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The Current Transcript for August 18, 2021

Host: Anthony Germain

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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I am confident the new vaccine requirements on campus will keep people on campus safe and give students, faculty and staff the confidence they need for a successful return to campus.

ANTHONY GERMAIN: early morning lectures, late nights at the campus pub and questionable cafeteria food. It is time to get back to class Canada. But just one question first. Are you vaccinated? The patchwork policies of post-secondary institutions across the country are under the microscope as universities and colleges get ready for in-person learning once again. And later this morning,

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We heard gunshots. Suddenly, the entire airport staff, including the security, they left the airport. I have spoken against Taliban for so many years. And if they catch me here, that would be the end of me.

AG: An impossible situation for one woman. And it's the same story for thousands of others. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is creating a refugee crisis that the world just can't ignore. That story in 30 minutes. Also this morning, we will bring you episode two of the CBC podcast. Recall How to start a Revolution. It will take you back to the October crisis, the crimes, the politics, the intrigue all through the voices of those who lived through it. But we begin with higher education and vaccination requirements. I'm Anthony Germain in St. Johns, sitting in for Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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Students are preparing to go back to campus — but will it require a vaccine?

Guests: Debra Parkes, Darshan Daryanani

AG: Well, sitting in a giant lecture hall often induces surreptitious desk naps rather than excitement, but it might be more thrilling than usual for post-secondary students to actually head to class in September. After months of online learning, in order to get the thrill of academia, they may have to prove that they've been vaccinated. Universities and colleges across the country have been announcing their own plans over the past few weeks on who needs to be vaccinated to be allowed back on campus and who doesn't. In B.C. yesterday, provincial health officer Bonnie Henry announced that in order to live in residence or grab a beer at the campus pub, you will need to have had the jab. But not if you just want to go to class.

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We know that the classroom setting is not the risky setting, and it's incredibly important that we don't put barriers in place for people receiving education, and that includes post-secondary education. So it is a balancing that we have had of where the risk is. And the risk really is in communal living settings that we have seen transmission particularly of covid. And that's why we're focussing on the increased and the importance of immunisation in those settings.

AG: Well, that approach has some concerned about the safety of B.C. higher learning. Deborah Parks is a professor at the University of British Columbia's Peter, a school of law, and she is in Vancouver. Hello.

DEBRA PARKES: Good morning.

AG: So what do you think of BC's decision not to require mandatory vaccinations for everyone on campus?

DEBRA PARKES: Well, it concerns me, actually. It's for one this the. Announcement yesterday comes very late in the day for us, other universities and other provinces have been moving forward with plans much earlier with respect to post secondary secondary education. I am. We have an incoming orientation for law students next week and I'm scheduled to teach to 200 incoming law students in a lecture hall. So, yeah. So given what we know about the high risk of transmission of the Delta variant, the nature of university teaching, one of my classes that I teach this term goes for three hours in a small classroom. It's a seminar. And the the effectiveness of the vaccination, what we know about all that, I think means that it's necessary to have a combination of vaccination requirement and masking in university classrooms this year.

AG: I notice that that masks are also going to be required. How much comfort do you do you take from that?

DEBRA PARKES: Well, certainly, you know, masks do I mean, again, I'm not a I'm not an expert in the science, but what I understand is that the masks do provide an additional layer of protection and, you know, and from from transmission. But obviously, none of these things are perfect. And certainly the with the Delta variant, even people who are vaccinated, I do recognise and see from the evidence that we've been we've been getting over the last while people who are vaccinated can still get the virus and pass it on, obviously at much lower levels than people who are unvaccinated. But that's why I think even with the vaccination requirement, masking should be required in classrooms. But but we have now a rule at at UBC, it seems, and at the at the British Columbia universities. And this is the difference with B.C. as opposed to the other provinces, is that we've had very strong direction from the public health office that hasn't, as it seems, permitted or wanted to allow individual universities or post-secondary education, education institutions to to set their own standards or rules in this regard, which is very different from from what you've seen in Ontario and in the other provinces.

AG: We'll get back to that in a bit. But, you know, obviously, you think that there should be mandatory, as you made the case off the top of this interview, we did hear Bonnie Henry suggest mandatory vaccination could be a barrier dedication. I almost want to ask the lawyer in you, you know, how do you respond to that?

DEBRA PARKES: Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's a really serious point. And I do very much appreciate the way that Dr Henry has handled things with the pandemic, with a real eye on people who might be marginalised and concerns around enforcement and who would be the the the the ones on the on the hard end of those kinds of enforcement measures. With respect to education, I don't think this would be denying anyone an education, certainly requiring proof of vaccination with accommodations for those who cannot be vaccinated, for medical or other grounds protected by the British Columbia Human Rights Code, such as religion doesn't deny students an education. What we've also seen at other universities that have implemented these policies is that they've provided that those who do not get vaccinated, perhaps for their objections to the vaccine, they will have to undergo regular rapid testing as an alternative to still be promoting the best environment that we can for protecting those of those amongst us who are vulnerable. I have a I have a 10 year old daughter who can't be vaccinated, and I'm going into that classroom. I don't want to be even though I am fully vaccinated, I don't want to be exposing her indirectly to more potential transmission.

AG: So that's the mom. And you afraid of bringing it back home, right? Yeah. Yeah. What I find interesting talking to Professor Parks is, you know, I look at UBC and it's kind of know and I look at McGill kind of know here Memorial University is kind of. Yes, you have is. Yes. What do you make about the patchwork?

DEBRA PARKES: Well, I mean, I think, you know, I do have a lot of sympathy for decision makers in this regard. I mean, we're living in a pandemic and the data does change the science. We learn more about how these you know, how the the the virus is transmitted, the variants and all of that. But I do think that it is incumbent on universities themselves to protect their communities. And they do this in all sorts of ways. And so, you know, so the fact that it's taken so long and here in B.C. that the universities haven't, it seems been been able to act, or at least I don't actually see a legal barrier. I've looked hard at the you know, the various legislation that governs universities. And I'd be interested to know and I haven't heard an argument, there's a specific piece of legislation or a rule that means that the universities couldn't in British Columbia couldn't have acted earlier. But there is very strong direction. And I do yet again in B.C. it's good to have strong science, informed direction from our our public health office. But with classes coming in literally next week in the law school, this is very late for us to be making trying to to figure out how we're going to protect our communities. And this should have been done earlier.

AG: I know that you're not alone. Are you getting any response from UBC's administration about this this pushback by you and other profs about, hey, like what's taking so long?

DEBRA PARKES: Well, you know, there's been a lot of efforts made by, you know, various faculty members and there's been petitions and various kinds of things. And I know that there's been a lot of work by our administrators, locally in the different departments and faculties working very hard on these issues. And but what we have been hearing and there was a memo that went to the universities in earlier this spring from the public health office saying that they should not act on their own. We did have very recently our president of UBC, Dr Santa Ono, who did put out a memo this is just last week, though, saying that he did want to have more protection and was was I mean, it was not entirely clear, but about mask mandate for sure and and perhaps a vaccination mandate. But now we have this situation where it's you have to be vaccinated to be in the pub, but not in a class.

AG: Professor Parkes, have to leave it there. Thanks for your time. Appreciate that. I know it's early.

DEBRA PARKES: Thank you.

AG: All right. Thank you. That's Deborah Parke's. She's a professor of law at the University of British Columbia's Peter Allen School of Law. Well, UBC is not the only school that won't be asking all students to show their vaccination certificates. Darshan.

Daryanani is president of the Students Society at McGill University. Now, McGill is also not requiring students to be vaccinated in order to go to class. Good morning.

DARSHAN DARYANANI: Good morning, thank you for having me.

AG: Pleasure to meet you on the radio. You heard Professor Parks make the case for mandatory vaccination. Where do you stand on this?

DARSHAN DARYANANI: Right, I would like to thank Professor Parks for bringing up multiple great points, and especially on how the university has an obligation to ensure that the community is safe and that the lack of planning is, quite frankly, very disappointing for us as a student union.

AG: Well, what's most disappointing about it?

DARSHAN DARYANANI: Well, I think just the general lack of everything, there's lack of clarity, lack of accommodations, the overall sentiment around care, emotional support, mental health support, remote accommodations is just not there. And that's what we're looking for as a student union, to put students first, to put the safety of students first as well.

AG: So, Darshan, in that case, what would a vaccine mandate that's equitable, sensible and inclusive, what would that look like to you?

DARSHAN DARYANANI: Right, That's a great question. So I think for that, it's important to consider two questions. One, as what is a vaccine mandate going to do? And second is what is the composition of the university that we have? So the vaccine mandate is one that's going to ensure that students are safe. However, is this one that's inclusive. And that brings me to the question on what our composition is and will we have one third of the university that's international? This means that thousands of students have received vaccines that are from China and Russia, which are not recognised here in Canada. Will the vaccine mandate ensure that students from China and Russia or those that receive these vaccines will be included in classrooms? And I think being able to receive an education.

AG: And I think some universities have already said they'll make exemptions for those cases who have had vaccines that aren't recognised. I just wanted to share your share. Bonnie Henry's concern about making vaccines. Some people have suggested that it could be a barrier to education. She doesn't seem to think so. What do you think?

DARSHAN DARYANANI: I think overall there are multiple barriers here, but saying something is a barrier and just simply not doing it is not enough to dismantle that barrier. There's a lack of proactiveness for the university to actually make things more equitable and to ultimately remove that barrier. Universities can do research to actually prove that such vaccines can be and should be approved by Canada. There can be advocacy to the government, federal provincial levels to ensure that students vaccines are recognised here.

AG: You know, think often the case, Darshan, universities, you know, sort of look to provincial governments for guidance on major policy decisions. And McGill's administration has said that unless the government of Quebec mandates vaccination for four university students, that it just doesn't have the legal authority to do it. What do you make of that justification?

DARSHAN DARYANANI: Right. So news recently has come that thirty five professors from the faculty of law, as well as the school of population, have all indicated that vaccine mandates are good. And I think I agree that vaccines are, you know, obviously very important. And the science is there to prove that. However, I think it's just very confusing as a student and to know what is actually the correct argument or what is the argument that should be followed. You know, it's confusing when the administration or the faculty say different things.

AG: And you've got McGill, this dynamic university with thousands of foreign students and francophones and anglophones people from all over the world smack in downtown Montreal. Is there is there a unity on this? I mean, are you hearing the same things from students?

DARSHAN DARYANANI: I think ultimately I represent 24,000 students and all of us just want a safe return to campus, one that ensures that we will be able to study well and that our semester won't end halfway through due to the lack of measures or the lack of proaction from the university.

AG: Now, I note that your open letter is also asking for courses to be available online that students should have the right to learn remotely again. Is that really practical? Because it seems to me you're almost asking university like McGill to teach both ways, both in class and online. And having just finished a few courses online, it's a lot of work.

DARSHAN DARYANANI: Right, it's not it's not about practicality, it's about doing the right thing. Students from India are not able to enter McGill until September 21st. They're students that are immunocompromised, international students whose vaccines may not be recognised. How how do we ensure accommodations and tools are provided for them? Well, one way is to ensure that there are mandatory lecture reporting. There's also remote learning materials that are available at all available online. And really, if I may, I may just really question on whether or not it is actually difficult because we did it for 18 months. The courses were reported. It's just a matter of ensuring that recordings continue to exist and that accommodations are made.

AG: Let me ask you a personal question to win this interview down. Darshana, how do you feel personally about going back to school?

DARSHAN DARYANANI: Personally, I am excited. I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm smiling as I say this, and this is because I have a certain amount of trust in the community to do the right thing for everyone to trust the science that we have in vaccines and to ensure that we keep one another safe at the same time as a representative of the student union. I think it's incumbent and a responsibility on the university to provide that physical, mental and emotional care for students to ensure that our learning will be safe.

AG: Well, I can certainly hear the smile and the eagerness to head back to class this fall. Darshana, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you very much.

DARSHAN DARYANANI: Thank you so much for having me.

AG: Darshan Daryanani is president of the Students Society of McGill University. I'm Anthony Germein and this is The Current. Well, as you've likely heard by now, the world has lost a legendary music man. Charlie Watts provided the backbeat for every hit that the Rolling Stones ever recorded. Paint it black, gimme shelter satisfaction. He was the drummer behind all of it. Not flashy, but unquestionably gifted. His publicist announced yesterday that he had died. He was 80 years old and had been with the Stones since 1963. If you hadn't heard his name, that name Charlie Watts. Well, it's kind of on purpose. He preferred to stay away from the media and leave the showbiz stuff to Mick and Keith. And later on Radio One q, guest host Falen Johnson will take a deep dive into his legacy with two people who knew him. For now, though, here's a track where he really shows off his skills. Stones Classic Get off of my Cloud.

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[Song]

AG: Get off of my cCloud. The Rolling Stones, Charlie Watts holding the sticks. The CBC News is next. And then.

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We agreed that we will continue to close our close cooperation to get people out as efficiently and safely as possible. We are currently on a pace to finish by August the 31st.

Joe Biden and the rest of the G-7 are sticking to the end of the month deadline for safe passage at Kabul's main airport. But a refugee crisis could be coming. I'm Anthony Germain and you're listening to The Current.

Potential serious refugee crisis out of Afghanistan; Tim Caulfield on overcoming the anxiety of everyday life

Guest: Elizabeth Ferris, Timothy Caulfield

AG: Hello, I'm Anthony Germain, and you're listening to The Current.

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AG: Still to come, between climate change and covid-19, it has been a stressful summer. We're going to revisit Matt Galloway conversation with Timothy Caulfield on how to cope with anxiety. But first, Afghanistan's refugee crisis is getting bigger and even more urgent.

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AG: That's the voice of Aryana Sayeed one of the most famous singers in Afghanistan. And she has performed at crowds of thousands of people in cities around the world. But with the U.S. military withdrawal looming, she was amongst the thousands crowding the Kabul airport, desperate to escape.

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We get to the airport. We are waiting there to be checked in. And then suddenly around five, six o'clock, we heard gunshots. Suddenly, the entire airport staff, including the security, they left the airport and people were just like running around and they rushed into the planes and suddenly the planes were like filled with thousands of people. I have, you know, very clearly spoken, you know, against Taliban for so many years now. I have posted against them and things like that. And I was literally scared, like, what if they come inside the terminal and if they catch me here, you know, that would be the end of me and my fiancee.

AG: Sayeed and her Canadian fiance, they are now safe in Washington, D.C., but many others are still waiting and hoping for rescue. And with a Taliban warning the evacuation must end by August 31st, there could be a serious refugee crisis looming at the country's land borders. Elizabeth Ferris is vice president of research at the World Refugee and Migration Council and a professor at Georgetown University. Hello.

ELIZABETH FERRIS: Good morning. How are you?

AG: Very well, thank you. Let me start first by getting your reaction to the terrible scenes that we're seeing at the airport in Kabul. What's your analysis of what we're seeing?

ELIZABETH FERRIS: I mean, I think like everybody in the world who's watching these things here, you're filled with despair, frustration, agony, watching desperate people trying to get these last flights out of Kabul, hoping that the deadline for evacuation will be extended. But but not at all confident that that will be the case and thinking of the hundreds of thousands of people who won't be able to get out.

AG: Now, you refer to that not being the case. At the G7 meeting yesterday, there was some pressure to try to continue the evacuation beyond this August 31st deadline. But that looks as though it's not going to happen with the United States sticking to the original deadline. What is that going to mean for for all of the people who are trying to get out?

ELIZABETH FERRIS: Well, it means a couple of things. First of all, we've seen a lot of internal displacement in the past few months in Afghanistan. About half a million people have fled the Taliban's advances across the country, many of them going to Kabul, where they're living in marginal settlements on the outskirts of the city and really desperate. And then you're going to see a rush toward the borders, you know, Pakistan, Iran, other countries. And it'll be interesting. And hopefully those governments will allow Pakistan Afghans to flee. But that's not at all certain. You know, Iran built a new wall along its border. Turkey's, you know, which is not a neighbouring country, has implemented more draconian policies. So I think we're going to see people rushing the border, trying to get out people displaced internally while humanitarian needs inside the country expand exponentially.

AG: And I guess that's where two really important countries that border Afghanistan, China and Pakistan, their decisions on this are going to be critical.

ELIZABETH FERRIS: Absolutely. And Pakistan has hosted Afghan refugees for decades. And there's a certain wariness that grows up in these situations after many, many years of refugees staying and not returning home. So there's, I think, a reluctance to allow large numbers of to enter, even though there is an understandable feeling of solidarity with people fleeing for their lives.

AG: I mean, for people with the familiarity of the terrain and the weather challenges in a in a rugged country like Afghanistan with with infrastructure that's crumbling, we've seen, you know, in the Syria situation, we saw people living in squalid camps and making desperate journeys, you know, in rickety boats. And obviously, that's not going to be the case in Afghanistan. But there's a lot of land to cover and mountains, you know, are we on the verge of of a similar desperate scene in Afghanistan, in your estimation?

ELIZABETH FERRIS: I think we are. And I think that it's time for the international community to come together and develop a collective, rational, strategic response to a meeting. There's immense human needs. No one country can do it alone, can respond on its own. We need a multilateral approach and the U.N. really needs to be front and centre in these efforts.

AG: I'm not sure if all of the same vintage, but I certainly recalls a younger person after Vietnam that the boat people, as we call them, there are huge waves. You know, if we talk about immediate priorities, what are some of the things the international community can do right now to support Afghans who are trying to flee?

ELIZABETH FERRIS: Right now, I mean, I think it's imperative that these evacuations continue as long as possible that people get out safely through airports. No. To provide support to neighbouring countries, to allow refugees to enter, whether they can be resettled to other countries later and on a temporary basis in a number three, to mobilise the necessary funds to support humanitarian efforts inside the country. All of the U.N. agencies, World Food Programme, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, you know, desperately need funds to keep to keep the basic supplies coming in. And there's shortages of medicine and food and supply routes have been cut. So we need to work on that as well. I mean, the World Refugee and Migration Council has called for an appointment of a senior U.N. official to really be the the centre driving force of this collective effort to respond, which is likely to be the greatest humanitarian disaster, catastrophe of the current era.

AG: So much of what you've said just now really highlights the significance and the importance of the airport. What happens once the Taliban take control of the airport in Kabul.

ELIZABETH FERRIS: When you're going to have people who are who are trapped, I mean, I understand there are some possibilities of other airports in the country being used for evacuation. Those all seem quite tentative right now. I think we need to press the Taliban to use every tool at the international community's disposal to for the Taliban to live up to what it said about respecting the rights of people. You know, the early signs are not encouraging the reports of knocks on the door in the middle of the night and people being targeted for their affiliation with Western powers. But, you know, to use the you know, the whole idea of giving recognition to this government, which I think the Taliban want some legitimacy on the international stage and then to use financial means that Afghanistan's desperate for money as an aid dependent country. What happens in that aid goes I mean, a lot of people will suffer if the aid is cut off. But certainly that gives some leverage your bargaining power to Western governments concerned with the human rights situation in the country.

AG: I'm also thinking, Miss Ferris, about the you know, the eventuality when the Taliban controls the airport, when the aid comes in, that means the Taliban controls the aid as well.

ELIZABETH FERRIS: Right. I want your listeners to think a little bit about the difficult situation the U.N. is in. You know, the U.N. humanitarian agencies operate on humanitarian principles of independence, neutrality. They can't be seen to be allied with Western powers or one side in the conflict against another. And so they're in a really tough situation because they're going to have to work with the Taliban in order to ensure that those relief deliveries do get in and are distributed to people in need. So, I mean, I think they're really in a difficult situation and the coming in the coming weeks or months or Lord knows how long this is going to last. But it's not a easy position for humanitarian agencies inside Afghanistan and their work is absolutely vital.

AG: So does that mean that the U.N. almost has to go along with being diplomatic and accepting the notion from the Taliban that that they've changed it?

ELIZABETH FERRIS: You know, any of these humanitarian principles of maintaining your independence also, you know, strong commitment to providing assistance to those most in need on an impartial basis. And many, many situations, the U.N. and other humanitarian agencies have had to negotiate with warring parties to, you know, preserve that independent humanitarian action. It's really tough to do. But but it's happened it is happening in many different countries, whether it's inside Syria, for example, you have sort of a similar situation where humanitarian agencies have to work with the government in order to provide needs.

AG: But they only have 30 seconds to to end this. I just want to ask you one question. You know, the United States, Canada and its allies have been in Afghanistan for for close to two decades. Right. We made relationships with people, thought we were going to improve the place. What troubles you most about what we're seeing now?

ELIZABETH FERRIS: I think we have an obligation to work to support those Afghans who supported us through those years, who believed in the premise of liberal democracy and impartiality and non-discrimination and religious freedom and rights for women. You know, all those things, I think were contributions Western countries made in a somewhat troubled experience in Afghanistan the past two decades. But but we owe it to help those people who believed in us and who worked in us and who are now desperately trying to flee for their lives.

AG: Really appreciate your analysis and insight on this. Thank you so much.

ELIZABETH FERRIS: Thank you.

AG: That's Elizabeth Ferris. She is vice president of research at the World Refugee and Migration Council.

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AG: I'm Anthony Germein, and you are listening to The Current, a wake up check your email, should you apply now or wait until later? Grab a cup of coffee. Oh, wait, there's too much caffeine in that, or is there cereal for breakfast? No, too much sugar. Eggs? No, cholesterol. Every day we make a never ending series of decisions and each one of those decisions has consequences. Timothy Caulfield knows how stressful that can all be, especially when we're being bombarded with messages about which choices are the right ones. He is a Canada research chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta, and he is also author of Relax It A User's Guide to the Age of Anxiety. And Matt Galloway spoke with him in December. Here's their conversation.

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MG: What does science tell us about the right and the wrong way, we'll start at the beginning to wake up in the morning?

TIM CAULFIELD: Well, that's a really good example of where there is a lot of cultural advice about when to wake up, right? It's often portrayed as noble, as virtuous to wake up as early as possible. And you hear about all these successful celebrities that wake up really early. You know, successful businessman Tim Cook from Apple allegedly wakes up ridiculously early. But the reality is more complicated in some respects. And and the bottom line is there is no magical time to wake up. We all have our own our own rhythms. And so in the book, I really argue that we should, you know, kind of ignore ignore all that noise. You know, you're not the rock. You don't need to wake up to do to do bench presses. Really find find your rhythm. We all have a prototype, which is largely genetic. Now, look, I recognize I recognize that we all have jobs and we have kids that take care of. So you have to find a rhythm that works for you. But I really try to make the point that, you know, you can ignore all of that, all of that noise.

MG: For a lot of people, that rhythm and you have it right down to the time in the book, 6:31 a.m., the rhythm involves you're not even out of bed yet, but you grab the phone and you check your phone. Is that a good idea?

TIM CAULFIELD: No, it's not a good idea. Yeah, 80 percent of people look at their phones. I think it's five minutes after they wake up and then a 75 percent check on the toilet. Is that you, Matt? I don't want to know.

MG: I, yeah.

TIM CAULFIELD: Yeah, it's not a good idea. Not a great way to start the day. There's a little evidence. It's hard to study this well, but a little evidence that that kind of obsessive checking stresses us out. Also, you know, you're still waking up and you don't want to have an email controversy as a result of, you know, texting something on the toilet.

MG: Especially before you have a cup of coffee. Now, I love coffee. I've had one and a half cups already this morning. There are some people who would say that's bad. You shouldn't be having any of that coffee at all. Tell me where you fall down on the issue of a delicious beverage like coffee.

TIM CAULFIELD: It is a delicious beverage. Yeah, I've already had one today. And coffee is a fantastic example of how hard it is to do nutritional research, you know, to do it well and how hard it is to report it well. So much of the of the research around nutrition is observational in nature. You know, we haven't done a clinical trial on 100,000 people to tease out how good coffee is. And so we have all these headlines, these definitive headlines, coffee, great for you, coffee, horrible for you. And the reality is, if you look at the body of evidence that it's probably not bad for you and probably a little bit good for you. And we're talking a reasonable amount of coffee to map. We're not talking, you know, half a cup, we're talking, you know, four five cups a day.

MG: That's a reasonable amount of coffee. It's all in the cup of the beholder, I suppose. Now you have your coffee. You also talk in the book about what we put into our bodies, particularly vitamins. You have a haiku about vitamins and vitamin supplements. Would you read that for me?

TIM CAULFIELD: I will. Vitamins, a haiku. Vitamins worth it? A huge industry says yes. Evidence says no/ insurance, you say. Sorry, the pills do not work. Balanced diet, please. Science is ignored. Still, they push for the money. Look expensive pee.

MG: Is that all you get out of vitamin supplements is expensive pee.

TIM CAULFIELD: TIM: Pretty well, pretty well, look, there is, you know, really interesting research going on around things like vitamin D a little less extent, omega-3. But in general, the vitamin industry is not that evidence based. Many vitamins are, in fact, contaminated. There's, you know, you have too many supplements, it can be harmful. So what you want to do is follow, you know, good science based health advice. And if you're found to have some kind of deficiency by an M.D. etc, you know, follow that advice, but do not listen to the vitamin industry.

MG: We are barely out of the kitchen, and yet we've already run through a number of decisions. This book is called Relax, Dammit! Tell me, knowing what you know. And we've spoken a number of times, as I've said earlier, you were debunking sort of scientific quackery, what was the impetus in writing this book now?

TIM CAULFIELD: Well, you know, I have studied misinformation and how pop culture represents science for really decades, and I got the sense that, you know, we always talk about the big things and things like, you know, vaccination hesitancy, incredibly important, climate change, GMOs. But these same forces impact our decisions that we make day to day. So, you know, as you point out, the gimmick is it takes place over a day. And I really look at all those all those decisions and it's kind of an excuse to to look at those social forces, you know, fear mongering, misrepresentation through a new lens and and get a sense of, look, this impacts all of us and, you know, with just a few tools we can we can cut through the noise.

MG: You say that we live in a knowledge era paradox. What does that mean?

TIM CAULFIELD: Well, we've never had so much science as we have right now. We've never had so much access to science as we have right now. You know, you could go on on Google right now. I think he can do it right now. And and you could find studies from the New England Journal of Medicine incredibly easily. Right. And even when I started my my graduate work, you couldn't do that. So but despite all that access, despite all that information, we're still, you know, confused about so many things. In fact, some have argued that it's made it worse because it's created this chaotic information environment where it's more confused and we're more stressed out about our decisions. So there really is this fascinating knowledge paradox.

MG: What is the role of the media in that and in fuelling the anxiety that envelops what should be fairly straightforward decisions?

TIM CAULFIELD: The media plays a big, big role, and this is something that we have studied a lot at the institute. They're often not great. And by the media, I mean, they're sort of broadly speaking, you know, not great at representing science, not great at representing research, but also they're often fear inducing negative headlines, for example, outperform positive ones and fairly consistent finding in research. We have this negativity bias that is cross-cultural. We were just respond to to stress stressful headlines and stressful news stronger. And we remember that stuff. And you've seen that play out with the pandemic also. And that that not only does it stress us out, but it has an adverse impact on our decision making capabilities.

MG: What does it mean in terms of risk? I mean, you write about taking your son skydiving and about the decision to do that. What happened when you made that decision to do that? Because part of this is about the risk that we're comfortable and taking, I mean throughout the book, but also the risk that we put ourselves in front of. So jumping out of an aeroplane is a risky thing to do. What happened when you decided to do that with your son?

TIM CAULFIELD: Yeah, I start the book with that and my in-laws and I hope they don't mind me saying what's in the book though too late now, they were pretty horrified and they weren't horrified that I was doing it. They don't care if I fall to my death. It was taking my 14 year old skydiving that was, you know, irresponsible. How can you be doing that? It's so dangerous. But that's a really good example, powerful example of how we misperceive risk. You know, for sure, driving to the place where we were skydiving was probably a thousand times more dangerous than skydiving. And that kind of skewed. We humans are terrible at risk assessment. Right? And that kind of skewed perception of risk influences our decision making throughout the day.

MG: Has the pandemic changed how you think about risk at all?

TIM CAULFIELD: It hasn't. And in fact, because I think what the pandemic has done is sort of amplified a lot of themes in the book, you know, the the impact of misinformation. Holy cow. It's I've never seen anything like it. Right. The impact of sort of twisted science and and the impact of this chaotic information environment on our ability to make decisions. And actually, throughout the pandemic, there's been some really interesting research that sort of highlighted all of those things. Right. And really invites us to think about the importance of critical thinking, you know, critical thinking and applying those skills throughout the day.

MG: Let's talk about a scenario where people I mean, they're trying to kind of calculate risk and that's around schools. Say there's an outbreak at my kid's school. How do we figure out what the actual risk is and not just react out of fear or anxiety?

TIM CAULFIELD: So that's a really good example and, you know, a realistic one. You know, I think what we need to do and this is going to sound obvious, but I think it's important. I always recommend that you go to the entities that are aggregating the science in a responsible manner. And that's especially true when there's uncertainty, when the science is going in different directions. So, as I said, the conclusion is going to be obvious, but it's an important point. You want to turn to those entities. And of course, I mean, the public health authorities, not just nationally, but regionally and how they're they're assessing how they're assessing those kinds of risks. And the other thing you want to consider is, you know, the risk to the community, which can be very, very significant versus the risk to the individual. And so I think if you kind of, you know, pause and implement those kinds of strategies and there are others, it can reduce, you know, your risk around making a decision even when it's a, you know, really important one about about your kid and going to school and in even frivolous ones, like checking your phone on the toilet.

MG: Is it more difficult to make those decisions rationally? People talk about decision fatigue. Is it more difficult to make them now, given the fact that we're all tired and we're going through COVID fatigue as well as decision fatigue and one overlaps, you know, on top of the other?

TIM CAULFIELD: I think it is. I think you're absolutely right about that and, you know, I talk about this in the book, it has become more just chaotic information environment. But there is really interesting research to suggest that, you know, the more decisions we make as best, especially if the more, you know, if they're challenging decisions, we get kind of fatigued. So, you know, that happens. I'm sad to say to physicians, to to judges, to financial analysts, you know, as the day rolls on, after they've made big decisions, we have these this this kind of fatigue. But in addition to that now, especially during the pandemic, there is all of this noise that is constantly bombarding us about about the pandemic. And there's some evidence and again, hard to study this well, but there's some evidence to suggest that that increases our stress level makes us worse at teasing out good evidence, you know, the content, doing a critical analysis of the content and also that it makes us more likely to share this information. So we get this horrible cycle starting. One of the ways to break that cycle is, you know, to calm down, to pause and sort of step away from the noise, particularly on social media that will hopefully lower your stress level, but also might make you better at critically assessing the content.

MG: MIs that why you say throughout the book and I think it might be one of the last lines in the book, put away your phone?

TIM CAULFIELD: Yeah, I do. I do say you know put away. First of all, your phone shouldn't be by your bed. You shouldn't be able to grab it when you wake up in the morning. It shouldn't be there. I try to walk the walk a little bit with this, you know, try to stop looking my phone about nine o'clock at night. And I do try to take breaks throughout the day from social media, from email. People who follow me on social media going, yeah, right, you do. But I really do. I really do. I try to take these moments where you have as unbounded time that allows you to reflect a little bit and increases your productivity and probably decreases your stress level.

MG: I guess it's just really hard, just finally for people to figure out which decisions matter and which don't. So is there one thing that you would say in the last minute or so that we have about how to determine what matters when it comes to making those decisions and which ones actually to invest yourself in?

TIM CAULFIELD: Yeah, you know, this is something that's been a theme throughout my work, Matt. Maybe it's a good way to end on it. And that is I really think we need to focus on the science and formed fundamentals. You know, there's almost never a magical answer to something. There's no sort of secret answer. Focus on those science informed fundamentals. And that's important when you talk about health. So, you know, exercise, eating real food, sleep or fighting a pandemic, physical distancing, wearing a mask, being responsible when you have symptoms. You know, focus on on the big science informed fundamentals. And, you know, you can almost ignore all the other noise.

MG: And don't feel bad about having that third or fourth cup of coffee?

TIM CAULFIELD: And drink up.

MG: Tim, thank you.

TIM CAULFIELD: Thanks so much Matt. I appreciate it.

AG: Timothy Caulfield holds the Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Alberta, and he is the author of Relax Dammit A User's Guide to the Age of Anxiety. Matt Galloway spoke with him in December. Well, coming up after your regional update, episode two of the hit CBC podcast, Recall How to Start a Revolution. Host Geoff Turner takes us back to the October crisis to tell the stories that went untold until now. I'm Anthony Germein and you are listening to The Current.

Episode 2 of CBC podcast Recall: How to Start a Revolution

AG: I'm Anthony Germain and you're listening to The Current. It's time to continue with the CBC podcast Recall: How to Start a revolution - episode two. Today Geoff Turner tells us about a Hungarian-born man who became a radical Quebec separatist... and how his story demonstrates the allure of the FLQ message in the political tinderbox that was Montreal in 1964.

[sc]

Sound Clip: [News reporter 1] A bomb exploded today in a federal government building in downtown Montreal.

Sound Clip: [News reporter 2] Would you say that this is a communist‑backed subversive group or would you say it's French separatist terrorism?

Sound Clip: [man speaks French]

[cheers and applause]

Sound Clip: [News reporter 3] The damaging of a section of track apparently with dynamite has been blamed on the so‑called Suicide Commandos.

Sound Clip: [News reporter 4] That they intend to murder in cold blood two innocent men unless their demands are met.

Sound Clip: [Woman] Your letters have moved me to hope that we will soon be together again. I do hope the FLQ will continue to allow you to write to me.

Geoff Turner: By 1964, just a few years after he arrived in Montreal, Francois Schirm was at the center of the radical push for Quebec independence. It was a very crooked and a very unlikely path that got him there. But in the strange story of Francois Schirm, you learn a lot about the allure of the FLQ message that he heard - a message of justice, liberation, and belonging. And to understand how that message became so powerful, you have to know a little more about the Quebec that Schirm arrived in in 1957. This is Chapter Two: The Stranger.

Geoff Turner: When I think about the 1950s, I think bright hues and shiny chrome, Elvis in a Cadillac, Doris Day in 'Technicolor.' [Song – “Tea for Two” by Doris Day] I think about young people making out in cars and generally throwing off the old rules. But when you talk to Quebeckers who lived through the '40s and '50s, you'll hear a lot of them talk about the Grande Noirceu, 'The Great Darkness,' a time when the Catholic church was still in charge of education and health, when the economy was run like a branch plant to American industry. The bosses were Anglos, and the working stiffs were French‑Canadian. Over time one man has become the face and the voice of the great darkness, Maurice Duplessis.

Sound Clip: [Maurice Duplessis] In this world there are certain fundamentals that cannot change, that have not changed, and that will not change…

Geoff Turner: It was a five‑year blip during the war, but otherwise Duplessis had been running the province since 1936. As premier, he was known as ‘Le Chef’...The Chief, for his firm control of all the levers of government. And he used those levers to push a very conservative vision of Quebec, a Quebec where church and family and heritage were everything. This is the Quebec Francois Schirm found himself in in the late '50s.

Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French] If you speak to me in French, I will talk to you in English. I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try…

Geoff Turner: Jacqueline Lavoie is being very gracious about my butchery of her language. She's been kind enough to invite us into her home in Montreal's Rosemont Neighborhood. We're here to talk about her experience of the early years of the struggle for Quebec independence and about her friendship with Francois Schirm. She was, after all, a founding member of the first modern separatist party, the RIN. And here I am mangling phrases and struggling to comprehend her perfectly‑eloquent recollections of a turbulent era. My struggles with language in reporting this series have been a humbling reminder of the situation that gave rise to the Quebec separatist movement in the first place. Language and identity feel like very powerful forces here in ways they don't in the rest of Canada.

Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French]

Geoff Turner: Jacqueline Lavoie was not only friends with Schirm, she is also the embodiment of the radical transformations the province went through. She was born the year Duplessis came to power so she came of age in the 1950s, but her early life reads like something from a Victorian novel.

Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French]

Geoff Turner: Her father was illiterate. He earned barely enough to keep them afloat. The family of ten lived in a condemned shed in the back of a house. There was a lot of suffering in the Duplessis years, she says. People were encouraged to have big families, but there were few jobs. And poverty sometimes meant having to give up the children they were encouraged to have, which is exactly what happened to Jacqueline and her sister. They were sent to a catholic orphanage.

Sound Clip: [news reporter speaks French]

Geoff Turner: But despite Duplessis' anachronistic vision, the modern world was beaming into Quebec through the television. His version of Quebec society was crumbling. The drift had been underway for years, but now Quebeckers were leaving the church in droves, ditching the farm for the city, and making far fewer babies. So when Deuplessis died in 1959, Quebec was more than ready to move on.

Sound clip: [Jean Lesage speaks French]

Geoff Turner: Liberal Jean Lesage seized the opportunity and swept to power in the 1960 election. This is usually seen as the start of a period known as the Quiet Revolution...La Revolution Tranquille. It was a period of about 10 years when Quebec society underwent a radical but mostly‑bloodless transformation. The Lesage government accelerated change. It secularized education and health systems and took them out of the hands of the Catholic church.

Sound clip: [Jean Lesage speaks French]

Geoff Turner: And ‘Maitres Chez Nous’, ‘Masters in Our Own House’ became the slogan for the times, at least that was the ideal. For Jacqueline, the Quiet Revolution meant an opportunity to enter the workforce not only as a woman, but as a francophone speaking her own language.

Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French]

Geoff Turner: But up to then, that wasn't the reality. It's not that they hated the Anglos, she says. It's that if you didn't speak English, you couldn't get a job. At the time, French Canadians in Quebec were close to the bottom of the heap in income and education, ranking 12th out of 14 ethnic groups.

Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French]

Geoff Turner: And the great darkness had left its mark on the Quebec psyche. Humiliations and resentments around language and power had festered for decades. That created a political tinderbox where a few misplaced words could start a wildfire.

Sound Clip: [News reporter] To French Canadians, Mr. Gordon seems to have become the symbol of everything they dislike about the current state of affairs in the country. It started last month when Mr. Gordon appeared before...

Geoff Turner: It's easy to imagine an alternate timeline, one where Donald Gordon is forgotten to history. But by the end of 1962, he was a contender for the title of the most hated man in Quebec.

[crowd yelling]

Geoff Turner: Things got really wild on December 11th, that's when thousands of protesters converged at the gates of a downtown commuter rail station. They set fire to a Canadian flag and an effigy of Donald Gordon.

Sound clip: [man speaks French]

Geoff Turner: Now what, you might ask, had he done to deserve such treatment?

Sound Clip: [man 2 speaks French]

Geoff Turner: In 1962, Donald Gordon was 61 years old and the president of the Canadian National Railway. Back then the CN was still owned by the federal government, so it was his job to appear before a parliamentary committee at the end of the year to present the corporation's report and budget. Pretty dry stuff, you'd think. But as the hearings were wrapping up, a Quebec member of parliament made a provocative remark. He said, "I note 1 president, 17 vice presidents, 10 directors, and not one of them French‑Canadian."

Geoff Turner: Now with the benefit of hindsight, Donald Gordon would likely have let the remark just drift off into the ether, but what he actually did in the moment was to reply with this, and I quote, "As far as I'm concerned, as long as I am president, promotions are not going to be made because the person is French‑Canadian." And well, that didn't go over very well on the streets of Montreal. In another context the words might have been taken as a bland defense of meritocratic hiring, but in Quebec in 1962, those words and Gordon himself became the embodiment of arrogant Anglo‑supremacy.

Geoff Turner: And for people like Jacqueline Lavoie and her husband Gilles, the Donald Gordon affair made something clear: the changes brought by the quiet revolution were a little too quiet and a little too slow. From the head of her kitchen table Jacqueline is telling us why the cause of independence felt so urgent.

Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French]

Geoff Turner: "They were revolutionary because they had to be," she says. Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French]

Sound clip: [Francois Schirm speaks French]

Geoff Turner: While he was in the Legion, he'd made a connection with a young Hungarian woman. He'd found her through an ad in a newspaper for Hungarians abroad.

Sound clip: [Francois Schirm speaks French]

Geoff Turner: This was a long time before Tinder, kids. The young woman had moved to Montreal with her parents. And when Francois left the Legion, he followed her there. But Quebec in 1957 wasn't exactly Schirm's idea of a happening place.

Sound clip: [Francois Schirm speaks French]

Geoff Turner: He says he found it was like a cemetery. Quebec was, after all, still in the great darkness. Schirm wanted to leave. Instead he got married. He had a kid, and he started a new life in what he'd later call the Hungarian ghetto of Montreal. But it turned out there wasn't a lot of demand for an ex‑commando. He struggled to put bread on the table. His marriage fell apart under the strain. And Francois Schirm wound up isolated in a country that didn't feel like his own.

Sound clip: [Francois Schirm speaks French]

Geoff Turner: In his work as a menial laborer, he was exposed to the humiliations felt by the Francophone working class. And soon enough he'd witness Quebec's young population rising up against those humiliations.

Sound Clip: [Geoff Turner and Jacqueline Lavoie talking in French]

Geoff Turner: Jacqueline Lavoie remembers meeting Francois Schirm for the first time.

Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French]

Geoff Turner: She recalls him appearing at the RIN office, speaking a French that wasn't quite right, telling tales of war.

Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French]

Geoff Turner: But he was interesting, she says, cultured. He wanted to sign up, but not everyone embraced him. He was a stranger, she says. Jacqueline remembers that at six foot three, he could be intimidating.

Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French]

Geoff Turner: The RIN president warned her that he might be working for the RCMP. Infiltration of the movement was a real concern back then. But suspicions aside, Schirm's experience of war gave him a unique perspective among the RIN activists. As a kid, he survived the Nazis and then the Soviets. And as a Legionnaire, he saw the struggles of colonized peoples against their colonizers, which was how he framed the struggle of the Quebecois. Schirm, of course, was not Quebecois, definitely not de souche. But Jacqueline and her husband didn't care.

Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French]

Geoff Turner: You could be Ukrainian, Hungarian, or Russian, you still have a right to your political opinion, she says. Jacqueline's husband Gilles and Francois quickly became friends.

Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French]

Geoff Turner: She remembers discussions about creating an army. It seemed like a joke.

Sound Clip: [Jacqueline Lavoie speaks French] …she was good, you know, and she made a few.

Geoff Turner: Gilles even designed uniforms and enlisted his mother to sew them, which is strange, sad, and a little bit hilarious.

Sound Clip: [Geoff Turner and Jacqueline Lavoie talking in French]

Geoff Turner: Francois Schirm was delighted with the costumes. His vision, his dream of a revolutionary army was becoming reality. “I was not just a crazy man with a gun,“ he says. By now Schirm had grown fed up with the democratic approach of the RIN, and so he joined the FLQ.

But he soon decided the FLQ approach was futile too. The movement was so fluid at the time, you could do just about anything you wanted. So Francois Schirm created a paramilitary offshoot of the FLQ, the Armée Revolutionaire du Quebec, the ARQ.

Sound clip: [Francois Schirm speaks French]

Geoff Turner: “I wanted my country, Quebec,” he says. So how was he going to make that dream come true? With a weapon in hand, a beautiful Kalashnikov, which brings us back to August 29th, 1964. By this time Francois Schirm had won over a small group of radicals who admired him for his fire and leadership. They set up a basic camp in the woods just north of Montreal. And they got to work on a plan to get their hands on some of those beautiful Kalashnikovs. They had a target. And one of the members, Edmond Guenette had stolen a car, a Pontiac. But on the day the heist was to take place, their driver bailed out. Then they remembered a guy, Cyriaque Delisle.

Wednesday 25 August, 2021

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