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The Current Transcript for March 5, 2020

Host: Matt Gallaway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

I lost my voice. I couldn't work. If I couldn't work. I'm not getting paid without these protections, you feel trapped.

MATT GALLOWAY: Feeling under the weather? Stay home in bed. That is the advice of doctors and employers. But in an era of precarious employment and a gig economy that operates from contract to contract, sick days can often be a luxury, not a given. The renewed battle for paid sick days as the Corona virus spreads. That's coming up. And later.

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We're ready for freedom. We're ready to march forward when we get this unity. Ladies and gentlemen, nothing can stop us.

MG: Medgar Evers was an American civil rights activist who in the 1960s fought to attend law school at the then segregated University of Mississippi. He was shot and killed in his driveway. His assassin was never convicted until new evidence was uncovered by the journalist Jerry Mitchell, three decades later. In an hour, Mitchell's incredible quest to deliver justice in some of the great unsolved cases of the civil rights era. Also this morning, our national affairs panel on a deal with Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs and a promise by conservative leadership candidates to bring down the government this fall. But we begin on the job and the fight for your right to take a day off sick. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Missing work to stop coronavirus spread not so easy for workers without sick pay, lawyer says

Guests: Adam Macgillyvray, Walter Pranke, Sarah Molyneaux

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There are things that everyone can do to protect the health delay spread of COVID-19 and minimise the overall impacts across our communities. Wash your hands well and often cover your coughs sneezes and stay at home if you're sick to prevent the spread of illness.

That's advice from Canada's chief medical health officer, Dr Theresa Tam. But for many Canadians, staying home might not feel like an option. With a lack of guaranteed sick leave and the rise of precarious work in the so-called gig economy, some people are afraid of losing income or even their jobs if they call in sick. Adam MacGillivray is a contract sales worker in Vancouver. Adam, good morning.

ADAM MACGILLIVRAY: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What is your employment situation? How does that work?

ADAM MACGILLIVRAY: We're contracted to sell different products to businesses, so we're out talking to different businesses day to day, they provide different services from telecommunications to merchant services and so on.

MG: And as a sales worker, how do you get paid, if you don't mind me asking?

ADAM MACGILLIVRAY: We get a per diem and then we're on commission.

MG: And so what happens if you aren't feeling well and you need to take a sick day?

ADAM MACGILLIVRAY: I work from home to a degree where if I've already built a relationship with a customer and I'm able to close the sale, I'd still get paid the commission. But I don't get the per diem if I'm not in the office at the beginning and end of the day, or out in the field during the day.

MG: And so what would that mean for you in terms of income? How much would your income go down?

ADAM MACGILLIVRAY: Our per diem is pretty low to help stimulate us to get out and make sales, it's $100 a day that we get that, you know, two or three days off in a week is, you know, two, three hundred dollars. And then the lack of interaction with people to generate new sales for commissions. So it can cost upwards of five, six hundred dollars in a week.

MG: So if you aren't feeling well, how do you run that calculation in your head about whether it's worth it financially for you to take the day off to try and get better, or whether you just kind of plough through it and still go into work?

ADAM MACGILLIVRAY: For the most part, we've tried to plough through it. I've had this sort of lingering head cold cough, everything for the past couple of weeks and decided that, you know, with everything going on in the world right now, it was definitely affecting my interaction with customers. People don't want to deal with someone that has a runny nose or cough right now that for a long term would be more beneficial for me to take a couple days off and try to get completely better.

MG: Are you going to do that now? You're going to take a couple of days off now to try and get back on the good side.

ADAM MACGILLIVRAY: Yes, I'm taking most of the week off, including today to try to get better and get back at it.

MG: You were sick for a couple of weeks, you said before you hit that threshold.

ADAM MACGILLIVRAY: Yes. I mean, I have a four year old at home, so there's a lot of different germs that come through the day-care. And that's just been a consistent cough, runny nose. I haven't really had any kind of fever or anything, so I wasn't too worried about it. As I'm mid thirties in pretty good health.

MG: But how much do finance as you talked about, you know, how much you would lose in terms of not being paid if you take days off? How much did finances play a role in you making that decision?

ADAM MACGILLIVRAY: They definitely play a fairly big role in the decision, at least I'm not a single income household. So my girlfriend's able to make a decent salary at her job and then I usually do side construction jobs and that to augment my income as it is.

MG: What goes through your mind when you hear, for example, the chief medical health officer in the context of the coronavirus spread, saying if you don't feel well, stay home to prevent the spread of illness?

ADAM MACGILLIVRAY: I totally understand it. And that's kind of what's played into me taking the time off is just trying not to spread anything that people with compromised immune systems are at a higher risk of contracting that and having more severe cases. It is something that would be nicer to be able to do on a regular basis, for sure, not going in with my job. I'm talking to 50 or 100 people in a day. That those interactions every day of the week really add up with the amount of interactions that you have with people.

MG: If this continues to spread, the coronavirus, are you worried that you might be having to make a decision about staying home more, even though you're not going to be getting paid?

ADAM MACGILLIVRAY: It's definitely something that is in the back of my mind.

MG: I hope you feel better. Rest up, sorry for waking you up early, but it's important to hear from you. Get back to bed. And Adam, thank you.

ADAM MACGILLIVRAY: No problem. Thank you very much.

MG: Adam MacGillivray is a contract worker in Vancouver under the weather and taking a couple of days off sick for a different perspective on sick days. Let's hear from an employer. Walter Pranke is the vice president of human resources for Lee Valley Tools. Walter, good morning to you.

WALTER PRANKE: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Take a look at the situation that's happening right now. It's not just cold and flu season. You have the corona virus that is spreading. How much of a challenge does this present to your business?

WALTER PRANKE: Well, a dozen, a number of ways, right. So from a business perspective, it's going to impact the way we can get things like supply chain services. How do we communicate with some of our manufacturers across disease. From an employer perspective, employees perspective, you know, employees are concerned as well. We have retail operations across Canada. And so they're saying, hey, I'm working with customers and that how should we be doing it? We were very proactive. We looked at it even several weeks ago and started giving some direction, you know, from public health agencies how we should take care of ourselves? What should we do? How do we prepare ourselves in the stores and also practice really good hygiene situations. Like how do we take care of ourselves.

MG: At Lee Valley, how does this work? Who gets sick days?

WALTER PRANKE: So for us, full time employees are eligible for sick days and they accrue that over the course of the year. They get five days a year. Five days a year.

MG: What about part time stuff?

WALTER PRANKE: Part time wouldn't be eligible for that because just because the way they have short time hours, you know, a couple hours a year, a week kind of thing.

MG: And so how many if you're working part time, how often are you working at Lee Valley?

WALTER PRANKE: Well, it varies. Generally, it's anywhere from one shift, seven and a half, eight hours to maybe as much as 20 hours in the week.

MG: And if you're working those part time shifts and you like, we heard from Adam, you know, he's been feeling unwell for a couple of weeks, and I think I need to take a day or more. They don't get paid.

WALTER PRANKE: They wouldn't get paid. So they would inform their managers, say, listen, I'm not feeling well today. I can't make my shift for the afternoon. And the manager says, okay, you know, stay home and let us know tomorrow, if they were scheduled.

MG: As the public health officer says to employers like yourself, people need to be cognizant of what's going on. And for employees, if they're feeling unwell, they need to take a day or two off work. What sort of conversations are happening in your workplace about how your policy fits or may need to change given what's going on with COVID-19?

WALTER PRANKE: Yeah. Did she say them? You know, we've had lots of conversations with our senior team. You know, what are we going to do with the COVID-19? So no virus coming up. We are looking at it from a very pragmatic approach. Right. So right now, in Canada extremely low. You know, there's not that sort of outbreak coming out happening in our particular cities. But if someone said, listen, I'm really feeling ill, this is the situation. You know, the first thing we would say is make sure you contact your public health authorities, let them know what it is. Don't go to the hospital because they want us to do, but then they would start to instruct it on what they should be doing. If that person continues to be sick. And they said, listen, you know, I may be having it. I may have to go into self-isolation or quarantine. We'd certainly look at it and say, listen, okay, you know what? If Adam's our employee, we might say: Adam, you know what? We understand what the situation is. You're scheduled for X number of shifts this week. You know, we'll cover that cost and then we'll see what next week looks like. Because he may not be scheduled next week. So we would be very pragmatic and look at it. We have to take care of our employees. And that's I think that's something that, you know, from a family ownership. This is something that's very important to the Lee family.

MG: You understand the dilemma that those part time employees will find themselves in, though, that if they can't, you know, come into work because they're not feeling well, but they also can't afford not to come into work because they're not going to be paid. It really puts them up against the wall.

WALTER PRANKE: It sure does. And, you know, we feel for that and we're very sympathetic. We try to see what we can do and see what's taking place. You know, we're trying to be balance with everybody along the way, because some of our employees, not everybody's in a situation where they're working in a sort of front facing store kind of environment. Some positions they might be able to work from home, but we don't have a lot of that part time employee in that situation. So they are quite comfortable in being able to work from home if they have to.

MG: Why don't your part time employees get paid sick days?

WALTER PRANKE: You know what? I think we look at it, Matt, it's it's a business decision. What do we need to be doing? How do we cover it? Was the cost associated?

MG: What does that mean, a business decision?

WALTER PRANKE: Well, we used to think about it. Retail's a very, very competitive marketplace. And we rely on the customers and their habits of buying and so we have to be very mindful of our expenses.

MG: Meaning that if you were to give paid sick days to part time employees, that would cost money that perhaps the company couldn't afford.

WALTER PRANKE: It could. Right. So it takes away from investments in other areas to kind of either generate customer experiences or provide, you know, a better e-commerce web platform, something of that nature. The one thing that we do is part-timers as we do offer some in lieu benefits or sometimes, as an example, part timers don't have vacation days, but we pay them a percentage. And we do if they want to, we try to open up our benefit plan. So health care kind of coverage. But that means that the cost arrangement that they have to pay for.

MG: If this continues and to your point, these are early days in all of this, nobody really knows where this is going to go, although there are all sorts of predictions on one side or the other. But if this were to continue and the coronavirus spread were to grow, is there a role that government could play to help out businesses like yours, or businesses even smaller than Lee Valley, to try and ensure that employees feel as though they can take the day off because that's in everyone's benefit?

WALTER PRANKE: Yes. You know, that's it's an interesting point because, you know, we're not, we don't see ourselves as small and we're certainly not large. And, you know, I really think we really feel for the small employers as well, because they're really struggling with something like this. I think the role of government is to look at it like today, they're looking at it from an industry perspective. How are we going to support an industry that's impacted by these effects of the virus and manufacturing shutdowns? I think from the employee side of it, where does the employment insurance benefits support that person? You know, could there be a an adjustment to their policy and program that would allow that if somebody had to be off for a 14 day period, could they apply for benefits and get coverage. Under, I think, today's standards they would not necessarily qualify.

MG: But that's something that you think the government should consider.

WALTER PRANKE: They could. It's an option. I mean, again, like you said, Matt, you know, it's early days. We're not necessarily in that stage. But I think I am sure government officials are starting to look at those programs and what's feasible. And then again, how do they actually administer? Because, you know, sometimes we say, hey, the program, we can roll open. How do you administer it so quickly? And that's not always an easy thing to do.

MG: Walter, good to speak with you about this. Thank you.

WALTER PRANKE: Matt. My pleasure. Thank you.

MG: Walter Pranke is the vice president of human resources for Lee Valley Tools. Staying home when you're sick is about more than recovery, also ensures that you don't spread your germs to your colleagues. Stefan Pichler is from Technical University of Switzerland and has been researching paid sick days, specifically how those paid sick days affect the spread of viruses.

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Those cities and states that introduce mandated sick leaves for their workers experience a drop in these flu rates. What this suggests to us is that once workers are paid for staying at home, they are actually taking this sick leave days when they have the flu and therefore don't bring the virus to the office or even people that are on the train with them on their commuting.

MG: Here in Canada, the rules about sick days are mostly determined by provincial governments and the decision to pay employees who are sick, that's up to the bosses of those employees. Sarah Molyneaux is an employment lawyer with Melena Law. Sara, good morning to you. Walk us through the rules in Canada, if you would, Sara, what are Canadian workers entitled to when it comes to sick days?

SARAH MOLYNEAUX: Rules in Canada is kind of a big question. Like you mentioned, most employees in Canada are provincially regulated. What that means is that we have 14 different employment law jurisdictions in Canada. So each province territory and the small number of workers that are federally regulated are subject to different rules. Here in Ontario, where I practice, employees are entitled to three unpaid sick days per calendar year. That's a recent change in a reduction from our previous 10 day entitlement with two paid days. So in Ontario, we've seen a reduction, but we're in line with about what's average across the country. We see it five to three days being pretty common province to province with the best benefits being in Yukon or you can get up to 12 days per year. Or in Quebec, where you can be entitled to two paid days if you meet certain conditions.

MG: Are there any jurisdictions where you are not entitled to any sick days at all?

SARAH MOLYNEAUX: There are so Alberta and Manitoba, British Columbia and none of it all offer nothing in the way of job protection for basic sick days.

MG: What does that mean for people who fall sick in those communities?

SARAH MOLYNEAUX: Well, it means you're hoping you have a reasonable employer or that you have an employment contract, workplace policies or a collective agreement that provides you something other than the minimum standard, which many people do. Although lots of low wage workers do not.

MATT GALLOWAY: These are all unpaid sick days. Is there any provision for paid sick days anywhere?

SARAH MOLYNEAUX: In a few provinces there are. So in Quebec you can get two paid days in P.E.I. if you've worked somewhere for more than five years, one paid day. But the norm across the country is unpaid job protection only.

MG: The economy has changed certainly in the last couple of years, if not a little bit longer than that. And you now have what's known as the gig economy. People who are contractors. They might be Uber drivers. They might be food delivery people. What's your recourse do they have if they fall ill?

SARAH MOLYNEAUX: Right. And so when we talk about these minimum employment standards, there are always exceptions and exemptions. The most common exception is that you do have to be an employee. And so people who are being characterized as independent contractors, rightly or wrongly, are going to be denied those benefits because their employers don't see them as employees and so don't see those minimum standards as applying. So our Uber drivers or food delivery bike couriers are going to be out on the streets working in order to earn a wage and to keep those positions for those apps, despite the fact that they may be exhibiting even serious symptoms.

MG: What happens if you have sick days, but you're cautious about taking them? Do you know? I mean, that that you might worry about the repercussions at work if you take more than a couple of days off? How does that play out?

SARAH MOLYNEAUX: And a lot of people are. It's a very common question that we encountered people wondering, well, if I only have three days, what happens if I take a fourth? And the biggest risk really is that you're missing out on wages and you're missing out on those, even if you take the three days you're entitled two. A bigger risk is that you may lose your job. There are protections for employees in certain circumstances. So if you're sick, day is disability related or related to a child care obligation. You may have additional rights under human rights legislation. But if you're talking about the flu, a bad cold, you are limited to the Employment Standards Act minimums. And while it's rare for an employee to be dismissed over one additional day, it does happen and they wouldn't have recourse to their respective ministry of labour.

MG: What if somebody has to go into self-quarantine or be in isolation because they may have been exposed to something like the coronavirus? What happens then?

SARAH MOLYNEAUX: So right now, our Employment Standards Act legislation or equivalent legislation, province to province doesn't seem to anticipate that we do have some provisions for declared emergencies. But when you are in the state that we are now, before we would ever anticipate an emergency being declared it, we don't have any measures for job protection. People are relying on the generosity of their employers, which puts people in a very precarious situation. Not everybody has a good boss.

MG: To that point, have a listen to Howard Levitt. He's an employment and labour lawyer. And here's his take on businesses giving more sick days, perhaps because of a coronavirus outbreak.

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The problem is that employees are often not honest. They'll claim to be sick for mental health days for any matter of real or imagined illnesses or feeling less than perfect. And the employer is paying a massive burden that people take advantage of. And it's probably the biggest single source of abuse in human resource. Law.

MG: Sarah, what do you make of that? First, this comment that employees perhaps aren't always honest, but also that this puts the employers at a disadvantage.

SARAH MOLYNEAUX: Well, with all due respect to Howard, I disagree. Certainly. I mean, some people are dishonest some of the time. But your average person is going to get sick during a calendar year. They're going to need some days off of work. And if you don't facilitate that as an employer, you're incurring broader costs. So you have people coming to work sick, spreading their germs around the workplace on their commute, not being as productive while they are at work and potentially needing longer term absences because their illness becomes more serious. That flu that becomes bronchitis, for example, when an employee could have rested, stayed home and avoided that consequence. So I think it's a short term lens for employers to assume that people taking a fourth day sick from work in a calendar year is a misrepresentation when the reality is we have hardworking folks earning low wages, that are struggling to go to work with serious symptoms and making themselves their colleagues and their neighbourhoods more sick.

MG: So in the remaining seconds that we have, what do you think employers should be doing right now? Are there things maybe we could learn from other jurisdictions when it comes to how this is spreading and how employees can be protected?

SARAH MOLYNEAUX: Well, I urge employers to take a reasonable approach and to look at what the public health and medical advice is saying and how that contradicts with basic employment standards. But I think we're making a mistake if we always act reactively to these issues and always rely on the generosity of employers to grant reasonable exceptions to the rule to employees. What we need is acceptable, reasonable minimum employment standards because cold and flu season comes around every year, even if coronavirus does not.

MG: And those employees need to be protected, you believe, year after year.

SARAH MOLYNEAUX: Exactly.

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

SARAH MOLYNEAUX: Thank you.

MG: Sarah Molyneaux is an employment lawyer with molyneaux Law in Hamilton, Ontario. The CBC News is next. And then here is a tongue twister for you. COVIS-19 cabinet committee. Say that three times fast. I'll leave that to you, not me. And by the time you nail that tongue twister, our national Ferris panel will be here and they will talk about the COVID-19 Cabinet Committee. Stick around. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current on CBC Radio One.

National affairs panel

Guests: Hannah Thibedeau, Susan Delacourt, Niigaan Sinclair

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

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MG: Still to come on the program.

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You know, before people hate that fear, that's really what's going on right now. There's a lot of political rhetoric driven by fear.

MG: He is an investigative journalist and his specialty is unsolved murders from the civil rights era. Here, Jerry Mitchell. Coming up in half an hour. But first, it may be a break week on Parliament Hill. But there are certain issues which cannot be ignored.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU: There is a lot of concern that people have around Corona virus.

PATTY HAJDU: We have already seen global economic and supply chain disruption.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: We're ensuring that people get the most up to date information.

PATTY HAJDU: And it's important that Canada be prepared for the effects of this new virus beyond those of health.

MG: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Health Minister Patty Hajdu talking about the new coronavirus response committee yesterday. It was set up to coordinate Canada's response to the economic havoc the global outbreak could unleash. And that sounds like a good place to begin with. Our national affairs panel, Susan Delacourt is the trauma star's national columnist. Hanna Thibedeau, senior reporter with CBC News. And Niigaan Sinclair is a columnist with the Winnipeg Free Press. Good morning to you all.

SUSAN DELACOURT: Good morning.

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Good morning, Matt.

HANNA THIBEDEAU: Good morning.

MG: Coronavirus continues to dominate the news headlines after weeks of coverage. We learned this morning that the Canadian government is suggesting that Canadians avoid all travel to Iran because of the spread of that virus. And now the prime minister has this new cabinet committee. Susan, is this a good thing or is it just another layer to the government's ability to actually deal with the coronavirus?

SUSAN DELACOURT: Well, it's being much criticized as a lot of process that, you know, that's what governments do when they're in trouble. They setup more talking. I actually do see the point of it that it's not Patty Hajdu's headache anymore. It is this is a problem that is now, as she said there in the opening, a problem that is affecting Canada's economic prospects, the future. There is a lot going on, a lot of moving parts. I was actually comparing it to, I looked up what Britain and the United States have been doing in [unintelligible]. It's not dissimilar to the British cabinet has set up a war room to, you know, handle the public health aspects of things. We see in the United States that Trump has got his vice president in charge of this. So I think it's borrowing from what other countries are doing. And I don't see it as a bad thing.

MG: Hannah, you cover the first meeting of this committee? What is the committee actually going to accomplish in the best case scenario?

HANNA THIBEDEAU: Well, as Susan was saying there. This isn't just a response to the health issue. This is an economic response, because even yesterday we heard Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland saying there is an impact on the global economy. And she says it is starting to be felt here at home. So they have to be prepared for people who may have to go into quarantine, people who may not have some type of job that will pay you to be in quarantine. So those are the types of things they're looking at. They're ready to implement fiscal measures as needed. We heard Finance Minister Bill Morneau is talking to his G7 counterparts. There have been effects around the globe. There are effects here at home. So they do say that they will implement fiscal measures as necessary. Now, what measures are in the works? Freeland said the government is analyzing the situation right now. She's looking ahead to how it may evolve. Get ready to act when is necessary. So nothing concrete as of yesterday in the first meeting, but they do admit things will change.

MG: I suppose a Bill Morneau on power in politics yesterday. Just talking about it, because people are worried about the economy, whether it is the supply chain issue, whether it is, as you were mentioning, as we just talked about the whole issue of employees and what would happen if you were put into quarantine for 14 days. Have a listen to what Bill Morneau said yesterday.

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It's premature for me to be saying what the economic impacts are going to be. Clearly, the duration of this issue and the severity is going to be important in us determining what might be the right course of action. So we're not going to jump to conclusions without facts and information, but we certainly are going to be prepared to respond appropriately.

MG: So Hannah, just the last point on that? Is the government handling this crisis appropriately? Is that the sense in Ottawa that people are saying that this is being dealt with in a reasonable way, or do people want more now?

HANNA THIBEDEAU: I think it's really interesting because the risk in Canada is still low. The numbers are cases are low. We're under 40 and there have been no deaths compared to other countries. You look at Iran, you look at Italy. So if you look at that, you know, something has been done properly. People who have been brought back have been put into quarantine. But then it was interesting. I was tweeting about this when they were having this meeting yesterday, talking about what the government is doing. And people are really afraid. They are afraid of the health impacts. They're afraid of the economic impacts. But that's because there's this void. They don't quite understand. And when people have a void, they fill it with whatever they think in their heads.

MG: Niigaan, one of the elements of that economic concern is what you see at the big box stores, people buying carts and carts full of toilet paper and many other things as well. What are you hearing when it comes to stories of stockpiling?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: I can't agree more with Hannah that the kind of public concern and lack of information is leading to a whole bunch of different conclusions. And I was up in northern Manitoba yesterday with predominately indigenous people and the amount of lack of information in terms of what is this disease or what is this virus, sorry, what is the sickness? And then, you know, stories come out that are virtually half rumours and not sure coming out of China involving. Are there two know coronaviruses and one's aggressive, less aggressive. And I think I was in a store here in Winnipeg a couple days ago. And it isn't a panic situation, but it is certainly an urgent situation. And it's quite a situation that's become quite agitated, I think, for regular, everyday Canadians. And so if anything, for the government, the federal government needs to get in front of this and get a very clear message deal on fact and not fiction. But then I think also be prepared for the fact that I think all it will take at this point is a large scale announcement that a large scale pandemic has hit major Canadian city. And then I think there'll be some panic. And so the real situation is just to have calm, or calm heads, cooler heads prevail in this situation.

SUSAN DELACOURT: Yes. I think some of the panic is that Niigaan is talking about is the fact that the United States, the U.S. media, has latched on to this now, too, and is whipping it up a bit. And I do agree that it is time for calm. It's it we should stress and it is an interesting fact. There is, but not yet. And as I came in here today, I've been a case of local transmission in Canada that every case has been from outside the country. So that does speak to the fact that it is so far being contained here. I think, you know, there is only so much you can do to tamp down panic. But I do think that that we should also try to be calm as well in the face of this.

MG: Nina, did you leave the store, Negan, with any supplies?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Yes. Well, I'm prepared. And I've also prepared for - well, I prepared to be home for a few days, certainly. And but you know, what really help yesterday is, as I was with the gathering of several hundred people, mostly indigenous people, and the health care people in the room actually came up to the microphone and began to have kind of an informal information session on the information that they knew and kind of ways to be proactive. And it is amazing how quickly accurate information around, you know, wash your hands, make sure to keep clean up. Make sure to not- the way you interact with people. I mean, we are talking about northern Manitoba. It's very unlikely anyone from infected countries are going to be showing up anytime soon. So, I mean, just the amount of information that needs to be clear and accurate and the government needs to get in front of this and be the ones leading this.

HANNA THIBEDEAU: I think the government, though, made a good point. And this was Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. She says their approach is called the Goldilocks approach. She said not too hot, not too cold, but adequate to the situation, says the government can't be too slow to respond, but also not overreact. And I think that's absolutely accurate, especially in this case, especially here in Canada. They are preparing. They're going to meet with the premiers next week because currently they're looking to see if there's enough personal protective gear for healthcare workers. The federal government says that they'll buy more if that's the case. And should hospitals consider cancelling elective surgeries? These are all the types of things they're going to discuss next week with the premiers, because, of course, it's provinces that are in charge of health care.

MG: One of the other issues certainly that will be discussed with the premiers and territory leaders will be the situation in B.C. and the blockades that are still up in parts of this country. Niigaan, the government is hoping that this agreement that was reached on the weekend between the B.C. government and the federal government over the coastal gaslink pipeline and the conversations with thoughts. So it's an hereditary chiefs that this is going to solve these sorts of issues and happening again in the future. That's what we heard on Monday on this program from Carolyn Bennett, the minister of Crown Indigenous Relations. Is that actually going to be the case? Is this never going to repeat itself again in future?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: I don't know. I mean, if I want to appreciate that the minister's trying to do the best to create a kind of sense that this situation is over. But unfortunately, the situation is just created a whole other can of worms. We've got a situation involving the recognition now, this agreement of the hereditary chiefs, the traditional chiefs, which really follows the 1987 Supreme Court decision. So Canada should have done this all the way going back to 1997, recognizing the traditional leadership in the community. So now it is going to. But the problem, of course, is they want to, you know, have their cake and eat it, too. They want to recognise the Indian act, elected leadership as well, which it's difficult to disassemble that act because it's so deeply entrenched within Canadian law. So now what they want is they want the elected chiefs and the hereditary chiefs both to come together to agree. And, we've got 250 years. Divisive history behind us. And so I see this issue is not particularly for the Wet'suwet'en and not reconciling anytime soon. And I also have deep concern whether this is going to be passed with by the Wet'suwet'en and people. But the larger issue is that by recognizing the traditional governance within a first nation, as an indigenous nation, never mind not a first nation and a nation like the Anishinaabe, for example. So the Anishinaabe are several dozen communities spread throughout Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario. And as a result, we also have our traditional governance. And to open up the possibility that our traditional governments can be these speaking the spokespeople for our community and the fact that that transcends First Nations lines has really opened up a real situation within the country because the government is undermined the Indian act itself and the most draconian part of it, which is the Indian act elected system.

MG: Susan. Is there any win for the federal government here?

SUSAN DELACOURT: Oh, it's hard to find a win in this situation. You see that the polls, the most recent polls have shown that that Mr. Trudeau has been accused or - I think it's around 60 percent say that he's handled it badly. I will say I have noticed that things have died down on the week that parliament is not sitting. I contended that the last couple of weeks, I actually think the way it was being debated in parliament was making the situation worse. It was rapidly developing into a polarised situation in which some of the goodwill toward reconciliation, I think, was at peril. So I think I think some of that has died down. I think it's a really good idea to distinguish in this case between government and politics. And the government has been sort of quietly working in the background. We still don't know the details of this yet, and politics. I'd be happy if it stayed de-politicise for another week or two.

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: There is a way out of this.

MG: Which is what?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: There is a very clear way out of this. It involves, first off, following Canadian law. Canadian governments following Canadian law, which is going back to the Supreme Court decision and also looking to major commissions like the royal commission of Aboriginal people, a real problem, and that is that the federal government doesn't include indigenous peoples whatsoever in terms of their decision making process other than the consultation process, which is constitutionally mandated and usually happens on the back end. The real path out of this in terms of this situation could be found in the British Columbia Bill 41, which is the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, which recognizes the United Nations Declaration, the rights of Indigenous people.

MG: Which the federal government was - There were rumours that the federal government was going to enact swell.

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: And that act says specifically that that the B.C. government can appoint a cabinet minister to directly negotiate with the first nation on the means in which that first nation wishes to negotiate. And so if in this case the Canadian law dictates that is the hereditary chiefs that will negotiate on behalf of these 22,000 square kilometres, which the pipeline will pass. You know, you negotiate directly with the hereditary chiefs. You're following Canadian law and you'll find a situation of reconciliation coming out of this.

MG: In the meantime, the blockades continue. Hannah, have a listen to what the prime minister said yesterday.

SOUNDCLIP

It is really important that we settle this issue of blockades in a peaceful manner in a way that will be lasting. We do not want to see these problems continuing to jump up every few months in the coming years. But as I've said many times, I do not think it is ever appropriate to send the military against Canadian citizens.

MG: That Hannah is a reference to a demand by some conservatives to send the army end and the blockades. What does the prime minister do in the face of those demands?

HANNA THIBEDEAU: Well, a lot of these are conservative leadership hopefuls. Some are saying, here's what I would do if I was prime minister. This was Marilyn Gladu who said the military should be brought in. Peter Mackay tweeted that he was happy that a couple of Albertans who took down a rail blockade in Alberta were able to do more in an afternoon with a pickup truck than Trudeau could do in four years. He was clearly criticized for that, for supporting vigilante.

MG: He deleted that tweet.

HANNA THIBEDEAU: He did.

SUSAN DELACOURT: And kind of put it back up again.

HANNA THIBEDEAU: And, yes, he did it. But he did say it was utter nonsense and that the individuals did clear the tracks for being good citizens. And then they're also being called terrorists by conservative leadership hopeful Aaron O'Toole saying it was terrorism. Now, the conservatives, what they're doing here, this argument is for an immediate intervention because the economy's taking a hit. There's propane shortages. There's temporary layoffs, millions of dollars being lost each day because kids aren't getting to market, container ships are piling up at ports. But there is that concern that with police intervention, it could provoke a larger crisis because of the tensions. So, of course, as you know, what we're hearing from Susan, this is a lot of rhetoric and ramping up, but maybe they're tapping in to what Canadians are feeling. They're feeling a bit frustrated because of all of these issues that I just talked about. Maybe they're a laid off worker and Canadians are thinking that this is going on too long. Recent polls are showing this.

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: I can't agree more. Now, who's also just point out that it is very interesting. We just spent a number of minutes speaking about the coronavirus and the fears that around the coronavirus and wound how the economy is used as the primary fear in which to make really draconian decisions potentially. Notice how indigenous peoples are put in the same situation. They're seen as the threat to the economy. Therefore, they must be dealt with aggressively. Notice how the rhetoric is the same.

SUSAN DELACOURT: You know what I've noticed in all this, Matt? I wrote about this last weekend.

MG: Indeed.

SUSAN DELACOURT: I've really noticed throughout the first two months of this year how no one is calling for smaller government, that we all expect the government to solve a lot of problems this year. Nobody's saying that the private sector or the markets are going to sort this all out, which I think is going to be interesting when it comes to the conservative leadership race. We are just going through a state right now in this country where we want the government meddling in our lives a lot and where we keep calling for the government to fix every problem.

MG: Can we just talk just briefly? But in the last couple of minutes that we have about that conservative leadership race in, some of the candidates are saying, Hanna, that they would like to force an election as early as October. Is that going to happen, he said nervously?

[Laughter]

HANNA THIBEDEAU: Realistically, don't expect to head out on the campaign trail. Are you guys? Here's the reason why. So it's Mackay O'Toole and Gladu who are saying that Canadians need an election as early as October. Yes, I did say this October. But remember the next leader elected by the conservative government? These hopefuls are speaking to membership. So that membership is about 180,000. Canadians are trying to rile them up to get some votes because these members believe that Trudeau is not doing a good job. They're clearly supporting the conservatives. But here's some other facts. They don't have the votes in the House of Commons to bring down the liberals alone. They would need to secure support from the Bloc Quebecois while the NDP. That is not going to happen because the NDP does not have the money for another election campaign as soon. Not only that Leader Jagmeet Singh told me when I did my article that, don't rely on them to help. And then also, let's remember the bloc Quebecois there at 32 seats. This is the best performance they've had in quite a few elections. They're enjoying this position of power and they're not ready to head back to the polls to give some of that up.

MG: So Susan is no reason to cancel our plans for October, then?

SUSAN DELACOURT: Well, I'm going to keep those dates open just in case.

MG: Oh.

SUSAN DELACOURT: I'm kidding. I hope. What it reminds me of, actually, there are so many parallels to where the liberals were in 2008. They were just passed another losing election. They were working on their second leader, Michael Ignatieff in that case. And they were under the impression that, rightly or wrongly, that Canadians hated Stephen Harper's government as much as they did, which was Hannah was alluding to, and will remember the Liberals did. Michael Ignatieff did not. Long after he became leader, start talking about taking the government down to and never did.

MG: Niigaan, you concerned at all - just in the remaining seconds we have - the possibility that this could happen come fall?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Well, I don't know. I mean, I think fear is- we've been talking about fear. It's the theme of the episode. And I think that right now the conservative leadership hopefuls are really stoking fear. The problem with fear is that fear is not a growth vote. Like it's not a long term growth mode. It might be a reactionary vote. And I think that they're speaking mostly to the base. And that kind of base doesn't have a long term reach within Canadian side. But it could work in the short term.

MG: Good to speak with you all. Niigaan, we're coming to shelter in your bunker with all of your supplies.

[Laughter]

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: In a few days. We might make it very long.

HANNA THIBEDEAU: We'll be there.

MG: Thank you.

SUSAN DELACOURT: Save room for us.

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Thanks.

MG: Susan Delacourt, national columnist at The Toronto Star. Niigsan Sinclair, columnist with the Winnipeg Free Press. Hannah Thibedeau, senior reporter with CBS Parliamentary Bureau. This is The Current on Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. It's been a busy week on the show and you have been writing in with comments on some of the things we've been talking about, specifically this story.

SOUNDCLIP

It gives some punishment because you get your vehicle impounded. You also have to go through all these separation things from alcohol and drive like an alcohol interlock. You have to be assessed for alcohol. And if you're alcohol dependent, you have to get a treatment program.

MG: The province of Alberta is rethinking laws around impaired driving, looking at a method used in B.C. in Manitoba that gives police officers more power to issue fines and suspend licences and perhaps forgo criminal charges for first time offenders in cases where no one was injured or killed. Current producer Joanna Draghici she's here to sift through the mailbag. Joanna, good morning.

JOANA DRIGHICI: Good morning, Matt. Reece Davies writes from Edmonton. He says: I have firsthand experience with B.C. administrative charges for drinking and driving. First, I received a 24 hour roadside suspension. This did not deter me in any way. I continued drinking and driving and received three more roadside admin charges. The second one was a three month suspension. Third was a six month. And fourth was a nine month suspension. Now, after all this, I would still drink and drive until I finally received an actual DY and a criminal record. Obviously, my situation is an extreme example. I was very stupid back then. For myself, though, the little roadside suspensions were in no way a deterrent for drinking and driving.

MG: Michelle Beaudry writes from Sea Shepherd, British Columbia: Someone who beat someone to death. Someone who pushes a person down the stairs. Someone who poisons someone is criminally guilty. In all these cases, the victim is dead. When a person kills a person while driving, the person is dead and the driver should be criminally charged. Now, if the person has not yet killed a person, it is not possible that just around the corner it could have been so. Therefore, anyone driving under the influence should be criminally charged as well.

JOANA DRIGHICI: Now we have Stephen Daniels. He wrote to us on Facebook. He says: This is no different than safe injection sites. Sometimes criminal charges and records aren't the answer.

MG: We also got a lot of mail on our story about the ski industry. More and more Canadians are hitting the slopes. It's winter and that's a wonderful thing to do. It's cold and snowy across this country. Due to climate change, though, resorts and ski hills are shutting down and the ski industry is having a difficult time finding creative ways to stay afloat.

SOUNDCLIP

Yeah, if you look long term, you know, into the late sort of decades of this century in Ontario market, and if we continued sort of the mission trajectory there were on now you could lose up to 60, 50 to 60 percent of the ski season.

MG: Paul Escorial from Nelson, British Columbia sent us an e-mail that read in part: Despite all efforts, climate change will dictate when, where and if ski resorts will be able to continue. It was interesting to hear what Aspen has done to try to make a significant reduction in the carbon output by harnessing the methane from nearby coal mine. Ski resorts will have to look at other innovative ways to do the same if they want to make a positive impact against climate change.

JOANA DRIGHICI: Philip Pilch from Oshawa shares his perspective. He says In your discussions on the impact of climate change on skiing, you only mentioned the challenges for downhill over alpine skiing and snowboarding. However, there are a lot of skiers who enjoy cross-country or Nordic skiing. The impact of climate change has already been affecting Nordic ski centres. And if you have closed over the past 30 years, as winter weather becomes more erratic. Unlike alpine resorts, most Nordic centres have no snow making and rely entirely on natural snow for their trails. It would be a shame to see it disappear from much of Canada thanks to climate change.

MG: As a Nordic skier, Phillip, thank you for your note. Thank you, Joana.

JOANA DRIGHICI: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Joana Draghici, is a producer here on the current. Do get in touch if there's anything on the program you want to comment on. Send us an email through the website. cbc.ca/thecurrent. You can find us on Facebook or Twitter. We are at the current CBC. Coming up next on the program, he was a civil rights leader. Shot dead in his driveway.

SOUNDCLIP

And I could see his body sprawled there with this massive hole in his back. It was evil.

MG: It took 30 years to find justice for Medgar Evers. Coming up, you'll hear from the reporter who made it happen. It's an incredible story. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. We're back in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

Jerry Mitchell's new book Race Against Time

Guest: Jerry Mitchell

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

SOUNDCLIP

On June 12, 1963, an unarmed man drives home to his wife and three small children, gets out of his car with his back turned, he's gunned down by a coward.

MG: That's a scene from the Ghosts of Mississippi. It's a film based on the true story of Medgar Evers. Medgar Evers was gunned down by a member of the Ku Klux Klan in 1963. But like many crimes of the Klan from that era, his killing went unpunished for decades. Jerry Mitchell is the journalist who helped change that. Jerry was an investigative reporter with the Jackson, Mississippi newspaper, The Clarion Ledger. His new book is Race Against Time: a Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era. Jerry, good morning.

JERRY MITCHELL: Good morning.

MG: Who is Medgar Evers?

JERRY MITCHELL: Medgar Evers was a World War Two veteran. He fought in Normandy, fought the Nazis and came home to fight racism all over again in former Jim Crow. The part, African-Americans, restaurants, restrooms and voting booths and ended up becoming field secretary for the NAACP in Mississippi for a number of years and would put about 40,000 miles a year on his car until he was gunned down in his driveway, shot in the back, and his wife and children heard the shot, ran outside, saw the blood and screamed.

MG: Why was he targeted?

JERRY MITCHELL: Because of what he represented, because of what he was doing. They didn't. Those who oppose Medgar Evers, white supremacists and others, basically didn't want that change coming. They wanted Mississippi to keep its, quote unquote, way of life, which meant segregation and lack of voting rights for African-Americans, et cetera.

MG: He had been targeted for years. And then, as you mentioned, he is killed at home. What happens when he was killed? How is he killed?

JERRY MITCHELL: It was shot in the back. Byron De La Beckwith basically kind of carved out a sniper's nest about 200 feet from where Medgar Evers home was and basically stalked him and waited for him to come home. And when he came home, he shot him from that sniper's nest, shot him in the back. It was the same night, by the way, President Kennedy told the nation at the grand sons of slaves were still not free. His first civil rights speech,.

MG: Byron De La Beckwith, was arrested for the murder of Medgar Evers, who was Byron De La Beckwith?

JERRY MITCHELL: Byron De La Beckwith was also a war two veteran. He was in the Marines. He came home and was kind of this, he even though he kind of had this background, his family had a plantation. Both his parents were dead by the time he was 12. He was an orphan by 12. And so he literally kind of joined everything, you know, every kind of club you could join in. And eventually, the KKK. He enjoyed the White Citizens Council and then the Ku Klux Klan. And of course, the White Citizens Council was dedicated to preserving what it called segregation in states rights and racial integrity. It was their term.

MG: What happened in his first trial?

JERRY MITCHELL: He was prosecuted twice in the first trial in 64. He was it was an all white, all male jury. African-Americans weren't pretty much or not allowed to serve on juries. Plus, the jury rules were take were taking- jury lists were taken off the voter rolls, and then women weren't able to serve on juries until 68. And so Beckwith was maintained he was not in Jackson at the time, albeit they found his gun at the murder scene with his fingerprint. So that had been kind of, you know, kind of stuffed into a honeysuckle bush, you know, near the scene. He walked away, the jury, he was- it was a hung jury.

MG: And not a surprising verdict at the time, given the circumstances, given the context that he was in.

JERRY MITCHELL: No, not at all.

MG: Why did you want to have another look at this?

JERRY MITCHELL: It was you know, I think what bothered me about this case and the others was that it was injustice at its height. It was not just that these guys got away with murder. It's the fact that everybody knew they got away with murder.

MG: What do you mean everybody knew they got away with murder?

JERRY MITCHELL: As I know, everybody knew Beckwith killed Medgar Evers. It wasn't a secret. It wasn't like no one knew who did it and, you know, it was some great mystery. You know, who killed Medgar Evers. Everybody knew it. I mean, he left his gun, his fingerprints on the gun. He had some lame story about how it was stolen from his house or something like that. And he had like a actually the scope of the rifle actually carved out in his right eye. I mean, you know, actually from the shot itself, which makes sense because he shot after dark. So you would have obviously in that situation would have the rifle closer than you normally would.

MG: You do a lot of digging and you do document this to try and find some of the details about the case and try and connect the dots. And that digging and that dot connecting leads you to Byron De La Beckwith initially to a phone call and then you go to meet him.

JERRY MITCHELL: Yes.

MG: What was that like?

JERRY MITCHELL: It was kind of creepy. It was kind of creepy. He lived in Signal Mountain, which is Tennessee, was just outside of Chattanooga. You know, it was very odd. I mean, he welcomed me on one hand, but then it got very odd. He was absolutely the most racist person I ever spent serious time with. He was like N-word, this N-word that. And then he started in on other races.

MG: David [unintelligible] bumper sticker on the back of his car.

JERRY MITCHELL: Yes. David, you know, and a Confederate battle flag waving out front of his house. I had no trouble finding it. So, yes. And so at one point, his wife brought him something to drink and he was one more kind of creepy details. It looked like orange soda. But then when you looked at it more closely, it was bubbling furiously like some kind of mad scientist potion or something. And I was I asking him about it. Oh, what is that? He told me it was food grade. It was orange soda, but it was combined with food grade hydrogen peroxide. So he's literally drinking hydrogen peroxide.

MG: Huh. What was it like being with him, I mean, did he say anything that surprised you?

JERRY MITCHELL: Oh, lot of it surprised me. You got to understand how eye opening this was to me, I mean, I knew nothing of this world. He kind of, in a weird way, it was almost like an evil mentor. If that makes any sense, like he taught me all about Christian Identity, which he was a part of and which is a very racist religion. And yes, so I knew nothing walking in literally other than to detail some of the details of the case.

MG: What did he say to you when you left?

JERRY MITCHELL: Yes, he walked me. It was dark and he insists on like walking me out to the car and I'm like, really? That's okay. I think I can find my way. So he walks me out of the car anyway, gets me out there, says, if you write positive things about white Caucasian Christians, God will bless you. If you write negative things about white Caucasian Christians, God will punish you. If God does not punish you directly, several individuals will do for him.

MG: How did that go down?

JERRY MITCHELL: I mean, I got the- I got the message.

[Laughter].

MG: And by getting the message, you got it a Dodge.

JERRY MITCHELL: Yes, I got out of Dodge. He hit his wife and made me a sandwich. I think you can guess what I did with the sandwich after that.

MG: What about your wife? I mean, how did she react when you said you were going off to to see this guy who'd been associated with this notorious murder?

JERRY MITCHELL: God bless her. She was eight months pregnant at the time. Yes, she was like none, none too happy that I was going and kind of threw everything at me to keep me from going to talk to him, to be honest with you. And the last words she said to me were, if you go, I'll never forgive you [laughs] which I can laugh about now. Right. But it was it was actually series at the time. And I just you know, I thought about Medgar Evers and his wife, Merly, and what they had been through. And I just thought, I've got to go. And so I did. I mean, she forgave me. It was okay after that.

MG: In your research, you come across something. I'd never heard of this before, the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission.

JERRY MITCHELL: Yes.

MG: What is this old?

JERRY MITCHELL: It was a state segregation as spy agency, believe it or not. If you've ever heard of a White Citizen's Council that operated, it was basically started in Mississippi after the Brown vs. Board of Education. The idea behind it was going to preserve segregation, preserve racial integrity, as we kind of mentioned earlier. And so- this this was like the state equivalent that in fact, they even gave money to the Citizens Council. So anyway, they had kind of a propaganda arm where they would send speakers up north white and black and talk about how wonderful segregation was. And then they had kind of a spy arm where they would infiltrate civil rights groups and do all sorts of get the newspaper to run things and all these other things. And so they had over a 132,000 pages of spy files, which the Mississippi legislature sealed for 50 years. So when I found that out, my first thought was, well, there's got to be something in there that wouldn't be sealed in the files. So I began to develop sources that had access to the files and began to leak me the files. And so that's where I found out that it's the same time and said Mississippi was prosecuting Byron De La Beckwith this other arm. The Sovereignty Commission, which was headed by the governor, was secretly assisting Beckwith's defence, trying to get him acquitted.

MG: It just scrambles the head in some ways to think that.

JERRY MITCHELL: Mm hmm. Yes.

MG: You were writing for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger?

JERRY MITCHELL: Right.

MG: What was the role of that paper?

JERRY MITCHELL: Once I got the Sovereignty Commission papers, I quickly found out about the role my own newspaper played in a lot of these horrible things.

MG: And again, this is back in the 60s.

JERRY MITCHELL: Yes, it was back in the 60s, 50s and 60s. They would they would kill stories, you know, that the Sovereignty Commission or other people asked them to the governor, you know, whoever it was that killed the stories or they would run counter to this racist propaganda that they asked them to. And they even did like kind of this, you know, like they had this whole thing whole plotted out where they're going to run this story to try to connect Martin Luther King Junior to communism. And they're going to get the black newspaper to run it first and then declaring Ledger is going to pick it up. And then that's what they did. So it's really fascinating. And of course, the paper itself, I didn't really know the paper's history. The paper itself was very racist newspaper back in the 50s and 60s. So I found that out as well.

MG: What was it like for you knowing that these stories had led to Byron De La Beckwith being convicted in the murder of Medgar Evers? I mean, this is work that that you do not knowing what the outcome is going to be. And then all those decades, decades later, after the first trial is a sham, justice is delivered.

JERRY MITCHELL: Yes, well, I tell you what, seeing the families get justice, you know, for, you know, what they felt was justice. Has just been incredible. I mean, it's been very moving to me. I always say it's better than any award I've ever won. I mean, it's just been incredible to be able experience that and to see them experience it, really. So it's not- I don't view it so much about me as I do about them because they are, you know, finally getting justice.

MG: There must be some sense of gratification in this.

JERRY MITCHELL: Yes, there is. There is. I mean, you feel- when you feel justice is done, there's there. There's joy. There is.

MG: Well, especially because of the threats that you faced. People were saying, you know, why are you stirring things up?

JERRY MITCHELL: Yes. I got a lot of grief when I did the Medgar Evers case.

MG: Grief. Grief from who?

JERRY MITCHELL: Oh, people call me. You know, I got confronted to the church parking lot by somebody said it, you didn't like what I was doing and why don't you leave it alone. I mean, that was the constant theme. Either that or they were calling and cussing me out or, you know, and eventually death threats. I got these cases.

MG: Did you ever feel - you talked about the worries of your wife - but did you ever feel that your life was in danger?

JERRY MITCHELL: I got concerned when a guy told me he had pictures of me and knew or, you know, where I live did you. He said, 'did you think we were going to let you go unscathed?' That was kind of haunting. And so I did actually call the FBI. They investigated that case, found out the guy lived in, of all places, South Carolina. So anyway.

MG: On the 5th of August 1964, J. Edgar Hoover, who is then the director of the FBI, called President Lyndon Johnson to update him on the case of three civil rights activists who'd gone missing in Mississippi. Have a listen to this. It's a bit crackly, but this is archival audio from that time.

SOUNDCLIP

The physical examination showed each of these men have been shot. Two white men had been shot once each and the coloured fellow was shot three times, and we have the names of the people who did it out. To prove it it's going to be a little tougher job. The deputy sheriff was in on it. The Justice chief was in on it. And there was another man.

MG: That act became known as the Mississippi Burning Case. It's the story that starts your book. Remind us what happened.

JERRY MITCHELL: Well, so James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, Andy Goodman, Ralph. There were three civil rights activists. Andy had just come down as a part of Freedom Summer, which is about a thousand college students around the U.S.. They came down were part of that Freedom Summer. Well, Andy was one of those from New York City and Mickey was from New York City. And then James Chaney was from Redding, Mississippi, who happened to be African-American. And so they were all they went to go investigate a church fire. There was a black church in the Shobha candidate was burned to the ground by the Klan and members also beaten because they thought there might be civil rights workers there. And so fast forward, they show up on June 21st, this is just five days later of 1964, to investigate. They interviewed church members. And as they're trying to basically go through town to get back to Meridian, they're arrested on this basically trumped up charges by the deputy sheriff, Cecil Price, who was in the Klan and then released that night in darkness into the hands of waiting Klansmen who take them out and basically summarily execute them.

MG: On a dark country road somewhere.

JERRY MITCHELL: Yes, Rock Cut Road is the name of the road that they were, you know, this remote area and shot to death and then buried 15 feet down an earthen dam and their bodies weren't found for 44 days. Really a miracle that wherever they were found.

MG: You hear that description of Jagger Hoover talking about the web of people who are connected with that. Was he right in saying that that everybody was in on it in many ways?

JERRY MITCHELL: I think he's right. He's right. I mean, I think it's the other thing that I remember back in these days, you know, the Klan on purpose, recruited from law enforcement. And so a lot of law enforcement in Mississippi were in, were members of the Klan. And so maybe you would think in terms of going to law enforcement about problems like this. Well, the problem in this situation is law enforcement was the problem and they were the Klan.

MG: So does that explain what happens in the trial for these three murders, if everybody knew and if they had any people back there? There's all those different connections. Does that explain why the trial at that trial was a sham?

JERRY MITCHELL: Well, I mean, you had a federal trial on conspiracy charges to deprive of civil rights. So you did have seven convictions, but the rest of the 18 Klansmen walked. It was just, it was very difficult in those days for- historically, all white juries never convicted. If it didn't involved someone African-American it just didn't convict. This obviously involved both, but. The state didn't even bring murder charges. I mean, that was the other part of it. I just couldn't wrap my head around that. How how did 20 Klansmen get away with a triple murder, you know, and this wasn't the will of the state to actually pursue it. You know, because the people that would have been responsible for putting the case together were the suspects. You know what I mean? So is a difficult situation. And then there was you know, they just didn't they just weren't able to convict hardly any of them.

MG: Who is the man who is behind this? Who is it? Who is the person who is ultimately responsible for this?

JERRY MITCHELL: Well, Sam Bowers was the head of the Klan and he ordered the killings of of Schwerner. And then the guy who kind of orchestrated the killings of the three civil rights workers. Was a guy by the name of Edgar Ray Killen. Or as he's known locally. Preacher Killen, a Preacher Killen and walked away. He had never been convicted of federal charges. And what led me back to Edgar Ray Killen was there was this interview that Bowers gave, Sam Bowers, who never talked to the press, never gave an interview, gave an interview. Mississippi Department of Archives and History. But it was sealed until he was dead. So I developed sources who basically leak me that interview. And in the interview he talked about, he, as he put it, he was quite delighted to be convicted and have the main [unintelligible] the entire fair walk out the courtroom, a free man. And was referring to Edgar Ray Killen. So that I wrote about that, obviously, and interviewed Edgar Ray Killen. And they reopened the case at that point.

MG: And what ultimately happens in that case?

JERRY MITCHELL: So he ended up being convicted on June 21st, the exact anniversary of the killings in 2005.

MG: The way that you go about getting information to help build these stories. I mean, it's cloak and dagger doesn't do it justice. You're meeting people in dark roads and they won't turn the light on because they don't want to be complicit in what you're doing. Well, what did that tell you about how difficult it is to get the truth in stories like this?

JERRY MITCHELL: Well, it is. It is tough to get the truth because people don't want to tell you. Sometimes they're scared. Sometimes they purposely don't want to tell because they are trying to conceal it from other people. You know, the authorities from knowing. And in some people have been scared legitimately. And they're able to come forward maybe decades later that, you know, they were scared to come forward in the 60s.

MG: 1964's a long time ago, and now there are, and you hear this from people, a lot of complaints that you're stirring up the past, that this is over and done with, that this is something that doesn't need to be re-examined. When you heard that from people, what was your reaction?

JERRY MITCHELL: Well, I mean, really the ultimate argument in my mind and I ended up having a discussion and this is in the book with one person about this and let me share that one. It was kind of interesting because she said her own daughter had been murdered. She was complaining about my coverage. And she mentioned her own daughter had been murdered. I was like, oh, that's awful. And what happened? Was a killer ever prosecuted? She said, yes, but the jury acquitted him. And she says, I don't know why these families - my three civil rights workers - can't let it go because I can let it go. And I ask her well, if this guy, the killer, the guy who killed your daughter, could be prosecuted again, would you want that? And she said, absolutely and want it right now. I said, why don't you think these other families feel the same way? And I just think people don't connect that, you know, I think that's part of the problem. And I always try to say that if, you know, if it was your son or daughter, how would you feel?

MG: How much has the South changed in those decades?

JERRY MITCHELL: Oh, it's changed a lot. But we had so far to go. I think there's still a lot of room for improvement in race relations in the South and really in America today, period.

MG: Do you see I mean, you end the book talking about Charleston and other examples of domestic white terrorism in the United States. Do you see the hints, the shadows of the 1960s when you take a look at what's going on in the U.S. today when it comes to hate groups?

JERRY MITCHELL: No question. And really, you know, before people hate, they fear. That's really what's going on right now. There's a lot of. Rhetoric, fear mongering. I don't know what you would call it. I mean, a lot of political rhetoric right now is being driven by fear, which is unfortunate. And give a quick example of, say, El Paso, where 22 people were killed, dozens were injured. The man who did it drove course, drove from the Dallas area all the way to El Paso. And he said he was doing it to stop an invasion. That's the exact language that the Ku Klux Klan used in the spring of 1964 in getting ready for Freedom Summer.

MG: That they were worried about an invasion.

JERRY MITCHELL: Invasion of these civil rights workers. Absolutely.

MG: This is some book. Jerry, it's great to talk to you about it.

JERRY MITCHELL: Well, thanks, man. Appreciate it.

MG: Appreciate. Thank you so much.

JERRY MITCHELL: Thank you.

MG: Jerry Mitchell's new book is called Race Against Time. A reporter reopens the unsolved murder cases of the civil rights era. Well, that is it for The Current for today. Q With Tom Power is up next, we'll leave you with some thoughts about washing your hands. Yes, there is renewed emphasis on it, thanks to COVID-19. The experts say you should be scrubbing your hands for at least 20 seconds. And the old trick is to keep time by humming Happy Birthday twice. Imagine singing this thing two dozen times a day.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song: Happy Birthday].

MG: Oh, my goodness. That might drive you around the bend. There are thankfully plenty of other songs of 20 second choruses, songs that are much more fun to wash your hands to Raspberry Beret by Prince, Jolene, by Dolly Parton, to some of the tunes suggested on Twitter. This is the Canadian public broadcaster, though. We wanted to leave you with some Canadian music. Just make sure you sing the chorus twice. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current happy handwashing.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song: Taking Care of Business]

Thursday March 5, 2020 Full Transcript

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