The Sunday Edition for April 19, 2020
Listen to this week's episode with host Michael Enright:
A COVID-19 confinement chronicle: week five — Michael's essay:"Whatever novelty there was contained in self-incarceration has long since worn off. Tempers are frayed. We are starting to get on each other's nerves. We are becoming testy, impatient. We're not sure anymore what the rules of quarantine are. Liquor sales are up. So are reports of violence to women by male partners. The lockdown is not only a test of our mettle, it is a test of our character."
Preventing surveillance and invasions of privacy from becoming normalized: Enforcing physical distancing and contact-tracing entails stepped up surveillance and impingements on privacy and civil liberties. Brenda McPhail, the Director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association's Privacy, Surveillance and Technology Project, joins Michael Enright to talk about the line between government overreach and the justifiable curtailment of rights and freedoms in the name of public safety — and the dangers of heightened surveillance becoming the new normal after the pandemic.
Sisters in isolation: When Josée Legault, the prominent Quebec newspaper columnist, first got the sense that COVID would become a crisis, she made a decision. She took her disabled sister out of the care facility she was in and brought her home. With all the grisly news coming out of Quebec institutions this week, Legault feels good about her decision. But life with her sister is not simple. And now it's 24 hours a day. Her essay is called COVID, Manon and Me.
Will the play go on at Stratford? For the actors, stagehands and patrons of The Stratford Festival, this is the spring of their discontent. One of Canada's greatest actors, Colm Feore, was preparing to take the stage as Richard III to open the new Stratford season. Of course, all of that is now on hold indefinitely because of COVID-19. Actors are without an audience, and everyone connected with the Festival is anxious about what the future will look like if the stage stays dark for too long. But for Feore, hope still springs eternal.
Regulatory bodies on foreign-trained doctors: Last week, Michael spoke with Dr. Ali Mahdi, an Iraqi-Canadian, Ukrainian-trained doctor, about the roadblocks faced by foreign-trained doctors who want to practice medicine in this country — particularly during this pandemic. Many listeners expressed outrage that it's so difficult for trained doctors from other countries to become licensed to practice medicine in Canada at a time when our health care system could be severely tested. Dr. Linda Inkpen — the president of the Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada and the registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador — answers those concerns from the regulators' perspective.
Bill Richardson remembers his father's time in long-term care: It's been a hard month for seniors, and for people who care about seniors. The fault lines of long-term care systems have been laid bare. It all got Bill Richardson thinking about a time in his life when he spent a part of every day visiting his father in a residence. His dad had something important to say.
The evolution of evolution, under human influence: We humans might think of ourselves as the pinnacle of evolution. But we're also changing the course of evolution of other species, including our tiniest, most formidable enemies — microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses. Sarah Otto, a theoretical biologist at the University of British Columbia, explains how humans are speeding up evolution, and not necessarily to our benefit.
The Danish way of caring for the elderly: COVID-19 has revealed the fractures, inequities and vulnerabilities in our economy, society and way of life. And nowhere are Canadians more vulnerable to the predation of the coronavirus than in long-term care facilities. In 2012, Karin Wells visited Denmark to see whether the Danes had better ideas about how to care for the elderly and frail and those with dementia. We'll replay her award-winning documentary about a radically different vision of eldercare — It's Their Life.
Music this week by: Aaron Copland, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, William Walton, Tchaikovsky, Chilly Gonzales, and the late Lee Konitz.
