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The Current Transcript for September 18, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

This place is called a shelter, but effectively these kids are incarcerated.

MATT GALLOWAY: Officials called it a deterrence to immigrants coming across the U.S. border with Mexico. The detention of migrant children separated from their families was one of the most criticised actions of the Trump administration. In 30 minutes, a look inside a policy that's become known as an American tragedy and a discussion about what role it could play in the upcoming presidential election. Also this morning.

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Because I was hit by cancer three half years ago. I saw people dying of cancer. I was hit hard by it. I decided that I was going to try and do something about it.

MG: It's hard to process how much life Terry Fox squeezed out of his 22 years; a marathon a day, millions raised for cancer research and a legacy that will include people coast to coast to coast, running, walking or rolling this Sunday in his name. In an hour, one woman on the millions of steps she's taking in memory of Terry Fox. Plus, your letters on testing times trying to get tested for COVID and why Alberta has changed its criteria for who should get the swab. And how BSE is trying to break that logjam. We start, though, with concerns around a mounting pandemic housing crisis as eviction restrictions are lifted and the rent comes due. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Some renters fear they'll be living on the streets as eviction bans, CERB come to end

Guests: Vinson Salim, David Hutniak, Danielle Sabelli

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PROTESTORS: [Chanting] No now. Not later. We won't evict our neighbour.

MG: Not now, not later, we won't evict our neighbour. That group was protesting a move over the summer by the Ontario government to lift its ban on residential evictions due to not paying rent. Similar bans in other provinces have also been lifted. And that's left many renters who lost their income because of this pandemic feeling like they've lost what protection they had. And the Canada Emergency Response Benefit CERB is set to end in just over a week. Vinson Salim is a renter in the Parkdale neighbourhood of Toronto. He was laid off due to the pandemic and stopped paying his rent in April. His landlord served him with an N4 Notice, which is the first step toward evicting a tenant. Vinson is now organising with his neighbours and trying to stay in his apartment and joins us now. Good morning.

VINSON SALIM: Morning, Matt. How are you>

MG: I'm well. When did you realise that you wouldn't be able to pay your rent?

VINSON SALIM: I realise as soon as I got laid off by my boss, I. I just lost my job in a matter of one day and then just a few days after, I just figure out that I need to get some money just for emergency, just before I earn my CREB from the government and I decide to skip my rent in April. And I got my N4 just a few days after.

MG: How much is your rent if if you don't mind me asking?

VINSON SALIM: It's 1600 dollars per month. It's pretty expensive, especially when you live close to downtown's Toronto.

MG: And you were getting the Serb.

VINSON SALIM: Yes. I am receiving the CERB since April.

MG: So could you have used part of that? The CERB is two thousand dollars a month. Could you have used part of that to pay part of your rent each month?

VINSON SALIM: My landlord wants- first of all, I thought my CERB is two thousand dollars and plus it includes the tax and I'm going to have to pay next year. So the actual money that I got from the government really is 1600 dollars and my rent is 1600 dollars. And my landlord wants the full amount of rent and he never wants to actually negotiate with me in terms of how I can actually repay my rent.

MG: So tell me about the conversations that you've had with your landlord. I mean, you lose your job and money just kind of disappears as it has for so many people across this country. What did you say to your landlord and what did your landlord say back about the situation that you find yourself in?

VINSON SALIM: Well, I actually have tried to offer personally my landlord a little bit of money that I can pay towards my rent, and I believe it was in June. My landlord kind of turned down the idea and would write a warning to pay the full amount of rent within a short amount of time, plus the court fee that he supposedly had filed to the board. And it was a very sketchy, because the board hasn't even opened during the pandemic.

MG: And this is the board that landlords would go to try to get that that eviction notice that you already received.

VINSON SALIM: That's correct. But it was closed down in June. So how, why would he wants to. Why? Why would he wants me to pay 175 dollars court fee?

MG: Did you talk about the idea of deferring the rent? I mean, maybe not even just not paying, but deferring the rent so that you could pay it down the road if you managed to get a job down the line?

VINSON SALIM: VS: The problem with that idea is that there is a possibility that I won't be able to repay it ever. I've I've lost my job like I haven't even heard back from my employers since then. And I much I'm currently looking for a job. But the problem with agreeing, with deferring the payment is that if I get paid with minimum wage, there's just no way for me to be able to repay my rent back. There's just no way unless if I got a job that pays me, I don't know, like 60,000 or 70,000 dollars a year, then, yes, there would be a possibility for me to repay my rent, but I don't see that's going to happen in the future.

MG: You have this notice, this N4 notice, which is the first step in evicting you. If you get evicted, where do you think you'd end up?

VINSON SALIM: I've been homeless in the past, so I know exactly where I'm going to end up. And with your previous news, did he just say that shelter system feels like incarcerations for children? It was actually real. I lived in a shelter in the past when I was homeless and what shocked me was the fact that there was actually a very little amount of [unintelligible] that was available for homeless people. And I was lucky to get a bed when I was homeless. But there was only [unintelligible] of them. So this time if I'm going back to the street, I'm not even sure, like, if I'm going to be able to get a bed from the shelter system, first. And second, I've I don't have family living in this city. I have a very few contacts. I have a very few friends. So if anybody's homeless in this city, it's just a matter that whether or not you have a family or friends to go to and if you don't, then you can end up being on a street, which I've seen a lot of people living in Toronto.

MG: Just before I let you go, what would you want landlords, and I guess the government, because it's the government that eased those eviction restrictions, what would you want them to understand about the situation that you find yourself in?

VINSON SALIM: Well, when we were doing protests about two months ago, John Tory.

MG: Mayor of Toronto.

VINSON SALIM: Yes. The mayor of Toronto stated that all landlord were compassionate, meanwhile, tenants who were protesting in front of his condo were some disruptive, violent and discourteous people that were doing protests in front of his condo. And by just listening to that kind of statement from your own city's mayor, you just know, like that kind of attitude that he has towards a lot of working class people in this city that has been struggling to keep their homes. Just before any kinds of laws, procedures that can actually help us to protect our housing, maybe I really want our government to really change their attitude, just changed their view towards working class people. And we're not disruptive. We're not violent. We are peoples who are asking for, who are desperate and asking for help, and landlords aren't compassionate. They're profit seekers. Like, why would you think they need to be compassionate?

MG: I wish you the best of luck. We're going to hear more about the situations the landlords find themselves in. But it's good to hear where you're at. And as I say, I wish you the best of luck, Vinson. Thank you.

VINSON SALIM: Thanks, Matt, for today.

MG: VINSON Salim rents an apartment in Toronto. David Hutniak is the CEO of Landlord B.C.. It's a group that represents landlords in British Columbia. He's been listening in. David, good morning to you.

DAVID HUTNIAK: Good morning.

MG: What do you make of Vinson Selim's predicament? He can't afford to pay the rent and may end up finding himself back living in a shelter.

DAVID HUTNIAK: Yes, well, let's not kid ourselves. The pandemic has impacted many Canadians, be they renters, homeowners. And, you know, there's going to be challenges continuing, and obviously, within the rental ecosystem, you know, there are tenants that are more vulnerable than others. And, you know, clearly we need, you know, the provincial and federal governments to continue to support more vulnerable tenants.

MG: In the midst of a pandemic, is now the time to, from your perspective, as somebody who represents landlords, is now the time to ease those restrictions on evictions?

DAVID HUTNIAK: Yes, it is, in the sense that you know certainly here in British Columbia, we are returning to the new normal of the operation of our sector needs to return to what is normal. You know, these are these are important houses. But our sector also is important to the broader economy. And it is driven by the single source of revenue, which is rent. And this, you know, we need to have this sort of ecosystem reinstated and moving forward again for, frankly, for the broader economy and to ensure the sector is viable and we continue to invest in rental housing. The thing is, I think what's important, understand, is that, again, I can only speak to the British Columbia experience. The provincial government here has helped our sector and renters navigate through this crisis. We've had the rent supplement programme. They've actually structured it. It's legislated a rent repayment framework that will allow sort of rent deficits that were occurred over during the COVID period to be advertised for repayment through the end of June of next year. Our sector from the get go, we were encouraging and many landlords structured rent deferral agreements. There was plenty of accommodation and compassion that we were actually extremely pleased with how the sector responded.

MG: You say now that you've returned to a new normal. What's the new normal? The pandemic is continuing. People are still without work. The CERB is about to end. And people there are people who are struggling to pay their rent.

DAVID HUTNIAK: I'm not denying that. And that's governments need to continue to be involved. But again, you know, to look at a single sector here to contemplate, you know, putting that sector into a position where it as a, you know, critical component of our economy, to put it into a situation where there's going to be vulnerability for that sector to, you know, to be viable and to be able to continue to do what it's doing. You know, that's not the solution. The other issue is I think there's been a great deal of misinformation and about, you know, a wave of evictions, et cetera. There's not going to be any wave of evictions.

MG: Why don't you believe that that's going to happen?

DAVID HUTNIAK: I know that, it's not that I believe it. Because, first of all, landlords are always motivated to keep their units fully occupied because, again, that's the only source of revenue they have. They are even more motivated now because we are already seeing that vacancy rates are going up, rents are dropping. Here in British Columbia and I'm confident it's across the whole metro Toronto as well. You know, short-term rental platforms like Airbnb, owners of those units are coming onto the market, so we are we're actually seeing sort of the phenomenon we always talk about here, that if we have more supply, there'll be more choice for renters. There'd be more pressure to have more competitive rents, etc. we're seeing that right now already in British Columbia.

MG: We just have a few seconds left and I apologize for interrupting, but there are advocacy groups that are calling for a rent forgiveness program, and for your members for that mean they have bills to pay as well. What would that rent forgiveness program mean for them?

DAVID HUTNIAK: Well, you know, our sector and this is true across Canada is disproportionately represented by small landlords, the secondary market, which people are based, [unintelligible], etc.. They've had a difficult time throughout this entire pandemic. I appreciate there's not a lot of empathy for them, but that's the harsh reality. A rent freeze would basically have many of these people lose their own housing or put their own housing at risk. And like I said, we need to look at the broader economy here. Rental housing is important, but also, you know, ensuring that, you know, the owners and managers of these houses have the have the wherewithal to maintain their buildings, to continue to pay their mortgage, etcetera, is critical to the overall economic well-being of our of our country and the housing ecosystem. And this is where, you know, we're not insensitive to the struggle of many renters or [unintelligible]. But this is where our provincial government has said they're going to continue to be to monitor this and to be there. And the federal government is saying the same thing. And we have strongly advocated for renters supports. We continue to do that. And like I said, we're not going to see any mass wave of evictions here in British Columbia, I'm very confident of that.

MG: It's important to hear your perspective on this. As somebody who represents those landlords in British Columbia. David, I appreciate your time this morning. Thank you. Well, thanks for reaching out. Take care. David Hutniak is the CEO of Landlord B.C. and he talked about the idea of a wave of evictions and doesn't believe that that's coming. There are housing advocates who think that that is precisely what's on our doorstep across this country. Danielle Sabelli is a lawyer with the Community Legal Assistance Society in Vancouver. She's been listening in. Danielle, good morning to you.

DANIELLE SABELLI: Good morning.

MG: David Hutniak says there's no wave of evictions coming. What do you think?

DANIELLE SABELLI: I disagree with that. And, you know, mainly for two reasons. First of all, you know, renters in B.C. and I'm sure this is the case for many Canadians across the board, were in a precarious position before the pandemic even hit. Rent was unsustainable and folks were not able to keep up with their rent. And now, of course, with the massive job loss that a lot of people are facing there are even more Canadians, I think, that are not able to pay their rent. In fact, there was a recent survey of two thousand two hundred eighty eight households in B.C. and 54 percent of renters reported loss of income in their household. 72 percent report that they are either just getting by or falling behind financially. So we know that renters are not going to be in a position to not only pay the rent that's due each month. But to also repay back the arrears that have been due. As David mentioned, there is a repayment plan, right, legislated in B.C., which effectively is going to act as a rent increase.

MG: What about the situation that he represents a landlord? You might say that the landlords would find themselves in a similar situation, that they are now behind in their payments. And if money isn't coming in that they were expecting, they could find themselves in a situation that's similar to what the tenants find themselves in.

DANIELLE SABELLI: Well, I think that struggling homeowners are not actually a typical landlord. Another study, a 2016 stats candidate survey of financial security, found that only four percent of all homeowners who rented part of their property. Only four percent do that. And there was another study in 2017 by a University Waterloo's student that found that the 20 biggest landlords in the country owned 20 percent of all rental suites. And most of these businesses are non-traditional businesses. They are real estate investment trusts. So to rely on the same generosity and compassion of landlords to fulfill a promise that no one's going to be evicted or lose their homes during the pandemic is really difficult to imagine that we're going to see anything but an uptick in evictions.

MG: How are evictions tracked in British Columbia?

DANIELLE SABELLI: They are not tracked in British Columbia, actually. So the way it works when a landlord wants to evict tenants, they just hand the tenant the notice to end tenancy. And it's up to that tenant to either dispute the notice or just to accept it and move out. Eviction notices aren't registered in any kind of way. So we don't see the situations where people are receiving eviction notices and deciding to move. If a tenant does decide to dispute that notice. Certainly, if they go through the dispute resolution process, some decisions are published. But you have to go through all of these decisions to figure out a sampling of how many people are actually evicted. And again, that's only a small portion of who's actually evicted. There's also a lot of illegal evictions that happen that aren't tracked. So there's nothing in place in British Columbia, attacks on track. How many people are evicted, we just sort of will get a sense of that based on, you know, advocacy organizations that assist tenants that are suing tenants coming to them for assistance who were being evicted. But there's no sort of larger method of tracking this.

MG: We just have a minute and a half or so left. I will ask you two quick questions. One is, if people are evicted, where are they going to end up? Vinson was talking about the idea of he could end up back in a homeless shelter. Where are people going to go?

DANIELLE SABELLI: I think, you know, Vinson's experiences is going to be the experience for a lot of people. I think a lot of people are going to end up homeless or they're going to be precariously housed. And keep in mind, an eviction is a traumatic, devastating experience for an individual, but also for a community at large. And so when a person is either evicted into homelessness or evicted into precarious housing, again, the effects are devastating. And we know that shelters are, you know, overpopulated and inadequate. And we know that oftentimes if someone is able to move elsewhere, oftentimes they're having to move outside of their communities and at times far outside of their communities, away from their communities, their supports, their services, schools, everything that they know and feel secure in is now gone. So a lot of people aren't going to be going into a situation where they're going to be able to access adequate housing.

MG: So in the remaining seconds that we have in it's just a few seconds. What is one thing that you want to see from governments to help prevent this?

DANIELLE SABELLI: I mean, I would say first and foremost, as as was echoed earlier, we're very much in a pandemic. So we would like to see reinstatement of all the moratoriums on all evictions, as well as a moratorium on rent increase. I fail to see how evicting people is going to restore the economy in any way. We would like to see complete rent forgiveness for all the rental arrears that would have accumulated during the state of emergency and then for also rent forgiveness to continue for a generous period after that because we expect a slow economic recovery. And finally, you know, we do recognize that, yes, there are some landlords who do rely on rental income to pay their mortgages. And we think that the government can step in and provide a rental assistance program. But on any basis, as I know, there are a lot of landlords have resources.

MG: We'll have to leave that there, Danielle. But we'll turn it over to the landlords and the tenants and hopefully we'll hear from them. Thank you.

DANIELLE SABELLI: Thank you.

MG: Danielle Sabelli, lawyer with the Community Legal Assistance Society in Vancouver. Landlords, tenants. We'd love to hear from you. He can reach us at thecurrent@cbc.ca. We're back in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. Stick around.

Trump's family separations at border played out 'exactly how it was designed to': journalist Jacob Soboroff

Guest: Jacob Soboroff

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

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MG: Still to come. Terry Fox and the marathon of hope still inspiring Canadians, even in the midst of a pandemic. But first, kids, some as young as four months old, separated from their families as an immigration policy.

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[Sound: Child crying]

MG: It's really difficult to hear; children crying out as they're taken from their mothers in June of 2018. That recording was released by the media group ProPublica and brought and renewed attention to the Trump administration's family separation policy. Since then, the conditions inside those detention centres have been brought to light, including a lack of medical attention for detainees. Overcrowding, hunger strikes and allegations that officials at one centre were performing mass hysterectomies on migrant women. Jacob Soboroff is one of the first journalists to go inside that detention centre to witness what immigration policies of family separations look like and to investigate what those policies mean, in particular for children. Jacob is a reporter for NBC News and MSNBC. His new book is called Separated: Inside an American Tragedy. Jacob, good morning.

JACOV SOBOROFF: Matt. Morning to you.

MG: What is it like for you to listen to that tape?

JACOV SOBOROFF: Well, for me, I didn't hear those sounds with my own ears. I heard them like the rest of us. But it brings back the sights of some children, maybe the very same children that you heard there. Because I walked in to the McCallan Central Processing Station operated by the Border Patrol on Father's Day 2018. And I saw with my own eyes separated children on concrete floors under those Mylar blankets that you get after you run a marathon, supervised by security contractors in a watchtower. And that was just a couple days after I saw hundreds of separated children, 1500 unaccompanied young boys that were housed, incarcerated, for lack of a better term, in a former Wal-Mart superstore in Brownsville, Texas. And those are sites, just like those sounds that I'll never forget for the rest of my life.

MG: Describe what it was like to walk into that facility in Brownsville, Texas. As you mentioned, it's a former Wal-Mart. It's now housing these children. You walk through the door and what did you see?

JACOV SOBOROFF: Well, the first thing I saw was children in line for cafeteria. Hundreds of them. And I turned to the official from the facility that I was with and she said to me, remember to smile at them because they feel like animals in cages being looked at. And the irony was, in this facility, there were no cages. Not until a couple days later did I see those cages in McAllen, Texas. What I saw was remarkable, frankly, in the most horrific sense possible. I saw children who were detained inside for 22 or 23 hours a day, depending on the day of the week. I saw five beds crammed per room that were supposed to have four. I saw kids watching the film Moana, the animated Disney movie in the former loading dock of the Wal-Mart. I saw kids doing Taiichi. I mean, it was it was bizarre, frankly. And the only way I knew how to describe it is as I did to you, you know, I had been inside a prison. I've been inside county jails. And these children ostensibly were in a government run shelter. But really, these 1500 boys, between 10 and 17 were incarcerated. And that was as clear as day to me.

MG: What sort of shape were they in? You listened to that recording that was released by ProPublica. And there is obvious and really disturbing distress that these kids are in the midst of the children that you saw, whether it was in Brownsville or whether it was in the McCallan centre. What sort of shape were they in?

JACOV SOBOROFF: Well, in McCallan, it was much more stark because these were children- it was almost an eerie silence. These were kids that had just been taken away from their parents by the Border Patrol. And remember, many of these children, if not the vast majority, if not all of them, were there to seek asylum, fleeing some type of violence and expected to step onto U.S. soil and receive refuge, freedom, help in the most simple sense, and instead or systematically taken away by the Trump administration in what we now know, according to Physicians for Human Rights, the Nobel Peace PRISE winning organisation was torture. It met the UN's definition of torture. The American Academy of Paediatrics called it government sanctioned child abuse. And so the eerie silence that I saw in the McCallan centre, I think was the beginning of that. In retrospect, I didn't know it at the time. And when I was in Brownsville, while the conditions were less restrictive in the sense they weren't in cages, I think, you know, they were days or weeks removed from that first step. And that trauma, you know, was it was continually present with them. We were asked for a very specific reason not to talk to them. And I now believe it's because this was the very beginning of a long, damaging process for these children at the hands of the U.S. government.

MG: How did this policy of family separation begin?

JACOV SOBOROFF: Well, it's funny you ask that, because a lot of times when we talk about this, particularly in the U.S. media, you hear the suggestion that it started under the Obama administration and it's just not true. There were conversations, to be sure, and I read about them in the book about implementing a systematic family separation policy under the Obama administration. There were certainly children who were taken away from their parents because the best interest of the children were at risk, being with parents who might have been violent criminals or involved in narco trafficking. But when the idea of systematically taking children away from their parents was raised during the Obama administration and I talked to senior Obama administration officials on the record in the book, the idea was rejected out of hand. But some of the same operators, the frontline law enforcement officials who work in immigration enforcement in the U.S., carried over into the Trump administration and almost immediately in the first days of the administration. In fact, on Valentine's Day 2017, there was a massive meeting in the conference room of the head of the Customs and Border Protection Agency of the U.S. government where this idea came up and officials who had been in both administrations let shell shocked that this was finally coming to pass. Stephen Miller, obviously, who is the infamous architect of many of the Trump administration's most restrictive, harsh immigration policies, had been pushing for this. And from the very earliest days of the administration, it was something they had wanted to implement.

MG: What was the point of it, if I can put it that way? Was it about deterrence ultimately, or was there something else that was going on in terms of why the administration would pursue a policy that would separate children from their families?

JACOV SOBOROFF: Well, there were a myriad of reasons given by the administration for this policy to stop MS 13 gang members to stop drugs from coming in. And when you would look even slightly closely at any of those justifications, they just didn't check out. You know, the amount of gang members coming in was tiny compared to what they were alleging. The drugs that they've said were coming in with migrants were not coming in this way. They were coming with smugglers through legal ports of entry. Deterrence was the reason. And let's define deterrence here. Deterrence means scaring or damaging or harming migrants so that others don't come to this country. And Katy Waldman, who is now Katy Miller, the wife of Steven Miller. But at the time was the spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, told me explicitly the idea behind this policy was to shock not only the migrants, but the Congress of the U.S. to change the immigration laws, to make them more restrictive, to keep people out of this country, namely, Central American migrants were crossing at the southwest border.

MG: You write in the book about finding this story that you were looking for and following an immigration story that was a different story. And in some ways, this story was not hidden in plain sight, but it eluded you for a while. Tell me more about the.

JACOV SOBOROFF: I think that's absolutely accurate and credit to not only other journalists like Julia Ainsley, my now colleague, or Caitlin Dickerson at The New York Times, or Loamy Kriol, who was at the Houston Chronicle at the time, who were closely following the developments in this family separation policy, but also to activists and NGOs, people on the ground who saw this happening in real time. I was much more focussed candidly on the president's rhetoric, whether or not the wall made sense, whether or not, as I mentioned earlier, he was right about the gangs or the drugs and then being so focussed on those things, I missed what was happening right under my nose.

MG: Why were you invited to go and see these facilities?

JACOV SOBOROFF: Miller said to me, Waltman, that she wanted journalist to characterise what was happening inside these facilities as word was leaking out about them before the Democrats, the opposing political party, were able to do so themselves. And there were congressional delegations that were going to tour those facilities in the hours actually after we were going to do that. And I think I think that she thought in one measure it would put a more positive or at least the administration's spin on what was happening there. But on the other, I do believe that she wanted the cruelty of what was happening inside these facilities to get out to the American public, like both as a deterrent for migration and also to force Congress to do two things. One, indefinitely detain families, which is illegal under the law at the U.S. border currently, and secondly, expel immediately young unaccompanied migrant children once they come to the country from Central America. Also illegal under the law. And ultimately, they were not able to accomplish those goals through the Congress. But under the cover of COVID-19, they're actually now doing Boult. And those are the underlying goals of the family separation policy.

MG: But just to be clear, this isn't something that they were trying to hide. This isn't something that they wanted to kept under the cover of darkness. They invited journalists to come and see this, in your words, to show the American people the cruelty of this process.

JACOV SOBOROFF: That's my belief, and I do think surely in the administration, there were different factions that wanted this in differing degrees. But the common denominator is that they wanted to stop people from coming to this country and they felt like this policy was an effective way of doing that, an effective and cruel way of doing that. And I think that they were well aware. In fact, I don't think I know and I document in the book that there were warned on multiple occasions by career civil servants who did have the best interests of the children at heart that this was going to damage these children for a lifetime. Childhood trauma leads to a century of suffering, in the words of one official who ultimately was responsible for reunifying the parents and children. And this is something the Trump administration knew before they did this.

MG: You follow one family in particular through this book. Tell us a little bit about Juan and Jose.

JACOV SOBOROFF: Sure. Juan and Jose came from Pétain, Guatemala, the department in the far north of Guatemala, and they fled narco violence. They owned a small shop. And after selling a vehicle, the vehicle came into the hands of drug traffickers. And Juan didn't want anything to do with them. And so when threats on their life materialised, he left with a son who came to the United States. And he wasn't afraid to admit to me that he had tried to cross multiple times before. In fact, he did cross successfully as an economic migrant. You know, over the course of the previous decade. But I guess for me, the reason I wanted to include that and include their story is that ultimately they like everyone else who were tortured by the U.S. government. And my message to the reader or what I hope the reader takes away from reading their story is it doesn't matter who you are, where you've come from, how many times you've tried to cross. The point here is that the U.S. government engaged in the words of a Nobel Peace prise winning organisation, a systematic campaign of torture against these migrants, and they found themselves smack in the middle of it. And in fact, were it not for a lawyer who won the right for them to reunify with each other, they may have been separated permanently because Juan, as you read in the book, was coerced into signing away the rights to even reunify with his son by Border Patrol agents once he was detained.

MG: Well, walk us through that. What happened when they tried to enter the United States?

JACOV SOBOROFF: So they get to San Luis, Rio, Colorado, in Mexico, and they jump over a small, short border fence and basically look for Border Patrol agents to present themselves to say we're here to seek asylum. The point was not to run, but it was to turn themselves in in order to seek refuge. And once they got there, they were taken to the Yuma Border Patrol Station. Juan was led into one cell, Jose into another. And that was the last time they saw each other for almost five months. Juan was taken to an immigration prison in the high desert of Southern California, not far from where I live in Los Angeles. And Jose was taken to South Texas to Harlingen, DCF s shelter. And not only did they not know where each other were for an extended period of time, they had very little communication with each other. And because Juan was coerced while he was in this ICE detention facility to signing away the right to reunification, they went into a process that was much, much longer than the vast majority of families who were separated, you know, 5400 plus. And what happened was a lawyer from here in Los Angeles discovered that there were these coerced parents in this detention centre, went to find them, represented them and ultimately was able to reverse that decision. But but as I said before, were it not for dedicated lawyers and I've learnt and I'm very forward about this in the book, that these immigration lawyers are as important as any first responder on any front line in saving, literally saving the lives, I believe in some cases, of these migrants, because had he been deported, he very well may have faced those same narco traffickers that threatened his life and that caused them to leave in the first place.

MG: What do you mean? That they were coerced into signing away the opportunity to reconcile with the children?

JACOV SOBOROFF: The way that Juan described it to me, he describes it as committing a sin, you know, and that goes to show the level of trauma, the psychological effects of this policy. He was presented a paper first in English, which he did not speak at the time. And then in Spanish, which gave him two options. One was to be deported with his son. And one was to be deported without his son. No option for reunification. No option for fighting for his asylum case, which he was legally entitled to do under U.S. law. And so his first instinct was to allow his son to remain in the U.S. because he was told he was going to have to be removed. And so that's what he did. I mean, he made a selfless decision to make sure his son could stay in the United States and pursue his claim for asylum. When the truth of the matter was the guards that gave him that paperwork likely knew full well that those weren't the only two options. In fact, those two options should never have been presented to him as the only two options. And thanks only to his lawyer, was he able to reverse that?

MG: What was the result of that? You mentioned the involvement of those lawyers that you compare to frontline workers. What was ultimately the resolution in their case?

JACOV SOBOROFF: They're now living together, Juan and Jose in the Washington, D.C. area, they're both pursuing independently their asylum claims, but they now have status where he can be here, work here legally. I remember I was with him the day that he got his is documents to be able to work legally. Thanks to another immigration lawyer that he had retained. And they're just waiting. You know, there's such a backlog here in the immigration system and the Trump administration continues sort of to gum up the works of this system intentionally. And COVID has made it even more complicated, obviously, that they may not have an answer about whether or not they are going to be legally permitted to stay in the United States, whether or not they win asylum for another two, three, maybe even four years.

MG: What do you know about how the people who were involved in executing that policy, how they rationalised what they were doing, how they slept at night?

JACOV SOBOROFF: I'd be a very well-paid psychoanalyst or therapist if I knew the answer to that. To be honest with you, Matt. I think the answer is I don't know. I think it's what it appears to be, racism, xenophobia. How can you possibly, with any, any modicum of a moral compass, do this to any human being for any reason? You know, I mean, I think of another story that's in the book. Scott Lloyd, the man who had custodial custody and parental custody over these children, over 10000 children in his custody. And a list excuse me, leaked to The New York Times that the government was holding 700 separated children. His first instinct was to get rid of the list, not to call his counterparts in homeland security and figure out how to reunite the children. And this is a Trump appointee. Get rid of the list was the instinct.

MG: And in doing that and getting rid of the list, that would prevent people from actually knowing where the children are and being able to reunite them with their parents.

JACOV SOBOROFF: It would have been a catastrophic, catastrophic decision that would have destroyed the critical linkage that was being informally kept by social workers essentially, because there was no record keeping system to put back together parents and children. And that's the type of thinking, political thinking. Look, I guess political thinking would be the generous way to describe it, that this is something that plays politically well for Donald Trump at his administration. But but I see it as going further than that. And look, there's a lot to talk about. Are you an objective journalist when you describe things this way? I don't know any other way to describe it. After seeing this with my own eyes calling cages, anything but cages, calling racism or xenophobia, anything but would be a disservice to the people who were caught in the middle of all of this.

MG: One of the ways that you do that is through personal stories and the ProPublica recordings did that in terms of just presenting the sounds of separated children to the American public and people around the world. In the book, you open each chapter with either a witness declaration or an email from one of the staff involved in the separations. Can you read one? This is a significant incident report from a child separated from his family. Could you read this for us?

JACOV SOBOROFF: Sure. This is a significant incident report dated June 15th, 2018. The location was Bronx, New York. So this was a child that was brought from the border who came from Guatemala, a five year old to the Bronx. Synopsis of events: During risk assessment, Minor reported that due to separation from his aunt and cousin at the border. He has developed suicidal ideations. Description of Incident: Minor reported that he was separated from his aunt and his six year old cousin. Minor reports that he developed suicidal ideations while detained after the separation ideations are active with no plan, no intent and no checks or history. Follow up and or resolution clinician will complete PTSD assessment to assess for possible trauma. Minor and clinician will review safety plan with minor. Family sessions with sponsor to strengthen relationship prior to and after discharge.

MG: There's an incredible coldness to that. It just feels very clinical in terms of it being a report. That's almost dehumanised. Well, how common do you think those stories are?

JACOV SOBOROFF: I mean, that's one of 5400, 5500 of the exact same story, and I'm not saying every child had suicidal ideations, but every single child will be left with a lifetime of trauma due to what the U.S. government did to them. And by the same token, I should say 5400, 5500 stories, exactly the same. And all of them completely different. Everyone has their own individual story here. And I hope that each one of them, for the sake of. Their mental health, their sanity, and for the sake of our nation are told. Because they must be. Because, as you said, these are just numbers to so many of us. They're such clinical descriptions. They're so far removed from the reality of what happened. And they shouldn't be.

MG: Do we have any ideas whether the child was reunited with their parents?

JACOV SOBOROFF: I don't and I'm glad you asked that, because while we do know that the initial 2800 or so children who were taken from their parents during the zero tolerance, so-called zero tolerance period have been either reunited or placed with a family member or a sponsor in the U.S. interior, the over 1000 children who were taken before that time are not all accounted for. And that's because of this record keeping and because of covert efforts by NGOs to literally go door to door on the ground in Guatemala and Honduras and El Salvador to find the parents, link them up with their children, even determine if they were separated, has basically hit a roadblock, has had to be paused. And we don't know at this point when that process will be completed.

MG: What do you think that people along the southern border, the people who are right on the front lines of this, what do they want when it comes to immigration policy?

JACOV SOBOROFF: It's a laugh because the further away you are from the border, the stronger the opinions seem to get about the people who cross it. And I guess what I'm saying by that is when you actually get to the border, it's a much more nuanced perspective on those who are crossing and life along the border than what the perception seems to be from further away. And certainly what Donald Trump's perception or perspective of the border actually is. I've not been as a reporter to a place that's more welcoming, more friendly, more compassionate than the Southwest border. The president wants Americans and people around the world to believe that when you get to the border with Mexico, it's a violent place. It's almost like a war torn place. These are some of the safest big cities in the United States of America, despite the fact being directly across the border from some pretty violent places in Mexico. Most of these communities are bi national, with people crossing on a daily basis, family members on both sides of the border. Most of these communities in the United States are largely Latino or Hispanic. They don't see this as either or black or white, bring people in or not, wall or not. They view this with a sense of compassion that I'll tell you what Washington, D.C. could surely use.

MG: Jacob, it's good to speak with you about this. It's a powerful book. Thank you. I'm grateful to you.

JACOV SOBOROFF: Thank you so much.

JACOV SOBOROFF: Jacob Soboroff is a journalist with NBC News and MSNBC. His new book is called Separated Inside an American Tragedy. The Biden campaign announced this week that it would end family separation immediately if elected. Your regional update is next. Coming up in 90 seconds. The fortieth anniversary of the Terry Fox runs and how Canadians are still inspired by his legacy, even in a pandemic. That's coming up. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio one.

Retired school teacher aiming to walk 2.2 million steps for Terry Fox anniversary, Alberta to stop asymptomatic testing

Guests: Debbie Laurie, Karin Marley, Lynora Saxinger

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

SOUNDCLIP

INTERVIEWER: Terry, here we are at the starting point. What made you decide to go up this quarter mile of a hill at about a 30 degree incline? Please tell me.

TERRY: In order to give the ocean, I wanted to start from the ocean. So I was hoping I could run through the ocean but it's pretty wild here.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah it's a bit much trying to run up here.

TERRY: Yeah, if I could run up here I could start right now.

INTERVIEWER: Well, all right, let's go. Why not? Do you have any idea how much you're worth [unintelligible]? How much you're going to raise?

TERRY: Yeah, I'm not sure. But I want to- my goal is million dollars.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think that's attainable?

TERRY: Yeah, I think it's attainable. People want to help and get involved. I think it's possible. I'll just run on my left leg. [Unintelligible] beginning to warm up, too. So good luck off here [unintelligible].

INTERVIEWER: OK. Thank you.

TERRY: [Unintelligible]

MG: CBC, Newfoundland broadcaster Ted Wethers on the 12th of April 1980, the first day of Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope. Terry ran for 143 days after that with his trademark hop step gait made necessary by the prosthetic leg that replaced the one he lost to cancer. He ran a marathon a day, 42 kilometres for those 143 days. Terry's cancer returned when he was just outside Thunder Bay, Ontario. This time it was in his lungs. And in spite of the grim outlook he knew is facing his determination to reach, his fundraising goal remained.

SOUNDCLIP

You know, I'm not running anymore. There's still got to try and find a cure for cancer. I think people, other people, should get ahead and try and do their thing now. I hope that what I've done has been an inspiration and I hope I will see it now. That people will take off and continue where left off.

MG: A lot of Canadians like myself remember watching that on television when he said those words. Terry Fox died in February of 1981. He was just 22 years old. Debbie Laurie of Port Khaja, Quebec, was inspired by Terry's call to action in 1980. And for the past 41 years, she has raised money for cancer research. And Terry Fox name Debbie, is a retired teacher who students used to call her is Terry Fox. This Sunday is the fortieth annual Terry Fox run. And because of Corbett, of course, there are no organised runs. But the Terry Fox Foundation has instead encouraged people to mark the day with a virtual run or walk. Debbie decided to make it her goal to walk 2,200,000 steps by Sunday. Debbie. Good morning.

DEBBIE LAURIE: Good morning.

MG: Can you explain. I just said this and I need some explanation. This is your 41st marathon of hope. But the Terry Fox run is only 40 years old. Can you square that for me here?

DEBBIE LAURIE: That's because back in 1980, when Terry stopped, CTV held a telethon the following week. And Lloyd Robertson encouraged people take it out in their communities and do something spontaneous. So our fellow teacher and I organised a small run on a Saturday morning, invited kids to come at random. Nothing forced. We had our own nests. We made our own sponsor sheets. We each had their sweatshirts made. She had the English one, We're running and we're walking for Terry Fox. And I had [unintelligible] Terry Fox. And we set out that morning and walked a 10 kilometre route. And parents were walking, you know, waiting along on the corners, giving us sandwiches and chocolate milk. And we ended up raising1200 dollars. And the actual Terry Fox runs only began the following September 1981, when Izidor Sharp, the president of the Four Seasons chain of hotels, had made a promise to Terry on his deathbed that he would make sure that the run continued in his name every year. So we actually have one more because of that, that extra one in 1980.

MG: It speaks to how moved you were by what Terry was doing. And so many of us I mean, when he was doing his run in, then obviously in the decades following, have really been taken by what he tried to accomplish and what he has accomplished in in his legacy. What was it about what he was doing that had such a strong impact on you?

DEBBIE LAURIE: Well, I was a young teacher. I just arrived here arrived here [unintelligible]. I have been here two years and had left my own dad to cancer in 1976, he was only 43, had lung cancer. And I turned on the TV this April 12th and saw this young guy dipping his leg in the St. John's Harbour. And I'm like, whoa, this is something different. And I kind of, you know, started following the story every night. I'd be checking the news. And I was clipping newspapers, clippings the whole rest of the summer. And I just, I was like, totally riveted to it. Even when he ran through Quebec, I mean, I would have loved to have been there to see him run, but he was he came in on the South Shore and I'm on the North Shore. And I thought, well, it's no big deal. I've got friends that live in Vancouver. So when he finishes up, you're going to fly out and, you know, be part of a cheering crowd when he arrives in Vancouver, which, of course, sadly never happened. But not that- I was in it for the long haul after I saw that. I was in it for good.

MG: Well, let's talk about the long haul. Where did this idea of walking two million two hundred thousand steps come from?

DEBBIE LAURIE: Well, I you said I'm a retired teacher. I'm retired maths teacher, so I love numbers. So when the foundation announced that we would have to be doing something virtual, I thought, OK, I'm going to try to do something because I love to walk. And I've got my Fitbit and I do my steps every day. So I thought, well, I'll try to do something around that. And then I had heard around Christmas time, just after Christmas, about these two little boys. Justice was eight years old and Ethan was 14. And they had actually met Ethan and his mom five years ago when I flew to Vancouver from my little cousin's a celebration of life. He had passed away from leukaemia.

MG: And these are two young boys who have cancer in BC.

DEBBIE LAURIE: Yeah, they're both. They were they were at B.C. Children's Hospital. Justice still there. Ethan is recovering from his bone marrow transplant and is back at home. And so I thought, well, OK, so eight and 14, I'll add that together, 22 coincidentally the age Terry was when he died. So I said, OK, so I'll walk one hundred thousand steps for each year of their life. So it's 22 times a hundred thousand. Gave me my 22 to make 200,000 for my two million two hundred thousand steps. And I thought to myself, I guess that's doable. I roughly calculated that if I maintained my 12000 steps a day, it should be OK, but then I recalculated in August and I said, Oh, it's going to be very, very close. So I repro behind my Fitbit for 15000 steps a day. And I'm very excited and happy to announce that as I went to bed last night. I hit the mark. 2,200,400 steps.

MG: That's amazing.

DEBBIE LAURIE: So I'm going to keep going. I'll get the last Sunday yet. So it'll be an even bigger total by Sunday. But at least the pressure is off.

MG: I think some of us who struggled to get the 10000 steps in a day are just kind of shaking our heads, thinking 15000 and then doing all the maths with the teacher brain that you have had to get to two million plus. That's a lot of steps.

DEBBIE LAURIE: It's a lot of steps. And let me tell you, it gave me a whole new I mean, I have had the greatest admiration for Terry, but I mean, I was only walking in some days I'd be out and I'd be like, OK, well, I've done eight thousand and I can add it on tomorrow, but then I keep on going and thinking along here it was, you know, with his hop skip the run. And you know, here I am with two good legs and bad knees but two good legs basically. So now I've said I'm going to keep on, keep on, keep on. And there were very few days that it didn't get to 12000 and in the 15th. So I calculated I've walked 159 consecutive days.

MG: How many pairs of shoes do you blow through walking two million plus steps.

DEBBIE LAURIE: I'm on the same pair, but I'm looking at the and I'm thinking they're probably, I'm probably gonna have to invest in new-- their not in bad shape because I'm only walking. And and on Sunday when I walk, I take out - I have one of those Adidas special pairs that came out, you know, for the Terry Fox anniversary. But then he got the exact shoes, the Reppel for shoes that he wore back in 1980. Yeah. Here are those from those 25th anniversary. So I wear them on Run day.

MG: The runs that happen this weekend, so many of them will be done in memory of people or in support of people. And you mentioned Ethan. Tanna Fleming's Ethan's mom. Have a listen to her.

SOUNDCLIP

When you hear your child first gets diagnosed with such a rare cancer like [unintelligible]. So call me when he's so young. He was only seven. You kind of think about, well, what's going to happen after all these treatments. So we kind of knew that something could happen. There's so many different side effects and this was one of them on the secondary cancer. So Ethan, of course, was quite upset, but he knew he needed to fight again hard. He's 14 now, and we're hoping that we'll be able to see how he develops into a beautiful, you know, young man. And I am so honoured to know that Debbie is doing this for Ethan and the little guy Justy in the BC Children’s Hospital right now fighting as well. So I thank her from the bottom of my heart and it's such a wonderful gesture for her to do that.

MG: Debbie, tell me about what you think about when it comes to these two young boys when you're out there walking?

DEBBIE LAURIE: Well, I'd say just like his mom was saying I mean, Kerry even himself said, you know, he was doing it for the suffering that he had seen in the cancer wards, on the oncology ward. And even myself, I mean, I can sort of understand what it must be like. But until I went to visit my little cousin and actually at BCCH in in 2014 and I actually met him for the first time and my cousin took me on a tour of the oncology ward. It's only then that it really hits you. You know, what the exactly what the kids are going through and the age of them. I mean, there were babies there, like not even six months old going through cancer treatments. So it kind of hit, kind of sticks with you.

MG: Just in the last minute or so that we have. I mean, the work that you've done has been recognised by the Fox family. This is the 48th anniversary. And there will be people out this weekend and in the days and weeks to follow who will be out walking, sort the big community event that we'd hope for, but people would still be out and they'll be doing their thing, running and walking away in Terry's memory. What do you want people to think about?

DEBBIE LAURIE: Just about how important it is to keep the dream alive and to find a cure for cancer and get rid of that word once and for all and. And, you know, that's it. Think about Terry, what he went through and that basically, like you said, anything's possible if you try.

MG: It's remarkable what he's accomplished. I mean, we say that a lot. But it really is incredible.

DEBBIE LAURIE: It is. Yes, for sure.

MG: When will you take a day off from walking?

DEBBIE LAURIE: Oh, I'm never really take a day off because, I mean, I love walking anyway, so. I mean, unless there's a, you know, major maybe a snowstorm over something that, you know, really, really prevents you from going out. But it doesn't happen that I've ever not walked a few steps anyway. And even when I don't want to when and when the weather's bad, I circle in and from my living room around in my kitchen. It's kind of a circle. And as I was waiting to connect with you guys there, as I mentioned, I already did two thousand steps just doing that. There's always

MG: I think it'll take more than a snowstorm to stop you. You've done great work and continue doing that for for an excellent cause. Debbie, thank you.

DEBBIE LAURIE: Good night. Can I just add one thing?

MG: You sure can.

DEBBIE LAURIE: I had a goal of a thousand dollars to raise and I'm now at 9250.

MG: Well done.

DEBBIE LAURIE: So I'm hoping that I can get the 10000. That would be the first time ever since I've been doing the run that I would have collected ten thousand dollars myself.

MG: I think you'll probably hit that and then some. Debbie, thank you so much.

DEBBIE LAURIE: Thank you.

MG: Debbie Laurie, retired schoolteacher from Port Garchik, Quebec, who had a goal of walking two million, 200000 steps in memory of Terry Fox, and she smashed that and is on her way to further steps. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Earlier this week, I was speaking with three doctors about COVID-19 testing. And we asked for you to send us your stories of getting tested or trying to get tested. We heard from a lot of people who have been waiting in long, long lines or not. Our senior producer, Karin Marley is here with some of your stories. Karin, good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Hey, yes, it seems the situation is pretty different depending where you are in the country. Cynthia Smythe in London, Ontario, has a loved one in long term care, and a negative test is necessary for anyone who wants to visit. She writes, I am the only caregiver for my brother in law. I can't visit him without a test every two weeks. But to get a test, I need to sit in four hour long car lines. How can someone do this? By the time I get through the line and get the results back, I would be doing this approximately every 10 days.

MG: Lorie Shentow in Toronto is in a similar situation but has a different experience. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

Where I go is Women's College Hospital and they have a website. You can log in and submit a form to the hospital. A doctor calls you. That gives you a reference number, and that means you go through the process faster. It's a shorter line up. So even this morning when I heard on the news that the wait times were four and five hours, you know, preparing for the worst. But that was for the people in the line-up who had not gone through the pre screening process. And I was in and out in less than two hours. For what I get out of this process of testing and waiting and mask wearing and all that stuff is it's very much worthwhile because I get to see my mother and she is not in the best health. So my time with her is very precious.

KARIN MARLEY: Byron Allin wrote from Ottawa: It took us five hours and 45 minutes until we left the building. We were in the line exclusively for kids and families. The staff were great, but at the management level, how is this not foreseen and planned for a month ago?

MG: And from Vancouver Island, Leah Weinberg writes, In order to get a test, you must call a call centre in Victoria to get an appointment. I called for five days and could not get through on the sixth day, I got a call-back from the centre. I'm a self-employed business owner. So for me, not being able to get a test means I may have to close my doors.

KARIN MARLEY: Joy Rowlands in Toronto said she's a senior who hasn't been feeling well. She writes, I have a sore throat and mild cold symptoms. I went to the test centre and saw a line going around the block. It's ridiculous to expect people who aren't well stand in a line for three hours. So I left.

MG: Kelly Galbraith tweeted. It is really difficult to get a test in New Brunswick, which you need in order to travel to Ontario to visit family. We need a simple swab or a test that you can do at home as soon as possible to make life easier. We also got a letter from Robbie Roberts, who is in Leamington, Ontario, ketchup capital of Canada. Robbie wrote about being tested twice. Both times I waited less than five minutes and the procedure took about three minutes. So come to Lymington for the tomatoes and stay for the test.

KARIN MARLEY: I might just have to visit. Nicole Shettler is a pharmacist in Alberta. She writes, Long wait times for results are the new challenge. I've had patients waiting up to nine days for results because the test is only a snapshot in time. Nine days after a test, a negative result means nothing unless the person has isolated that entire time. Until we match the ability to test samples with our ability to collect samples were never going to get ahead.

MG: There's a lot of frustration out there. Karin, thank you.

KARIN MARLEY: Thank you.

MG: To that end, and perhaps given some of the concerns that we've been hearing from listeners. Alberta is changing course. Yesterday, the chief medical officer for the province, Dr. Dena Hinshaw, announced that people who have no symptoms and have no connexion to covered cases no longer need to get tested.

SOUNDCLIP

Anticipating that as we move into the next few months, there will be many more people who have symptoms who need to be tested rapidly. That if you don't have an exposure to COVID and you don't have any symptoms, you're not part of an outbreak. It's the other measures that you need to follow, such as if you're visiting a loved one and continuing care. Wearing a mask, making sure that you're distanced for the bulk of the visits. Doing all those other things are what's going to keep your loved ones safe. And that test really perhaps was an added layer of people feeling safe, but it's not an accurate predictor.

MG: So what exactly does this mean? Well, I'm joined by Dr. Lynora Saxinger, infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta. Doctor, good morning.

LYNORA SAXINGER: Good morning.

MG: Alberta was the first province to offer voluntary tests to people with no symptoms. Are you surprised that the chief medical officer of health is shifting the province's testing strategy now?

LYNORA SAXINGER: Honestly, no, I don't think it's a surprise. I think that there is a fair amount of experience gained with all the asymptomatic testing we did, and it really isn't offering high value. But as we heard from your listeners, it is offering a lot of inconvenience. And at the moment, it's so important to be able to get tested with your sniffles or sore throat that you don't want to have, you know, unnecessary disincentives with long lines and slow results. So we really have to streamline the system to do the right and the most important things first. So I actually think it's a excellent decision, honestly.

MG: Is this going to change the length of those line-ups or the wait times for results? Once people do eventually get tested?

LYNORA SAXINGER: Well, in Alberta, the amount of testing we've been doing in asymptomatic people is actually more than symptomatic people. So it's one and a half to two times more overall. And I think that although, to be honest, the symptomatic proportion has been creeping up, I think already because everyone is having to get tested so they know when it's OK for them to go back to work or when their kids can go back to school, if that's the circumstance they're in. So I think it will actually cut down the demand quite considerably. But at the same time, I know that there's more symptoms going around now, too, so it probably will not like cut it in half necessarily, but it'll make a big difference for sure. And I think the lab has honestly been heroic in the amount of tests they've been doing and all the labs have. But the demand is just incredible in the and the system isn't really built for such a number of tests on the population in such a short time period, really.

MG: Dr. Hinshaw told reporters yesterday that the province has done over 200,00 tests on people with no symptoms. About seven of every 10000 of those tests come back positive. Is that a negligible amount?

LYNORA SAXINGER: Honestly, it really is. I mean, to look at it another way. The tests done on asymptomatic people who've had contact with others, I think the positivity rate is kind of more on the point, four percent-ish range. And to me, that's quite significant. But when you look at these seven in 10000 number, so you've tested 10000 people to find seven people who are positive, who are asymptomatic at the time of the test. And they and at that point, with no symptoms, it can be a number of things. You can either be about to get symptoms and potentially infectious. You can also be someone who had symptoms over the last two to six weeks and still has viral fragments that are detectable by the test. But you've not been symptomatic for a very long time. So define the the most important asymptomatic positives are people who've been in recent contact, and that's where they're going to be focussing, asymptomatic testing and other groups at higher risk. So I really think it's strategic to do it this way. And I don't think that we're going to be seeing any safety concerns with losing that aspect of our testing right now.

MG: What about the sense of reassurance that people have when they go and get tested? And part of this is about they need to get a test because maybe they work in a restaurant or something and they need to know that they might be asymptomatic, but that they don't have COVID. But also just that sense of reassurance that people want to know in the midst of a pandemic that they don't have this virus.

LYNORA SAXINGER: I think that was one of the rationales that was in place when systematic testing was opened up and it became something that was encouraged, like good citizenship. But as it turns out, there is an aspect of false reassurance to that because you could be exposed or you can be worried that you've been out and about maybe more than you should be at this point of the game. And you can be worried and you want to be able to see family. So you get a test and it's negative. And if the negative test, you know, reassures you for too long, that actually could be an error because you could develop infection any time in 14 days from an exposure, mostly within five days. But outworking these from exposure. And so you can't wear a negative test as a shield anyway. So I think it's just kind of really recalibrating how we think about this. And really, actually, to me, the most important thing is making sure that people are paying attention to the annoying symptoms that a lot of Canadians get, especially in fall and winter, that we're very used to powering through and that we're very used to kind of minimising and ignoring. And to me, that's the [unintelligible] where we really have to be getting people tested, because that's the group who occasionally goes to work thinking that it's not coded and they might be dissuaded by the huge line-ups and it actually is COVID. So I think that that's really the focus. And the negative test result should not reassure you for you on the time that it took to get the negative test result.

MG: Should we get tested for every little sniffle that we have? I mean, one of the things that's happening now, these eight hour line-ups in auto on long lines in Ontario and in Toronto and elsewhere, because kids are back at school and the kids as kids do get a sniffle. So should we be getting tested for every little sniffle that we have?

LYNORA SAXINGER: You know, it actually kind of pains me to say yes, but I think to air on the side of caution is important right now. Now, of course, there's different degrees of risk how people sniffled. If you have a sniffle and you're in a public facing job, I think that exponentially it's much more important for you to get testing. But even if you're in a community that's having more transmission. Yes, the sniffles should be checked and it's going to cause tremendous upheaval.

MG: It already is going to cause long lines, too. Isn't it?

LYNORA SAXINGER: Yeah. But you know, what is interesting is looking at data from elsewhere, the number of visits for colds and cold and flu, but not really like flu is really a separate thing. But no visits for respiratory tract infections in places in the U.S. have really dropped off and where they've had more COVID precautions in place. And also in Australia specifically, they've finished their flu season. And it really was kind of a non flu season. So if we're all doing our precautions, well, we can hopefully minimise the other viruses. We won't eliminate them, but minimise them enough that it won't be a complete debacle. But it is very important for people who have symptoms to get tested. And you can't really tell the symptoms of COVID from symptoms of other viruses, especially in younger people who tend not to get ill. So it is a very difficult fall and trying to just focus the testing on the people where we have higher odds of uncovering infection and then being able to test, isolate, trace all their contacts is really crucial.

MG: This is going to be a difficult fall, as you said, and people do worry that it's a complete debacle as well. We will talk again. In the meantime, it's great to speak with you this morning. Thank you.

LYNORA SAXINGER: Nice talking to you. Thank you.

MG: Dr. Lynora Saxinger is an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta. We heard in a number of people from B.C. to Ontario to Newfoundland talking about their testing experiences. If you want to get in touch, you can reach us thecurrent@cbc.ca. That's it for the show for today and for this week. Q is up next, Tom Power speaking with Kate Winslet. She is a new film. That screening is part of the Toronto International Film Festival. One last thing before we go. We're talking yesterday about how playing the guitar has become the latest pandemic pastime. Music stores can't keep up with the demand. Seems like some of you were ahead of the curve. Lucky enough to get your hands on a guitar before they started flying off the shelves. Jason Thorn in Sussex, New Brunswick, bought his first guitar in January and shared this little melody that you'll probably recognise.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music: Guitar]

Well done, accompanied by birds. Jason Thorne. Little bit of Tracy Chapman. He made great progress since January. What better note to end the programme and the week on than some Tracy Chapman. Here she is with Fast Car. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you Monday.

Friday September 18, 2020 Full Episode Transcript

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