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The Current Transcript for May 31, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

ESHA DEWAN: Living in residence, I know that, you know, it's not that easy to tell teenagers to stop partying. So I think having that rule, getting a vaccine will at least make things much more safer.

MATT GALLOWAY: There is a lot of concern about this current school year, but attention is already being paid to the next one. Want to live in residence at Western University this fall? You'll need to be vaccinated. It is a first in Canada, perhaps not the last. And in an era of so-called vaccine passports, it raises a lot of ethical issues. We'll hear more about them in 30 minutes. Also this morning:

VINCENZO: Everyday for almost a year and they always have the guns and for no reason, they would probably shoot us. They might bring us to the interrogation centre where people are tortured. We don't know what can happen at any time. It is very unpredictable.

MG: Months after a military coup in Myanmar, life in that country certainly remains unpredictable. And with increasing crackdowns on the media, it's difficult to get a clear picture of what's actually going on. In an hour, the story of how a Canadian law professor is giving a platform to law students in Myanmar to report on the repression and dismantling of the rule of law in their country. We begin, though, with the long, painful shadow of residential schools. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Calls for accountability after children’s remains found at former Kamloops residential school

Guests: Angela Sterrit, Cindy Blackstock

MG: Memorials are appearing across the country, hundreds of pairs of shoes on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery in front of the Catholic Church in Kahnawake, Quebec, at the Forks in Winnipeg. In Kamloops, hundreds of people came to the site of the former Kamloops Indian residential school over the weekend. This all in response to the announcement from the Tk'emlups Secwepemc First Nation that the remains of 215 children have been discovered there.

CHIEF ROSANNE CASIMIR: [Chanting, singing and drums] Hi, [inaudible] Rosanne Casimir, I'm the chief here. It means a lot. It means more than anything to see everyone coming here to share in song and ceremony as part of healing. Hearing that drum, we all connect to that when it comes to our [inaudible], our hearts. And the most important thing is... is that people go home, love their children, embrace their families, appreciate that they're being the parent and that their child is with them and they know where their children are at and embracing our elders who didn't have that choice. [Chanting, singing and drums]

MG: This is not an easy story to talk about and just a warning that the following discussion may be distressing to some listeners. Angela Sterritt is a CBC reporter in Vancouver. Angela, good morning.

ANGELA STERRIT: Good morning.

MG: What do you make of the reaction that you have been hearing and seeing since the announcement of this discovery last week?

ANGELA STERRIT: Yeah, I mean, what... there's been a lot of pain and there's been a lot of anger, a lot of people are returning to these really haunting, terrorising times. I see a lot of indigenous people wanting to pay respects to take care of each other. And in many ways, you know, to sit with the pain because, you know, well, we've known this all along, that there's thousands of children, indigenous children, who didn't make it home. We're now sharing this pain collectively. I spoke to Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir on Thursday and she said, you know, this is absolutely devastating as a mom, as a grandmother. And so, you know, I think this has been really shattering for indigenous people and just this incredible weight that so many are, you know, carrying. Survivors are now recalling unthinkable memories like digging graves as children, for their friends and relatives, for children, for those who didn't survive the atrocities that occurred at residential schools. You know, many of those, just like when the Truth and Reconciliation report came out in 2015, are also finally being believed and heard. Remember that a lot of Canadians didn't know about indigenous peoples experiences of being abused at residential schools, nor the premise that the schools were part and parcel of the building of Canada. So what I'm hearing is people saying now is the time to talk about those children who didn't make it home. And we're seeing that imperative need to grieve when we see indigenous survivors and family members placing those tiny shoes and moccasins and teddy bears in the public spaces, you know, as memorials. As for non-indigenous people, I'm seeing many, you know, really grappling with this, not knowing how to talk about it and coming to terms with this horrendous truth that's been shrouded for so long. You know that there are indeed thousands of indigenous children who died or were killed at residential schools.

MG: This was one of the largest residential schools in the country. What do we know about the children who went there? Who were they and where were they coming from?

ANGELA STERRIT: Right, so the Kamloops Indian Residential School operated from 1890 to 1978, and it was run by the Roman Catholic Church, as you said, it was the largest school in the Indian affairs residential school system. And indigenous children came to the school not just from the local area, but from all over the province. You can just imagine the impact of this right now. And the federal government took over the school in 1969 and it remained as a residence for indigenous children attending these schools up until 1978.

MG: How many deaths have already been documented at this school, I mean, what came out in the preliminary investigation last week was shocking and terrifying, but some of this history had already been documented. Is that correct?

ANGELA STERRIT: That's right, I mean, the TRC named 53 children who died at the Kamloops Indian residential schools, many of them from the 1940s and the 1960s, we know from documents and oral stories that priests, nuns and other administrators at the Kamloops residential school, you know, beat and sexually abused the indigenous children for some... for several years on end, the children were deeply malnourished and lived in harsh, unsafe conditions at the school. Many children at that school and in other residential schools died of tuberculosis, of pneumonia or influenza because the schools didn't create measures to protect them and because of the conditions they lived in, you know, the overcrowding, the poor conditions of the schools, the poor nutrition and the high stress levels that led to the quick spread of illness. And there are many, you know, documented stories of suicides of children as young as nine years old. One of the important pieces of this story, though, when we're talking about the deaths of children in residential schools in Canada is that many of the records were destroyed by the residential school or the federal government at the time. More so, records were just not kept. So for about a third of these deaths, the government and the schools did not record the name of the students who died. And for about half the government did not and the schools did not record the cause of death. And bodies were also not sent home because of the cost. So not only was there massive neglect and harm done to children in their lives, but equally in their deaths.

MG: What happens next in this investigation? Because what was released last week is being called a set of preliminary findings. So what happens now?

ANGELA STERRIT: Yeah, that's right. So we do not know yet if those children that I spoke of before, if those children's remains will be amongst some of those that were found by the ground penetrating radar specialist just last week. These are, as you say, preliminary findings, meaning that a report from the ground penetrating radar specialist will come out in mid-June. So this number 215 that was verbally provided to the community, to the nation. You know, we'll hear more about that number. It may shift. It may be higher, may be lower. We'll find out more when the report comes out in June, I'm told then there will likely be an archaeological dig. And then after that, the community will, of course, figure out how to identify the children. And then, of course, there's questions about accountability.

MG: What are you hearing from people that you've been speaking with about accountability? I mean, what would that look like?

ANGELA STERRIT: Well, I think that is part of the conversation that's been missing right now, you know, when it comes to government and church officials being held accountable for this. So, you know, we've seen tweets from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who ordered flags flown at half mast on all federal buildings. You know, the diocese of Kamloops sent out their prayers to family members and survivors. But we are hearing from some, like Angela White from the Indian Residential School Survivor Society, that those thoughts and prayers just aren't enough. But there's questions about how can these individuals and these systems be held accountable. Remember that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had a strict mandate in that it had no subpoena powers to compel unwilling witnesses to give testimony. And none of the federal government representatives, heads of the churches, priests or nuns as part of that process were held accountable for what they did to indigenous children, including potentially killing them. And I want to read a tweet from Inuk filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, who says, Until Canada acts to hold the abusers of residential schools accountable where they can, I will not believe a word of rhetoric about reconciliation. Reconciliation is not about indigenous people forgiving Canada. It is about bringing abusers and murderers to justice. And so, you know, moving forward, when officials speak about reconciliation right now, indigenous people and in particular survivors and family members are saying there must be accountability for actions of the past, but also for the continued colonisation in Canada today, the continued, you know, dispossession of land and the continuing apprehension of indigenous children from their homes today.

MG: Angela, thank you for this. I appreciate it.

ANGELA STERRIT: You're welcome.

MG: Angela Sterritt is a CBC reporter based in Vancouver, and she is a member of the Gitxsan Nation. The Truth and Reconciliation report noted that more than 3000 children had died at residential school. But the chair of the TRC Marie Sinclair said it could be twice that number. It is impossible to know since, as Angela mentioned, the government stopped keeping records after 1920. Cindy Blackstock is executive director at the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. Cindy, good morning to you.

CINDY BLACKSTOCK: Good morning.

MG: What was your initial reaction to this news?

CB: All I could think of is that these children died alone. They probably died very scared and away from their families. And all of this, the prolific death rates in the schools were known to Canada because as early as 1904, Canada sent their chief medical health officer, Dr Peter Henderson Bryce, out to survey the health of these children. He found the death rates for tuberculosis was about twenty five percent per year, rising to about 50 percent over three years. And he came back and said to Canada, your inequitable provision of healthcare, like horrible gaps in health care for First Nations, Metis and Inuit children. That and poor health practices like putting sick kids in with healthy kids, poor sanitation, terrible ventilation. All of this was contributing to the death rate. And Dr. Bryce pleaded with the government to fix the problems. Canada chose not to. And it was even in the media, Matt, it was in newspapers across the country. His report was leaked to the media and still even then, it captured people's attention for a brief while and then it dropped out of the news cycle. But Dr. Bryce kept pushing and he was persecuted by the Canadian government and pushed out of the public service in 1922. Actually, this morning I got a note from one of his descendants and she said, the lament that Dr. Bryce had for his family was that the work did not get done. It's still not done.

MG: How important is it that the work is done now, that the names, the stories, the identities of these children are tracked down?

CB: It is extremely important because one of the roots of colonialism that gave rise to... to the residential schools is this dehumanisation. These were two hundred and fifteen little kids as young as three years old. Who died alone and in scary situations, the least we could do is find out who they were and what families they belonged to. We need to do that across the country. And then, Matt, the other part of the work that needs to be done is Canada needs to stop litigating against First Nations kids and residential school survivors today. And it needs to provide equitable public services that are culturally based across the board. The colonialism, that root, that dehumanisation, this idea that people get treated less because of who they are is still very much in the DNA of the way that the Canadian government operates today.

MG: I want to come to that in a moment, because I know that you're deeply involved in that work. But if we're talking about identification, this was a school, as Angela was saying, that was run by the Catholic Church. What role could the church play in helping to identify these children?

CB: It could play a huge role in fact, the Catholic Church has got a lot of work to do. It has... one of the TRCs calls to action was for the pope to apologise. That has not happened. The Catholic Church has done very little in terms of reparations. But the most important work it can do is that it kept records about the residential schools it operated. Unfortunately, some of those records have been shipped over to the Vatican and those records need to be returned. They need to be shared with these communities so that they can help identify these children. The Catholic Church needs to be accountable for its role in this school, along with the other churches, the Anglican Church, the United Church and others that were involved in the residential schools.

MG: What does accountability look like to you? I mean, that's a question that I'd asked Angela in terms of the survivors and the families of residential school students that she'd spoken with. But what does accountability look like to you?

CB: It means that there's a demonstration that they understand the gravity of the harm that was done and that they have... they reform their behaviour so that they don't do it again. We've seen so many apologies, which were really just done for the abuser, the Canadian government, for example, where they just apologise and they want the public's eyes to walk away from the horrific scene of the abuses, but then they don't change their behaviour and they keep harming another generation of kids. That's not good enough. So they need to understand and sit with the consequences of their actions and they need to change their behaviour. And that also means doing what they can for reparations for those that were harmed. And it's up to the people who are harmed to say what those reparations ought to look like.

MG: What do you make of the response that you've seen thus far from the prime minister and members of his cabinet active on social media, tweeting, having the flags lowered in locations across this country? What do you make of that?

CB: I mean, it's nice symbolism, but as the elders have often said, integrity is when your words have meaning. And if the government seriously owns its part in the deaths of these 215 children and the deaths and harms of many others, then it needs to stop doing what it's doing, which is apartheid service delivery on reserve, where people in some communities cannot even get a clean glass of water. And they need to drop their litigation against First Nations children and survivors at St. Anne's Residential school. Matt, you know, those... St. Anne's residential school had an electric chair. Those poor children were shocked in an electric chair. And Canada is using our tax dollars and saying in the name of Canadians, we're going to fight against the survivors of that electric chair because we don't want to pay them. That's not what accountability looks like.

MG: What does that tell you when you're still in court fighting for these children affected by the child welfare system? And the government has said that this was systemic discrimination, not individual discrimination, and therefore doesn't need to pay the reparations that you've been speaking about. What does that tell you that that's unfolding in this moment?

CB: It tells me that they haven't learnt anything and they aren't really honouring the memories of those 215 children, if they can't understand that in 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found the Canadian government racially discriminated against 163 thousand First Nations kids by giving them inequitable child welfare and driving them into foster care unnecessarily, and then also depriving them of other public services that created harms and indeed contributed to the deaths of some children. Canada agrees with all of those harms, and yet it's using this argument. I can't believe it Matt. In the age of the Black Lives Matter movement, saying that people like George Floyd would not be entitled to any kind of compensation because he was a victim of systemic discrimination. Or Joyce Echaquan is not entitled to individual compensation because she's a victim of this type of discrimination. And these little kids who are still little kids today, they're not entitled to compensation, nor are they entitled to justice because the government of Canada does not want to pay. It seems to me that what Canada is doing is setting up a very dangerous situation where its message to Canadians is you discriminate against one person, you'll pay. But if you want to be off the hook, just keep discriminating against it and harming as many people as possible. And you could be immune from it. It's absolutely unthinkable.

MG: How should we as a nation be honouring these children now, do you think?

CB: In my view, we need to... we need to make sure that the injustices stop today, you know, when the residential school survivors came forward in Truth and Reconciliation Commission [inaudible], I heard people in my own family and across the country, they told those stories so that it wouldn't happen to their grandchildren. And they told those stories so that other Canadian children wouldn't have to apologise in the future, that these types of injustices would stop for First Nations, Metis and Inuit children and for other children too. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action our shared obligation. That's what the survivors said needed to be done in order to really show that accountability, show that we've learnt something, show that we're truly sorry. And the government of Canada has only implemented about five of those, of the 94 and it's been six years. So the good news is there's a federal election coming. I'm going to be having a copy of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action on my doorstep and a copy of the legal orders from the tribunal. And whoever comes to my door, I'm going to say, are you going to fulfil these and are you going to stop litigating against kids and IRS survivors? And if the answer is no, they don't get my vote.

MG: Cindy, it's great to talk to you, as always. Thank you very much.

CB: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nation to Child and Family Caring Society, also a professor in the School of Social Work at McGill University. For anyone who needs support right now, the Indian residential school Survivor Society Emergency Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the number to call is 1-866-925-4419. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

Western University makes COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for students in residence

Guests: Alan Shepard, Vardit Ravitsky

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

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MG: Still to come, what's it like to be a law student in a country where the law has taken a back seat? I'll speak with a student in Myanmar and a Canadian law professor working to make sure her story is told. That's coming up in just over 30 minutes. But first, going to university in the fall might come with a catch.

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MG: Canadian universities have started planning for a return to in-person classes come the fall. And while most are encouraging students to get vaccinated, Western University in London, Ontario, is the first to tell some students they must get vaccinated. The school says that all students will need to have at least one shot in order to move into residence. Esha Dewan started at Western last fall. She went home in the spring when the university saw covid outbreaks in half of its residencies. She's looking forward to a normal fall.

ESHA DEWAN: Res was definitely not what I expected it to be. You know, at the start of the year when things weren't that bad, I still got to meet a few people on my floor and I got to build some friendships with those people. There were a few outbreaks which were annoying, but, you know, it wasn't as bad. People were starting to hang out less and, you know, starting to like, put blame, like, you know, which floor is it and things like that. And it was frustrating for people like me because I did go home once before the outbreak. So when it did happen, I wasn't allowed to come back to residents for like two weeks. So it was... the tone of the place definitely did change and you know, my residence was actually the first one that had the outbreak. So people would kind of look at us differently and be like, you know, like, you know, you guys have covid and things like that. I would promote everyone to get the vaccine because I honestly think it's the only way that we're going to be able to move forward. And I have actually gotten my vaccine already and living in residence I know that, you know, it's not that easy to tell teenagers to stop partying because they will, you know, they want to do what they want to do. So I think having that rule of getting a vaccine will at least make things much more safer. You know, growing up, everyone's really excited about university, but I feel the class of 2020 didn't get that. So I'm very excited because I do have hope. I think with vaccines coming out and now this new requirement, I feel like it will be much safer on campus. I'm just excited to, you know, maybe go to in-person classes and learn like I used to learn and meet more people and, you know, maybe have more events and just build that community and just be able to learn to the best of my ability.

MG: Alan Shepard is the president and vice chancellor of Western University. Alan Shepard, good morning.

ALAN SHEPARD: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Why did you decide to make vaccines mandatory for students who want to live in residence?

AS: Well, as we just heard from our Western student running before me, our students are desperate to return to some sense of normal, normal life. And we felt we had the best shot at normal life, particularly in residence, if we asked them to be vaccinated before they arrived. Keeping in mind is not everybody we're asking, it's those who want to live in our residence halls.

MG: Why specifically residents?

AS: We found this last year that we had a disproportionate number of infections in residence. And that's an area that we feel like we can make this request and it will stick.

MG: But you've decided to do this without making it mandatory for faculty, staff and other students to get the vaccine. So why not make it mandatory for everyone who's coming to campus to work or learn to get the shot?

AS: That's correct. That's what we did. So I'm not a lawyer or a law professor, but my understanding of the law is that Canadian law is different from American law. You will have seen perhaps about 450 American institutions now have made various versions of this rule, including Harvard just last week, which announced that everybody who was on the Harvard campus would have to be vaccinated. We don't believe Canadian law allows us to take that step, but it does allow us to insist on it if people want to live in our residence.

MG: What are the conversations that you had around this? Because Western is the first Canadian university to take this step. There are other schools in this country like the University of Waterloo that have said that they're consulting with lawyers to see even if this is possible. So what are the conversations that you did have with lawyers to ensure that even the step that you're taking when it comes to residence doesn't present any legal or privacy issues for your school?

AS: Well, of course. So all the decisions we were making this last year required careful consultation and conversation. So many different decisions across the year. And this would be amongst them for sure. We have our usual legal team that we talk to, but we also talked to a number of public health physicians here in London, including the head of the Middlesex London Health Unit. We talked with bioethicists who are on our faculty. We talked with infectious disease doctors. We talked to students and student leaders and we talked to faculty and staff leaders as well.

MG: And again, you're expecting to have in-person classes, do you believe that despite the fact that the vaccine will not be mandatory for people who are going to attend those in-person classes, that having it for residents will make the school safer overall?

AS: We do think it will make it safer for sure for those living in residence. And we hope it will also encourage everyone else who's either coming to Western as a student or working here to be vaccinated. We're going to have a vaccine clinic on campus later this summer in case anyone has missed the opportunity or might be coming from another country. But we're also, yeah, we're convinced that if you pay attention to the evidence, this is where the evidence leads you.

MG: We don't in this country have a vaccine passport. There are no standards for proof of vaccine when it comes to the covid vaccine, yet. What sort of records are you going to require from students to prove that they have had the shot if they want to move into a residence?

AS: We're still working out all those details and we'll have them for the students in a few weeks. It's confidential medical information, obviously, particularly if someone is to be exempt. We're going to allow exemptions, we're sure, either on medical grounds or religious grounds, and we're working through that right now.

MG: But you will require some sort of standardised proof that students need to show?

AS: If they want to live in residence, yes.

MG: There are students who live in communities who have lower access to vaccines. There might be international students who are coming from countries with a slower vaccine rollout than the one that we've seen here in this country. They may not be able to get vaccinated on time. What's the accommodation that would be made for them?

AS: Yes. So we're allowing people to have two weeks after they move in the residence to get vaccinated if they haven't already been before they arrive. We're encouraging people to do it before they get here, of course. But as I mentioned, we'll be offering a vaccine clinic right on campus. And we also offer free testing as well.

MG: Being first out of the gate on a policy like this gets you attention. And some of that can be positive and some of it can be negative. What sort of reaction have you had from students and from parents?

AS: I would say it's been overwhelmingly positive. We're obviously monitoring social media like everyone else in this world, and we see a great enthusiasm for the policy. I've had probably a dozen people who really are very sceptical about vaccines or writing me or calling me, but it's been a small number.

MG: Do you expect other universities to follow suit with this?

AS: I think it's likely that other universities will follow. We you know, obviously it's their decision. Our community feels thrilled by the policy. And I think it will make it safer. I think it encourages or rather it increases the opportunity for having a more normal fall. And we know that's what everybody wants.

MG: I wonder in part because, I mean, universities are competitive spaces in terms of trying to attract students and whether this is a competitive advantage or a competitive disadvantage,

AS: Hm...I suppose it's a competitive advantage. That's how I would see it. But that's not why we did it. We did it because we're trying to ensure a very safe campus and put safety first. We're trying like everyone else in Canada, to get back to more normal life. And we think this gives us the best shot at. It follows the science.

MG: At one point last year, something like 20 percent of all cases in your city's health unit were on campus. Why was that the case, do you think?

AS: Well, they were actually... it wasn't exactly on campus, Matt, it was amongst our students...

MG: Amongst your students.

AS: It had to do basically with partying as your Western student said a few minutes ago. We're dealing with young adults in some cases, and not everyone followed the public health rules. I will say that the vast majority of our students did follow the public health rules. We had great compliance for the most part, and we had a couple of... we had a few outbreaks. Yes.

MG: And is there a sense that I mean, again, you'll be able not just with this vaccination policy, but if off campus students aren't mandated to have the vaccine, will you be able to have those students follow the rules? How are you going to ensure that the outbreaks that you saw in the past don't return this year?

AS: I do think that it will be a whole year later in the pandemic. And as we all know, things have been happening really rapidly in this pandemic, I suppose, like all pandemics. But so I think we'll have better compliance come September, come the fall semester than perhaps we had at the beginning of the fall semester last year. I think people are much more aware of the circumstances than they were a year ago.

MG: What is it going to mean for the school to be able to return to some sort of... you know, normal is in quotation marks these days because everybody's trying to figure out what the normal is going to look like, but a normal in-person kind of learning experience. What would that mean for Western?

AS: Well, Western offers a fantastic on campus experience, so it's a bit heartbreaking to walk around these days and see it. It's more of a ghost town than not. I think everyone's just thrilled with the idea of being back in person. And online learning has a place in the world of the future for sure but honestly, the kind of education the Western's offerings, is high quality, high touch education, is really delivered face to face.

MG: Alan Shepard, we'll see whether that unfolds in the fall, as many students certainly are hoping for. Thank you very much.

AS: Thank you.

MG: Alan Shepard, president, vice chancellor of Western University in London, Ontario. University of British Columbia, is considering a bit of a different approach to keeping everyone safe when school returns in the fall. Sabrina Wong is leading a clinical trial at the school to see if self-administered rapid testing kits could be a way to monitor the infections on campus.

SABRINA WONG: We did a pilot feasibility from February to April with asymptomatic students who were living in congregate housing. And this is now going to be a clinical trial where we've opened it up to students living at UBC. Vaccines are great. They're definitely going to give us a high level of protection. I think that there could also be breakthrough infections. And if everyone doesn't have their second shot by September, then rapid testing could possibly play a role in terms of an additional layer of protection. Vaccine is great. Rapid testing is another way in which we can protect ourselves and protect others. And with the rapid testing, you would need to do it, you know, at least once a week, if not twice a week.

MG: Sabrina Wong is with the UBC School of Nursing and Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, and she's leading the clinical trial of a potential rapid testing program at that university. The idea of needing a vaccine to do things like go to school or a concert or even go to work has, as you can imagine, both passionate defenders and opponents. Those for it say that it speeds up reopening efforts. Those against say that it punishes and excludes those who particularly don't have the vaccine or perhaps don't want to take the vaccine.Vardit Ravitsky is a professor in bioethics at the University of Montreal. She's also the chair of the covid-19 Impact Committee of the Trudeau Foundation and has been listening in. Good morning to you.

VARDIT RAVITSKY: Good morning.

MG: From an ethical standpoint, do you think that schools should look to limit access to certain facilities or services based on one's vaccination status?

VR: From an ethical perspective is very problematic because one of the key principles of public health ethics is proportionality. You want to ensure that public health measures have benefits that outweigh the burdens you're creating, that the risks are justified. So what are the risks here? You know, if you're blocking the access of someone to a concert or a restaurant, that's one thing. You know, it's fun. It sucks not to have this access, but people can wait. But here we're talking about education. We're talking about getting your degree. So if you're blocking access, the burden is real. The risk is very serious. And what a lot of bioethicists have been talking about is the end of the day, this is discrimination between two groups of people, in this case, students based on medical or biological criteria. And we know historically that such discrimination is socially very dangerous. People are afraid of what they call function creep. Today, it's the covid unvaccinated. Tomorrow, this mechanism can be implemented against some other group that has some medical or biological feature. So I think if we're looking at the ethics of this, if this measure is implemented, it has to be only in the context of the pandemic and very temporary so that it doesn't kind of become a habit of using such a measure in other contexts.

MG: But in a pandemic and you take a look at Western I mean, there were outbreaks last year, we were saying, and some of them were associated with Dorm's, but many of them just associate with students who were at the school. Why not try to take the approach that if you want to limit the possibility of those outbreaks, then you make that requirement, that students who are going to live in residence need to have that shot. And if they don't have the shot, then they could live somewhere else.

VR: So, again, let me look at public health ethics principles for an answer. And there's another principle that we call necessity. Before you choose your public health intervention, you have to make sure you explored all the alternative strategies that are less morally troubling. This one involves discrimination. Do we have others that can be implemented equally across the board for all the students? And I think here the question is, what is your goal? If you want to use this to encourage vaccination, then there are positive measures rather than negative ones. You can create incentives like monetary prizes. We heard about this vaccine lottery in the U.S. or you can create public praise to students who have been vaccinated. If your goal is to enhance safety, then I think it's very important to keep other public health measures because we know by now the vaccines are very effective in preventing deaths and hospitalisation. They are less effective in preventing infection and transmission, so if you're relying solely on vaccines to reopen, it's quite risky. I think it should be accompanied by social distancing, masks and rapid testing. So the strategy has to be complete to ensure safety. I'm not sure that demanding vaccines solely can make the university and the student body feel that now they can just party and hug and there's no other issue.

MG: Does it matter that it's not a requirement to have a vaccine to attend the school? I mean, this is just about living in residence that there's some distinction there.

VR: Definitely. So when we go back to what are the alternatives, you could provide alternative living arrangements. And that's especially important for international students who may not be able to just show up and rent in Canada like a Canadian student. So it's always about the alternative. If it's about classes, are you providing alternatives to virtual learning so that people don't have to skip a year. If it's residents, where are they going to live, especially the international students. If they didn't have vaccines in their countries, will they have it here? It's always about the alternative.

MG: If you move beyond schools, do you see workplaces or concert halls or what have you looking at similar policies as more of this country starts to open up and people want to get out and re-engage in the things that they did, you know, before this pandemic arrived.

VR: Look, this debate is ongoing in Canada, obviously. And Canada's looking at other countries. Some of them have implemented this and some are reopening based on this. And we're all very jealous. We're super eager to get back to all of the aspects of our life. So I think provincial governments are struggling with the decision. I think, I think we will end up not taking this route because we care a lot about equity in this country and alternatives do exist. But if we do, I think it should be a government decision and not implemented by the private sector. I don't want to see a situation where every company and every employer makes their own decisions about who, what access is blocked for whom and to what, but rather a unified, consistent government policy that will also protect us from seeing now a host of lawsuits claiming that our freedoms and human rights and autonomy are being infringed upon.

MG: Well, given the ethical concerns that you've sketched out when it comes to schools, I mean, how do you create that unified policy that's... you're not going to make everybody happy, but you're not going to lead to those lawsuits as well that you've hinted at?

VR: Yeah, so I think each province has its own approach and healthcare culture, and it's very possible that we're going to see certain services being denied in some provinces and not others. We may end up with a patchwork in this context.

MG: How does individual choice fit into this? I mean, if you're talking about public health and safety and the assumption that having a vaccine is going to... and widespread use of the vaccine is going to keep people safe. How do you balance that with individual choice in a public setting where it's not... you're not just by yourself, but you're at a school or you're at a club or you're at work.

VR: You just put your finger on the key tension of public health ethics, obviously between individual autonomy and choice and public health considerations in the common good, we've been struggling with this with everything, with masks, with quarantine, with limiting our mobility and travel. This is the key issue. So, again, the way to look at it is before I infringe someone's liberty, what alternatives do I have? And here in the context of requiring vaccines, we do have alternatives. We can encourage rather than penalize. We can offer also rapid testing, keep the social distancing, offer access, other access to alternatives. You know, I happen to be from Israel where the green pass was just famously implemented. It's not like society's blocked for the unvaccinated. They have access to similar services only elsewhere. The limits are very minor. So I think we have to pay attention to all these nuances to keep such a measure as ethically justifiable as possible.

MG: Well, what is it just finally that we could take from a country like Israel when it comes to the green pass or even New York City and New York State, which has its Excelsior past, where you can get into restaurants, for example, if you put up your smartphone and you show that you have the check mark.

VR: So first of all, vaccination rates, I think, matters more than the badge or no badge. As soon as you pass the 60, 70, 80 percent of vaccinated individuals in the population, you're already going to allow safer opening with or without a badge or a passport. But the second element is, pay attention to the nuances. What are you blocking? A restaurant, a gym is not a university or a pharmacy. So it may be justified to block things that people can live without. But you don't want to create a situation where people lose their jobs and cannot get a university degree because of this.

MG: Do you expect other universities to follow Western's lead when it comes to the residence requirement?

VR: Yes, and I also expect some pushback and possible lawsuits. And it will be fascinating to see how this plays out in a country like Canada where we really care about equity.

MG: It's great to speak with you about this. Thank you very much.

VR: Thank you.

MG: Vardit Ravitsky is a professor in bioethics at the University of Montreal, also the chair of the covid-19 Impact Committee of the Trudeau Foundation. We turn this over to you. Would you be willing to accept that idea of... And it starts with conversations around university residences but this is a discussion that goes well beyond that as well. The idea of a vaccine passport, the idea of a vaccine requirement certainly to live in residences is the initial conversation. But then beyond that as well, to engage in the things that you used to love to do before the pandemic arrived. You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca on Twitter we are @thecurrentcbc. Now, the list of things you can only do if vaccinated against covid-19 is getting longer in this country, attending some concerts. Now on that list, if you want to be in the crowd to see Arkells, the band says you will need to have had your shot. Of course, everyone can listen to the band on the radio, this is Arkells and All Roads.

[Sound Clip: All Roads by Arkells]

MG: Brand new music from Arkells a tune called All Roads. Coming up after your regional update, standing up for the law in the face of a violent, lawless military coup. We'll meet some of the students doing just that in Myanmar in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

[Music: Theme]

Students risk safety to shed light on Myanmar coup

Guest: Bernard Hibbits

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

[Sound Clip: Protesters shouting]

FEMALE REPORTER: New pictures in on our top story this morning. A military coup in Myanmar sending shockwaves really through the region and around the world.

MG: That was the scene on the 1st of February. The democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi was overthrown by the military in Myanmar. And almost immediately pro-democracy protesters took to the streets.

[Sound Clip: protesters shouting].

MG: Since then, hundreds have been killed, thousands have been detained, and it's getting harder to get news from Myanmar. That is where my next guest comes in. Bernard Hibbitts is a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, a Canadian. He is also the publisher and editor in chief of Jurist. It is a legal news service that he created in 1996. Professor, good morning.

BERNARD HIBBITTS: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Tell me about this website and how it is involved in getting news out of Myanmar in the midst of a very unstable situation in that country.

BH: Jurist is a Law Student powered, legal news website and we've expanded in recent years actually partially under the influence of covid. We now have students from 29 different law schools in eight different countries, reporting on legal developments in their countries. The reporting traditionally was based on primary documents, cases, legislation, that kind of thing. But then in February of this year, we had an opportunity to connect with law students in Myanmar who were broadcasting sos's of various sorts over the Internet. And we had an opportunity to start getting reports from them on what was happening on the ground on a regular basis. That's transformed what we have done and has plugged us into a group of law students in Myanmar who are really remarkable.

MG: When you say that they're doing reporting, I mean, what is the sort of stuff that the students are presenting on this site?

BH: It started off being personal reports, things that they were doing. They were talking about attending protests. They were talking about the situation as they saw it on the ground. They were offering comments and analysis that helped us put things in context. And this was all coming into us, Matt, in real time. We were usually relying on WhatsApp and other kinds of technologies like that. I would be talking to them extensively throughout the day and then we would be carrying their reports in various media, whether it was posting their news reports on the website, whether it was posting comments on Twitter, whether it was putting up photos that they'd taken and things like that or video or whatever. Very soon, of course, as the situation developed, they found themselves in extraordinary circumstances, dangerous circumstances, and the whole thing just ratcheted up from there.

MG: As a professor of law, I mean, broadly, we'll talk specifically about Myanmar. But what's the goal here, in having a site like this that allows students around the world to present what they are seeing when it comes to how the law is being deployed in their country?

BH: I think it's critical match, give law students a voice. Law professors have a voice, law students have helped law professors have voices, law students themselves have been basically silent. And law students also are in the position of being in society. They are able to look around and see things and evaluate things. And we want to encourage them to take note of what's happening around them, which doesn't always happen in the context of professional education. It's important that they do that, that they get used to doing that, that they get used to doing that as a public service, because, of course, Jurist is free, openly accessible around the world and all of that. We want students and law students in particular to get engaged in what is happening around them and to really get a better understanding of what is happening in the world.

MG: When did you realise that this was an opportunity in a country like Myanmar where official media is presenting one point of view and independent media perhaps is not able to report freely, as perhaps it might have been in the past? When did you realise that this was an opportunity to get the news out of Myanmar?

BH: It took a little while to really understand that, Matt. At the beginning we were just interested in getting the information, getting the prospective students. We didn't know, I didn't know how long this would last. I think everybody was hoping that it wouldn't last that long, that there might be more concerted international action. But then the military junta started to be more and more heavy-handed and aggressive. They, of course, began to cut off Internet access that went on for weeks. And that made it very difficult for us to get information. But we continue to do that. We actually lost correspondence during that period because some of them were not able to get back online. But we continued with groups that we had and what they were saying and what they were reporting became more and more valuable as it became harder and harder to get information out of the country.

MG: What sort of stories have you heard from these students in Myanmar?

BH: Various sorts, Matt. I mean, you get comments on the general political situation, the economic situation. You hear them talking about their own circumstances. Remember that these students are losing their futures. They're losing their educations, which weighs on me tremendously as a law professor. They were already out of class because of covid, now they're out of class because of a coup. You know, that's happened before in Myanmar in the past when the military has taken over or has been heavy handed, and so you feel for these students, they lose their mentors, they lose their traditional teachers because many of their traditional teachers are being sought after at the moment. They have arrest warrants over their heads. So these students are lost and they're desperately trying to connect to the outside world. They're trying to connect to the normal world of legal education. They're trying to connect to me as a law professor. And, you know, the stories they're telling in the process are remarkable because many of those stories, Matt, are stories that go beyond the political and the economic. They go into situations of personal danger. When the protests were going on, when the police were just starting to crack down on the protests, I would literally get messages from my students at very odd hours because the clock is flipped from from eastern North America. And they would be telling me literally that we are sitting here hiding in the house because the police and soldiers have cracked down on our protests or they're telling me that there's some sort of battle going on in the street down the block. And they're carrying a body past my house right now. And they would be feeding me content, they'd be feeding me audio, they'd be giving us recorded video of things. And we desperately wanted to get that out. And we are continuing to get that as we can as it happens, although the circumstances on the ground have changed a little bit as things have become slightly quieter. But it's been a remarkable experience just reflecting and amplifying what these students are seeing and what they're living through right now.

MG: And this is work that you had done in the former Yugoslavia as well

BH: That seems so long ago and far away now. But in the late 1990s, we, in fact, did do that in the context of the Kosovo war. We were talking to academics in Yugoslavia, academics in Kosovo, and that was all being conducted by email. Again, we were trying to give a voice to people who otherwise would not have been able to talk about the situation on the ground in practical terms. And that was a very interesting exercise, but it was kind of a one off. I didn't think we'd be doing it again, although we learnt from the experience and a variety of ways. And it did structure how we developed our news service in years to come, in the decades to come, literally. But that was different because no one those were, as I said, academics and law professors. These are students. This is not happening by email. This is happening almost live. This is happening in multimedia. And of course, we now are in a position of being able to get this out to a much, much larger audience than would have existed for what we were doing back in the 1990s. But what I learnt in the 1990s, Matt, which was critical here, was how to talk to and work with individuals in war zones. And that is not a skill you want to acquire. But when you're doing that, you have to be careful in a variety of ways with your sources, with your interlocutors, especially in the context of those people, in my case, being students. You know, young women mostly, who are struggling with these situations even as they're trying to change them, you're constantly thinking about the implications of what you're saying. And you're also trying in a general sense to be supportive because they are isolated, they are on their own, it’s a different kind of thing. So it draws on your abilities, whatever they may be as a law professor, it draws on your abilities to some extent as a diplomat. It draws on your ability as someone who is just hopefully good at listening to people and then translating their story for the world in whatever way you can. But it's not common for law professors to be doing this, but I think it's good for us in a variety of ways.

MG: I want to bring in one of those students in Myanmar that is contributing to this website. We are not using her real name because, as you've just described, of the fears for her safety. We're calling her Vincenzo and she joins us now. Vincenzo, hello.

VINCENZO: Hello.

MG: How are you?

VINCENZO: I'm fine. Thank you for having me here.

MG: Thank you for being with us. Why did you want to be involved in this project that the professor has put together?

VINCENZO: I want to enrol in this project so that I can speak up more about what is happening in the country, because journalists and news departments, they are highly pressured and anyone who is speaking for the country and telling the truth of the war. They may be oppressed. So it is safe to deliver the news to the world, through Jurist we can come out with all of the [inaudible] of the nations that we have in our daily life and all the other news happening in the country.

MG: What is life like for you in Myanmar right now? I mean, describe what day to day life is like.

VINCENZO: Every day is full of fear, and whenever we want to go out, we can't, we can not because they might be military juntas with their uniforms on every ward and they are in the grocery stores or any places that people might there. And they always have the guns and for no reason they would probably shoot us. And also we are in the danger that our phones, they might be checked at random times, and they might even bring us for no reason, it is literally kidnapping people and then they might bring us to interrogation centre where people are tortured. And the next day, the family, they might even get.... they might just get the Dead body of the people. We don't know what can happen at any time. It is very unpredictable and unsafe.

MG: When you said that they would check your phones, I mean, what would they be looking for on your phone that could get you the attention of the police.

VINCENZO: When they check the phone, they mainly look for their social media accounts like Facebook and conversation, they will intrude people's privacy. They will check the phone, the messages, the conversations, the phone calls, the bank, mobile banking transactions, the Facebook and the twitter and the galleries. If they find any evidence about supporting the CDM, [inaudible] or if they find any information about protesting or giving opinion against them, they will immediately take the person. They especially focus on the young people and their phones because they are quite threatened by the capabilities of the young people. They connect with the outside world and they don't want people to have connection and to support help for the [inaudible] themselves.

MG: Given that and given how dangerous it is, why is it still important for you to be speaking out and to be doing this work?

VINCENZO: It is very important for us to keep speaking out for this just because they make us fearful for a short time when they check the phone or when they threaten us with a gun. But we cannot shut ourselves forever. We have to let the world know. We have to ask for help. We have to speak out so that we can end the situation as soon as possible. So we have to risk everything right now and we have to fight for this. We have to fight for our voice.

MG: You're a law student. Why did you want to study the law?

VINCENZO: I want to... I wanted to study the law because I wanted to help the people in Yagmur. There were previous coups and in those decades and centuries, in those decades and years, the lawyers, the legal people who practice legal professions, they are heavily oppressed. So our judicial system is untrustworthy for the people. And I hope that I can make a change in the judicial system of my country,

MG: Given the coup that is unfolding. What does that mean for your prospects of working as a lawyer now? Do you think you'll still be able to do that in future?

VINCENZO: I'm not one to give up on my dreams and the belief that I have, but the military coup literally defy every dream because I cannot go to school anymore or I cannot go for any further study or my master studies in other countries. Also, I refused to go to university under the military coup, even though they tried to run the university because they wanted to break the civil disobedience movement. But I will not go to the university because learning under their education system will not make me a defence lawyer in the future. I don't want to become a lawyer that is too fearful to speak the truth and to stand up for the people. I will continue my educations only when we get the fair judge [inaudible] back.

MG: And are you able in the midst of this, to give out legal advice? I mean, you know, about the law and you know what's unfolding right now. So for people that you were describing who are being pursued by police, by the military, can you give them any legal advice?

VINCENZO: Yes, they are some of my friends or relatives. As they come, they come to me to provide a legal advice. I am not in a position to give them a legal advice yet but I provide them with legal information that I have to them. And in that situation right now, someone is sitting above the law. Doing everything legally will not save anyone. It is very sad to admit that. And I have to suggest to people that anyone at the detainees, that are in the jail make sure that they are not in the interrogation centre because they will not let the people out. Everything is controlled by the military juntas. They are just kidnapping people, detaining them lawlessly so no law can win against them when they are abusing the law. So I just have to suggest then make sure your relatives or your friends is in the jail and they are safe, physically, because there might not be a way that laws can help you get out of jail when you do nothing wrong, the ask money from the people in exchange of freeing the detainees. And they sometimes asks me for advice whether they should give the money or is that how the [inaudible] work? And I just have to suggest to them not to give the money because we're not sure whether we get back the detainees if we give them money or not. And the thing is that I believe that we should not give the money to them at all because those money that they took from us, they will use them to buy the bullets to shoot the people is a very tight situation.

MG: Professor Hibbitts, when you listen to a student describe this commitment to the law in the face of a military coup, I mean, what goes through your mind?

BH: It's incredibly inspiring. The challenges they are facing are almost unimaginable. And having said that, you know, look at how they're responding. Look at how Vincenzo responds here. This is bravery. This is commitment. This is dedication to the protection of human rights. This is dedication to the rule of law. This is dedication to democracy on a large scale. And all of these students and again, most of them are women, but all of these law students are like this. They all speak out in their own voices to me and via Jurist, you know, all the time in these circumstances. And they are really models to the world in so many ways, but they are also, in a class by themselves. It's a privilege to work with them and it's been as educational for me, as it has been, I hope for others to listen to them. But I think we can all learn and they... when they prevail and I believe they will ultimately, when they prevail, I think there is tremendous promise here. And they're actually going through the fire right now. They will be leaders in years and decades to come. And I'm very much looking forward to seeing what they do with all this and what they make of the lessons they learned.

MG: Just briefly, I mean, you said this a couple of times. Why is it mostly women?

BH: It's got to do with the social and political dynamics. Law generally is not a favoured profession in Myanmar. As a result, the law schools are predominantly female, 80 to 90 percent of the students are female. That's remarkable even for a supposedly progressive North American law professor, to see. And I think that makes a difference in some ways. But it's great to see their energy and it's great to see how progressive they are and it's great to see how natural this all is for them. It doesn't strike them at all that this is unusual, it doesn't strike them at all that this is remarkable in any way. And again, I think they're, in a sense, providing a model for the world. And why shouldn't women be dominant in legal education and legal practice? I mean, they are demographically. But here they're just making the point. And so I think because they're women, you know, they will operate in slightly different ways. And so these female law students with smartphones, I think at the end of the day, will beat the soldiers with guns. I mean, I do think that is ultimately what will happen.

MG: You really believe that? I mean, we're at a time now where international law is under threat. Democracy, many people believe, is under threat. And you believe these students will beat those, as you say, soldiers with guns?

BH: I think in the long run, they will. In the short term, it's obviously hard to tell because force and brutality do a lot of damage in all kinds of different contexts. But there is an energy to this generation of women and female law students in Myanmar, Matt, which is remarkable. I have not seen it before anywhere else and having seen the light of modernity and the light of the world via the Internet in the last 10 years, these law students, these women are not going to go back into the dark. They're just not going to do that and I think that they will outlast the current powers that be. And I think they're going to outwit the powers that be. And I think that's what we will see in the future. Again, it may take a while, but I think in the end they will prevail. I certainly hope they will.

MG: Vincenzo, it is largely young people who are trying to make this change in Myanmar. How optimistic are you that you will win?

VINCENZO: Till now, I have never thought about losing this at all. That's honesty saying. Sometimes it feels very... I feel very sad and very shameful about what I have faced during the day whenever I saw the news, but I have never lost the faith that we will and we have to win this. I think that's what most young people in Myanmar have felt and think, because I think today's young people, they are very energetic and very determined in this, because we have already faced what democracy is like. We have already seen what human rights that we have to preserve in our daily life. So we have seen everything. We have seen that daylight. So we will not go back to the dark ages again. Like the older generation have, we have to win this for ourselves to survive and we have to save other younger generations from this crisis. And I think the young people in Myanmar, they are trying to prove that, they are trying to prove that the truth, that justice must always prevail and just threatening people with the guns and the weapons does not take away the firm belief of the people, the firm belief of one democracy that we have.

MG: Vincenzo, it's very inspiring to talk to you. And I wish you the best of luck, and I'm glad to have had the chance to speak with you. Stay safe. And thank you very much.

VINCENZO: Thank you very much for having me here, for helping me to speak up of what is happening in the country.

MG: And Professor, thank you very much for telling us about this project. It's fascinating.

BH: You're welcome, Matt. Thanks.

MG: Vincenzo is a law student in Myanmar. We've agreed to protect her identity because as you've heard of fears for her safety. Bernard Hibbitts is a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and the publisher and editor in chief of Jurist, a legal news service. That's it for The Current for this Monday. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. Benny Blanco is one of the people behind some of the biggest songs that have been out there by some of the biggest artists that are out there, people like Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, Britney Spears, Kanye West. He is now releasing his own music. And you'll hear all about it coming up on Q. We will close the program today where we started with news that the remains of more than 200 children were discovered on the site of the former Kamloops Indian residential school. It's a story we're going to continue to follow in the days ahead. I'll be speaking with Manny Jules, a former chief who went to that school, as well as the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Marie Sinclair. A sacred fire was lit on the site of the school in Kamloops. Hundreds turned out to mourn on the weekend. We'll leave you with some of the people who were there. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. And we'll talk to you tomorrow.

VOICE: [Introduction] it's, it's hard. It's sad, it was devastating. But I'm happy that we're able to honour their lives and remember them. It's been medicine and it's been triggering for lots of people. It's personally sad and heavy on my heart. But it's also been a good feeling too that we were able to pay respect to those lives after so many decades.

JOHN P: My name is John Pyarro. I'm an elder that went to school here at the residential school and also went to Williams Lake residential school. You know, you hear about the same things happening all the time. Right? And it's so damn sad, I say. But I'm glad that I come here and myself, I'm very respectful. I talk to people, doesn't matter who they are, when I see people coming together like this and at a time like this, you know, it makes you feel good. This is not only the red people, it's the white people that are... some realise the things that are happening. It's nice to see this kind of thing.

PASTOR JANE: I'm Pastor Jane Gingrich, the pastor at the Hills of Peace Lutheran Church here on the traditional unseated territory of the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc Peoples as a religious leader, especially in the Christian faith in this community. It's very important to stand here in solidarity and out of recognition for the horrific acts that have been caused by the church and by settlers and white people in this community and across Canada. And I look for and I expect that there will continue to be responses from the churches. Well, the Lutheran tradition did not directly have residential schools. We are complicit and guilty as people of faith who stood by. And so it's important for any person of faith, particularly those of Christian denominations and traditions across our country, to recognize that we have stood by while these acts have continued right into our lifetimes. This is not something that happened hundreds of years ago, and we can wipe away and pretend it didn't exist. And so we really need to be here to witness and recognize that our children could have been the children that this happened to. But our children need to know this history and need to be taught this in school as we were not. And that's not OK.

[Sound Clip: Chanting, singing and drums]

Monday May 31, 2021 Full Transcript

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