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The Current Transcript for October 28, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I've actually had people talk about, yeah, wearing a mask, you're showing disrespect for the president. What is wrong with you?

MATT GALLOWAY: Six days out from the U.S. election, just how divided is that country? The reporter, Nate Hegyi, wanted to find out, so he rode his bicycle 800 miles through small towns in the West, speaking with people about COVID and political alienation. His report from the Great Divide in 30 minutes. Speaking of divides, in the West, it was 40 years ago that the then Liberal government introduced the National Energy Program. The outrage in Alberta shaped politics there and across this country for years to come. In an hour, the legacy of Pierre Trudeau's oil policy and how it complicates relationships now between that province and his son's government. Also this morning.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: When there's any kind of function within the community, there's always a thing in the back of your head, are you going to bump into them now? Are they going to be there.

MG: A rare look from inside a courtroom at how a simple neighbourhood parking dispute in Nova Scotia spiralled into bullying, intimidation and violence. But as numbers of COVID cases continue to rise across this country, we start in long term care homes. A conversation with residents there about the last seven months of this pandemic and what needs to happen now to keep them safe in the months ahead. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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'I'm deathly afraid': Long-term care residents fear emotional neglect, understaffing as 2nd wave looms

Guests: Devora Greenspon, Carolynn Snow, Dianna Green

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It happened so quickly, too. She was on antibiotics for pneumonia. She was doing really well. And Saturday morning she spiked a fever and by Tuesday, she was gone.

MG: Sally Acker's mother. Gloria died in April at her long term care home in Ottawa. Hers is a familiar story as the first wave of COVID-19 overwhelmed residents, staff and families at long term care facilities from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. Now, as the second wave rips through parts of Canada, there are growing fears of history repeating itself and recommendations last week by an Ontario commission looking into what happened in the spring did little to dispel them.

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VOICE: Long term care didn't get the attention at the very outset that the hospitals got. There is urgency. The biggest health crisis in a hundred years.

MG: That's John Callaghan, co-counsel for the Long-term Care COVID-19 Commission. We'll hear from him in about 30 minutes. But first, we've brought together three seniors living in long term care homes. Devora Greenspon is in Toronto, Carolynn Snow lives in a home in Keswick, Ontario and Dianna Green lives in Cranbrook, British Columbia. Good morning to you all.

DIANNA GREEN: Good morning.

DEVORA GREENSPON: Good morning Matt.

MG: I wanted to ask first, what is the situation when it comes to covered like in your home right now? And Devora, why don't you start? What are things like there?

DEVORA GREENSPON: Well, the administration is being super careful. The staff is being swabbed once a week. We are confined basically to our room and our home area. We cannot associate with our peers in other areas of the home. There are no activities as such. We don't go on trips or go out for lunch. And I feel the home is doing a really good job. I know it's very hard for the residents. It's super hard for me because I'm used to going out and doing things and now I'm like a bird with its wings clipped. But I know it's for my own good and they're trying to keep the residents safe and keep the virus out because in the first wave, we were in outbreaks for a long time.

MG: What about for you, Carolynn? What are things like there in Keswick?

CAROLYNN SNOW: Well, right now things are good. We went on outbreak on October 8t because a staff member tested positive. At that point they tested all the rest of the staff and all the residents and those tests all came back clear. Up to that pointm we were confined to our own rooms, had to have our meals in our rooms. We're unable to be in contact with any of the other residents. It was a rough time really. The loneliness is hard to take, but we have been very fortunate here in that throughout this whole pandemic, we have not had one COVID case in the home itself.

MG: But how about you, Dianna? You're in British Columbia in Cranbrook. What's happening there?

DIANNA GREEN: So it's quite a bit different here. Our entire city has been safe so far through the outbreak. I think we might have had a couple cases in our town, but that was about it? And the rules are a lot more relaxed in our facilities, although they are taking precautions. People are allowed to have certain visitors come and see them once a week. And it has to be scheduled and they're taken to a certain room where they can visit. The staffm they do wear their mask, although some aren't as careful about it as others. And some of us that are able to get out on our own are able to go out into the community with certain precautions of course. We're not to go where there's a large crowd and we need to wear masks and make sure that we're washing our hands and so forth. And they've asked us when we come back in to stay away from the others until everything seems safe. But I agree with Carolynn, it's a loneliness is a huge, huge problem for the residents here. There's been a few fights that started and lots of tears. It's very difficult, especially people who are losing their loved ones, you know and want to spend time with them and it's very difficult. It's been a rough time.

MG: Devora, you said it's a bit like being a bird with your wings clipped.

DEVORA GREENSPON: Yeah, very much.

MG: Tell me a bit about what the quality of life has been like given, you know, as you say, you understand the restrictions, but it still has an impact on the quality of life.

DEVORA GREENSPON: Oh yes. It's still, I'm basically heartbroken. I can't see my family. I have family in Ottawa, I haven't seen them since last Christmas. We do Zoom, but it's bitter sweet. You see the faces, but you can't have the close human contact and I think that's one of the things I miss the most, other than being able to go out and do things. But I also miss with the team members when they come in all you see is the eyes. You can't even see their smiles and I think that's one of the hardest things besides the loneliness, because we haven't had visitation now for a month. Like, you can't see your family unless you have a room facing the street and then your family can come up near the window and wave hello to you and you can speak back and forth through the window. I find that really difficult.

MG: Carolynn, what's it been like for you? Have you been able to see your family face to face?

CAROLYNN SNOW: Not really. My daughter has just recently been classed as an essential visitor, but she has yet to be able to come in because we, at the point that happened, we were put in outbreak and that stopped her from coming in so. But it is, it's very lonely. I miss seeing my grandchildren and my other children. I'm only allowed two essential visitors, one primary and one secondary. As Devora said, the human contact, it's very demoralising. And I really at times feel quite down about it and I just have to sort of talk to myself and say, this too will pass. I got out to see some of the other residents and I've noticed a big difference in their health over the period of time that we've been confined to our rooms, many who were walking with walkers are now in wheelchairs because they haven't had any stimulation or activity. It's a shame that their health is suffering for it.

MG: Do you worry about that for yourself as well?

CAROLYNN SNOW: Yes, I do. I know that I've regressed and I'm going to have to work doubly hard trying to get back to the point it was before the outbreak.

MG: Devora, there was this review of the long term care homes in Ontario and one of the things that came out in the review is that there's a sense in some ways that the homes were forgotten in the planning for this pandemic. And people talked about how they felt muzzled and they felt trapped. Is that reflected in what you've seen over the course of these last several months, that that, you know, a place like where you live, a place like the home that you're that you're living in was forgotten in the planning for this pandemic?

DEVORA GREENSPON: It took a while for them to react and I guess act on circumstances. They finally did. But by then, we had a sort of a massive outbreak and we were all cohorted, the ones that weren't sick were cohorted. And I was one of those lucky ones not to be sick, you know. I was put in a room, somebody's room, and her furniture was covered with black garbage bags. I was only allowed to take five articles, five changes of clothing because they didn't know how long it would last. I had to pack up everything I was told in the morning and I was moved. at 1 o'clock. And the loneliness of not being able to go out, I couldn't go as far as a doorway in the room, I had to stay behind closed doors for three and a half months. I nearly went crazy. It was the most horrible experience, and I'm deathly afraid that I may have to go through that again. Mind you, the option to getting sick is not a good one. So if I had a choice, I guess I would go to cohorting. But it was horrible. We ate out of cardboard containers with plastic cutlery because of infection control. I saw PSWs on the run kind of thing. If they had an extra minute, they would come in and chat.

MG: The Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford was responding to this report about Ontario's long-term care homes and how they fared during the first wave of this pandemic. Have a listen to what the premier said.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Well, it's the number one priority. Take care of the most vulnerable people in society. We've inherited a broken system, a system that's been broken for over 30 years, probably even longer than 30 years.

MG: Carolynn, what do you make of that?

CAROLYNN SNOW: Well, it's true. It's really depressing to see them working so hard and look and looking so tired and they're also feeling so guilty because they feel that they're not giving the residents the time and attention they should, but they just don't have the time to do it. They do the essential care, and that's about all they have time for.

MG: Given that, Devora, we're moving into this second wave and it's popping up in various parts across the country already. What are you most concerned about when it comes to the second wave? And do you feel in the home that you're in, do you feel safe moving into that second wave?

DEVORA GREENSPON: Actually, I feel threatened. I'm basically afraid for myself and my residents as to what can happen because I know what happened before, and I'm deathly afraid that that's going to happen again and I'm going to lose some of my friends again. Plus the fact that some of us may get sick and then some of us will have to go in to, they'll be cohorting and that was, as I said before, a horrible experience.

MG: Dianna, what do you think needs to be done to ensure that you remain safe? And given everything that we're hearing around staffing, around concerns around the the mental health costs of being locked down and being confined, as Devora was saying, what needs to happen to ensure that you remain safe as the second wave picks up?

DIANNA GREEN: I don't really know if they can do a whole lot more than they are doing. I mean, they're, my main concern is not so much, like I don't want to sound hard or anything, but it's not so much the physical safety as the emotional, the emotions that people are dealing with that aren't being met. Like, I actually went through here when this first happened and asked everybody if they would rather see their loved ones with the risk of getting COVID or the alternative. You know and they said we would rather, we'd rather die than not be able to see our family members and to be so ostracized, you know. To be like the first lady there said, I can't believe what you went through with that cohorting. I've never heard of that. That is awful. And I hope that somehow they get away from that and and people need each other, they need contact with their families. They need contact with people who love them, they need to be touched and I think that's being forgotten about, you know. I was so worried about preserving lives, but we're not worried about how their lives are. You know, are they happy? Are they content? Or no, they're not. It's really awful.

MG: Do you think we hear enough from people like yourselves who live in long term care during this crisis, Dianna?

DIANNA GREEN: No, not at all. Actually, I think this is one of the first interviews I've ever heard of from people right in the long-term care. You know, I see little articles coming out from family members who are just distraught and who have lost loved ones and didn't get that quality time with them because of the way management treated them. Where they couldn't come in and see them. They made the rules very hard and it's just ridiculous rules, you know. And more people are, I know of one lady that passed away and her husband wasn't, she wasn't deemed palliativ fast enough. So he, all had was maybe an hour with her and then they let him in.So yeah, there's a lot of emotional things that need to be thought of. A lot of people's spirits are, they're just wasting away here.

DEVORA GREENSPON: I don't think this they're dealing with the residents' cycle emotional well-being and that's a big part of the problem.

MG: That the focus is too much on the physical well-being rather than the emotional well-being?

CAROLYNN SNOW: That's right.

DEVORA GREENSPON: Yeah.

MG: What happens Devora, if we don't hear from residents like yourself? I mean to Dianna's point, there have been a lot and we've had a lot of conversations on this program about long-term care, but if we aren't hearing from the people who are living in long-term care homes, what happens then do you think, Devora?

DEVORA GREENSPON: Well, then I think people are going to find it hard to believe as to what's going on. I think lived experience is extremely important for the public to be made aware of how things are in long term care. I mean, just because we're old doesn't mean to say we don't have needs and emotions and wants. A lot of people have the attitude that people are put into long-term care, they shove us in here and we just stay here till we die. But that's not the case. We're not put in here just to wait to die. We're putting it here to live, we're vibrant active people, some of us and some of us are active physically, some of our active mentally. We all have different abilities. And so I really feel that it's important for the public to be made aware of those things, that we're just not to be stuck in a home to be stuck like a piece of furniture. We're here because some of us can't walk. Some of us can't do things for ourselves, we need help, but that doesn't mean to say you know, we don't want to live anymore, we don't want to live productive, active lives to thebest of our ability and I think the public really needs to be made aware of that.

MG: Carolynn, what about for the people who are making the decisions around protecting people like yourselves in the second wave? What do they need to hear?

CAROLYNN SNOW: Well, I think that their main concern is the physical. And I think they're slowly getting becoming aware of the emotional segment and they're trying as much as they can in our home, at least, to try and alleviate some of the loneliness and that allowing essential caregivers, family members to be caregivers and to be able to come in. They're so worried about an outbreak that's going to just spread like wildfire through the homes that it's hard to strike the right balance.

MG: It's really important to hear from all of you. I wish you the best of health. I hope that this winter is not as hard as the spring that you went through and I really appreciate talking to you all. Thank you.

CAROLYNN SNOW: Thank you.

DIANNA GREEN: Thank you.

DEVORA GREENSPON: Thank you very much.

MG: Take care yourselves. Devora Greenspon and Carolynn Snow live in long-term care homes in Ontario. Dianna Green is in Cranbrook, British Columbia. We did ask for interviews with Ontario's Minister of Long-term Care, Dr. Merrilee Fullerton and Ontario's Minister of Health, Christine Elliott. Both declined our requests. We would love to hear from you. This is such a familiar story and as our guest said, it's important to hear from those who are in many ways at the centre of this story, the residents of those long-term care homes. How do you strike that balance between physical and mental health? And what are your experiences as this pandemic has unfolded in long-term care? You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca, tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or go to the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the Contact link there. The CBC News is next and then we continue our coverage of long-term care homes. I'll speak with John Callaghan. He's one of the authors of a new series of recommendations from an Ontario commission looking into what happened in the first wave and what needs to be done to protect residents like the ones we were speaking to in a second wave. He'll be with us in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

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Long-term Care Home Commission releases early recommendations

Guests: John Callaghan

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

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MG: Still to come, a ride through America's mountain states where this election has people talking about everything from wearing masks to taking up arms after the votes are counted. But first, an embattled long term care system facing a second wave.

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MG: As we heard before the break, those living in long-term care homes are worried about a second wave of COVID-19. The Ontario Commission, responsible for looking into the fatal failures at long-term care homes during covered by teen in that province has released some early recommendations ahead of a final report due in April of 2021. John Callaghan is the co-lead counsel for the Long-term Care COVID-19 Commission and a partner at Gowling WLG. John Callaghan, good morning to you.

JOHN CALLAGHAN: Good morning, Matt.

MG: How prepared would you say Ontario's long-term care homes are for a second wave of COVID-19?

JOHN CALLAGHAN: JC: Well, I think the government is working hard to make them better prepared. There are certain things that the commissioners felt that needed a little bit more attention. And that's one of the reasons they wrote the interim recommendations.

MG: In those interim recommendations. It was written that long term care homes were forgotten in plans to control the spread of covered 19 until residents started to die. How does something like that happen?

JOHN CALLAGHAN: Well, I think, you know, it's maybe a bit of a legacy of SARS where we focussed on the hospitals. There is the added you're already always ready to fight the last war and the last war was on hospitals. And fortunately, this one has been in long term care. So I think the commissioners were of the view that more attention ought to have been paid to long term care and the preparedness stage for this pandemic.

MG: I guess one of the reasons why that's important is because there was a report that came out from the Ontario government last year calling for urgent hiring to ease staff or shortages. This was before COVID. We heard from residents in Long-Term Care Homes just in the last half hour, and they talked about what the effect of staff shortages were like on their lives and the lives of their fellow residents. Why didn't that hiring happen, as you understand it?

JOHN CALLAGHAN: Well, it's we haven't, the commissioners have opined as to why it hasn't happened. I mean, it appears that they know that there has been a an appetite to study studies. And that's what the commissioners have suggested not happened, which is they received a staffing study even this past summer. And it's time to implement rather than to study any further. So it's an issue that not only has been traditionally plaguing long term care, but which was compounded by absences of staff due to COVID, the single place of work mandate that came out. And this long-term problem needs a long term solution.

MG: The suggestion is that perhaps it's easier to spend money on studies than it is to spend money on hiring staff. Do you concur with that?

JOHN CALLAGHAN: Well, I rather than me concur with that, I would say that there is no question that the commitment, the more staff is going to cost more money. And it's a matter of where you value your elders in the system and whether you're prepared to spend that money.

MG: And so when you make early recommendations, again, your report wasn't due until next year, but because of what you saw, you release early recommendations, Marilee Fullerton, the Minister of Long-Term Care, puts out a statement saying, these are her words, "we are carefully reviewing each of those recommendations." Is that to you a sign that more study is going to be happening that not action, but there's going to be more study of studies?

JOHN CALLAGHAN: Well, as I understand it, she has said that they are reviewing the recommendations and that shortly, as on this week, I understood that she was going to provide a more comprehensive response to the recommendations. So I have to wait and see exactly what the government's response is.

MG: What needs to happen right now? Again, we just heard from three residents who lived through very difficult times this spring, and they're really worried about what is going to happen. As you know, cases continue to spike in parts of this country. So what needs to happen now to ensure that those residents are better protected?

JOHN CALLAGHAN: Well, the recommendations of the commissioners basically dealt with three things. One is the staff that we spoke about. The other is to ensure that these Long-Term Care Homes have access to the wider health sector in the first wave. There were 13 orders for hospitals to intervene in long term care homes. The commissioners think that the best approach is to mandate, not recommend, but mandate relationships in the wider community, including with hospitals, to ensure that the wider health sectors expertise is available to long term care. I pack and other things of that can make a difference reside principally in hospitals as an expertise. And it's hoped that with these recommendations and the mandate in those expertise, that expertise will be available. The other is to ensure that they are ready with respect to IPAC, which is to ensure that they have sufficient PPE, which the government says they do, but to ensure that there are plans to cohort sick patients so that there aren't with the general population and to ensure that there is right when rapid testing comes, that long-term care is the priority.

MG: Just before I let you go, if those recommendations aren't taken up immediately, what's your biggest concern?

JOHN CALLAGHAN: Well, our concern is that is that we have the same issue we had in wave one. I mean 80 percent of the deaths over COVID were in Long-Term Care. So, I mean, that's where the battleground is, and it's hoped that with these recommendations and the work the government's otherwise doing that that won't be the case in wave two.

MG: John Callaghan, good to speak with you. I appreciate your time.

JOHN CALLAGHAN: Thanks, Matt.

MG: John Callaghan, the co-lead counsel for the Long-Term Care COVID-19 commission and a litigator and partner at Gowling WLG.

Across the Great Divide

Guests: Nate Hegyi

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. If you are a regular listening listener to this program, and we certainly hope that you are, you'll know all about our road trip along the Mississippi. In September, we loaded up the virtual radio RV in Minnesota and we've been rolling into Louisiana for our last stop. We're going to arrive there next week. Along the way, we've been speaking voters, people interested in the election, people paying attention or not to some of the big issues. Nate Hegyi, a reporter with U.S. public media outlet the Mountain West News Bureau, did a bit of a road trip on his own, only his was actually in person and on a bike. Kind of showed us up there. He took a different route riding his bicycle nearly 800 miles, almost 1300 kilometres from Montana through Idaho and Wyoming to Colorado. His project is called, Across the Great Divide, and he's here now from his home in Missoula, Montana, to tell us all about it. Nate, good morning.

NATE HEGYI: Good morning.

MG: Why did you do this, Nate? Why did you decide you wanted to ride 800 miles on your bike?

NATE HEGYI: Well, I'd been feeling disconnected from what's happening in America, especially, you know, locked down under the pandemic. And as a journalist, I wasn't being able to get out, you know, and actually talk to people face to face. And at the same time, the news cycle down here in the States, it's just been absolutely crazy. And so I wanted to essentially slow that news cycle down. So I hopped on a bicycle and I started writing, going in about 10 miles per hour, trying to talk with as many people as I could. And that's also, you know, around the speed of someone on horseback. And that's the way we experienced this landscape for centuries before the automobile.

MG: Give me a sense as to where you were riding through. I mean, what was the landscape like?

NATE HEGYI: My route kind of took me along the physical continental divide of this this country. So it's very sparse, open, lots of high sagebrush desert, beautiful mountains. It goes past Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, a lot of small towns and rural communities.

MG: You call this project Across the Great Divide. What does that mean, The Great Divide?

NATE HEGYI: Well, first off, I mean, we have the physical divide in our our country, which is the continental divide, which is also known as the Great Divide. And then there's the you know, the kind of fun metaphor of we also have a great political divide. You know, never in my lifetime has America been so polarised. I wanted to kind of explore that divide. And so when I was riding, I discovered that there are some pretty extreme opinions on on both sides of the aisle right now.

MG: Tell me about the extremes. Who did you meet from the saddle of your bike that would fit into those extremes?

NATE HEGYI: Yeah. Well, first, I want to take you to this tiny town of Dubois, right outside of this tiny town of Dubois in central Wyoming. I was cycling down the highway. It was bitterly cold, a winter storm had just hit. And I was all bundled up in long johns and a puffy coat. And as I rounded this bend in the highway, I started seeing these signs right. One said, Veterans for Trump and other said Hunters for Trump. There was this Photoshop picture of the president riding a Harley Davidson. And it said, Bikers for Trump.

MG: Someone loves the president.

NATE HEGYI: Yes. And his name is Ben Barto. He's an artist who designed all of these posters. And he lives on this highway, sprawling property next to the Wind River just outside of town. And I was honestly super nervous to talk to him just because of the atmosphere right now, especially amongst pretty diehard Trump supporters, that journalists are, you know, fake news, enemy of the people. But I went up to his house and it turns out that he was happy to talk.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: He's the first president that has not been a politician in a long time. You know, they're part of the swamp that's been created as the politicians that have been, they're career politicians for years. And Donald Trump can't be bought. He's not a career politician. He's a businessman. That's why he's turned the economy around and that's why the people who love him.

MG: We hear a lot of that from Trump supporters. What is Ben make of this election season thus far?

NATE HEGYI: He's worried. Barto grew up in a Democratic family. He says the party's changed its become socialist, more liberal. He actually told me that he thinks that Democrats hate America. So he's really worried about them taking control after the election.

MG: That's a pretty extreme statement. Where does that come from?

NATE HEGYI: He watches a lot of Fox News and it's pretty popular out here. Same with conservative talk radio. Those outlets really ramp up rhetoric and they create boogeymen like fake news or Antifa or the Democrats or even even Black Lives Matter.

MG: What does he think of Black Lives Matter? We saw this summer in which Black Lives Matter was a huge issue and in some ways became an issue around this election. What does he think of that movement?

NATE HEGYI: Right. Barto's not a not a fan of them and he go so far as to call them racist. And he says people like himself are tired of seeing all these protests.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: They're cause of the destruction that's going on right now. They've pushed us to the point. You know, you can see it in cities all over. I mean, you can't even go to an outside cafe without having some of these nut balls come up and harass you. The conservative, never come up. You don't see us out there rioting. You don't see us looting. You know, we express our point of view, but we don't take it to that physical burn down thug mentality, rob, steal, burn, looting. This country is fed up with it.

NATE HEGYI: Now, it's really important to note that most of these protests against police brutality here in the states have been non-violent, but that's the message he's getting from Fox News and other conservative outlets.

MG: And when he says that the country is fed up with it, what does that mean?

NATE HEGYI: Well, he thinks that things are ready to explode and that the election could end in some kind of revolution even.

MG: A revolution? Is that something that he's preparing for?

NATE HEGYI: No, I don't think so. It actually seems to be mostly just talk. For instance, he hasn't seen any of this violence firsthand.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Not here in Wyoming. I mean, because people pretty much know, well, wyoming has the highest amount of weapons per capita than anyplace else in the country. So we're not going to get a bunch of those extremists coming here because they know we won't stand for it here. So we don't see much of it here, but we sure hear of it going on everywhere else.

MG: What does he mean everywhere else?

NATE HEGYI: He was referring, I think, to fatal shootings and protests in cities like Portland or Kenosha. But it's important to remember that those are hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres away from Wyoming. You know, he only experiences that on television, what he sees on Fox News.

MG: So he's in rural Wyoming. He talks about these divisions. He talks about this coming revolution. Does that does any of that actually affect him where he's living right now?

NATE HEGYI: Not really. And funny thing is, he actually has friends who are liberal and, you know, I'm from the media. He called us fake news in the in the interview, but still invited me into his home. It was really, really nice to me. And this all kind of brings up this really interesting disparity I saw on the road. There's all this worry about polarisation at a national level and our big, deep political divide, but people also take a lot of pride in helping out their neighbours, regardless of race, politics, religion. It's a really kind of weird disparity, to be honest with you.

MG: Where did you see that when you were on your travels?

NATE HEGYI: Early on in my trip, I met this guy Dave in this tiny town of Leadore, Idaho in the Lemhi Valley. He was leaning on his red Pontiac Firebird outside of the post office there. He's retired. He's lived in Leadore for 25 years.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Even if we hate each other politically, we're going to help each other when the chips are down because we all know we're in this together and it's like a really disjointed family.

NATE HEGYI: But nowadays, he's worried the pandemic is showing cracks in that resolve.

MG: How are they viewing the pandemic there where he is?

NATE HEGYI: Right now numbers have spiked, but when I rode through in late summer, the case count was really, really low. You barely saw any masks in town. And that's why I noticed Dave, because he was one of the only people wearing one. He's also older and more vulnerable and he's super frustrated with the response in Leadore.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I don't know where this is going to go, but it sure is ridiculous that we've got political divisiveness based on a public health emergency. I mean, I've actually had people talk about, yeah, wearing a mask, you're showing disrespect for the president. What is wrong with you?

NATE HEGYI: Now, that said, Dave actually doesn't really like the president. And that puts him in the minority in Leadore. In 2016, only nine people voted for Hillary Clinton. Nearly 130 voted for Trump.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: This place could not be more Trump if everyone was flying a blue Trump 2020 flag. There is no one here in this area and virtually in this county that is not a Trump supporter. And I have to be honest, I don't understand that he does not represent the values of the people that are out here, but they don't seem to even know what he is doing or saying, so they don't understand that. And anyone that thinks that a billionaire is the friend of the common man is pretty much short sighted.

MG: What is it like for him to have these sorts of views in an area that, as he says, really couldn't be more Trump?

NATE HEGYI: I think it's an interesting experience. You know, after our interview, this guy showed up in a beat-up pickup truck, walked into the post office, Dave says hi, the guy completely ignores him. And that's actually why Dave didn't want me to use his last name, because he's worried about repercussions. You know, even though remember earlier when he said, you know, when the chips are down, people help each other out in Leadore, at this moment, there's all this polarization, he thinks this is testing that. And he's worried that maybe his neighbours won't be so friendly during a power outage or a snowstorm after they hear this interview and hear about his political beliefs.

MG: And those helping hands, I mean, those would be really important in a small town.

NATE HEGYI: Right. Yeah. I mean, that's actually the foundation of probably the most dominant political ideology I saw on my trip in these small towns. You know, the idea that we don't need the government when we have each other. For instance, I was riding into Dubois, Wyoming, when I was waylaid by by this winter storm, six inches of wet, heavy snow. I couldn't bike. The roads were icy, so I was stuck there. And I met Stephanie Arrache shovelling her sidewalk.

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VOICE: I'm a libertarian. I believe that people should do what they want to do, just don't affect other people. Right? So, I mean, I. I believe in hard work and providing for people in need. I donate to local charities, stuff like that. I don't think that the government should provide for people. I think it should help people in need. I don't think that it should always be giving people. But I'm also kind of different because I'm in a wheelchair and I've been paralyzed for seven years and, you know, I still had my law practice and I drive and I'm 100 percent.So I'm very like people can do it, they can survive if they have the determination.

NATE HEGYI: She supports Trump. Doesn't like all the tweeting, but likes what he did for the economy. And he also heard her say that she's a lawyer, but she actually just moved here about a year ago and opened up a bookstore.

MG: Why did she move?

NATE HEGYI: She was burnt out. Wanted to move to a community that was friendly and shared her values. You know, that idea of neighbours helping each other. And when she first moved, she wanted to prove that she could fit into this small town. So she actually helped someone sandbag their house to stop flooding. And she had to prove herself because she and her family are from California, which is a dirty word out here.

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VOICE: People saw our California plates and they immediately thought we were coming here to try and change the town and be Californian. And I mean, when we bought the store, a couple old timers came in, they said, so what are you going to change about this place? And I said nothing. He said, good answer.

MG: What is it that people are so afraid of when it comes to to California?

NATE HEGYI: Californians represent change, you know, and that's one of the other divides I found on my trip. It's between people who want to protect their towns and keep them the way they are. And then folks who want to see change.

MG: And is that I mean, you could imagine that that fits in in any city or community across the country or around the world, maybe even, but is that a particular concern in this area?

NATE HEGYI: Absolutely, yeah. The West is one of the fastest growing regions in America. Californians and lots of other people from the cities are moving in, especially to the Rocky Mountains area. And so towns, just like cities are gentrifying, you know, and becoming unaffordable. Take Dubois, it's it's tough to get hard numbers, but realtors like Michelle Burdick see it growing.

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VOICE: Ever since COVID started, it seems like all of a sudden everybody is looking to get out of big places with big populations and people are just buying them up left and right. And they don't even know, they don't even know what it's like here. It kind of scares me that you're going to have the same kind of people that move here that go, oh, this is a sweet little small town. But but we don't have this and we don't have that. And pretty soon they bring it all with them and they have exactly what they left behind that they wanted to leave. So I think growth is okay, but you don't want to create the same hell you left.

NATE HEGYI: And that's the tricky balance, right? Wanting your community to grow and be healthy, but then fretting about how all these new people will change your town.

MG: And I mean, again, it's a familiar story, but she mentioned COVID. Is what they're seeing there a recent phenomena?

NATE HEGYI: I mean, anecdotally COVID is driving a surge in growth, but this growth has also been happening for a while. Folks moving from cities because of high housing costs are wanting to work remotely in a beautiful mountain town like Dubois. It's it's definitely been going on for probably since that since the recession.

MG: Who's making the move?

NATE HEGYI: Michelle Burdick is actually surprised about the number of retirees moving in, especially because Dubois doesn't have a hospital. She'd rather see younger people starting businesses. You know keeping working class families in town.

MG: And is that happening?

NATE HEGYI: It is in some towns across the region. So take Saratoga, Wyoming. There's a new restaurant and pub there. Does farm to table. Not the usual thing you find in the small town in southern Wyoming. Owner Danny Burau moved from Denver a few years ago to set up this restaurant, and I met him on the deck. He was wearing this flat brimmed baseball cap, bandanna for a mask.

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VOICE: No matter what, the food is going to be all made from scratch, high quality. We do everything we can here, sourcing locally when we can, which has proven to be a challenge here. It's honestly the kind of dining we were doing in Denver. The restaurants we were drawn to, we wanted really like comfort food with classic technique made with the best ingredients we could get and to find a way to do that, but still appeal to a small town and doesn't just kind of weird people out.

MG: It's interesting. He's worried about weirding people out. What's it been like?

NATE HEGYI: He said there's been some pushback and locals were pretty suspicious.

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VOICE: I needed to prove myself that I wanted to be here. They'd seen a lot of businesses come to town and not succeed. They could see that we were dumping a lot of effort and money into this building, into what we're doing here. And even doing COVID, there were, I heard from people in town that we weren't going to reopen. I was being told we weren't going to reopen. So, yeah, there was, I don't want to say resistance. I mean nobody ever tried to slow us down or stop us, but there was also a lack of belief that we understood what this town took.

MG: Where do you think that lack of belief comes from? What's behind that resistance?

NATE HEGYI: Well, as he said, other businesses and restaurants created by newbies had closed down and then there's that fear that the way of life is going to change with new cultures coming in.

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VOICE: There's a real comfort in these small towns and knowing everybody that's here, they definitely like the pace of life and they like what's here. And change is difficult for anybody. And in a big city, stuff can change all the time and within little neighbourhoods, the same thing happens and people don't want that business come into their neighbourhood. It's just that this town effectively is one neighbourhood. What I'm trying to say to people here, because I know we brought something different, we brought a different energy, we're targeting a different kind of crowd, but the growth is coming. Real estate is flying in town. It's so much change so quickly that it makes people uncomfortable. But you can try and guide the growth or you can be controlled by it. And that's kind of it. Like we're going to grow. We're not in a downturn period. You're growing or you're dying? We're growing.

NATE HEGYI: All this change isn't new. I mean, the West is always growing or dying. Boom and bust and there are people that want it to change and people who want it to stay the same.

MG: Stitch it back to the election. I mean, it's days away. How do the divides that you're seeing, the political divides play into all of this?

NATE HEGYI: I mean, it's heightened. People are worried that all this growth is just adding to the problems that these city folks are going to bring their politics with them, that they will destroy the whole idea of neighbours helping neighbours, you know, and make it more divided. But here's kind of the funny thing. Many of the people I spoke with on this trip, they were outsiders at one time or another, city folks who had moved out west years ago and now they're part of that community because you know that's what happens. You know, people in places adapt. That's the whole story of the West. And, you know, this whole place that I rode, sure, t's likely going to vote for Trump, but it'll be interesting to see what happens there after the election.

MG: It's amazing what you see when you move, as you say, at the speed of horseback. Nate, thank you.

NATE HEGYI: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

MG: Nate Hegyi is a reporter with the U.S. public media outlet, the Mountain West News Bureau. Your regional update is next and then whether it's Ned Flanders or Cosmo Kramer, neighbours aren't always what you'd hope. The odd dispute over unraked leaves or leaving your Christmas lights up well into August is nothing compared to what one neighbourhood in rural Nova Scotia endured. You'll hear that story coming up in a moment. I'm Matt Galloway. The Current is back in 90 seconds.

[Music]

Inside a Nova Scotia courtroom, a case of a neighbourhood parking dispute

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. What happens when the biggest bully you've ever met lives next door? And he's not a schoolboy. He's a man in his 60s.

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VOICE 1: Howard Merrette always stared me down. Hated me. Even in an incident in the courtroom when he got taken down by the sheriffs swore and tried to get at me as he was being dragged out the court.

VOICE 2: Every time I'd been out and come home, I'd stop on the road that led to ours and set the video camera up on my phone, so it was ready that if I saw them or come across them, that I would video it for my own protection. Barry couldn't go to work functions because I didn't want to be left in the house on my own.

VOICE 1: Nova Scotia itself is a small community, but the Eastern Shore is a very small tight-knit community. We don't know everybody because we've only been here for 13 years, but we know people that just seemed to know everybody. And we've had a lot of people say, that was you? You was involved with that? What was that like to go through? That must have been terrible. It's consumed us.

MG: That's Barry and Anne north at home in rural Nova Scotia. The man Barry is describing in the courtroom is their former neighbour, Howard Merrette. The Norths say that if they ever write a book about what the people in their former neighbourhood have been through, they'll call it, The Biggest Little Case in the Harbour.

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VOICE 1: Every day we keep saying to ourselves, we're talking about it again. It's affecting our life again and every time something comes up, what if? What's going to happen with that? They still affecting us. We moved away and they're still affecting us.

VOICE 2: You're looking when there's any kind of function within the community, there's always a thing in the back of your head, are you going to bump into them now. Are they going to be there?

MG: Howard Merrette and his wife, Gwen Williams, were each sentenced to jail earlier this fall. For 10 years the couple teamed up to harass their neighbours. The beef began, as many neighbourhood disputes do, with a parking spot issue, but Howard Merrette and Gwen Williams drove their fight well beyond the dead end of their unpaved country.

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[Sounds from sentencing hearing of Howard Merrette and Gwen Williams]

MG: This is Justice Jamie Campbell of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. It's part of a sentencing hearing for the couple. We don't ever get to hear what goes on in Canadian courtrooms, but we have special permission to air this and we've condensed the parts you will hear. A warning: this story contains some offensive language.

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VOICE: Sandra Gwen Williams and Howard G. Merrette were found guilty by a jury of having committed several offences. Generally, what happened was a property dispute that descended into absurdly vulgar, stupid and childish behaviour that led to unhinged ranting, online bullying and misogynistic harassment. It eventually ended up in one dangerous assault, followed by a long jury trial.

MG: Now, the court recording is a little scratchy, but it tells the story of a road under siege by two neighbours always on patrol. Howard Merrette and Gwen Williams are both in their 60s. He's a retired weapons technologist in the Navy. She's an acupuncturist. During the trial, they represented themselves dressed in choir gowns to look like the robe lawyers in the courtroom. Here's just a taste of what those in the court heard.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Mr. Merrette stood in front of the truck saying he owned the robe. Mr. Merrette punched the front light out of the truck. That seemed like an odd thing to do. A mediation meeting was held at the school, where the RCMP brought the neighbours of Scotts Lake Road together to talk about their concerns. Mr. Merrette's behaviour was notable. He paced around and he stand behind the mediator, saying the word, "asshole." Ms. Williams ended the meeting by saying that "this is war" and "you people are all targets.".

MG: Close call at more than an hour long, the court decision recounts many run ins with nine individual neighbours. Once, Howard Merrette pretended to run into one with a snowplow. He blocked visitors walking by his house and demanded to know where they were going. He cut down neighbours trees and he beat a neighbour with a hockey stick.

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VOICE: Mr. Merrette at one point shouted that he was King Kong and owned the "beep road.".

MG: Howard Merrette and his wife also worked the phones. They called their neighbours employers and accused them of stalking and for social media they produced satirical videos to mock the people who lived around them. One example, they blocked part of the road with snow, causing a neighbour to crash and posted a video of the crash to Facebook for a laugh. What you're about to hear references a sexual threat.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Social media allows people to target others relentlessly. The victim can find no escape. In this case, the victims were harassed online. Some through their workplaces and while going to and from their once quiet, peaceful homes. There was no place to find relief and no getting away from it. Mr. Merrete's level of aggression online and in person and the unrelenting nature of it made life miserable for the people who lived on Scotts Lake Road. Neighbours became concerned about having any interaction with him at all because of the fear that he would fly into a rage in a way that was intended to bully and intimidate. He was not merely a cranky and unfriendly man. He acted as an aggressive bully who was physically intimidating. Williams said that Mr. Mareb was her protector or her pit bull. She was not a bystander who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She joined him. Ms. Williams intervened to support what Mr. Merritt was saying and doing, but in a more calm and subdued way. She posted videos on Facebook that were intended to embarrass and annoy the neighbours who Mr. Merrette accosted in person. Ms. Williams was the enabler and supporter. Encouraging a bully is another way to be a bully. The harassment against Anne and Barry North should be addressed, specifically. What Howard Merrette wrote to and about Anne North was not only disgustingly vulgar and coldly brutal, but had the intended effect of terrifying the couple.

VOICE 2: We got made aware by another neighbour vows that left on the same road as we did of a Facebook page. Anne showed it to me and had videos of one of our neighbours and there was captions were mocking. It was captions that were degrading. I went back and kind of had a look all the way through the page and you could see that the page had I said it was meant to be a community page about the neighbourhood, and you kind of saw that there was posts about that. But then it kind of started to degrade into this, really having a go with one particular neighbour, dragged a few other neighbours into the into the storyline. To me, that was online bullying, that that was social media bullying. This province had just gone through the whole Retired Parsons. And that was social media bullying. And I was like, no, this is wrong. So I put a comment on there that basically said, this is wrong. This isn't what you should be doing. This is social media bullying. You should take these down. These videos should be taken down. Well, I just got abused. I just got abused. Who do you think you are? It turned into, you know, why don't you come round and see us Barry North. Howie's waiting for you.

VOICE 3: And that was when which you must have read the comment that he made to me. It was an extremely serious sexual threat to do me harm and said that the other neighbour liked this sort of thing and that he would let Barry watch while he did it.

VOICE 1: Anne North had done nothing to him. He hurt her as a way to hurt her husband. When referring to the comment that he made with Anne North's name attached, which meant that her family and friends would be notified of it as well, Howard Merrette said it was, "Maybe over the top. Who knows?" I do. I know. It was grossly misogynistic, cowardly, violent and abusive. It shows a lack of self-control, self respect and self awareness.

VOICE 3: Ms. Williams is due at the end of this month to come home. She then has three years probation. She also has 100 hours of community service that she has to do. Mr. Merrette has nine months and then he'll have three years probation. But people on the road are really concerned that it will escalate once they're out because this will have made them mad. I truly think that they believe they haven't done anything wrong. They truly believe that we all got together as a whole neighbourhood in a conspiracy to bully them. These two people actually terrorized a whole neighbourhood. I don't think it's over.

VOICE 2: I don't think it'll ever be over. If that man still lives there. It's difficult for people to move on. We want to move on.

MG: Neighbours say they Gwen Williams has just been released from jail. Howard Merrette is expected to be released early next summer. Both face three years of probation after they get out. And as conditions, they're not allowed to contact the nine neighbours they harassed or post about them on Facebook and they're only allowed to travel their road directly to and from their home.

[Music]

New CBC podcast “The Notorious N.E.P.” digs into roots of Western alienation

Guests: Allison Dempster

MG: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway.

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VOICE 1: The National Energy Program is a bold programme which establishes a consistent set of policies to meet Canada's energy needs.

VOICE 2: If my voice is trembling, it's because I am terribly angry to the point where I would be happy to fight for our freedom. And I literally mean fight with a rifle.

VOICE 3: It just pissed off so many Western Canadians.

VOICE 4: Stop bitching about the National Energy Program. This is 2020.

MG: Those are some of the voices from a new CBC podcast, The Notorious N.E.P. It was 40 years ago today that the National Energy Programme was brought in by the federal government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau. It was supposed to help secure Canada's oil and gas supply during an energy crisis, but ended up sparking a showdown between Alberta and Ottawa. And it sowed the seeds for a sense of Western alienation that still exists today in some corners of Alberta. Host and producer Allison Dempster joins me now to tell us more about the podcast. Allison, good morning.

ALLISON DEMPSTER: Good morning, Matt.

MG: I love this title. How notorious is the NEP in Alberta 40 years after the fact?

ALLISON DEMPSTER: It's still got quite the rap. It didn't take much for me to get people to share their memories of the early 80s and the NEP. And for many Albertans who were around at the time, that anger remains close to the surface. But even for those who weren't around or were too young to remember, the NEP lives on is a kind of origin story in Alberta. And, you know, there's almost a folklore around it. I first started thinking about that in this podcast when I was covering a Wex It rally late last year. The NEP came up in the speeches and got loudly booed by the crowd. And what I was hearing at those Wex it rallies actually sounds quite similar to Western separatist rallies from 1980. So, Matt, let's play a bit of both here and see if you can tell the difference.

MG: Right.

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VOICE 1: Pierre Trudeau came along and tried to take all our wealth at once under the National Energy Program.

VOICE 2: Are we going to beg for our jobs? Are we going to beg for our family? No.

VOICE 3: I think a lot of you are like me. We've worked hard our lives to come to where we are. We have a right to have the benefit of what we've worked for and a right to be free and enjoying it with a minimum of government interference.

MG: A bit of a trick question there. It sounds like a bit like history repeating.

ALLISON DEMPSTER: It sure does, yeah. The first bit was from a Wexit rally in Calgary in 2019. And that last part was from a Western separatist rally in 1980. So the NEP is an acronym that still has a lot of power in Alberta.

MG: Let's talk about the NEP and what was going on in Canada 40 years ago. Why did the Liberal government of the time come up with it in the first place?

ALLISON DEMPSTER: Well, in the 70s, there were two big oil shocks. Prices shot way up in Alberta. Those high prices launched an incredible boom. But in the rest of the country, they just meant high inflation. The cost of living went through the roof. So in 1980, when the Liberal government was drawing up its budget, it was facing that inflation and a big deficits and Alberta's oil and gas wealth appeared irresistible. And that's where the NEP comes in. It included a made in Canada price control scheme that forced Alberta producers to sell their oil below world prices to the rest of the country. Amongst other things, it also included a bundle of new taxes on the industry. So Ottawa saw the NEP as a policy that would use Alberta's oil bounty to cushion the cushion, the blow off of inflation for the rest of the country. But to Alberta, it looked like a cash grab basically.

MG: Basically, there were some big political personalities that were involved in this story.

ALLISON DEMPSTER: Yeah, yeah. There's a great political drama to this story. You know, in order why you have Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who was staring down Quebec separatists and believed in a strong central government as a unifying force in Canada and in Alberta, you have Peter Lockheed, the premier at the time, he believed that strong provinces with control over their natural resources made for a stronger federation and law. It's interesting, he was a corporate lawyer by training. He was also, Matt, a former CFL running back who's Edmonton coach once described as having the guts of a burglar on the gridiron. So these are formidable politicians that he and Trudeau have very different ideas of what Confederation is all about. And it's a real clash of the titans. So after the NEP is announced, everyone, including the prime minister, is wondering how Lockheed is going to react. And many Albertans are furious and want Lockheed to show some muscle. But how far is too far? So 48 hours after the federal budget, Lockheed takes to the airwaves and tells Albertans what he's going to do. And he announces that Alberta is going to turn down the taps by 15 percent. And he basically swallows a poison pill. You know, he's prepared to cut back on Alberta's oil production, even though it would hurt the province's bottom line. So it's a pretty high stakes political gamble. What happened? Well, Canadians ended up having to pay more at the pumps, and it's just enough pressure to bring the federal government back to the negotiating table. So the more unpopular aspects of the NEP in Alberta are wound back. Ottawa and Alberta cut a new energy deal in the fall of 1981. But it's based on the assumption that oil prices are going to keep rising. They don't. And by this time, some damage had already been done. Drilling rigs were moving south of the border. Oil companies slashed their budgets. Then world prices start to slide. There's an oil glut. And by the end of 1982, unemployment rates and interest rates were way up and a global recession was in full swing.

MG: How much did Albertans blame the NEP for what happened when things went sideways in the early 80s?

ALLISON DEMPSTER: A lot bumper stickers and t-shirts that read Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark. Got pretty popular at this time.

MG: Yikes. Was it fair, do you think, to blame the federal government for the troubles that Alberta was going through at the time?

ALLISON DEMPSTER: I mean, Alberta certainly would not have come out of the global recession unscathed. You know, there were economic forces at work from beyond our borders, but the NEP didn't help. One economist I spoke with, Robert Mansell, he estimates it siphoned about 100 billion dollars out of Alberta's economy. So from the federal government's point of view, that was justifiable. You know, they really felt Alberta's resource wealth should be shared with the entire country. And for some of the players who are still around, Matt, that hasn't changed. I spoke to the architect of the NEP, a former federal energy minister, Marc Lalonde, he's 91 years old, he's still very sharp and he's unapologetic.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We did what we thought was best in the circumstances. I feel that the energy programbecame the whipping boy in part, a whipping boy for much broader problem, which was the radical change in the evolution of oil prices compared to what was expected by everybody, governments and the oil industry. Everybody got caught with their pants down when the price of oil started going down rather than going up. When I see, I hear people, you know, yapping about this still, what, 40 years after, I say, come on, grow up.

MG: Yapping. How do you think that's likely to cool down with Albertans who would hear that today?

ALLISON DEMPSTER: And, you know, it's funny in a way, Lalonde, just continues to play his role in the story of the NEP. You know, he made his decision then he still stands by it. And it is still a source of resentment for some Albertans. And you can hear it at those Wexit rallies today. But also, I think you can hear hear how the NEP has a kind of political utility in Alberta. You know, it's shorthand for Ottawa meddling into the province's business and politicians can use it to stir up some of those old grievances and use them in their case against the federal government today.

MG: And is that where we're at today when it comes to the relationship, such as it is between Alberta and Ottawa?

ALLISON DEMPSTER: I mean, you do see a few anti Trudeau bumper stickers driving around these days. But don't get me wrong. It's not like Albertans are still complaining about the NEP over the dinner table. But I would say when it comes to pipeline debates and environmental policy today, there are the echoes of the NEP and that intense Alberta-Ottawa rivalry, particularly with another Trudeau in Ottawa. That one political science professor describes the legacy of the NEP to me as a policy ghost, which I thought was a good way to put it. You know, 40 years later, it haunts the conversations we're having about the energy transition and the future of the oil and gas industry.

MG: Allison, we will direct people to the podcast to hear more. It's excellent. In the meantime, thank you.

ALLISON DEMPSTER: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Allison Dempster is the host and producer of The Notorious N.E.P., a special three part series released by the CBC podcast West of Centre. You can find it through CBC Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. That's it for The Current four today. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. Tomorrow on this program, we have a special show. It's called Remaking a Living: Surviving the COVID Economy. In the midst of this health crisis, we've also seen an economic crisis and you'll meet some of the people who have been hit hard by the economic crisis. Some of the people you'll meet are merchants who own shops in downtown Toronto.

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VOICE 1: We are doing like maybe 10 to 15 percent business of what it used to be usually before. Since the lockdown is like it's not for profit anymore. We are hanging by a string.

VOICE 2: It's been challenging, I think that's the general word. Kind of unbelievable. It's been altered universe. I mean, come January. I mean, we have to get back because after that, I'm not sure if we can sustain being open for another year in this kind of climate.

VOICE 3: We are doing 10 percent of our sales from last year, which is completely unsustainable, especially in this location we're reliant reliance on the towers and the people that are coming to work, most of which are working from home now. We were lucky as a company. We transitioned to making masks and making medical gowns. So we're able to use the talents we have in the stores, but we'll likely be talking to the landlord about either going dark or reducing our hours more significantly. If things don't change, I just don't see how you sustain a business. This one is not built for this kind of pandemic.

MG: Those are voices of merchants who own stores in an area of Toronto that's known as The PATH. It's kind of like an underground mall that exists under the heart of the city. And normally, if you walk through the PATH, as I did at about 10:30 in the morning, there are hundreds of thousands of people that are in that space all at the same time. It's this crammed area that gets you under the big towers that house the law firms and the banks and the big industry in the heart of the city. There's nobody there right now. And as you heard, those merchants are struggling mightily with what's going on. We'll hear from more Canadians about how they're faring in the shifting economy. Some are struggling. Some are profiting. Some have pivoted and figured out new ways to make money. And we'll look at what changes are here to stay. That's coming up tomorrow on a special edition of The Current. Taking a look at the economy and what's happened with our economy in the midst of this pandemic. Earlier in the program, we heard from Nate Hegyi, who's a reporter with U.S. public media outlet the Mountain West News Bureau. He rode his bike through the mountain states of the United States from Montana to Colorado. He was trying to get a sense as to what's going to happen in under a week's time when the United States goes to vote and some of the big issues that are at play. And he spoke with voters in places that most reporters don't go to during election years about what the vote means to them. You can find our interview with Nate on the website. If you go to cbc.ca/thecurrent, a really interesting look, as he says, kind of at the speed that you would be moving at if you were riding a horse and you speak with different people in different ways when you're moving that slowly. He called his project Across the Great Divide, and it's in that spirit that we'll leave you today. Here's The Band and their song, "Across The Great Divide." I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Take good care and we will talk to you again tomorrow.

[Song: "Across The Great Divide" by The Band]

Oct. 28, 2020 episode transcript

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