating her 100th birthday. Born Helen Kelley in Quebec City, the eldest of 5 Kelley kids that would include my dad, she is now the only serving member of that Kelley clan. A wife, a mother, an expert in ancient glass beads who led digs in Africa, her life a rich tapestry of tales that fill me with awe. This past Christmas, she was rushed to hospital, stricken with the COVID virus. As our family feared the worst, Aunt Helen would repeat...I'm trying. I'm trying. She fought, she won, and today, she is alive, alert, and enjoying life. We lost too many of our elders during the pandemic. Let's celebrate the ones we love while they are living and make sure their stories, their lives, remain our inspiration. Aunt Helen is mine. Happy birthday. I'm Mark Kelley. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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