Amid COVID-19, rural N.S. mayor vows to support families of shooting victims 'by whatever means we have'

Guests: Tom Murphy, Christine Blair

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VOICE: I've known her for a really long time because I sit on a swim team and she was on that swim team and her mom was always there and she was the kindest person.

MG: That's Amelia Sproule. The 12-year-old is describing her best friend's mom, Heidi Stevenson, a Nova Scotia RCMP officer. Stevenson was killed yesterday, one of the victims of a bloody rampage that has left Nova Scotia communities reeling. Heidi Stevenson's daughter and Amelia went to school together.

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VOICE: In grade four I would always go to her house for lunch during school. And she would always be so kind. And if I showed up, like unexpected, she would be so welcoming. And I hadn't really thought about the fact that she could have injured or killed during the line of duty. I thought it was really cool that she was helping. To make th is city safe, she kind of acted sometimes like a second mother to me when I was at swim meets and she would always be there for me. And she was just a really helping hand all the time.

MG: RCMP says the investigation into what exactly unfolded over the weekend is still ongoing, but they are reporting at least 17 people killed, including the suspect, which would make this the largest mass shooting in Canadian history. And it took place over a number of hours and a number of different communities. Here is how resident Darcy Sack described coming across one scene where two cars were burning by the side of the highway.

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VOICE: I knew something bad had really happened. Well, I heard two shots before we drove up to this scene. I was thinking, oh my God, where are these shots coming from like? Is it maybe something blew up in a fire or, you know, so as we come up and we're turning to get to safety and a police officer is running towards the burning police car, my heart's pounding, like my heart just dropped to my stomach.

MG: CBC Nova Scotia's Tom Murphy joins me now. Tom, good morning.

TOM MURPHY: Good morning, Matt.

MG: This is an awful story. Let's start with the RCMP officer, Heidi Stevenson. What do we know about her?

TOM MURPHY: Well, we know that Constable Heidi Stevenson was a 23 year veteran of the RCMP, married with two children. We know that she was highly thought of in the RCMP. The RCMP officials just were shy about talking about too much about her role in the RCMP. They say that will come in the days to come. But some people in the media here know Constable Heidi Stephenson's professional work from years ago. She was at at different times the face of the RCMP. They were she was available for interviews a number of times. And there's just nothing but praise coming in for her service from those who knew her and you will hear more about that from the RCMP coming up in the days and weeks, I'm sure.

MG: What do we know about the circumstances surrounding her death?

TOM MURPHY: We don't know a lot. Yesterday at the RCMP briefing, they did not pinpoint at what point during this rampage that Constable Heidi Stevenson interacted with Gabriel Wortman, the gunman. And so it's not clear exactly at what point that when she died or how she died exactly. We know that there were burned out cars and burned out homes and there were shots fired. But we don't know a lot about the death of Heidi Stevenson yet.

MG: What are we learning about the other victims?

TOM MURPHY: Well, the names are starting to dribble in and CBC is confirming them before they publish them, obviously. But the first civilian, I guess we could say, to be recognized is Lisa McCully. She is a schoolteacher in the Debert Elementary School in in Debert. This is one of the communities where Wortman travelled through in the last 24 hours with such hate. And people, the support from McCully's family is pouring out. We're beginning to see more of this now on social media as people are identifying loved ones who were killed and in the posts there is anger and there is dismay, but above all, there is grief for this having happened in this place where no one ever thought this might happen. No one ever saw this coming. People who never heard of the name Gabriel Wortman before are just totally shocked. And those who actually knew him cannot believe that this is a man who is responsible for all of this pain.

MG: All of this pain starts on Saturday night. Take us to the first scene. Where was it and what was happening there?

TOM MURPHY: So there is a community west of Truro, so north of Halifax. If you're driving from Halifax to Truro, you'd make a hard left. It's a community called Portapique and it's not a part of the province a lot of people know a lot about or a lot of people go to, although it is a bit of a cottage country area for people beginning around this time year. It'll start to populate even more, probably doubling its population. Beautiful part of the province, probably one of the most underrated parts of the province for its natural beauty, and so it's very quiet there. And the locals like it that way, that's why they live there. They enjoy the peace and quiet. And that is what was shattered Saturday night when police received multiple calls of firearms complaints from that neighbourhood. And then it just started to unfold from there. The police arrived on that scene. They found casualties inside and outside of the house. They described it as a chaotic scene. They very quickly began to tell residents in that area to lock themselves in their homes, do not come out and that people were reporting that they could see buildings on fire. So three structures in that immediate area were on fire. So the rampage was well underway at that point. There wasn't a lot of communication from the RCMP during the night. That upset some people because some people felt they should have had more information about what was unfolding. But by morning, the police did release the shooter's name and picture. And that's when people began to just have complete shock that this mild mannered Gabriel Wortman could be capable of something like this. A little bit later in the morning by boat, 9:45 a.m. local time, we learned there was another house on fire in the community of Wentworth, which is north of the Portapique area. And the police are not saying for sure what the details are wrote that or how it's connected to any of this. But as the morning progressed, you know, by about 10:00 a.m., then the police were reporting that Wortman was on the move. He was heading towards Halifax, coming in the 102 highway. Spotted in the Brookfield area, he was seen driving in in what looked to be an RCMP vehicle and wearing an RCMP uniform. The police say he has no affiliation with them at all, and they described him as armed and dangerous. And then he continued on down the highway interacting with various people. We have some eyewitness accounts. You just heard Darcy Sack there talk about her encounter with him on the highway, seeing him. And then he was obviously eventually brought down at the Irving Big stop in Enfield.

MG: So there are questions as to why people were saying that some of these shootings were random, but then the police, in their brief comments and this is coming from the RCMP last night, were saying that it started out in being more, if not targeted, then more of a familiar situation. What do we know about how that unfolded?

TOM MURPHY: Well, that's been the one of the biggest questions in all of this, of course, is the motivation. The other, you know, the five W's the first four are a lot easier to answer. It's the fifth one. The why? And that's what people has people scratching their heads right now. You're right. The RCMP talked about this quite vaguely last night. We hope to have more details about it in the hours and days to come, but the fact that Wortman was wearing an RCMP uniform, the fact that he was driving what was a mock-up of an RCMP police cruiser. So he apparently had a pension for police cars. He used to buy them used after they were done with the police service. This one we're told that he had it looking just like an RCMP car. They say that fact alone suggests that this was not a random act. They don't understand the motivation, but they believe that the rampage became even more random as time went on.

MG: The RCMP had not finished processing some of the crime scenes yesterday when they gave their media conference. Tell me a little bit about the questions that are still, I mean beyond motivation, the questions that are still waiting to be answered.

TOM MURPHY: Well, there's this whole question of the people, number of people who died. And right now it's at least 17 dead. That number grew overnight. One of the big questions is what connection, if any, did these people have to the shooter? Does it somehow explain the motivation here or reason for him doing this? So that's obviously one of the big questions. You're right, the RCMP last night, they didn't even have a complete list of the locations that were involved, the various crime scenes because they are dotted all along about a 90 plus kilometre path from that Portapique area down closer to the Halifax Airport, heading south in the province. So last night, they were still trying to process exactly where Gabriel Wortman had interacted with people. Where were the crime scene, securing those and obviously looking for for any clues as to what exactly transpired here.

MG: This ended in another community, as you mentioned, in Enfield, at a filling station, a gas station. What happened to the shooter?

TOM MURPHY: Well, we know that the police cornered him there at that gas station. It's one of those combination gas stations, a big restaurant areas. It's quite a landmark in the area. And there was video appearing on social media of a takedown in progress. And you could hear shots being fired. We don't know whether Gabriel Wortman was shooting at police at that time or whether the police were shooting at him. The initial report from the police was that they had him in custody. A short time later they were saying that he was dead. But we don't know exactly what happened in that last moment or moments of the of the search and of this case. But again, something more that we hope the police will be talking about in the near future.

MG: Tell me more about how the community and it's not just the community, it's the communities where this tragedy has taken place, how people are reacting. This is a small, in a small province, in a small country in many ways, where a lot of people have connections to each other across this country. How are people processing this?

TOM MURPHY: Yeah. And you're so right. And in particular, in this province, you know, Nova Scotia has what give or take a million people and you know, the expression six degrees of separation, well it's probably less than six degrees in Nova Scotia. And just in our newsroom here, we're hearing from people who knew somebody who was, you know, a player in this, a victim of all this, and one of them being Lisa McCully, for example. Yeah so people are affected right to the core. And you're immediately, of course, seeing the outpouring of support and anguish and grief. I know that in the community of Portapique and in that part of the province, as there are in other communities along the way, signs being put up on telephone posts, the poles, you know, the broken heart symbol messages of support and and people trying to console others. So that is just going to be an endless stream in the next few days and weeks. And think about this. You know, people were living with COVID-19 and thinking this was some sort of a strange movie that we're in and now this happens in the province. And for those families, the people who are trying to deal with the loss of a loved one, they now have to think about a funeral or a wake or a memorial service in these COVID-19 pandemic days, where you cannot get close to people. You have to social distance. You have to physically be distant from people at a time when really what they need is the support and the coming together of each other. So this is just truly going to be a very, very difficult time for so many.

MG: Tom, I appreciate you walking through what we know. Still many questions to be answered, but this is, as I said, an awful story and the entire country is with Nova Scotia. Thank you.

TOM MURPHY: OK. Thanks Matt.

MG: Tom Murphy is CBC Nova Scotia's news anchor. He was in Halifax. Tributes have been pouring in for the victims of the shooting in Nova Scotia from politicians of all stripes. Also from people, as I mentioned, right across this country, including musician Adam Baldwin. He posted on his Instagram page last night. My heart is broken tonight. I recorded this in my basement just now. Earlier, I went out to grab some popcorn for the kids and wound up driving to the RCMP detachment in Cole Harbour, listening to this Springsteen song and just crying my eyes out. All of my love to everyone who is hurting so badly today. I'm sorry for all of this loss. This is Adam Baldwin, his cover of Bruce Springsteen's "My City of Ruins."

[Song: "My City of Ruins" by Adam Baldwin]

MG: That's Adam Baldwin, his cover of Bruce Springsteen's "My City of Ruins." Christine Blair is mayor of the municipality of the County of Colchester, where the string of violence took place over the weekend. And she joins us from Truro, Nova Scotia. Good morning to you.

CHRISTINE BLAIR: Good morning.

MG: I'm sorry for what your community has gone through.

CHRISTINE BLAIR: Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

MG: How are you processing this?

CHRISTINE BLAIR: With a great deal of difficulty. We're coping at the moment, trying to get our feet back under us to a certain extent. I don't know whether how the families are dealing with the devastation, with the pain and the heartbreak that they're facing right now with the loss of loved ones in such a tragic and indescribable manner. It's really horrendous for our community. We are strong. We are resilient, as has been said before, but it still makes it extremely difficult for the residents of a small rural community that's close knit, friendly, outgoing, welcoming in in a beautiful, picturesque part of our province to be faced with the horror of something of this nature.

MG: The fact that it is so, to your point, close knit. It's a small community means that everybody in some ways knows everybody else. And how is that going to amplify this tragedy?

CHRISTINE BLAIR: Well, I think that what it will do is have people supporting each other more, because you have people who know each other. They're family members. They're related in some way. They work together. They live in the same community. The whole of Colchester County has about 38,000 people and we, you can probably drop somebody off at one end and they know somebody or they're connected with someone. We are a small province and our county is not a highly populated area, but we do have a lot of rural areas and the small community of Portapique with a hundred give or take people, which doubled plus, the numbers double plus in the summertime because there's a lot of cottages there, is an example of of a small, close knit, friendly community.

MG: Just finally, these are difficult times, beyond even this where we live in this era of physical distancing, and you know, in a moment like this, people want to come together and they want whether it's family members or friends or just a community to come together and grieve. What are you going to be telling people about how they can support each other in this time?

CHRISTINE BLAIR: Well, we have our direction from the province of Nova Scotia. We are in a state of emergency. We know that we have to do social distancing for the benefit of all the community and for each other and it's a very difficult time for families when you know that what you want to do is walk up to someone and give them a hug and say, we're here for you. But we still have to recognize that we do have a health crisis here and I would suspect that perhaps when the state of emergency is lifted, there will be more gatherings and more ways of of touching base with the family. But in the meantime, we do the best that we can possibly do by whatever means we have. Whether that is dropping something off on the doorstep or coming to the house and speaking from a distance, whether it's phoning or emailing or Skyping or FaceTime, whatever we can do in order to show the families that we have support.

MG: Christine Blair, we'll have to leave it there. Our community across the country is with you in your community. Thank you so much.

CHRISTINE BLAIR: Thank you very much.

MG: Christine Blair, the Mayor of the Municipality of Colchester. She was in Truro, Nova Scotia. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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He thought he was invincible. Now this Ontario man is recovering after COVID-19 put him on a ventilator

Guests: Richard Reid, Lori De Luca Reid

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Coming up, we will turn things over to you and your questions about COVID-19. Dr. Allison McGeer will be here and she will bring answers. But first, a COVID survivor tells his story.

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MG: They belong to a very exclusive club. COVID-19 patients who have survived not only the virus, but an illness so severe that they ended up on a ventilator. Richard Reid is a member of that club. He's 63-years-old, athletic, a businessman, and he's now out of the ICU and recovering at his home in Port Credit, Ontario. Richard Reid joins us along with his wife, Lori De Luca Reid. Good morning to you both.

RICHARD REID: Good morning, Matt.

LORI DE LUCA REID: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Richard, you've been home, out of hospital for a couple of weeks now. How are you doing?

RICHARD REID: I am. I'm feeling obviously so much better and getting stronger every day. I'm not quite back to former fitness, but pretty good, thank you.

MG: Tell me, I mean, physical health wise after a couple of weeks out of the ICU, what are you able to do and what could you not even possibly imagine doing?

RICHARD REID: OK. Well, one thing we do as a ritual every day as we walk the dog. As simple as that sounds, it would it would be incomprehensible to do that two weeks ago. So we walk the dog for about a quarter, half a mile every day. I go through the ritual of waking up, walking down stairs, taking a shower and walking back up the stairs. That first day home, walking up the stairs was like a 10 minute recovery. Today I do that. No problem.

MG: What about mentally? Given what you've gone through, how are you holding up in that regard?

RICHARD REID: That's an interesting question. Getting to sleep is still a chore. I'm still a little bit shell shocked so a lot of the scenes cut through my head while I'm trying to get to sleep. So breathing is important. A little bit of meditation before I fall asleep and reading, try to read a boring book before I go to bed.

MG: Lori, how are you holding up?

LORI DE LUCA REID: I'm doing great. I keep very busy. There's plenty to do around here with Richard home now and I'm happy to do it. And constantly disinfecting and cleaning and laundry and cleaning surfaces and cooking really good meals for him all day long. Basically, I'm very, very busy and it seems to be working. He's coming back, so he's definitely coming back.

MG: Do you have those moments yourself, lori, when you kind of think, oh, my goodness, this is what we went through?

LORI DE LUCA REID: I feel like it was a blur, actually. I looked back in in my notes. I had a timeline written out of everything that was going on and what time of the day and I'm looking back at our text messages to each other. I don't even remember those days. Three solid weeks of being alone here and worrying about him there. It's incomprehensible today, really.

MG: This all starts in in late February, Richard. You are on your way to Miami to compete in, what, some sailing races down there?

RICHARD REID: Yeah. There's an annual competitive regatta for small boats called the Bacardi Cup, Bacardi, the rum and all the best teams are down there and it's great a event.

MG: Did you have any concerns about going down at that time?

RICHARD REID: Well, I'm a different person today. Back then, of course, I had no concerns. I was invincible.

MG: What about you, Lori? Any concerns for Mr. Invincible?

LORI DE LUCA REID: Yes I did. I had concerns, but I knew I had no, I would never tell him what to do or what not to do. But he knew very well how I felt about it. I was reading the news. I was looking at what it was doing to all the patients that were dying in Wuhan and in other places in China. I was afraid, but I knew I couldn't change his mind. I couldn't do it.

MG: So you go down there, Richard, you come back. At what point in time do you start to feel a little unwell?

RICHARD REID: There was a situation I actually went drive with my sailing coach up to Fort Lauderdale and he had a cold and I sort of looked at him and cognitions set in and I went like, you have a cold. And I said wow, I hope it's just a cold. I said, it really would be great if you got tested as soon as you got home. He lives in Salt Spring, BC. And so, he said yeah, no problem. I'll do that. And so this was on the Sunday. Hadn't returned from Florida. It was on Sunday. He gets back Wednesday, gives me a call, says, yeah, green light. I'm good. So then on the Tuesday, I started to get this headache — like ice across my temples. I never get headaches. Just don't get them. So I simply attributed this to being his cold and the symptoms that came after that were his cold. Until later in the week when I went, is a fever part of this? Is chattering teeth and chills at night and a cough part of this? No. I got tested.

MG: Did you and you got you got tested yourself?

RICHARD REID: Yeah. I actually Googled where I could get tested very efficiently, quickly and highest probability of being tested and that actually ended up being North York General Hospital. So I scurried there on early Saturday morning within an hour. It was all done. I passed their triage gate of qualification, which was three things. Are you over 60? Have you been travelling outside of Canada in the last two weeks? And do you have any pre-existing conditions like bronchitis, asthma or straight pneumonia? Which I did.

MG: What do you remember about the moment that they told you that you tested positive?

RICHARD REID: Well, that was the following Monday. OK. And I was at home working from home. And the call came in. I think Lori, around 11:30, yeah and it was the Peel public health nurse. And of course, she asked to have a confidential conversation with me. So the hair started to go up on the back of my neck and she quickly confirmed that I had the virus. And then we spent the next hour and a half going through my diary on every meeting or every intersection that I've had with people since my return from Miami.

MG: How are you feeling at that point?

RICHARD REID: I wasn't you know, I didn't feel awful. So I was like, okay, I've got this. There's a process. I'm going to go through the process. I'm going to get better.

MG: Lori, when did things deteriorate?

LORI DE LUCA REID: So that Monday was March the 16th, just so that we have a timeline here. Basically right there and then he swore he mouthed the swear word at me, saying that he's got this and it went downhill from there. And it was a very slow progression of, you know, whether it was aches and pains, a headache. Then the cough came in. It just progressed everyday with a new symptom and it became more and more serious. And we just saw, you know, just regular flu. You know, it'll be over in five, five to ten days. Well, instead, it just took off. It took off like a bat out of hell, so to speak and it just was awful.

MG: And you called the ambulance at one point.

LORI DE LUCA REID: I called the ambulance on the Thursday of that week, which is the 19th. Three days later.

MG: Why did you call the ambulance?

LORI DE LUCA REID: Because he had developed a very bad cough. Overnight the cough was just so deep and consistent and dry. Actually, no was it wet or dry. It wasn't even dry. We didn't get too concerned about it because it wasn't that dry cough that they were talking about. Anyway, we decided I decided with the health worker that he needed a chest X-ray and the only way to get him to the hospital would be to call an ambulance and bypass the emergency craziness. We've been in that room before for other situations.

MG: Richard, did you have the sense, Richard, when you got to the hospital that you were going in, that you weren't going to be there just, you know, to be examined, but that you would be going in for a stretch?

RICHARD REID: It started to dawn on me when people started hovering around and giving me all these tests, I went, wow, I could I could be here for a little while, but when I first when I first got there, no, I thought I was going to get an X-ray and I thought it was going to get the boot.

MG: And then when it dawns on you, as you say, the people are hovering around and that this is serious, what's going through your mind then?

RICHARD REID: You know, I'm typically an optimist, so I went, 'OK, I still don't feel terrible.' I was certainly a long way from thinking about how it was eventually going to turn. I wasn't there mentally.

MG: Just quickly, how did things start to turn? What do you remember about that progression? Because you're there in the hospital in emerge and then you end up in the ICU. How many days was that?

RICHARD REID: No well, there was a step in between. Actually, there was I was so I went from being admitted into a dark room where they took X-rays and then I got sent up to a ward.And I was on the ward and I got put on oxygen on a mask. And I was still eating solid food. And they were watching and they were watching. And I think was that two days, Lori?

LORI DE LUCA REID: Yes.

RICHARD REID: Yeah, two days and then on the second day I started vomiting and developing big fever and not not holding my own with the oxygen mask, and that's when that's when the ICU team got me.

MG: And you were at home at this point, Lori?

LORI DE LUCA REID: Yes, I was.

MG: Tell me about this phone call that you get. You get a call from Richard from the ICU.

RICHARD REID: Yes, I did. On March 30th, March 30th that morning, he was feeling pretty good and we were just texting each other. So around 4:30, he sent me a text and told me he was feeling this massive pain on his chest. It was just unbearable. And that they were going to take him in for a C.T. scan to his lungs. And he got the results rather quickly, told me he had blood clots and that they had to put him on blood thinners immediately. So I thought, OK, he's still communicating with me. Can't be that bad because he was doing better this morning. And the next call I got was just shortly before 6:00 p.m. from his cell phone. And I was ecstatic. I was really happy that, you know, he was calling me because we hadn't spoken in days. And I answered the phone and I said, hey, honey, how are you doing? And I hear this garbled voice. I didn't even think it was Richard, to be honest with you. I thought it was a doctor. But then I realized that this man is crying, this man can hardly speak. And all I heard him say was intubation. And the nurse snatched the phone from him and rather abruptly told me, your husband is being intubated and I've got to go click.

MG: Wow.

LORI DE LUCA REID: And I knew, I knew at that point I'd been holding up. I hadn't shed a tear because I had all this hope. That is the moment that I have to say I broke down, which, you know, it wasn't a thing to break down. I meant that I was losing hope, but I'd read enough about intubation and the COVID-19, it's not a good outcome.

MG: Richard, what's going on on the other side of that?

RICHARD REID: Well, then I'm definitely my concern level is definitely up there. About nine and a half on the concern level and I'm sort of going wow, I'm no longer in control of this. There are tubes literally everywhere and the only relief I'm getting is they put me on fentanyl, believe it or not, to sort of relieve the pain and keep me calm. And but, you know, with all that stuff down your throat, your throat dries out, it's very sore, and your imagination is going crazy.

MG: And are you are you sedated as they intubate? I mean what is that like?

RICHARD REID: Yeah. So that's a great question. I remember quickly being on the phone with Lori and that was a bad experience. And then then I guess they put me out to intubate me. And then I remember coming to and having all this all this mechanical stuff around me. And now my mode of communication is a whiteboard with my nurse and my ICU doctor. I'm actually writing.

MG: What did they tell you Lori about Richard's prognosis? After this abrupt call when they say that he's going to be intubated, that he's going to be put on a ventilator? What were the conversations that you had about what the runway looked like?

LORI DE LUCA REID: Well, I drove to the hospital because that's the closest I could be near him. So I sat outside. I sat outside and I watched motion going on in his room. I saw nurses. I saw a lot of doctors back and forth, back and forth with these tubes. I'm imagining now it's suction, too. I don't know what it was, but it was just a lot of activity going on up there are very, very upset. And I don't I wasn't the only one standing there. There were other family members of other patients. I'm sure that we're there for the same reason. I don't even know how to begin my feeling of that at that moment, it was just horrendous. But my communication with the doctors would be middle of the night. I decided to leave, everybody do their job and then I called around 3:00 in the morning when I thought things were settled and I spoke with the nurse. His nurse and asked how things were. And they were not promising me anything. They just said he's holding his own.

MG: And you done your research. You knew what this meant to be put on a ventilator.

LORI DE LUCA REID: I knew. I'd seen it in other patients.

MG: At what point in time do they call you and tell you that he is going to be extubated, which is when they they take the ventilator off?

LORI DE LUCA REID: They called me, I guess it would be April, three days later. Three days later he was doing miraculously well. Like they were shocked. Actually, the doctor who told me he had a 50/50 chance days earlier, he was actually somewhat embarrassed, I think, to tell me that he was actually improving and his lungs were clearing. And he was in awe of Richard. He just was an awe. He's very unique and said that if it continues this way in a day or two, he will be extubated and I was like beside myself. I was ecstatic.

MG: I was going to say, do remember what you did when when the doctor tells you that?

LORI DE LUCA REID: Yeah, I drove back out there and I was looking up, you know, his window. That was the closest I could be. You know, like I didn't want to really communicate with anyone about the good news because I've been there before and there are always gonna be setbacks. In fact, there were. They tried to extubate him on the Thursday and it didn't quite work out. He had a coughing fit, so they retried it the next day and it was a successful extubation and a miraculous recovery.

MG: Richard, what is it like to be extubated? What does it feel like to have this tube taken out?

RICHARD REID: Obviously very liberating. But, you know, when the tube was inserted, part of my emotional reaction was 'I've lost.' And so that then then the feelings of dread came in. But when I got extubated, it was like 'I'd won.' And that was, as they said, a very liberating feeling. And I just got stronger from that moment. It was very, very interesting. But I can if I would like I would like to say that yet I'm a very physical person. So I equate I equate things to winning and losing. And in so. When I when I thought I'd lost it, I'd sort of built up this persona. I am going to fight this. I am going to fight this. But I realised and Lori referred to the suctioning when they when they suction you, it's just an awful thing and you just don't know if you're gonna be able to draw the next breath. I realised mentally that I was getting extremely fatigued. There was no physical reserve left. And I went, wow, this this fight. It's like a Chinese finger trap. The more I fight, the more this thing takes it out of me. I need a different approach. And so a second or third day in the intubation. I said, well, I don't win sailboat races by sailing harder. I put myself back in a process, a process that we've discussed and trained for. And I stick to the process. And so the process here is to really appeal to my higher power to let the professionals in the ICU ward. And they are professionals are amazing people, do their job and not fight. Not fight. So it was more of a submissive mentality rather than a fight.

MG: You describe yourself initially, when you went down to the regatta as being invincible, as feeling invincible. There are a lot of people who probably feel the same way. They think that this virus, it's terrible. They hear these stories and they think, oh, my goodness, but I couldn't possibly get that. I couldn't possibly be laid that low. What would you say to those people?

RICHARD REID: I would say and that was the point of the article. I would say, it is not just an odds table. It is a very real thing. And if it can take me down, it can take you down. And I really, really wanted that point to come across. It is. It is not just not just a state of probabilities and odds. It's like it's very real when it gets you. It's frightening.

MG: Lori, what would you say to people who find themselves in the same position that you were in, outside that hospital looking up at the window?

LORI DE LUCA REID: Never lose hope. We put this story out there because when I was at the lowest of low. I had nowhere to turn. I mean, I had a huge support system, lots of friends and family and everyone everyone was there for me, but I had nowhere to turn. There was no survivor stories. There was nowhere I could. Google is OK. What happens after extubation or intubation? I had no idea that most people, if not most people, do not survive intubation. But that's not true. Richard is living proof of that. So this story's out there to give people like me hope. And and that's why we did it. And we wanted people to take us seriously. And I was lucky enough to test negative here, too, through all of this. I took care of him for 10 days before, you know, was admitted at hospital. And I still managed to test negative. Why? Because I took the precautions. I kept my distance from him. I served the meals. I was clad with gloves and masks and I disinfected. And I had the best products to do it. I decontaminated everything. I washed everything and I stayed away from him. And I continued to do that until tomorrow, our isolation breaks. We have been quarantined for the last 14 days. And tomorrow is the day where I can actually say, 'Honey, give me a hug.'

MG: That'll be some day. You have some story to tell. And it is incredible to hear what you have both been through, Richard. I am glad that you're on the other side of this. Thank you.

RICHARD REID: Thank you, Matt. It was a pleasure talking to you.

MG: And Lori, Thanks so much.

LORI DE LUCA REID: Thank you.

MG: What a story. And I say, I hope it provides some inspiration to you and that'll be quite a hug tomorrow. Thank you both.

LORI DE LUCA REID: Thank you Matt.

RICHARD REID: Thanks again.

MG: Richard Reid, 63-years-old, recovering from COVID-19, having beaten the odds or surviving after being put on a ventilator. He and his wife, Lori De Luca Reid, who has not, as you heard, contracted the virus, spoke to us from their home in Port Credit, Ontario. Quite a story. We've been asking for your music recommendation, songs that bring you but a comfort in these days. We got a note from Jacqui Good in Halifax who wrote: "For many years, my husband Leon Cole and I worked at CBC dispensing classical music and arts journalism. Leon died in December, followed by my mother in February. As ,uch as I miss them, I'm glad they were spared the disorientation of now. You mentioned comforting music. Leon was so proud of his four talented children. At Holly Cole concerts they were impressed by the number of people who said they were helped through hard times by one of her songs. Might I suggest "Cry If You Want To?" Holly Cole's dad was Leon Cole, Canadian musician, radio broadcaster, host of the CBC classical music program RSVP for a number of years. Thanks Jacqui, for getting in touch. This is Nova Scotia's own Holly Cole, "Cry If You Want To.".

[Song: "Cry If You Want To" by Holly Cole]

MG: A little bit of Holly Cole for you on a difficult Monday morning. Coming up in about 90 seconds, you have questions about COVID-19, we have answers. The doctor is waiting. We'll get some of your answers coming up on The Current in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

[Music]

Questions about COVID-19 answered by Dr. Allison McGeer

Guests: Allison McGeer

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Once again, it is time to hear from you. We asked you for your COVID-19 health and medical questions. Many, many, many people got in touch. Thank you very much. There was a lot of interest and overlap, especially on topic of treatments. And so we have the doctor waiting to answer some of your questions. Dr. Allison McGeer is an infectious disease specialist, clinical scientist with the Sinai Health System in Toronto, has been incredibly generous with her time over the course of this pandemic and joins us again now. Doctor, good morning.

ALLISON MCGEER: Morning, Matt.

MG: What's the one thing that people ask you the most about right now?

ALLISON MCGEER: You know, I think the one question that we all want an answer to is how long is this going to last? Which is the hardest. You know, I think a piece of it is we need to be celebrating the fact that we have bent the curve, that we have slowed this down, that we are managing in health care. But it unfortunately doesn't mean this is gonna be over soon and so I think it's really hard for everybody to keep going with where we are now.

MG: Can I ask you a variable of that question, which is the thing I'm asked the most, and it's about being a parent. And the question I get is when can my kids go and play with other kids?

ALLISON MCGEER: To which the answer is we're going to have to wait. I think BC's a little bit ahead of us. So I think those of us in Ontario who can watch B.C. and watch what's happening in B.C. and hope that we'll be there a couple of weeks later, which will give us some warning, but unfortunately, I think we're still weeks away.

MG: Are you ready to answer listener questions?

ALLISON MCGEER: I am.

MG: Here we go. Here's the first question.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Hi, my name is Erin and I'm from Regina, Saskatchewan. My one question is if one person gets sick in a household of say, 4, how do you recommend sharing one bathroom?

MG: Dr. McGeer, what do you do?

ALLISON MCGEER: Well, so the first thing you do, if you can, is is shift people around so that you don't have to share bathroom. You know, moving people out, doing other things. Sometimes it's just not possible. So if you're sharing the bathroom, you want to make sure that you're cleaning your hands before you go in, touch things in the bathroom. You want to make sure you have wipes in the bathroom so that after the person who's ill has used it, the things can be wiped down to protect you. You want to make sure that, you know, towels and toothbrushes and things are all separated so that the person who's infected is using them or other people who are using them, but not both. A little bit easier if they're adults in the household, not small children for sure.

MG: This is a note from Terry in Winnipeg. He was diagnosed with COVID-19, on the 27th of March. He's been self isolating since March 20th. And he wants to know when will it be safe for me to continue caring for my 96-year-old mother, who is still in her home? At what point are we no longer contagious?

ALLISON MCGEER: At the moment, generally speaking, the rules that people are using are you need to be at least 14 days after the onset of infections and you need to be feeling perfectly well again. So and it's whichever one of those is longer. There's some circumstances in addition, like health care workers or patients who are still in the hospital where we're also doing testing to make sure that the testing is negative. Those are particularly high risk circumstances. But really the question is, if you're feeling perfectly well again and if you're more than 14 days out, then you're safe.

MG: All right. We got an e-mail from a listener in Victoria. You mentioned B.C. and where they are on on this epidemic trajectory. This listener has been living apart from the girlfriend for almost a month. Neither have symptoms or have been diagnosed with COVID-19. With recent news that virus rates seem to be slowing in BC, they're wondering when they can get back together again.

ALLISON MCGEER: So this is a wait for Dr. Henry to tell you what you can do kind of question. I think the answer is probably not quite yet. Just hold on. You know, if we move too soon, if we left things up too soon, then we're going to start a new wave again and we'll be back to the beginning. So the goal of the exercise is to try to hold on just a little longer than you thought was possible so that we can really make sure that things have settled down and so that we start back up again, we're not going to trigger out a big increase.

MG: Absence makes the heart grow fonder we like to believe.

ALLISON MCGEER: Geez, but I am sorry. You know, this is miserable on so many levels for so many people.

MG: It is indeed. This is next question. Somebody called it in. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Good morning. My name's Alicia Good. I'm calling from Lamington, Ontario. Back in January, we put in an offer to purchase our dream house, but now that house sale is closing this coming week. So I'm wondering if you have any tips on how to move safely to reduce our risk and to reduce the risks of the moving company and the new people who'll be moving into our current house. And as well, how to clean and disinfect the house so that we know that it's a safe environment.

MG: Any tips Dr. McGeer?

ALLISON MCGEER: So this is one of the few questions to which there is a good, easy answer. Remember, the virus does not survive long. So if the house has been empty for more than probably four days, but certainly seven days, you don't have to worry. You don't have to clean anything. Viruses grow inside people. They can survive outside people, but not for that long. So mostly when you're moving into a house, house has been empty for long enough that you don't need to worry about a thing.

MG: All right. We have a lot of questions about how safe it is to be outside and how far apart people should be from one another. George H. of Lethbridge, Alberta, got in touch, wanted to know more about how the virus responds outdoors. So do we know whether people have been infected outdoors? How likely is it that droplets and aerosols containing the virus could go beyond six feet? Are those things that we have answers for?

ALLISON MCGEER: Indoors and outdoor should not be very different. Although with many viruses, relative humidity plays a role in how long they can survive. And obviously droplets get smaller faster when it's really dry inside. So it may be that outdoors is a little bit different than indoors. It's also true that, you know, nothing in life is absolute. So the six foot rule is a safe rule, but it may not be perfect. I think that you could think about being outdoors is generally you can stay further away from people. So I would view the rule outdoors as just just push it a little bit. Make it seven or eight feet. That'll be safer. But what you don't have to worry about is going outdoors when somebody has walked through the space, you know, 20 minutes ago or an hour ago. The virus does not hang around in the air, outdoors or indoors, for that matter. So really, the rules indoors and outdoors are the same.

MG: So there was this study that wasn't a study about running and concerns, there were, you know, very fetching graphics of like the spray that people were leaving behind them and people were wondering whether you need to be, you know, 15 feet away from somebody if they're running or if they're, you know, walking briskly. Does that hang together?

ALLISON MCGEER: No. So really generally speaking, when you breathe, when you cough, when you sneeze, you put out you put out a mix of large and small particles. This virus appears to be mostly infectious to those large particles. And those large particles drop quickly. So that's why the 6 foot rule. Truthfully it used to be a three foot rule after SARS we extended it to be 6 to be precautionary. So those particles come out and they drop fairly quickly. Smaller particles do say suspended in the air, but they don't seem, they dry out fairly quickly and with this virus, they do not seem to be infectious. So it's not necessarily there's nothing left behind in the air, it's that what's left behind in the air appears to be too little to cause problems.

MG: All right. Lots more questions. Let's keep going. Here's the next one. [.

Sc]

VOICE: Hi there. I'm immunocompromised because of my chronic illness and the medication I take for that. Can you please speak to what my expectations as an immunocompromised person should be when the measures do begin to get relaxed and we slowly begin to get back to normal life?

MG: Doctor?

ALLISON MCGEER: So I think those of us who are immunocompromised and those of us who are friends, family members, colleagues of people who are in a compromised need to be really careful when we start releasing the control measures. We're not saying there is no infection anymore. We're saying we're trying to maintain the infection at a rate where we can not overwhelm the health care system and manage to care for people, because that will make helpless care for people better and have more people survive. So immunocompromised people are still going to be at more risk than the rest of us. And if you're immunocompromised, if you know somebody is in a compromised, you need to build some protection around them, which is about distancing. It's about saving them from multiple exposures. They don't need to make it, so all the things we're regularly doing, except trying to make their lives a little bit easier because they're at higher risk than the rest of us.

MG: We've got a number of questions around ventilators and the effect that ventilators can have on patients that are diagnosed with COVID-19. We heard from one listener who says, I am thinking about refusing a ventilator should I find myself in an ICU facing such a thing. As a 73-year-old immunosuppressed transplant recipient that is not out of the question for me should I fall victim to COVID-19. Do we know, Doctor and we just had this conversation with a man who was in the ICU, was on a ventilator and then was extubated and is now at home recovering. Do we know what happens to patients who end up on a ventilator and then recover?

ALLISON MCGEER: So most people who end up on a ventilator for COVID-19 aren't on a ventilator for all that long and recover fairly quickly. And it is absolutely true that when you've had pneumonia, particularly when you've had severe pneumonia in the short term, it really takes out of you for 6, 8, 10 weeks afterwards. You're really tired. It takes a long time for your body to recover, but that doesn't mean it doesn't recover. So I think I think people should know that the reason we use ventilators is because they can save people with severe pneumonia and people can go back to the normal lives afterwards. There are some people in some circumstances I would not rate your listener in that category automatically by any means. But there are some people when you look at them and say, you know, it is likely that a ventilator is not going to help. So if you're worried about being in that category. Talk to your doctors or if you get sick, talk to people. They will tell you honestly if they think that going on a ventilator is just going to be too much for you and that it will not be able to keep you alive and will just make your last days difficult. But for most people, ventilators are life savers and people should not be afraid about going on a ventilator. You do get better. It just takes time.

MG: We got a couple of questions from listeners with Type 1 diabetes. Does the virus present itself differently for people with underlying health conditions like diabetes? Do we know anything about that?

ALLISON MCGEER: No. As far as we know, not. Certainly, elderly, frail people we know can present atypically. That's true for a lot of infections, but it's not the type of underlying illness that does it. As with any underlying illness, your risk is a little bit higher of infection and severe infection than in somebody who doesn't have the condition, but for diabetes is not a huge difference and people should not be particularly more worried than those of us who don't have diabetes.

MG: All right. This is such a great resource. People ask you these questions. We have another listener question. Have a listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Hi, my name is Christina B. I'm from Owen Sound, Ontario. I've been hearing recently that people who have had COVID-19 and recovered are retesting positive for the virus. My question is, does this mean that the virus is laying dormant in the system or are they actually re-catching the virus? And if so, is there a possibility to gain immunity against the virus?

MG: What do we know about that?

ALLISON MCGEER: A really interesting question and the challenge is some reports from Korea that suggest that people who had been thought to have recovered were testing positive for the virus again and we're all waiting with bated breath to find out what's actually happening because the possibilities range from it was a lab test error. OK, when you're testing for RNA, you can get contamination of those tests. It's impossible to avoid completely. So tthat's at one end of the possibility scale. It could be that there's just RNA left over, not live virus, but genetic material. Sometimes genetic material can persist weeks and weeks. Doesn't mean anything if it's not part of a live virus. Could be that these people are not clearing their virus well. We do know that some people seem to maintain symptoms for a long time and we're learning that there's some people who don't make much in the way of antibodies. So maybe there's something about some people just being infected for longer that we have to watch out for. Most of those people still have symptoms over time or it could be that some people can get re-infected. So the the problem with many things with this pandemic is we've got a piece of the information, but not all of it. So it's really hard to know what to do with it yet. We just have to wait.

MG: That leads to this next question of list. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Hi, it's Heather S. From Toronto, Ontario. I have two questions. First, if you have the antibodies to COVID are you protected from getting it again? And the second, when is there going to be widespread testing for antibodies? Considering that's going to be the piece to facilitate reopening the economy, as well as having a grading understanding as the number of people who actually had COVID.

MG: So part of that you answered at the beginning there, but this is also the issue of antibody testing, which a lot of people are starting to think about as we get closer to trying to figure out how to get out of this thing.

ALLISON MCGEER: Yes. So the first thing that anybody's testing is there are many different kinds of antibodies and some of them protect you against re-infection and some of them don't. And for for viruses and bacteria that we usually are testing for, we have years of experience with being able to distinguish between the two. And so if you get tested, for instance, for Hepatitis C or HIV, we're testing you for antibodies to tell if you're infected because everybody makes antibodies, but they don't protect you against the infection always. Whereas with other diseases, more testing for antibodies like measles, we're testing for the antibodies that mean you're protected. So we just don't have enough experience with this virus yet to know what different kinds of antibodies people make and which ones protect people and which ones don't. And believe you me, there are hundreds of people out there scrambling to sort that out and to get us antibody tests. So. So the first thing we need, as far as the question pointed out is antibody tests that tell whether or not people have been infected, because that tells us where we are on the pandemic curve. And it really helps public health authorities with determining when we can start to open things up and how long the pandemic is going to go on. And those should be coming in maybe two or three weeks. It's a there's a lot of people working on it and it just has a lot of moving pieces as well. But we're definitely making progress and and it will be coming soon. And the second question is, what does it tell you about whether you're protected in the future? That's a more complicated question coming later.

MG: OK. That's interesting. I like the fact that there's a lot that we don't know as well. And the people are being honest and saying that there's just things we don't know about this. People are asking questions about timelines when it comes to vaccines. Leo wondered we keep hearing that they'll take her on 18 months for a vaccine to be released. How realistic is that timeline?

ALLISON MCGEER: It's really hard to know. You know, I think it's a reasonable guess. But, you know, you need to remember that usually vaccines take a long time and sometimes like HIV, you can be working for 25 years and not get a vaccine. So a vaccine to this looks on its face relatively easy, which is what makes 18 months something we can actually talk about. But there's a lot of steps along the way and it it's really too early to have any confidence in knowing when we're gonna have it or what's gonna happen. We're just gonna have to watch, but the good news is lots of vaccine candidates, lots of people working on it. If it is possible to do it in 18 months, it will be done in 18 months.

MG: And is your expectation that there would be perhaps a therapeutic medicine or a prophylactic that would be available that would hold us over until we get to the vaccine?

ALLISON MCGEER: You know, we're really hoping there are a lot of trials of a different treatment and prevention strategy starting. And we will. We're just gonna have to see. I would expect that there will be data that ekes out over the next six to eight weeks from the U.S. with the current medications we've been trying, but there are some sort of backup medications coming that that will be tried next. So there's going to be an ongoing process and I don't think at the moment that anybody's really hopeful that the treatment medications will make a big difference. But there's still possibilities and there are new drugs coming. And so, yeah, we're I think all of us are really hoping that we can find something that will make this better before a vaccine comes.

MG: I'm going to try and squeeze in two questions in the last minute or so that we have. Have a listen to this one.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Good morning. It's Al Sharp calling from beautiful Port Hope. My question is, what happens to the vrius when someone dies and how would it affect organ donation?

MG: Do we have any sense as to whether this could affect organ donation, Doctor?

ALLISON MCGEER: So for organ donation, this is like any other infectious disease. If you have an infectious disease, if you die of an infectious disease, then generally you're not eligible for organ donation. That's true in in all circumstances. So I think the answer is this is not different from organ donation, different from other infectious diseases in terms of organ donation. Obviously, the shutdown of of health care is affecting organ donation and transplantation as it affects many other things, but just because people are getting COVID should not have a big impact.

MG: All right. Remaining seconds, this question comes from Lana. And it kind of ends where we started, which is, will there ever be a time when things will get back to normal as they were before this crisis started? For example, do you think it will be safe again for people to go and give somebody a hug or a kiss?

ALLISON MCGEER: Oh, yes, absolutely. And as somebody said to me the other day, I am living for that day. Yes, it will happen. This will be over, but it's going to be, I think, many months before we get there.

MG: You have been, as always, so generous with your time and we really appreciate it. Doctor, thank you.

ALLISON MCGEER: Pleasure to talk to you, Matt. Take Care.

MG: Dr. Allison McGeer is an infectious disease specialist and a clinical scientist at the Sinai Health System in Toronto. Thanks to you for all your questions. This will go on for a while. So I think we'll probably do this again sometime.

[Music]

Vancouver woman moves into her mother’s seniors residence

Guests: Dale Edwards

MG: Before this pandemic, Dale Edwards had a routine nearly every day she'd go to a seniors residents to visit her mother. They'd chat while Dale helped feed her breakfast and lunch. And then last month, Dale Edwards had to make a tough decision. Dale is on the line now from Vancouver. Dale, good morning.

DALE EDWARDS: Good morning.

MG: What happened on the 15th of March when you were visiting your mum?

DALE EDWARDS: When I arrived, which I normally do at about 7, I think it was more in the later morning, they had made the decision in Vancouver to lock down all the senior facilities and I was approached by the director of care and she basically gave me a choice because she knew how important the care of my mum was and that's why I was coming, whether I wanted to stay and be here but could not leave at all and couldn't even go outside, or if I was willing, if I wanted to go home. And as I said, it took me just a second to decide to stay, because it's very important. It was really important.

MG: Just seconds. And so that's where you are now. You are there in the senior's residence.

DALE EDWARDS: I am still here. Yes.

MG: How does that work? I mean, where are you sleeping?

DALE EDWARDS: I'm sleeping as we speak, still on the mattress. We've had several developments since the licencing officer basically refused the exemption and that was the whole issue. They immediately had to make application for the companions and myself, who was an unusual exemption and to the Coastal Health Authorities and that was their decision that the criteria didn't meet the situation for my mom, which I didn't agree with and still don't. And so they refused to let me stay. I found that out on Easter Sunday because it had taken them a long time. They've obviously been very busy in Vancouver. It has a state of emergency with the COVID and so it took a little bit longer. So I was here basically sleeping on the floor next to my mother's bed.

MG: And do you have, you weren't allowed to leave. So do you have supplies? Did you get clothes or anything like that?

DALE EDWARDS: No. Well, I had very good friends that have been wonderful bringing, but everything had to be disinfected before they came in. And so, again, I was really grateful for the work that the director of care has done and we still don't have any infections at this facility. This is one of the better facilities in Vancouver.

MG: What does it meant for your mom to have you there through all of this?

DALE EDWARDS: I hope it's made her happy. She told me the other day that, you know, she said Dale, I don't deserve you. And I said Granny, I think we deserve each other. And she said that's true. And I think she's really grateful that I'm here.

MG: What has it meant for you? Can you imagine if you were on the other side, if you were outside and not able to get in to see your mom?

DALE EDWARDS: It would be awful. It would have been, I would have been heartbroken. Just like the many other family members that can't come in, particularly on the first floor. And I just feel like it's really sad that that is occurring. But I had the opportunity. The reason they let me come was because of the medical conditions that she had and that I do assist with her. And yeah, so I was really grateful that they did that. My mom is a very special woman? Yeah she taught me many, many things and so in my life, she means a lot to me in terms of who she is and what she taught me.

MG: Well, one of the things clearly is about sacrifice and about, you know, dedication and being there for other people. In the midst of that, are there things that you're missing from outside?

DALE EDWARDS: Yes, I miss the fresh air and I miss being outside, and I think that's one of the hardest things really, but it's worth it for me to be with her and to give her the support. And she yeah, she is an amazing woman. She did so many things in her life to help us. I come from a mixed heritage family. She is white. My dad was black. And she taught us so much about what it means for her. She's fiercely defended mixed marriages. She's an amazing woman. My dad was a very well known doctor. He actually was a specialist in tropical diseases and he was a five time bronze medal winner for Canada in the Olympics, in three Olympics.

MG: Amazing.

DALE EDWARDS: And so she worked really hard to recognize, you know, what happens to people and the vulnerable people in our society. The seniors are the ones that are really being exposed right now and this whole COVID crisis, I think, is drawing attention to that. And I am really grateful for that.

MG: Just before I let you go, we're almost at the time, but how long are you going to stay there? Do you have a sense?

DALE EDWARDS: Well, they have now given me the ability to be here until the end of the COVID.They have now made me a resident and so I can, I actually have a room. I can be here with my mother in the same room and yes and that was worked through with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.

MG: So you're there for the duration?

DALE EDWARDS: I will definitely want to be here for the whole duration. It's not going to be easy. I don't know if I can do it, but that's my intention.

MG: Your mom is lucky to have you being willing to give up what you have to be with her and this is not possible for most people, but as you say, you can't imagine being on the outside in a situation like this. Dale, thank you and good luck and good health to you and to your mom.

DALE EDWARDS: Thank you very much, Matt.

MG: Dale Edwards is living with her mother in her seniors residence in Vancouver. And as you heard, she's been allowed to stay there until restrictions are lifted in Vancouver when it comes to seniors residences and COVID-19. The CBC News is next, then in about six minutes time, we're going to talk about orphan wells. Tens of thousands of inactive and abandoned oil and gas wells in western Canada. There is a billion dollar plan coming from the federal government to clean them up. We'll talk about how it will work and the concerns that it's raising. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

[Music]

Canadians weigh in on the federal government’s plan to clean up orphan wells

Guests: Daryl Bennett, Tzeporah Berman, Max Fawcett

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to an extended edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, some countries are further along the COVID-19 curve than Canada and they have begun easing restrictions. We'll visit a few of those countries and find out what life could look like here down the road. But first, Ottawa's plan to clean up Canada's abandoned oil and gas wells.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Thousands of them dot the prairies. Orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells left behind by bankrupt companies. Most sit on land owned by farmers and ranchers and families who worry that leaks could be contaminating the soil and affecting their health. Of the 20 wells on Kelly Nelson's property in Vulcan County, Alberta, 1 have been abandoned or orphaned.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It's a big concern because we've had leaks before. We've had oil actually running into the creek. One of the creeks out east where our cows were. And if there's no one checking on them, we don't know if that's going to happen. If we don't know if those pipelines have been closed off right. If they've been capped. Nothing. So all the equipment's still sitting out on the sites. The contamination, we've started taking some of the roads and just farming over them to control the weeds and that. The county they're talking that if some of these sites get to weedy, that they're going to have to charge the land owner to come out and spray them. And they're not legally allowed to be on those sites. We're not legally allowed to be on those sites. So you're kind of caught in the catch 22 of no one being out here to do anything to rectify the situation.

MG: It is a longstanding frustration that these sites have been left to decay. On Friday, the federal government announced billions of dollars in aid for the oil and gas industry, including $1.7 billion to clean up orphan wells in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Many welcomed that money, but others have an uneasy feeling that the companies are escaping their responsibilities. Daryl Bennett owns a farm in Taber, Alberta, and is also a director of the Action Surface Rights Association. Daryl, good morning.

DARYL BENNETT: Good morning, Matt. Thanks for having me on the show.

MG: Thanks for joining us. I just very briefly, for people who might not understand exactly what these wells are like. We heard a little bit of it there, but just describe what these orphan wells look like.

DARYL BENNETT: Well, an orphan well can vary from nothing being on the land to having compressor sites, battery sites, lots of contamination and equipment that the land owners have to farm around and they can be weed infested.

MG: And the concern, as we heard there from Kelly Nelson is that there could be some environmental damage, some leakage that could affect the health and well-being of people who live in and around that area.

DARYL BENNETT: Well, certainly there is environmental concern about the contamination from the landowners point of view. There's a food safety issue. There's a farmer's safety issue because a lot of times you're operating around these sites during the dark and there's also the wheat issue that spreads weeds onto the rest of your land.

MG: And so on Friday, the federal government announced $1.7 billion to clean up some of these orphan wells. As I mentioned, in three provinces in the west. What do you make of that news?

DARYL BENNETT: Well, that's a lot of money. That's more money than the orphan wealth associations need right now, because they only have, for instance, 5000 wells in Alberta. So our concern is, is the money being given to industry and is being given to companies that will be going bankrupt next week or next month. What are the checks and balances to make sure this money is actually being spent on abandoning and reclaiming these sites?

MG: How do you think this could help landowners to that point?

DARYL BENNETT: Well, land owners certainly would like these wells taken off their lands because of the risk that they caused to their operations. This would speed up the process by quite a bit.

MG: There are these unpaid leases for these orphan wells. What does that do in terms of the complication of of the landowners ability to not just, you know, survive, but use that land?

DARYL BENNETT: It it doesn't really do anything. This money is not going towards landowners for their unpaid compensation. And in Alberta, these landowners are facing a three to five year delay dealing with the surface rights board. And so we wonder why is all the money going to industry instead of some of it being spent at the surface rights board to address landowner concerns?

MG: How would you want to do this differently then? Where could that money directly go?

DARYL BENNETT: Well, the landowners aren't asking for a share of this money. They would like the Surface Rights Board to handle things on a more expeditious manner. It should be going to reclaiming these sites. But is it going to be used to abandon these sites, which is just taking the surface infrastructure off, or is it going to be used for reclaiming, which can be up to a five year process involved, removing soil and contamination? We actually think there might be a smarter way of doing some of this. We're involved with the Alberta government and that is consent to taking all these access roads and power lines out. Why don't you use them and put small solar projects on those sites and then generate municipal tax revenue? It'll generate compensation to the landowners and it'll actually strengthen the real power grid.

MG: There is some concern that those who, as I said in the introduction, those who are responsible for this, the companies that have gone bankrupt, that they're being let off the hook here. Do you share that concern?

DARYL BENNETT: Yes, we've been reminding government for probably 10 years that they haven't required industry to save money in the good times. Let's make no mistake, this is a subsidy to the industry. These guys should have put the money aside in the good times to take care of the polluter pay model. Basically, they're just getting the taxpayer to pay for the activities they should have done themselves.

MG: How is it possible that something like that happens? I mean, it seems as though, again, people are left holding the bag who have nothing to do with this.

DARYL BENNETT: There are rules in place that should have avoided this, but the system was ignored by government. Industry is a powerful lobby in Alberta and we reminded governments many times that the system was being abused and that these guys were privatizing profits and socializing the losses. And there just wasn't the political will by either the past NDP government or the current Conservative government to do anything about it.

MG: And is that because, as you say, you believe the industry is is powerful enough that it sways opinion in that regard?

DARYL BENNETT: It is. Plus, they employ a lot of people and they pay a lot of money into provincial coffers. But now that they're in bad economic times, we're starting to see the extent of the liabilities that exists.

MG: So if you go back to as you said, it's a lot of money, $1.7 billion. What is this actually going to do? Is it is igoing to take any steps to rectify the problem that we've been talking about?

DARYL BENNETT: Well, actually, it might make it worse, not rectify the problem at all, because if we can always rely on the federal government to backstop us and give us the money, then why would these companies set money aside to take care of the problem themselves? They'll just go along business as usual, exploit the profits and let the taxpayer pay to clean up the mess.

MG: But if the companies are bankrupt and that's why those wells have been abandoned, is there any way to hold them to account now? I mean, you could that could have been done perhaps in past. But now, is there any way to do that?

DARYL BENNETT: No, there's not, but 1.7 billion, a lot of that money is not going to the Orphan Well Association. Right now, there's maybe only 5000 orphans in the province. This is enough money to take care of tens of thousands of well. So some of this money must be going to the companies. And that's what we're worried about. Where's the guarantee that they'll use that money to pay to clean up wells instead of putting it in executive pockets?

MG: You talked about the possibility of a renewable energy solution here. Tell me more about that and what you see as an opportunity here.

DARYL BENNETT: A lot of these sites are near the power grid. They have power lines coming to them. They have access roads. There's no sense spending money taking that out when landowners would like to still have a source of revenue on their land. Municipalities would still like to have property taxes. Need to remember that as soon as these wells are abandoned, you've got a bunch of municipalities, especially in Alberta, that are facing bankruptcy in the next year or two because of the declining tax revenues. And currently right now, there's a lot of companies are not paying the property taxes. They're not paying the landowners. And now it seems that they don't have to pay to reclaim these wells. And that's pretty good business model if you can't make money doing that you've got a problem.

MG: You have one of these abandoned wellls, orphaned wells on your property?

DARYL BENNETT: Yes, but it was recently reclaimed.

MG: And so yours is a good news story?

DARYL BENNETT: Yes, but I'm surrounded by neighbours that have lots of them that they've been dealing with for 20, 30 years.

MG: I was gonna say, what would you say, we heard from Kelly Nelson earlier, who has 11 abandoned and orphaned wells on her property. What would you say to someone like her?

DARYL BENNETT: I know Kelly quite well she's been dealing with this problem for probably 10 years. Different companies owning the wells and then transferring them to another company that doesn't have the financial ability to reclaim. In this case, that money should be going towards helping her out, reclaiming some of those leases re moving the eyesores. And unfortunately, it's not going to take care of the weed problem. But as they come in and reclaim the wells, hopefully over time, that will resolve itself.

MG: Daryl, good to speak with you about this. I appreciate your perspective.

DARYL BENNETT: Thanks for having me on, Matt.

MG: Daryl Bennett is a landowner and Taber, Alberta, and a director of the Action Surface Rights Association. There are, as we mentioned, thousands of orphaned wells scattered across this country's oil producing provinces. Wells that oil and gas companies were supposed to clean up, but have been abandoned, usually after the company goes bankrupt. Observers of Canada's energy sector have been waiting for a way to deal with this problem for a long time. Tzeporah Berman is international program director of Stand-Dot-Earth. It's an environmental organization. Max Fawcett is a freelance writer, former editor of Alberta Oil magazine. Good morning to you both.

TZEPORAH BERMAN: Good morning.

MAX FAWCETT: Morning.

MG: Tzeporah, do you share the response that we just heard there from Daryl Bennett that this is a lot of money, $1.7 billion, but it's not actually going to do much of anything to address the real problem here?

TZEPORAH BERMAN: It is a lot of money, but it does start us out on the right direction. Good policy addresses a problem that needs to be solved. It sets us out in the right direction. But the you know, I agree there. Should the public have to pay to clean up oil companies mess that they made incredible profits off of? No, but our governments have failed to require the old oil companies to clean it up. And that does need to change. And the devil is in the details. But the regulatory issues have to be tied to this funding. There needs to be a limit on how long awell can be enacted before it's cleaned up. And we need to have bond payments so that inactive wells are cleaned up. So, you know, this is actually the tip of the iceberg in cleaning up the mess that's been left because we have about 5000 to 6000 orphan wells. We've got about ninety thousand inactive wells. And then we also have about a trillion litres in tailings ponds that needs to be cleaned up. So this is the beginning of the cleanup of the oil industry. And, you know, the fact is, I think this this shows a real change in direction for the trio government, because we've been handling the oil and gas companies billions of dollars for years in subsidies, $3 billion in subsidies last year. And the federal government's pledged over 10 billion of taxpayers money to build the Trans Mountain expansion, even though this is an industry that to meet our climate goals. We all know we'll have to dramatically reduce production.

MG: Max Fawcett, how did we get to this point where there are to Tzeporah's point almost what, 90000 abandoned wells that could become orphaned and close to 5000 orphaned wells that are already out there? How did we get to this point?

MAX FAWCETT: It's a familiar combination in Alberta of excessive optimism about the future, but indifference towards the consequences of it so overt, the regulator uses something called a liability management rating to basically find out if a company has enough money to pay to clean up its wells. And if its estimated assets are less than the estimated cost of cleanup, they have to put up a security deposit, but the problem is the regulator has been using oil price forecast and natural gas price forecasts from 2008 to 2010, and that's back when oil and gas were way higher than they are right now and where they have been over the last few years. And so they didn't have a clear view on on the scope of the problem. The other problem is that they start using the more realistic prices. Now, it would actually require companies just to put up money they don't have. It would put many of them into bankruptcy and put far more of their wells into the orphan well association. So it's sort of a you know, it didn't have to be this way. You look down to North Dakota, which produces plenty of oil and faces, you know, the similar issues around pricing. But because they collect bonds from the companies upfront, like supports it. We should in Alberta. And they have much stricter timelines around dealing with inactive wells. They don't have any work in wells.

MG: Well Daryl Bennett says it's also just about the strength of the lobby that the governments have been cowed by that lobby and haven't forced those companies to do what they should have done, which was own the problem selves. Is it that simple, Max?

MAX FAWCETT: I don't know because there's a strong oil lobby in North Dakota as well. It's not like it's not like the oil lobby isn't active there and they have a good system that works. So, you know, I think we can we can pore over what, you know, what was behind Alberta's approach to this. But I think we're clearly in agreement that it was wrong. It was, you know, a bad approach that spanned multiple governments. And thankfully, I think we are seeing, as a Port Said, a an actual shift in policy here and a step forward for the first time in a long time.

MG: Tell me more about that shift. Tzeporah, we've seen reaction in the last couple of days to the announcement on Friday, and it's a lot of money going to help out people who have found themselves hit not just by declining oil price, but also then by an economy through COVID-19 that has evaporated. But it's not the big bailout that perhaps people were expecting. The dots were connected in a very specific way between helping people who have lost their jobs, but also looking ahead to the climate change fight. Why do you see that as an important shift?

TZEPORAH BERMAN: Because, you know, it's not what the big oil companies want it. It's not what Premier Kenny was expecting. What we saw from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Leaked memo on Friday was that they were asking for tens of billions of dollars and they were also asking to relax environmental laws and regulations. And that's not what happened. We heard Premier Kenney saying 20 to 30 billion dollars. You know, we heard a asking for that much, if not more. And that's not what happened. And what did happen is the government said, you know, yes, we need to support workers and their families and we need to clean up the impact of this industry. But we're not just going to keep handing money to companies that are literally making incredible profits. I mean, last year, big oil companies paid millions to top executives in stock and cash bonuses. And I think what we saw this time is Prime Minister Turo didn't give in to the oil industry pressure. And that's likely because these are companies that, you know, oil and gas stocks have been operating at the bottom of this and an import index three years now record bankruptcies. And that's in part because the world is changing. The world is moving on. Demand is softer than we thought even before the price drop. We had more bankruptcies in the oil and gas sector globally than any other sector. And we're seeing, you know we now have what, 12 countries that have committed to phase out the fossil fuel car and the price of renewables has dropped significantly. And so now we see electrification of transport and renewable energy, electric cars competing with oil. And we have to plan for that as a nation.

MG: Max, how do you think the energy sector will respond to this? The premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney, welcomed this announcement, but to Tzeporah's point, there was that leaked memo from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. They wanted, among other things, a big government rollback of some of the environmental policies, saying that now is not the time to have those policies in place in the midst of a pandemic. How do you think the sector will respond to what was announced on Friday?

MAX FAWCETT: I think there's a mixed reaction, certainly there are some people there's a gentleman by the name of Grant Figurheim, who's the CEO of a company out here, and he basically told the National Post that the bailout would do nothing, which is, you know, I think he's sort of telling on himself a little bit there with that. But, you know, there's there's a split in the oil and gas community in Alberta, and it's one that support those very well, because she worked with a lot of the oil and gas CEOs, you know, prior to the rollout of the climate leadership plan in Alberta. You know, there there is a growing list of people who understand that we need to reduce our emissions and that and that lower emissions for a long U.S. company is now a competitive advantage going forward as the world transitions away from fossil fuels. You know, the federal government should be trying to tailor any future stimulus or support in ways that strengthens the hand effect. But we also need to be mindful of the fact that, you know, before Kovac arrived, the demand for for oil and gas was was still at record highs. It was still growing. It was growing more slowly, but it was still growing. We're still going to need oil and gas for the next 20, 30, 40 years and Canada can play a pretty important role in providing that. So it's not an either or it's not. You know, we give them a blank check bailout or we don't support them at all. The federal government has to be smart about supporting them in ways that builds up the people within the oil and gas community who want to to to lead the energy transition. And that's the thing they can do with federal policy.

MG: But is this going to be I guess we'll talk a little bit in the moment about where this is going to lead in terms of policy, but for people who are working in that sector and find themselves without work now and that they are worried over, if they haven't been swept up in the tide of layoffs, that that tide is coming for them. Is this going to be enough to stem that tide, Max?

MAX FAWCETT: I'm not sure it will. You know, I think that the scale of COVID is still I think, you know, it's still dawning on a lot of us. And we're still trying to figure out where the contours of it are. The other thing to remember, and this is a difficult subject in Calgary, but in the labour force, in the oil gas industry was shrinking well before COVID came along. The industry was figuring out ways to become more efficient, to introduce technology, and that was reducing the human footprint of a lot of these companies. And that is the future, you know, once we get through this crisis, it's going to be leaner companies. It's going to be companies that employ less people. And everyone kind of has to come around to that reality as difficult as it may be.

MG: Tzeporah, the government has been federal government has been accused of talking at both sides of its mouth in supporting the oil and gas sector, but also talking about the importance of transitioning away from that and moving toward more climate, sustainable future. What does this announcement to you telegraph about where the government is going to go in future, how it's going to try to thread that needle?

TZEPORAH BERMAN: Well, this is a government that committed during the election to net zero by 2050. So getting the country to net zero emissions by 2050. We do need to support workers in the transition and we do need to, as Max said, support the companies who are willing to work hard to clean up the industry and to reduce emissions. But you don't get to net zero by by 2050 by expanding production. And so this I think the government is starting to reckon with that. We have to not just meet our climate targets, but also plan to diversify our economy to be strong in the future. And so this is, I think, good policy, but it's the liberty iceberg. We know $3 billion, which is what we gave in in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry last year, could pay for job retraining from 360000 workers. We need a transition plan for this industry to make sure that no workers or families are left behind. And we also need to address that. Oil and gas pollution is now the fastest growing source of pollution in Canada. It's the largest source of emissions now in Canada, just from the production of oil and gas, not from our transportation or how we use it. So Max is right. This industry will be around for a long time. But I think the question facing the government today is, but should it be expanding or should we plan for it to be for to wind down and make sure that we're diversifying our economy and and and providing other opportunities, like your previous caller talked about, and renewable energy and high tech and clean tech and other industries that should be subsidized in order to support them creating different jobs in the future.

MG: Max, final to you. What gives you the sense that this is not just an announcement that's tied to COVID-19 in the pandemic that we're all trying to come to grips with, but that actually might give some sort of sense as to where the government is going to try to move to. You can't make everybody happy, make as many people happy as possible, but also chart a path towards that net zero goal.

MAX FAWCETT: I think the government has spent four years, four plus years now really trying to thread the needle between borrowing the economy and protecting the environment. And it's it's really hard work as as we've seen. It tends to make a lot of people unhappy. And, you know, it doesn't make doesn't make nearly as many people happy. But this is. I don't to use the word opportunity, but this is a chance for the government to accelerate some of the efforts it's undertaken to thread that needle. You know, it can it can use the money to direct, you know, the energy industry to perhaps become sort of more thoughtful in in the kind of energy it produces. You know, just because you can't grow your production doesn't mean you can't grow energy. You could you could be producing geothermal energy. You could be producing, you know, hydrogen. You could be producing renewables. There's all sorts of ways to grow the energy economy without growing production of oil and gas. And I think the federal government has an opportunity to sort of lay the foundations and create some incentives here for that to happen and could really help Alberta build a brighter future down the road.

MG: Thank you both. It's great to talk to you. Thank you.

TZEPORAH BERMAN: Thank you.

MAX FAWCETT: Thank you.

MG: Tzeporah Sapporo Berman is a longtime environmental activist and international program director for Stand-Dot-Earth. Max Fawcett is a freelance writer, former editor of Alberta Oil magazine. Your thoughts would be welcome on this. You can reach us through the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca Or on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC. Coming up in about 90 seconds time, some countries are starting to ease their lockdown restrictions and their efforts could offer a roadmap for Canada getting back to normal. A look into the future perhaps as we travel around the world. That's on its way. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. Stick around.

[Music]

Lessons to learn from Spain, Austria and South Korea about life after lockdown

Guests: Jean Freed, Boris Groendahl, Kelly Kasulis

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

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Now is the time to be very, very careful. And that does not mean that countries cannot begin to create an exit strategy. There are things that need to be done. You can't replace lockdown with nothing. You must replace lockdown with a very deeply educated committees, empowered an engaged community.

MG: You cannot replace lockdown with nothing. Cautious words from Michael Ryan of the World Health organization. And those words are aimed at countries that are starting to ease their lockdown rules. Canada is not there yet, but there are nations that could offer us some sort of insights, maybe a bit of a roadmap as they try to roll back their own restrictions. We want to take you to some of those places now. First up, Spain, which has had the highest number of cases in Europe and implemented a very strict lockdown last week. The government there announced that people in a few sectors, such as construction or factory work, could go back to work. But over the weekend, it decided they would extend the general lockdown until at least the 9th of May, although as of the 27th of April, children would be allowed out of their homes for a brief period each day for the first time in a month. Jean Freed is a former Montrealer, now lives in Valencia on Spain's eastern coast. Jean, hello.

JEAN FREED: Hi there.

MG: What is life in lockdown like for you in beautiful Valencia these days?

JEAN FREED: Well, it is beautiful. We've had a bit more rain in the last couple of weeks. Naturally we've had beautiful, beautiful weather and then we get locked down on March 4. March 14th and it rained for two weeks. But the biggest issue is everyone in Spain right now. I think the biggest issue is that children have literally not been able to leave your house, your apartment, your home since the fourth to actually even on the 14th of March, we could not leave. So since the 13th of March and we have twin 9 year olds now, we're pretty lucky. We're in a suburb. It's north of the city, about 10 kilometres. And we do have a very small yard, maybe five meters by 67 meters. And we do have a garage level on the house so they can engage in some rockhouse and playing. But about 70 percent of Spanish families live in apartments and many of those apartments do not even have balconies.

MG: And so the restrictions on going outside are what you can't go out at all aside from essentials, is that it?

JEAN FREED: You cannot leave your own property, except for one adult supposedly once a week, which they're not, they are enforcing the one adult, they're not necessarily enforcing the once a week. But adults only can go out for to get food, for medical appointments and for financial. And they say any other acceptable reason. The police, however, are stopping people as one lady I was talking to was stopped three times on Friday. And the fines range from 601 euros, about 900 Canadian all the way up to 10,400 euros, which is close to 16,000. And that's if the police stop you and you have a bad attitude or if they catch you organizing parties or events.

MG: How are people coping? I mean, you mean with the twins and your tiny little backyard, you have a little bit of space, but you've been in lockdown for a long time, how are people coping?

JEAN FREED: Well, it's been almost, what, six weeks now I think. It's difficult. We have established schedules and we do think that helps. It gives all of us something to look forward to. OK. At 5:30, I can watch 45 minutes of television. OK, we can go out. You know, we go outside and we send them out. It's not pouring rain. They are outside. They're Canadian kids. Not much stops them from going out, you know. And we've been setting up, the kids themselves were setting up obstacle courses. And these are pretty involved. They're down in the basement level. And you can run between about three rooms down there, the garage and two playroom and a guest room. And also out in the back yard and so they would run out. You have to jump over the water bottle and you'd have to scoot under a clothesline and you'd have to jump over something else. And then, you know, it takes about a minute and a half to run this course. So they do that and we time them and you know, so. And we've also our school is sending us, they do go to school in French here, and the school has been sending us work for them. At first it was way too much, but now we've gotten that organized. So they're a few hours a day during the week on school work. We also have the books with us from Quebec and we're also doing the Quebec curriculum with them. My better half is. And then we have just recently started this couple of online organizations that offer classes for children and we did. What about the motion of the ocean? Yesterday, I think it was actually quite fun to do a few more of those, but mostly we're just trying to keep everything together and oh, we're cooking a lot and a lot. We have more time to cook. So, for instance, lunch today, which is now our major meal, was baked beans with ham and sweet potatoes and homemade cornbread.

MG: Very nice.

JEAN FREED: And the kids are making the cornbread and cooking and, you know, we're taking time to teach them to cook.

MG: Just before I let you go, eventually this will end. And I mean, we're hearing that the lockdown is extended until at least the 29th of May. How worried are you about a second wave of infections once this lockdown starts to be lifted more widely, given what you've seen in Spain over the last few months?

JEAN FREED: I have to say, worried is not the correct word. I think it's absolutely predictable. I think the probability is one. It will occur. There will be a second wave, we are concerned. I am in a definitely a higher risk group and it is concerning why some people are acting like they're not concerned at all now, but Spain right now has the second highest death rate in the world of major countries. Belgium passed us on the weekend, but we have more deaths per population than Italy does, or than France, which is also quite high. So, yeah, it is a definite concern. We've heard that kids probably won't go back to school until September and I think that's probably a pretty good idea because I don't know that we will send ours even if the schools open. I think we have to be cautious.

MG: Good luck with the obstacle course and the cooking. The lunch sounds delicious and you have a lot on your hands with a couple of twins as well. Jean, stay healthy and safe. Thank you.

JEAN FREED: Thank you. Bye bye.

MG: Jean Freed is a retired finance lecturer and advisor, formerly of Montreal. She is in Valencia, Spain. Let's head to Austria, where lockdown measures have been lifted even further. Boris Groendahl is a reporter with Bloomberg. He's in Vienna. Boris, hello to you.

BORIS GROENDAHL: Hello.

MG: What was this weekend in Vienna like?

BORIS GROENDAHL: It was very nice, the weather was was good. The sun is coming out again, but it's a bit it's become a bit colder than it used to be in the last couple of weeks. But it's a very nice spring weather and fortunately all locked down is not as complete as it is in Spain and never has been, actually.

MG: What are the restrictions that are still in place in Austria?

BORIS GROENDAHL: So still in place is that the bigger shops that are not supermarkets and that are not hardware or gardening shops, those bigger shops are still closed. So malls are closed, electronics stores, furniture stores, things like that. They are closed. The schools are closed for probably at least another four weeks and restaurants and hotels are closed. So that's the main impact of the lockdown here. What we don't have and never had really is this kind of complete curfew almost. Thay you haven't in some regions of Italy or like Spain, we never had that. You can leave your place, your property, and you can be outside. Also, just for walking or jogging or doing things like that. You just have to keep the distance and and you have to wear facemasks if you, for instance, go to supermarkets or use public transport.

MG: Does it feel like you're on the other side of it, that this is over?

BORIS GROENDAHL: Well, if you look at the numbers, then they look like that. It is the new cases we get per day now below 100, which is less than 1 percent growth. And so we are clearly in a situation where the as the number of country infected of active cases, so to say that are not recovered yet are falling very rapidly. And also fatalities, which were never as high by a long shot as in Italy or Spain or Belgium, they are also kind of stable. So I think if nothing really materially changes in those numbers then I think we will have the reopening of most of the shops in early May and then schools and restaurants in four weeks.

MG: Is there that concern? We heard it from Jean about Spain, is that the concern that this second wave of infections could emerge as some of those lockdown measures are rolled back?

BORIS GROENDAHL: Yeah, it's definitely a possibility, but the thing is that they are why they are rolling back the evening. The lockdown measures on the one hand, they are also bringing in new ones like the wearing of the face masks and for instance, you know, it's only a certain number of people who can go into a shop at any given time. In many small shops, there was just in one drugstore this morning and they could only let one person in at a time. So a lot of stuff that slows down life and then limits the frequency of people meeting each other and being in the same space. That's limited. At the same time while they are reopening things. So yeah, the possibility is definitely there and there was some concern about a third of the population says it's going too quick with with the easing, but it doesn't show in the numbers so far. And they I mean, the government has said very often that they will not hesitate to turn back the clock if they see a resurgence in numbers, even though it's probably going to be harder than the first time around. But yeah, I mean, the evidence at the moment show anything like a relapse in Austria.

MG: Just before I let you go, what's the mood like? I mean, what are what are people looking forward to getting back to doing?

BORIS GROENDAHL: Well, I mean, if the weather is like that, then, you know, just sitting outside in front of a cafe and in the sun and having a coffee again. That's probably something that would be really nice to do. And the second thing that most people really look forward to is to be able to send their kids back to school, because that's also been a long time here.

MG: And it feels like that is something that's right in people's grasp right now?

BORIS GROENDAHL: Yeah, it's yeah, I mean, it's it's four weeks, but yeah, you can, you have a date now that you can look forward to.

MG: Boris, good to speak with you. Stay well, thank you.

BORIS GROENDAHL: Thank you.

MG: Boris Groendahl is a Bloomberg reporter, he was in Vienna, Austria. There is one country that has drawn consistent praise for its handling of COVID-19. South Korea had one of the earliest outbreaks of the virus. Now it has some of the lowest infection rates. Kelly Kasulis is a freelance reporter in Seoul. Kelly, hello to you.

KELLY KASULIS: Hi. Thanks for having me.

MG: What does it feel like in Seoul right now? Does it feel like you're on the other side of this?

KELLY KASULIS: It really does. To be completely honest, it's felt like that for a while now, at least here in Seoul, the capital of the country. People have been wearing face masks, sometimes gloves. There's certainly hand sanitizer everywhere. But aside from that, the pubs are packed even on weekday nights. Buses, subways are packed. People are going back to work. I've been following people who have been affected by this virus. And business is picking up for them. So it really does kind of seem like we're over the hump or so I hope.

MG: How is it that this is a question of people around the world or asking how is it that South Korea has been able to keep such a hold on this without the kinds of lockdown measures that we just heard about in Spain where you can't leave the house except for one essential trip, you know, maybe every couple of days?

KELLY KASULIS: You know, South Korea really prepared for this virus before it became an issue in the country. Back in January, actually, Chinese scientists published the genetic sequence for the COVID-19 virus. And pretty much immediately the South Korean government began working with different biotech firms and other companies to develop and stockpile test kits by the thousands. So by the time that we started seeing the first few cases and the first death in February, the country was already prepared to start mass testing and tracking people. So that really made a difference in terms of identifying where there are clusters of this virus and containing those areas without disrupting other forms of life. The other thing is, you know, South Korea has the highest smartphone penetration in the world. Some of the highest or some of the fastest Wi-Fi in the world. And it's a really high tech country. And so what we saw here is that the government was using credit card data or smartphone data from people who were indeed infected and sending out push alerts to the rest of the population if they were near a place where someone with COVID-19 had been. And I think that also made a big difference because they were able to track people's path and warn people to keep them away from areas that might still need to be sanitized.

MG: So how does that work? Do you get an alert on your phone or do you have some sort of app that is tracking where you're going? How is this that we've been talking a lot about contract tracing and about the ways that you can get to your point track who is where. How is this working on your device?

KELLY KASULIS: So I'm an iPhone user and I didn't sign up for anything. Basically, what happens is if I am near an area where someone with COVID-19, was recently as in within the last two weeks, I will get an emergency alert on my phone that will say something like a person was at this hotel near you because they can track your location and please visit this link to see exactly where they went and when, so that you can kind of check if you've been in contact with this person. And if you have, you can go and get a test. So that's one form of how this has been done. And pretty much everyone with a phone in this country is getting those alerts sometimes to the point where it's a little annoying, to be honest. It's like eight times a day. But also people who have been coming into the country or people who have been exhibiting signs of the virus are also being asked to use a special government made app downloaded to their phone and report their symptoms daily.

MG: How do people square privacy concerns that they might have with the ability, as you said, to live almost a normal life and be able to, you know, go back to the bars, go back out shopping, be out on the streets?

KELLY KASULIS: That's a really valid question and it's something that I've been reporting about extensively. You know, South Korea has a special set of laws in place to allow the usage of private data like this in the case of emergencies, public health concerns, et cetera. In the case of many Western countries, this probably wouldn't be as easy to pull off. And I have spoken to experts here in everyday South Koreans. And to be honest with you, very few people I've heard from have any concerns at all about privacy. I think some of that is cultural as well. I think in South Korea, a lot of people feel like if it's for the greater public good, they're willing to relinquish their data. Not that it's even an option, to be honest. That data is taken by the government.

MG: How worried are health officials about a second outbreak if you are where you are now and people are out and about? Yes, wearing a mask and gloves, but living more of a normal life. Do people worry that this is going to come back?

KELLY KASULIS: Absolutely. Pretty much every health care worker or, you know, virologists, epidemiologists I've spoken with is very concerned about a second massive outbreak or some kind of large infection cluster. And that's just because of the nature of this virus. Be quite frank. It seems to be extremely contagious. And it takes just one irresponsible or unknowing citizen to cause, you know, another mass spread. What we saw in South Korea is actually one person who's now become insurnace, who is referred to as Patient 31 or the super spreader. This person went to a massive church congregation after exhibiting some coronavirus symptoms and ended up causing an outbreak that is about today responsible for nearly 70 percent of all cases in South Korea. So that's how quickly this can become a problem and the worry is still there.

MG: In some ways we're talking to you from the future. I mean, this is where we hope to get to in weeks or months ahead. What's one thing that we should know about that path?

KELLY KASULIS: You know, I really hope that this is the future path for many countries out there. Unfortunately, I think some other nations like the United States or parts of Europe are lacking the resources and the preparation to get in this spot anytime soon. One thing I can just say is, you know, don't drop your caution. Don't ease up too quickly. This was definitely a concern here and still is that people are getting a little too comfortable with the idea that, you know, we've passed the worse of this. And that's really all I can say. It's really unfortunate what's happening globally and I wish everyone the best for sure.

MG: Kelly, it's great to talk to you. Stay well. Thank you.

KELLY KASULIS: Thank you. Take care.

MG: Kelly Kasulis is as a freelance reporter. We reached her in Seoul, South Korea.

[Music]

Tom Power in conversation with Ruth Cuthand

Guests: Tom Power, Ruth Cuthand

MG: It's The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. Extended edition of the program, which means we welcome back once again, Mr. Tom Power, the host of Q. Hello, Tom.

TOM POWER: Matt, how are you? How was your week?

MG: You know, it was filled with nothing. Yourself?

TOM POWER: I heard, I saw on Twitter that you watched a classic movie with your family. Is that right?

MG: We watched Alien.

TOM POWER: How did that go?

MG: It was great. Kids thought it was a little dull at the beginning. And then, you try and hype these things up, this is a wonderful movie and they might have different expectations. But yeah, nothing like being stuck all together watching a movie about people stuck in a spaceship and some horrible thing that is threatening their lives.

TOM POWER: Makes you appreciate what you have on Earth I think.

MG: Indeed. Yourself? You had a good weekend?

TOM POWER: I had a pretty good weekend. You know, I kind of chilled out. I watched a lot of television. I continued my running jaunt.

MG: Which you could read about in The Globe and Mail.

TOM POWER: That's what a poor athlete I am, Matt, that when I start running, it's national news.

MG: They need something to fill the sports pages with these things.

TOM POWER: That's the expectation placed upon me. Well, you know, he's running. God, it's such big news. We've got to cover it.

MG: What are you going to tell us about today?

TOM POWER: Well, I thought you'd never. I'm going to tell you about Governor General award-winning artist from Saskatchewan, Ruth Cuthand. Her Trading Series of beadwork looks at illnesses brought by settlers in North America. And she's doing bead work representations of COVID-19. The strangest thing I find when I looked at her work and when I spoke to her about her work, was looking at these viruses, looking at these illnesses that are killing people, that are affecting us right now. Looking at her depictions of them and finding them quite beautiful. Here's my conversation with her.

SOUNDCLIP

TOM POWER: There's one virus, of course, that's on everyone's mind these days, but you've been doing beaded depictions of viruses for years. I understand there was a specific moment that started just doing that.

RUTH CUTHAND: Oh, yes. I was teaching beating at First Nations University of Canada on campus, and I was really enjoying it. So I ordered some beads for myself. And when they came, I was looking at them. I was laying them out on the floor and the sun was shining through the window. And they were dealy mean there was a depth to the colour. There were so beautiful. And I thought, you know, when settlers came and traded for beads, the indigenous women mustered just like I felt like I did in that moment, just in all of them. And so I started thinking about trade and I started thinking about the upside of trade. And then I started thinking about the downside of trade. And of course, the big one was disease and the diseases that came from the old world to the new world. And so I thought, well, I'm going to do some research and find out what these diseases were. And I did a Google image search and I found these beautiful microscopic viruses. And they're so abstract and they're so beautiful and so I started to bead them.

TOM POWER: And like you study these viruses, I mean, you've done like bubonic plague and cholera and chickenpox and scarlet fever. You study these viruses before you bead them, right?

RUTH CUTHAND: Oh, yeah, I do lots of research. I figure out where they came from and it's really interesting because a lot of the diseases in the old world were from people sharing spaces with their animals and so there's crossover between animals and humans and disease. And then that's why when they came to the new world, indigenous people didn't have domesticated animals that they lived with. So there was no transmission between animal and human and so that's why it decimated the population.

TOM POWER: I don't know how to say this because everything you said just is so devastating. Right? And yet when I look at the beads, when I look at these diseases, these things you beaded, they're they're they're devastating. They're awful diseases, but they're quite beautiful to look at, if you know what I mean.

RUTH CUTHAND: Yeah, that's the beads. They're so beautiful and shiny and ugh they just suck you right in. And then you're looking at these beautiful abstracted images and then you realize that it's a microscopic view of a virus and then you're repelled by it, but it's still beautiful.

TOM POWER: What does the coronavirus look like to you?

RUTH CUTHAND: I've been looking at different views of the coronavirus and so there's like two views that they use. And it is from two different kinds of electronic microscopes. One is just the little round ones that you will see, especially on CBC. They'll show like, you know, little round ones. And that's just like an outside view and it'll be like near cells or something like that. And then the other one you see is the knobbly one. So you can see the little knobs are what attached to a cell and it works its way into a cell and then it uses the energy to replicate itself.

TOM POWER: So how does that change the way you see it in particular, like when you were making a bead design of the coronavirus, what do you have in mind?

RUTH CUTHAND: Well, I really like the round flat views because they're kind of like a skin, like a cross-section of the virus. And so you can see what's inside that outer shell. And I like those because I dislike the way the colours. I think they're gorgeous.

TOM POWER: Visually speaking then how does COVID-19 compare with other viruses you've beaded?

RUTH CUTHAND: Well, you know, when you're down at the microscopic level, there's very few shapes either round or oblong for like syphilis or like a screw. You know, they all twist and turn. Or like cholera is like a oval shape, but it has coming off it. So when you get down to that level, there's only a few shapes. They're actually fairly boring until they're coloured.

TOM POWER: I wanted to ask you about this. Dr. Theresa Tam, the chief public health officer of Canada, has said that First Nations communities are at particular risk for COVID-19. How do you see the coronavirus impacting First Nations communities around you in Saskatchewan?

RUTH CUTHAND: Well, like most reserves, we have a really poor housing. And I was given a statistic which is really alarming to me, that the square footage cost of a house on a reserve is $72 a square foot, whereas if you live in the city, it's about $200 a square foot. So you can immediately see that housing is inferior and it's inadequate and you have extended family living in one house and then you have problems with water and black mould. You've got all those problems. And then if one person gets COVID, it will just be a disaster.

TOM POWER: How is your family doing?

RUTH CUTHAND: My family is OK. We all live in the city. My daughter lives in a group home and that's all shut down and I can't visit her. So I'm trying to set up Skype.

TOM POWER: That's good. I mean, thank God for Zoom and Skype and all these things we can try to talk to one another, hey.

RUTH CUTHAND: Yeah.

TOM POWER: tThank you so much for talking to me today and I really loved looking at your strangely beautiful depictions of these deadly viruses. Thank you so much for them.

RUTH CUTHAND: OK. Thank you.

TOM POWER: You take care. Bye bye.

MG: Tom Power in conversation with the artist Ruth Cuthand. Well, coming up in six minutes on The Current, remember climate change, that other existential crisis that we all face? My next guest wrote a novel about the end of the world. It's now being called the perfect read for this pandemic. Coming up after the news, I'll speak with the author Jenny Offill about her fantastic new novel and the genre of climate change literature. Why people are writing about these crises now while we're in the midst of them. Stay tuned for that. I'm Matt Galloway. This is an extended edition of The Current on CBC Radio One. We'll be right back.

[Music]

Author Jenny Offill on what the pandemic might teach us about climate change

Guests: Jenny Offill

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, he's in movies and now he's recommending a few. Hear from the actor, Jay Baruchel. Coming up in our next half hour. But first, talking about Weather.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Her last novel looked at marriage and a marriage in trouble, a crisis behind closed doors. In her latest, Jenny Offill considers how normal life continues when the chaos is outside those doors, when it's the very planet that is in turmoil. Her book, Weather, is being described as a particularly resonant novel now, given the times that we are in. And Jenny Offill joins me from her home in upstate New York. Jenny, good morning.

JENNY OFFILL: Good morning. How are you?

MG: I'm well, thank you for joining us. I'm a big fan and this is a wonderful book and it's been described in many ways as a perfect read for the time that we are in. What has this time been like for you? You're in upstate New York. You lived in New York City for a long time, but now in an area outside of that city. What's this pandemic been like for you?

JENNY OFFILL: Well, I feel like we were a bit of early pandemics here, adopter, so we had the strange experience of sort of seeing it coming down the pike and being very worried about it, partly just because I had friends in Italy that were telling me what was going on there. So in a way, it's just been like watching a terrible wave approach to the shore. On the other hand, we're very lucky to not to live out in that country and not be facing it up close. In the same way that our friends in the city are. But it's been a very it's been a very hard time for everyone. I think so much uncertainty and so much fear.

MG: As I mentioned, people are reading this book now partially because it's out and it's great, but also because of the time that we are in. What do you what do you make of that and why do you think that Weather has been described as, as I said, a fitting book to read during a pandemic?

JENNY OFFILL: Well, maybe for two reasons. I mean, on the one hand, I think that the character Lizzie, who's the narrator of the novel, as she goes through the course of her life, she's starting to see that things are more interconnected than she imagined. And at first that's sort of alarming to her because she thinks, oh, God, do I have to worry about the whole world? I think this pandemic has in a very acute way made us realise how interconnected we are. You can't go to the grocery store now without thinking about all the people involved in putting food on the shelves and the people checking you out and all of those sort of things. The other thing about why people maybe reading it is there's quite a bit of disaster psychology in it. It's something the character becomes interested in. And one of the things that I think crosses over is in general, humans would rather wait till the last minute so that they don't embarrass themselves by being alarmist. So it's true with climate change and the maths and science that tells us about that. And it was too much to a big extent with the pandemic numbers coming in.

MG: Lizzie becomes obsessed with with these techniques that she or her family might need in a worst case, kind of end of the world scenario. Is that something that you identify with?

JENNY OFFILL: I do. To some extent, I feel like when I began the novel, I was I don't know if you call peppers in Canada, but I became obsessed sort of with learning about what the peppers were stockpiling and what skills they were saying people needed. So by the end of of writing the novel, I really was much more interested in in what I thought of as like emotional and spiritual prepping, which was how do you build resilience in yourself and in your children to deal with what will probably be kind of a set of rolling disasters where one ends, but then another starts down the road. And what kind of skills do we need for that?

MG: What did you learn about the preppers and who these people are? I want to talk about both the, you know, the practical and the emotional resilience, but who are these people?

JENNY OFFILL: Well, they're becoming more varied, but in general, peppers in America, a kind of end up on the right wing spectrum, they're often very afraid of government takeover or or they're xenophobic or worried about really any changes in American society that they think is different than when they grew up. So it skews older and whiter. As since the election of Trump, there has been a whole new set of people that have started to, because of climate change and because of fears of increasing authoritarianism, started to put away more stuff. But in general, the the idea of it is people who go often to the American West and live in a very remote place with their families doing drills for when ever the whatever terrible thing is going to happen. Some of them were prepared for a pandemic. I know it wasn't on my apocalypse bingo card, but it was it was on many peoples. But the climate change preppers in general tend to be much more like organic farmers or people that are interested in saving seeds or things like that. They're the ones that are usually thinking about our food systems and how to make community work at a local level.

MG: We learn many things through the minds of the preppers, including how to what you can turn your tin of tuna into a candle?

JENNY OFFILL: Yes, but you have use oil packed tuna or it doesn't work.

MG: So not the water pack tuna, you need the good stuff.

JENNY OFFILL: Yeah. But then if you put a little bit of string in it and light it then it can burn as a candle. Also, then you can eat the tuna afterwards.

MG: This is useful information.

JENNY OFFILL: This is useful information. I find that one of the the pandemic things was that all of these little moments came back because I don't know people are sort of obsessed with, you know, the availability of food and if you can get food and so my mother called me up the other day and said, I hear you can make yeast out of raisins and I thought that seems like a fact that would be in my book.

MG: Something you wish you hadn known perhaps when you're writing it.

JENNY OFFILL: Exactly.

MG: You mentioned the emotional resilience that I mean we're all being tested right now. And we are finding that the things that we took for granted have disappeared or been put on hold. And the first couple of weeks, well, we'll go on to the balcony and sing songs and cheer ourselves up. And by week five or six, you feel a lot heavier. What did you learn about how that emotional resilience can be developed?

JENNY OFFILL: Well, I think part of it is it's a tricky balance between not being too hopeful and not being too despairing. There's sort of a a famous story about Admiral Stockdale and how he was asked about prisoners of war and who did the best. And he said that the most optimistic ones would say, well, we'll be out by Christmas, we'll be out by Easter. And then those days would come and they wouldn't be let out. And they would feel kind of crushing despair. So one of the things about emotional resilience, I think, is an ability to take things on a short timescale and try to do what you think is right according to your ideas of integrity and kindness and compassion within that timeframe. But also, I think to one of the things I learned in the disaster psychology is that helping others tends to reframe our sense of an emergency, because then we're not the victims and we can see ourselves as helpers or rescuers. No, I find that as I go further into it, I need to do more things that aren't just about protecting my family. To feel that I have any kind of, I don't know, emotional buoyancy because it is very exhausting. And I think pandemic is probably would be higher on those stress lists that therapists make. It's got to be right there at the top.

MG: The disaster that you're writing about, I mean, is this it's the existential crisis that we're all facing, which is climate change. And we're seeing you talked about how you wrote this book, in part not to address what you were doing, but what you weren't doing in some ways and what you weren't thinking about. Tell me a bit more about that.

JENNY OFFILL: Well, I have a good friend who's worked for years, she's a novelist, Lydia Millet, but also an environmentalist. And over just a decade of conversations, she would talk to me about coming extinctions and biodiversity loss. And I took all this in and it was very interesting to me, but I just realized a certain point that I didn't I wasn't having an emotional reaction to an adult, nor was I changing anything I did. And I got kind of curious about my lack of curiosity. And and then another piece of the puzzle is that I started to hear that long term environmentalists were kind of walking away from the court saying it was too late and that that just as a novelist, I thought, what would make someone do that and what would make someone like me who's been in what I think of as kind of a twilight state of knowing where you, you know, that something dire is going on, but you're not looking directly at it. What would make someone like that kind of step more into the knowledge of what needed to be done? And and that's how I kind of devised the narrative here.

MG: What do you think when we're trying to understand something as enormous and terrifying as climate change, what is it that literature can do? You're seeing, you know, is now kind of an emergence of a number of novels that will address it in either a direct way or in kind of a roundabout way. What is it that that literature can do to help us understand that challenge, that other things can't?

JENNY OFFILL: Well, I think the non-fiction writers have been doing an amazing job for years of helping us understand the immensity of the problem and also why it's so difficult to to take in and comprehend. I think what what fiction can do, at least what I was hoping to do in this novel, is that because the scales of it are sort of not human and they don't feel very understandable to us. I mean, something like pandemic moves quickly. But climate change is it is a slow emergency. And I felt like if in a novel you can take people into a particular set of lives and show people going about their daily lives with these existential concerns, a kind of flickering in and out. And I think that's the way most of us live. And I wanted to create it so that you could read for quite a while and the story about Lizzie and her family and her brothers recovering from addiction. And she has other things that she's concerned with. But then as she increasingly learns the climate change information through the podcast she's working on, it comes in more and more. And she begins to feel like I mean, one of the things in the book is there's just a line that says a young person worry, what if nothing I do matters, old person worry, what if everything I do does? And I think that fiction can kind of allow you the imaginative space to think about ideas that are hard to think about within the context of a life that is recognizable.

MG: She also says, I keep wondering how we might channel all of this dread into action. Is that something you want your readers to ask themselves as well?

JENNY OFFILL: I hope so. Just because in my own experience, that's that's been one of the few things that that did sort of take away the me feeling. And I do think that with climate change, so many of us are kind of in our own silos of dread worrying about it, but not sure what to do. And I know that for for me, one of the things that was helpful as I got to the end of the novel is figuring out who is doing interesting things, how to help, how to do collective things. Bill McKibben has been speaking about climate issues all these years. He he was saying that he's asked all the time, what can I do as an individual? And what he says is the best thing you can do as an individual is to be part of a community. So I think that everyone can find what it is. What area is this problem which is vast, that they want to get involved in? Some for some people, it's food. For some people, it's dealing with questions of environmental racism or education. But but I think the idea that maybe we don't do it alone, that we join with others to do it is important at this point because it's we've been sold a bit of a bill of goods that it's all about individual responsibility when actually I think there's been disinformation campaigns, of course, for years about trying to get people to not believe in the science and now that they do more. I think now we have to figure out how do we join together to put political pressure on the fossil fuel industry.

MG: There's a word that's used in the book, solastalgia. What is that?

JENNY OFFILL: That is the longing for home while you are still home. And what that it was coined by a philosopher, Glenn Albrecht, and he was saying that he was I believe it was in Scotland. He was talking to people who'd lived all their life in one place. But the land that they loved had been so changed by industry and so many of the features they'd love to have been gone now that they actually, even though they were home, were feeling a nostalgic for what was gone. And I think a lot of us feel that it may be that you're used to more snow and you have a winter that has less snow and you feel a sort of strange sense that, well, other years we were outside in the snow, or it may be that things are blooming in the wrong seasons or that you don't see the bird used to see as much around because it's moved further north. I think that we're all feeling these kind of almost new ranges of of of emotion that are kind of combined states. Like that's basically nostalgia and dread.

MG: How did, you used to live in the city and how has moving to the country shaped not just how you write and what you write about, but how you see what you're talking about? Nostalgia, dread, but also the fight against climate change.

JENNY OFFILL: Well, it's funny because I feel like in it when you live in New York, there's a there's a different kind of nostalgia, which I'm the writer Luc Sante called angry nostalgia, which is that we walk by and you say like that used to be like the punk rock club and now it's you know, now it's selling fancy hats. You know and you're just like so angry that different things have disappeared. But in living where I do, I feel like I have a lot. I'm a sort of person who is not that aware of my physical environment. I notice mostly people and people's gestures and the nuances of how they seem to be thinking and feeling. So it's quite interesting to when I walk out of my house, not have that information, not have human information right at my doorstep, but instead have the natural world. And it's been a slow process. But I realised that they actually talk about this in some studies. They've done that. The reason they think that nature is restorative to people is that it allows you to have a they called a soft focus, soft fascinations. So trees and greenery and all those things allow you to gaze at things without being sort of trapped and trying to figure them out like you do with people. So I have more a lot more soft fascinations these days, and that's been good for my writing.

MG: You talked about how you're kind of coping with the time that we're in right now. Can you just briefly tell me about these letters that you and your daughter are writing.?

JENNY OFFILL: Well, she's keeping a pandemic journal and she's been doing and illustrating it, but one of the things that I've been looking for is because of the fear of passing on so many people in nursing homes. And also, I think in some children's hospitals, they no longer can have visitors. So what we've been doing is writing letters, which are sort of generally addressed. And then you take a picture of them and send it to the place. There's some organizations that do this and then the nursing home prints it out and gives it to particular residents. So it's sort of a way to just, I think, say in a way you might write people that are being held in a detention centre who are refugees. Anything like that where people are feeling forgotten and forsaken. I think just to let people know that they're being thought of and that their situation is is being recognised as a very difficult one. So that's what we're. It's just a small thing that we've been doing.

MG: That's an amazingly generous thing to do.

JENNY OFFILL: Well, thank you. Well, I've been I've been struggling a little bit because most of my ideas of what to do for community don't work right now. So I don't bring food over to people and I don't work at a soup kitchen right now because I'm also my parents are older and live down the road. So I have to be very careful about about this. The concerns about the pandemic, but yeah, I think all of us are trying to figure out what to do and all these mutual aid societies that have sprung up. The one thing I wish that would come out of this, you know, immense tragedy is that some of these mutual aid things in the sense that we need to rebuild our social fabric and make it more resilient. If we could take some of what we've learned here and it would be equally applicable, I think to climate change.

MG: I hope people read this book because not just for the time that we're in, it's a fantastic novel, but it does get you thinking about who we are and what happens if you confront those challenges that are in front of us. Jenny, thank you.

JENNY OFFILL: Thank you so much for having me.

MG: It's a real pleasure. Jenny Ofill is the author of several books. Her latest novel is called Weather. It's been long listed for the prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction. A winner will be announced for that on the 9th of September.

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. These are difficult times. You know, the news is really heavy, particularly this morning. This Friday, we are dedicating our show to stories that have brought us some joy. We would love to hear from you. Tell us something good. Tell us what has brought you a moment of happiness and hope. Maybe you've read something. Maybe like Jenny, you're doing something like that, writing letters to people who could use a little bit of contact. How are you staying sane in this pandemic? Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC, comment on our Facebook page or email us. And if you're able to, send us a voice message. That's the best thing. Go to cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link and you'll find our email address there. And let us know what has brought you some joy in this dark moment. Tell us something good. As I say, cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link and we will load up Friday's show with a lot of that goodness. We've been asking for your music recommendations, songs that are bringing you a bit of comfort. Kathryn Ritz in New Hamburg, Ontario wrote You have been joining me every morning in my sewing room as I make masks and hospital gowns for our local senior care residents where my 94-year-old father-in-law lives. You asked for a good song for these times. How about a little bit of Bob Marley. I keep singing this song to my husband because he tends to be a worrier. "Three Little Birds" is the name of the song. The refrain, "every little thing's gonna be all right," it's kind of a good reminder for these times. Here's a bit of Bob Marley recommended by one of our listeners, Kathryn Ritz in New Hamburg, Ontario.

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[Song: "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley]

MG: I feel better already. A little Bob Marley, courtesy of Kathryn Ritz. Thank you for that suggestion. What music is helping ease your anxiety? Let us know, cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. For listeners in Newfoundland and Labrador, Cross-talk is up next. Everyone else, hang tight. We're back in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

Tom Power in conversation with Jay Baruchel

Guests: Tom Power, Jay Baruchel

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One, my name's Matt Galloway. Hello, Tom Power, host of Q.

TOM POWER: Matt Galloway, how are you, my friend? Host of The Current on CBC Radio One.

MG: Everything is alright. Thank you. You have a conversation with somebody who is very proud of where he comes from.

TOM POWER: Jay Baruchel. You know, you might know him from movies like Knocked Up and How to Train your Dragon. You know, actor, comedian, screenwriter. He was on Popular Mechanics for Kids. He has a maple leaf tattooed on his chest.

MG: For real?

TOM POWER: True life, a real maple. Well not a real maple leaf. A drawing of a maple leaf. And now he's the new ambassador for a thing called Made New, which is this national initiative celebrating the works of Canadian creators. Essentially, he's saying that if you're home watching television, why watch Love Island or another Netflix show about, you know, people canoodling? Why not watch a Canadian show? A Canadian movie? And he has.

MG: Canoodling.

TOM POWER: It's 1923, Matt, I don't know if you knew that.

MG: Please continue.

TOM POWER: He's been hosting these virtual road trips that people have actually thought were real road trips and got quite mad at him. Virtual road trips, celebrating Canadian film and television. And he has some pics. Take a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

TOM POWER: How are you?

JAY BARUCHEL: I'm well, thanks. How are you, Tom?

TOM POWER: Not too bad. Where are you?

JAY BARUCHEL: I'm in Toronto.

TOM POWER: Oh, yeah? In the house?

JAY BARUCHEL: Yes, indeed. Yes currently in our in our little in hermetically sealed fortress and on day 700 of pyjama pants, which is absolutely fine by me. I'll be sad, sad to see that part of it go.

TOM POWER: I said to someone the other day sitting on my couch watching TV, eating chips and have the prime minister telling me I'm doing a good job every single day is every millennial's dream. I'm all about it.

JAY BARUCHEL: This so depressing that this is my Juno Beach. But you know, future generations will stand, will sit on the shoulders of where we sat during this time.

TOM POWER: You're here because you're on a road trip, a virtual road trip. What does that mean?

JAY BARUCHEL: So, yeah, it's been this kind of a really neat thing. So for anybody who knows who I am, it's no surprise that my film nerdiness is equalled only by my, well, earnest patriotism. And so when they sort of approached me and said we're gonna need an ambassador to do point people in the direction of some some good Canadian stuff, I leapt at the opportunity on the on the condition that I got to help pick some of the things that we were going to point people in direction of. And so it's been this kind of really neat. I hate to use hokey terms like conversation, but that's what it's been because they showed up with a list of content that they had flagged. I showed up with the list of stuff that I thought important and worth kind of nudging people towards and between that and the actual doing it on Twitter, people are firing back for every suggestion we make, people are firing back three to five of their own. And so what's ended up happening is this kind of really neat open convo. And at the very least, people are now knowing about things that they might not have otherwise ever heard of.

TOM POWER: Jay, I want something from you here. I want two things from you. I'll start out with like a recommendation to Canadians listening to this right now to watch while they're at home.

JAY BARUCHEL: That's I've done so many. But I think a real great kind of intro starter kit would be watching Dark Side of the Ring on Crave right now. I'm Ientirely biased because some of my best friends in the world make that show. But I think it's straddles a line that I didn't know existed between true crime and in wrestling documentaries. And it ends up just being vital, colourful, beautiful entertainment. I'd also point people in directions of a flick that I discovered called Dry Lenders, which is, yeah, it's a movie that would make Burgmann be like God, this is just brutal and depressing and but it's incredibly truthful and honest and real. But actually here I know you asked me for one, I'm giving you three. The most important Canadian film of all time is The Fast Runner. This is as important and profound a work of cinema that has ever been made anywhere, let alone in our country. And it is quite telling that so few people here know about it because it sort of doesn't exist in are our sort of binary to solitudes understanding of what Canadian cinema is.

TOM POWER: Zacharias Kunuk incredible, incredible movie.

JAY BARUCHEL: Indeed. Indeed. And a movie that is terribly referenced aesthetically, stylistically, tonally in a lot of much bigger, more successful, more famous films, but it's a special thing.

TOM POWER: What is a new discovery? What's something you didn't know about going into this project that you've seen that's a Canadian film that you've loved.

JAY BARUCHEL: Oh, yeah, absolutely would be The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open. That is, that's a pretty that's a pretty important work in cinema right there. In addition to just being honest, truthful, blemished and entirely devoid of vanity, it's as authentic, a bit of sort of truth as you can find in any cinema, but in addition to that, it is a beautiful looking film that is an astounding technological achievement. I think in the entirety of the film, I think I flagged a total of maybe four to six shots in the entire thing. In fact, from the point that the two lead characters meet each other, the thing doesn't cut. And so this camera just lives with these characters and it winds through neighbourhoods and Vancouver. Goes into taxis, goes in from apartments to apartments and not in this showy way where you're ever aware that this is some sort of wanky extended take the fact that you don't notice it is a testament to how impactful it is. Really, really special film.

TOM POWER: Really incredible film. We had the director not that long ago to talk about it. It's amazing. That's The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open. We'll put all of Jay's picks on our Twitter page @CBCRadioQ. I don't mean to be glib here, but I demolished a family size bag of dill pickle chips yesterday. What's your go to snack while you're watching all these films?

JAY BARUCHEL: Good question. Well, it changes depending on how close we are to when we went to the store last. So I've been, but I'll be I'll be honest, my sort of go to the kind of taste rhythm I've gotten into as of late., I've been I've returned to the land of bologna and mustard. I was raised on fried bologna and mustard and boy, it seems to be keeping corona at bay for me.

TOM POWER: You and I are speaking the same language. Thick cut bologna, a bit of mustard and a few beans. That's on the Newfoundland flag, I believe.

JAY BARUCHEL: That's it. Nothing else. A cup of tea and a bologna sandwich and I could fight 20 men, Tom.

TOM POWER: Jay Baruchel, thanks a lot for talking to us today.

JAY BARUCHEL: Thank you for having me, buddy. See you soon. Stay safe.

MG: Tom Power in conversation with the comedian Jay Baruchel. And those film picks will be up on the Q Twitter feed. That is it for The Current for today. It's been a difficult morning for many people across this country, including, obviously, and especially our friends in Nova Scotia. Our hearts are with you this morning. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Take care of yourselves and we'll talk tomorrow.

[Music: Theme]

The Current Transcript for April 20, 2020

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Amid COVID-19, rural N.S. mayor vows to support families of shooting victims 'by whatever means we have'

He thought he was invincible. Now this Ontario man is recovering after COVID-19 put him on a ventilator

Questions about COVID-19 answered by Dr. Allison McGeer

Vancouver woman moves into her mother’s seniors residence

Canadians weigh in on the federal government’s plan to clean up orphan wells

Lessons to learn from Spain, Austria and South Korea about life after lockdown

Tom Power in conversation with Ruth Cuthand

Author Jenny Offill on what the pandemic might teach us about climate change

Tom Power in conversation with Jay Baruchel

Apr. 20, 2020 episode transcript

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