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The Current Transcript for May 10, 2016

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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When I went on maternity leave I wasn’t prepared for any of this. My EI was used up on my maternity leave. I can’t even go on EI for being laid off.

LAURA LYNCH: The joy of new motherhood very nearly shattered by the shock of losing her job. Most who go on maternity leave expect to be able to return to work. They believe the law protects them and their jobs. But not always. We explore the world of work and how it treats pregnant women and new mothers. That's coming up in half an hour. Before that though...

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As I talked to women in the developing world and I would see this amazing ingenuity in them and the lengths they would go to lift their families up, I thought, I need to use my voice on behalf of them.

LL: Melinda Gates stayed mostly silent for years as her husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, became the richest man in the world. Now, as co-founder of the foundation that bears her name, Ms. Gates has stepped forward and become a woman of influence. A feature interview with her in this half hour. And then…

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It’s scary and I have a lot of reservations going to the Olympics. At some point I do want to start a family. I don’t risk the safety of a child.

LL: American women`s soccer star Hope Solo speaking in February about the risks of contracting the Zika virus at this summer`s Olympics. Since then, she`s decided she will go, though she says she’s still worried and disheartened by the IOC`s refusal to relocate the games away from areas closer to the centre of the outbreak. There are fresh calls though for the games to be cancelled altogether, not just for the athlete`s sake, but to prevent Zika`s spread around the world. But we begin with an update from Fort McMurray. I'm Laura Lynch, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, and this is The Current.

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'Couldn't have done any more': Fire chief gives tour of Fort McMurray fire damage

Guest: Briar Stewart

LAURA LYNCH: If there's any good news coming out of fire-stricken northern Alberta, it's that lower temperatures, a little rain, and slower winds have slowed the progress of the catastrophic wildfires. But the bad news, the thousands of homes and businesses destroyed over the last week, remains. Yesterday, several provincial officials, including Premier Rachel Notley and Wood Buffalo mayor Melissa Blake toured Fort McMurray to take stock of the damage first hand. The CBC's Briar Stewart has been in northern Alberta covering the wildfire since it hit Fort McMurray. She joined the tour and joins us to tell us what she saw and what she learned. Hi, Briar.

BRIAR STEWART: Good morning, Laura.

LL: So, paint us a picture. What did you see as you toured Fort McMurray?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, I have to begin by saying it was a very full tour. There was a lot of international media that was on board that bus and I think it’s just an indication of how much attention Fort McMurray and this fire has been getting. And we boarded the bus at the roadblock and as we drove toward the city, you could see - both sides of the highway - the forest still smouldering. It was blackened. And as you approached the town on the left side, that’s where you started to see some of the destruction and the images that had been coming out in recent days. For instance, the trailer part that was right along the edge of the highway, between the highway and the forest, it was completely gone. Moving down the road, there was a Super 8 hotel. It was levelled. You couldn’t even really tell what it was except for the sign that was there. And as we moved forward, it was a very quick tour, but the Fire Chief Darby Allen was on the bus and it was very helpful because he was able to point out just where fire fighters had worked during the week and where they were concentrating their efforts. And the first time we got off the bus was in the Beacon Hill neighbourhood. It was one of the hardest hit neighbourhoods, 70 per cent of the homes were destroyed. And what the Fire Chief said is that they were in that neighbourhood and right away they realized that they were overwhelmed. They did not have the resources. They did not have enough water. And they realized they were going to lose it, so instead of trying to stay and fight it, they made, what I would imagine would have been a very difficult decision to retreat and to try to save homes elsewhere.

LL: In spite of all of that damage you saw, though, apparently 85 per cent of Fort McMurray is still standing. Were you surprised the damage wasn't more extensive?

BRIAR STEWART: I think what was interesting about is, you know, we drove into the city, a lot of it—I mean, obviously there were a lot of crews doing work, power crews. I mean, it looked like Fort McMurray. Certainly, the forest, you could see where the forest had substantially burned, and I have to preface it with the fact that we didn’t get to drive throughout the entire city, but a lot of city that we saw remains untouched. And, really, where you see the destruction, there are pockets of destruction. It certainly isn’t spread throughout and it’s not as if the entire city looks like that, far from it. I mean, between the Premier and the Fire Chief, they say about 85 to 90 per cent of the community was saved. That’s about 25,000 buildings. So, as we drove, I mean, we saw the hospital, we hotels that were still standing, four-storey apartment buildings. So, I think being able to bring those images to people, particularly people that live in the Fort McMurray area and are now somewhere scattered across the province. I mean, I’m sure when they see those pictures they can take great comfort in that.

LL: Although, there still are, what, about 2,500 building that were destroyed. I’m wondering, does that mean that people can move back into the town and start living right away? Or are there other challenges?

BRIAR STEWART: No, certainly not, and there’s still no timeline for when people may be able to return. What we did hear from the Premier yesterday is that, at some point within the next two weeks, there’s going to be a schedule and people-- At that point, the schedule will basically be a timeline for when people may be able to return. After Slave Lake, for instance, it’s not as if everybody could come back at the same time. It was depending on which neighbourhood you lived in and so on. Because it’s not just the fire. I mean, the fire is obviously the biggest thing and some neighbourhoods were completely wiped out. But you have a city where over the last week now has been without water, significant parts have been without water, gas, and power, and so that’s what crews are working to restore. And that’s why, even if people’s homes haven’t been damaged, they haven’t been able to come back. Because not only is the background work going on with utility crews, but there are still fire crews in town trying to put out hotspots.

LL: I’m wondering, for you personally, you’ve been to Fort McMurray before. Is there anything about what you saw yesterday that particularly struck you?

BRIAR STEWART: I think what it was is just—When you see those images of areas that have been hit by fire that just burns so hot, it’s just the fact that there’s nothing there. I mean, it’s not as if you’re seeing a frame of the house and you’re able to make out where things were. For the most part, it really is rubble and debris and you could see certain items, like a blackened bicycle or a barbecue. But in those particular neighbourhoods it was very hard to discern what was there and it was really just the foundations and the concrete driveways that marked where homes could be. But, again, when you take the main road through town on highway 63, it is these areas that you can go into where you can see this destruction, but it’s certainly not widespread. And with all the work crews coming back and the pickup trucks pulling through the blockade, it certainly did start to look like Fort McMurray.

LL: Well, Briar, you’ve been doing a great job. Keep it up and stay well, all right? Thank you.

BRIAR STEWART: Thank you very much.

LL: Bye bye. CBC reporter Briar Stewart joined us from south of Fort McMurray.

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Melinda Gates on the 'ingenuity' of women in the developing world

Guest: Melinda Gates

LL: I’m Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current. Years ago, when the Gates children were younger, Melinda Gates had a long drive to her eldest daughter's pre-school. She and her husband Bill talked about the frustrating commute and came up with a solution: he would drive their daughter two days a week. It was a small compromise for two parents sharing the duties of raising a young family, but when the father also happens to be one of the wealthiest men in the world, people noticed. Over the years, the philanthropic pair have used this story to highlight the problem of unpaid work for women and push for more equal sharing of household duties between parents. And today, as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda Gates is using her position to call on governments like Canada to support women and girls in developing countries. Yesterday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada is increasing its commitment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, to 785 million dollars over the next three years. Melinda Gates was in Ottawa yesterday for the announcement. And that's where she joins me now. Hello.

MELINDA GATES: Hi.

LL: Now, I want to talk to you about the announcement in Ottawa, but before I do that, I have to ask, how did people react when the heard the richest man on the planet was sharing day care drop-off duties?

MELINDA GATES: Well, it was really interesting. What happened was there was quite a buzz in the classroom and the moms all got together and went home, apparently, and said to their husbands, if Bill Gates can do it, you can do it too. And it is funny how it has a community effect. And sure enough, more fathers ended up being there dropping their kids off at school. So it did have an effect.

LL: Now, okay, I don’t want to be too much of a stickler here, but why did the husband only get two days a week and you were left with three?

MELINDA GATES: Oh, no, good question. He was having to drive over 45 minutes, because of where the school was located, out to the school and then back to Microsoft. So he had an even longer commute than I did, so that’s why he signed up for two days and I signed up for three.

LL: Okay, that story speaks to a much larger issue here – the impact that unpaid work has on women and girls since they are the ones who do most of it, especially in the developing world. So, let’s talk about that. How big is the gap right now?

MELINDA GATES: The gap is substantial. Women in some countries do as much as six hours of labour a day to their husband doing one hour of labour a day related to the household. And it’s huge particularly in countries where there isn’t clean energy and women are having to walk to collect firewood, go chop it with their kids – their kids are often in tow – or go carry water, so it’s a huge burden on women and it keeps them, then, from being able to access great healthcare or sometimes girls accessing education or even having a job, being out and being employed.

LL: So then how do you change these attitudes about the gender roles when it does come to these kinds of tasks?

MELINDA GATES: Well, first of all, you need to really have the community sit down and talk about what’s really going on in these homes. So that transparency, just like the conversation Bill and I had in our own home about who’s going drive to school and we had a negotiation around it. Communities have to sit down and say, what’s going on in our own households? Do we want to make change? And if so, let’s commit to it as a community. I was in Malawi last summer and I saw dads and moms who signed up to make change and then when they were seeing these households change and that, in fact, the kids were healthier, the kids were going to school better dressed, they were cleaner, they were in school more, other communities approached them and said, is that why you made the change? We saw that men were all of a sudden carrying firewood. It seemed odd to us, but now we’re starting to see the benefits of it. Tell us how you did it and how you got there. It’s that transparency and that community coming around and creating the change but then has ripple effects further out.

LL: It sounds like so much more than having a conversation about it, though, particularly in countries where these roles are so re-enforced.

MELINDA GATES: Well, it depends. So, there are different countries where you have to approach the work differently. And every country has to decide for themselves what’s the right cultural approach. But in these communities in Malawi, part of it was people just not recognizing what they were doing, right. We all have social norms that sometimes are biased and we don’t even see them. So, an example in Malawi was the women make the meals all day long, but when it’s time to be fed the men and the oldest boys would get their food and go away and eat separate from the family. Well, they didn’t even realize until they were brought back together and seeing what the rest of the family was eating, they didn’t even realized that not only were their wives serving them first, but serving them the best meat and there was hardly anything left for the kids. But when this was recognized then they could start to say, okay, what do we want to do to reduce and rebalance the inequity? And it was that coming together that the men started to eat with their families. They said, wait a minute. The kids ought to be getting more food than they are. I can give up some of mine. That’s how you start to get a cultural change.

LL: Let’s go back to your family again as an example. You’ve got three children. I think one is not at college. How did you split up their duties?

MELINDA GATES: Well, for one example in our own family is after dinner we have a commitment that all five of us would do the dishes every night and clean up after dinner was over. And it was really interesting. I started to realize, as I looked at this—Well, first of all, I would be the last one in the kitchen and I didn’t like that very much. And so, finally, when I said to everybody, nobody leaves the kitchen until mom leaves the kitchen, all of a sudden, all the tasks started getting done a lot more quickly, right. But one of the things I realized, even since writing this annual letter I put out about unpaid work in the home, what’s going on, is I started to realize I was asking my son to put out the garbage, but not my daughter. And I was asking her to do certain things that were gender-based and I said, that doesn’t make any sense. Garbage doesn’t have to be a male duty. My daughter can do that and he can actually load the dishwasher. And so we flipped the roles just by even looking at what bias I had in my own family growing up.

LL: It sounds like, though, you’re running the house. You don’t talk about your husband ever deciding who does what. You’re saying, I decided this. You do this.

MELINDA GATES: Well, no, no. We make the big decisions about our kids together, for sure, the big values based decisions. But sometimes when it comes to deciding the tasks, he gets to assign some too. And my kids will just tell you that. That’s kind of how it happens.

LL: Okay, but how much of an impact would it have on women and girls – you’ve talked about this already – if you could close that gender gap on unpaid work. Would it have an impact on the economy?

MELINDA GATES: It would have a substantial impact on the economy. So, just let me take the US for example. If women reduced the amount of unpaid work that they have today and those gender roles were normed and they were 50/50 at home, we would get a 10 to 12 per cent bump in GDP in the United States alone. And think about the ripple effect in the economies all over the world. It’s why when I go to the United Nations today, so many prime ministers and presidents are there from countries talking about how do we get girls and women more empowered? How do we get more girls in school? Because they know getting girls in school and into jobs also changes gender norms and they’ll also get this huge bump in their own GDP in their own countries.

LL: There’s also family planning. That has to be key to this. How do you tackle that?

MELINDA GATES: So, family planning, there’s now a commitment by the world to have 120 million women voluntarily accessing family planning, new women accessing voluntary family planning by 2020. The way you go about that is by having resources available, which we finally do. There’s 2.6 billion dollars now available because the global community came together to make this commitment. And what’s happening now is countries are coming forward and saying, okay, I’m going to make a plan for my country to get there, to start introducing contraceptives, to learn from other countries, to education young girls about their bodies, to go to men and even start in some countries, like Niger, a husband school. So we teach husbands why their children and their wives will be healthier if contraceptives are used in the household, if they space the birth of their children. They can get at it by all these different ways, but it does take planning and money and learning and resources, and that it starting to happen.

LL: But I think you must inevitably run up against people’s religious beliefs. I mean, that happens in the United States and in Canada. What about in more far flung or developing countries? How do you deal with people’s religious beliefs?

MELINDA GATES: It’s really sitting down and talking about where you have shared beliefs and then moving into this conversation that is sometimes controversial. The other thing, though, that we find with religious beliefs is sometimes what’s being taught at the village level isn’t actually what the religion wants to teach at the highest level. So, I’ll give you an example. I met with the Imams in Senegal, the highest part of the church hierarchy and they said, you know, the Qur’an actually allows for family planning. We need to use our network of Imams all the way down to the village level to say it’s okay. It’s okay to use contraceptives, in fact, you should. I said them, well, why would you even be incented to do that? And all these men said to me, who were the top of this church, because we’ve seen our wives and our sisters and our daughters die in childbirth and we know that if women space the births of their children, our wives and sisters and daughters won’t die. And so that’s an example where you can actually use the religion to get out the proper messages to women and girls.

LL: It’s interesting to hear you cite these examples of countries where you’ve been, but I can think of other countries where these kinds of projects and hopes and aspirations come up against really difficult obstacles. And I’m thinking of Afghanistan where we know a lot of women die in childbirth. Or in parts of Pakistan. How are you moving forward in those countries?

MELINDA GATES: So, we’re working deeply, actually, in Pakistan with several different partners, including the government. One of the things that also works in family planning is to have a covert tool, that is a contraceptive that a woman can use that her husband doesn’t know she’s using, quite honestly, or the person in power in her household, quite often in India, it’s her mother-in-law, doesn’t know she’s using. So, women use all over the world this shot called Depo-Provera. You get it once a quarter. You have to go to a health clinic to get it. You walk usually to the health clinic to get. Not only are we getting it in supply and educating women about it, but the more profound thing is we’re changing the tool. So, we now have a very small version of that tool available. It’s in a little blister pack with a tiny little needle. Not only can a village healthcare worker give it to a woman, we’re also working to get it approved so that a woman can take it home and give it to herself. Then she’d never have to walk to the clinic and nobody would even know she’s using it. That’s how she gets around the power structure in her own household and that works.

LL: This sounds risky, though, for the woman. It sounds like if she gets found out—And I have met women in Afghanistan and Pakistan who have been victimized because of power structures that are in play in those countries. Are you not possibly putting them at risk by doing this?

MELINDA GATES: Well, they have to make—That’s why contraceptives are a voluntary choice. But I will tell you, I have met thousands of women around the world that say, I will take that risk. You know why? My children are healthier. My children stay alive. Instead of having five children and being on the way to having my sixth, I can actually feed the children I have. When you meet women around the world, and men, they’re all about the next generation, educating the next generation so they don’t live the life that they live. And so women say it’s worth it to me to take that risk, if I can space those births. So, they’ll do it and, again, we have to educate them and make it voluntary and then it’s up to them if they want to take that risk.

LL: Now, I promised we would talk about the announcement in Ottawa. Let’s get to that now. You are in Ottawa. What did you think of Prime Minister Trudeau’s announcement?

MELINDA GATES: I thought Prime Minister Trudeau’s announcement and his government’s leadership on Global Fund was absolutely terrific. This 20 per cent increase in funding is phenomenal and what he’s doing is showing leadership so that the other nations who will also help us fund Global Fund will come in, hopefully, also as well as increases. And what it shows you is that he believes Global Fund is working. 17 million people are alive because of the Global Fund and it means that we have a chance of saving another eight million more lives. The thing Bill and I like about the fund and why we also we will re-invest in the fund again is because it’s getting more and more efficient all the time. So, the price of malaria bed nets is now down below ten dollars. The HIV drugs that first came out under the Global Fund, they’re down by 99 per cent. And it’s why we’re able to save more and more people’s lives with this fund. It’s working incredibly well.

LL: What exactly is the focus of The Global Fun?

MELINDA GATES: The Global Fund is to fight HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria around the world. And those are the biggest killers of people in these countries in the developing world.

LL: Ms. Gates, thank you for your time.

MELINDA GATES: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on the show.

LL: Bye bye.

MELINDA GATES: Bye.

LL: Melinda Gates is the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And she was in Ottawa. So, what do you think of what she had to say? You can add your voice to any story you hear, including Melinda Gates. Tweet us @thecurrentCBC. Post on Facebook at facebook.com/cbcthecurrent. Or email us at our website. Go to cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the Contact Us link. I’m Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. And you are listening to The Current.

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Women fired while on maternity leave want better legal protection

Guest: Gilary Massa, Fred Hahn, David Whitten

LL: Hello, I’m Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you’re listening to The Current.

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LL: Still to come, the Zika virus is a serious cause for concern in Rio just weeks before the Summer Games kick off. So serious it's leading for calls to cancel or move the Games. But first, the problem with parental leave.

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LL: The birth of a baby brings with it much joy and disruption as parents adjust to days and nights tending to a newborn's needs. It can be an overwhelming time. But for many new parents in Canada, maternity or parental leave benefits help make things a bit more manageable. The legally protected ability to take time off after a birth and be able to return to the same or similar job is a relief for many parents. But that's not always how things turn out, as one mother in Toronto has discovered. Gilary Massa gave birth to her daughter last September. Three months later, her employer informed her she no longer had a job at the Ryerson Students' Union, located at Ryerson University. To tell us more, I am joined by Gilary Massa who is currently in Panama City. Hello.

GILARY MASSA: Hi, how are you?

LL: Fine, thanks. Gilary, what did your employer say was the reason you were being fired?

GILARY MASSA: I was told that they had restructured the organization and that my job was no longer in existence and then, therefore, I was terminated as of immediately.

LL: And what was your reaction to that?

GILARY MASSA: I was shocked. I was three months into my mat leave. I had no prior notice of any kind of restructuring or notice that my job was on the line. It came out of completely nowhere. It was a three-minute phone call. And I was really devastated. It’s my lifeline.

LL: So, you’re in shock, you’ve got a new born baby, how did the termination of your job affect your plans for your maternity leave?

GILARY MASSA: Huge. I had plans to visit my then sick grandmother in Panama, which I am now. I’m here for her funeral. It put into question whether or not we could spend time with my family, if my daughter could bond with her great-grandmother in the way I had hoped. We’re a dual income household like many Ontarians are. We rely on my income. We relied on my maternity leave. We planned our pregnancy, as you’re told you should, and then it just kind of got taken out from under me.

LL: So, you couldn’t go and visit her. And I am sorry for your loss. So, what did you do?

GILARY MASSA: We tried to plan around it. I mean, it was important to me to come and visit my family anyway. So, we did end up coming but it meant that some of the debt that we need to pay had to be put on hold. It meant that our home that we had recently bought became potentially in jeopardy because now we don’t have two incomes. It became a huge problem and I think, you know, for many young moms, we’re told that you just have to get an education, work at a good job, get a good job, work there, have a good standing record, take maternity leave. It’s something that we rely on. To not have to choose between our careers and our families and that choosing to have a family will not jeopardize your career. That was the impression that I had.

LL: How long did it take you to decide to fight back?

GILARY MASSA: Immediately. I have a daughter. She’s my first daughter. I want her to know that it is important that when you face something that you don’t just take it lying down, that you don’t roll up into a ball and cry about it, that you actually take action, especially when it’s a huge injustice. In my opinion, this was an illegal fire and I want her to grow up in a world where she doesn’t have to choose between her career and having a family. I want her to be able to have both things. And I want a workplace to respect that she has a right to both things.

LL: And what did you decide to do?

GILARY MASSA: Well, I filed a human rights complaint. We spent our savings on hiring a lawyer to file a human rights complaint and I also filed a grievance, because I’m in a unionized workplace, so we done those two avenues and now we’re just kind of waiting to see how the legal process will play out. But I also felt it was important to start a bit of a campaign around this issue. When it happened to me and it became public I became aware that it wasn’t something that is isolated. Many women go through things while they’re on maternity leave. Their jobs decide to use loopholes to let them go. And if it’s a case that there is a loophole that companies or organizations can use, we need to address that as a province, especially because we’re doing it to women and families who are in a vulnerable position.

LL: But, Gilary, what is an employer supposed to when they are actually deciding they need to restructure their workplace? That’s what they said was happening in this place. Are they supposed to just hold some position that you have because you are supposed to get it back, even if they think they don’t want that position anymore?

GILARY MASSA: My understanding of the employment standards act is that I have a right to go back to my job or something comparable and if not, then I have a right to proper compensation. I wasn’t fired because I did anything wrong in the workplace. In fact, I have a clean record. I was a very valued employee as far as I was concerned and my job was the only one that was eliminated. And there are a lot things that are happening that I can’t really speak to because it will interfere with my arbitration, but I think the law in Ontario is very clear.

LL: But the law also seems to be clear to an extent that they can let you go, that they can fire you if they’re restructuring, if it’s not related to the fact that you’re on maternity leave.

GILARY MASSA: I’m entitled to comparable work when I come back. That’s what the law states.

LL: You talked about the arbitration and I know you say you’re limited in what you can say, but what are you fighting for?

GILARY MASSA: I’m fighting for what’s in my collective agreement. If it’s a lay-off situation then I’m entitled to something within my CA. And on the human rights side, I’m entitled to take maternity leave without it affecting my job. An employer can’t say we need to save money and the only job that we can take away or the only place we can save money is the person that we’re paying a maternity fill-in for.

LL: Where does your human rights complaint stand?

GILARY MASSA: We’re waiting for the arbitration process to go through. And then the human rights tribunal will kick in at that point. So, it’s all really a bit of a standstill as we go through the very long process that is a grievance and human rights tribunal.

LL: I’m wondering, even if you do get to the point where you get your job back or a comparable job, what will it be like for you to return to work in there?

GILARY MASSA: It’ll be an interesting workplace if I am ordered to go back, but to me it’s more than just my job. It’s about protecting a woman’s right to maternity leave in this province. I’m asking the question, what would Ontario look like if women just got fired here, there, and everywhere because they decided to start their families?

LL: Gilary Massa, thank you.

GILARY MASSA: No problem. Thank you.

LL: Gilary Massa lost her job while she was on maternity leave. We requested an interview with her employer, the Ryerson Students' Union, but we haven't heard back. We also reached out to Ryerson University. In a statement, it points out that, quote, "It is important to note that the RSU is a separate, independent corporation with its own bylaws and governance; Ryerson University respects its independence." The controversy over Gilary Massa losing her position while on maternity leave coincides with a government review in Ontario looking at how the Labour Relations Act and the Employment Standards Act could be updated to better protect workers. Fred Hahn is Ontario President of CUPE, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, of which Gilary Massa is a member. He's with me in Toronto. Hello.

FRED HAHN: Hello.

LL: What do make of what happened to Gilary Massa?

FRED HAHN: Well, first, I’m quite proud of Gilary. I mean, she is in a position where she has a union, our union, who will proudly represent her. This could have been a grievance that was filed and administratively handled, but instead she and her union, Local 1281, decided that this needed to be a broader issue, because what we’ve discovered is that this not a unique situation. There are thousands of women in the province of Ontario who, during their maternity leave, whose employment is terminated and many of those women don’t have access to a union. And so what they must do is go through the Employment Standards branch of the Ministry of Labour. That means that they have to find resources to find someone to defend them or defend themselves. It’s an under-resourced area of government and it’s simply-- you know, I mean, it's a bit of an overused phrase but it is 2016. These rights were won for women through the postal workers union in 1981. This is well established. No one imagined 35 years later we'd still be talking about women being terminated on their maternity leave.

LL: So then we were you surprised by what happened to her? If you think it was settled already.

FRED HAHN: Incredibly surprised, particularly because we're not talking here about just any workplace. We are talking about one of the preeminent learning institutions in our country, one of the largest in our province, a place of progressive learning. Ryerson can, of course, claim that this is a separate entity within Ryerson University and, in fact, it is legally, but the pal stands over top of Ryerson as an institution. Why would any institution of higher learning, a progressive place of learning allow this to happen in any of their workplaces?

LL: We contacted the human rights legal support centre. It's an independent agency that is funded by the Government of Ontario that provides legal services to individuals who have complaints about discrimination. Kate Sellar is their legal counsel. She says they received more than 1,000 calls from women who are alleging discrimination based on their pregnancy, last year alone. Now, just have a quick listen to what she said.

SOUNDCLIP

We see two situations most typically. So, one is where a woman advises her workplace that she's pregnant and once she lets them know, she's fired and she's either fired right in that very first conversation or she's fired in the coming days or weeks, because all of a sudden there are performance problems. The other scenario that we see is where women are already on their maternity leave and, perhaps, they're just about to come back to work and they're advised that their position is no longer there for them and essentially that they're fired.

LL: Now, in your experience and your knowledge how common are stories like those, not just in Ontario, but across the country?

FRED HAHN: Well, you know, I'll be honest, this was something that took us by surprise that this would still happen and certainly in a unionized environment in the broader public sector where our union represents workers. That said, we've learned through this process that, in fact, it isn't that uncommon and I think most people would be startled to learn that in 2016 we have women who are, you know, they're starting their families and they're communicating with their employer and they believe they have rights, as they do, and employers use loopholes. Look, there will be those who say, well, of course, people restructure, that kind of stuff happens, but for my purposes and I think for many listeners this kind of coincidence just doesn't seem to add up. When it's happening to thousands of women it seems to me that this is connected to systemic discrimination.

LL: But, surely, employers should have the flexibility to decide on the structure of their workplace. And it's not just a loophole, it is the law. The Employments Standards Act, quote, says, “If an employer has dismissed an employee for legitimate reasons that are totally unrelated to the fact that the employee took a leave, the employer does not have to reinstate the employee.”

FRED HAHN: That is, in fact, what the law says but it is kind of unusual, isn't it, that thousands of women would just all of a sudden have their workplaces restructure as a result of them becoming pregnant and taking maternity leave. This kind of coincidence just doesn't seem to add up and while we're in the midst of this review of the Employment Standards Act and the Labour Relations Act in Ontario, while we have the first woman premier of the province, while we are in a time when we say we need to modernize laws, we need to make sure that women on maternity leave are actually protected to make sure that those rights that do exist - to return to the same or comparable work - are actually upheld by employers.

LL: But you wouldn't have it be blanket, would you? You would still retain some ability for an employer to be able to conduct business?

FRED HAHN: Well, of course, employers can conduct business and they can restructure their workplaces, but they can't fire women on maternity leave as a result. That's patently unfair.

LL: Well, okay. So, if an employer wanted to prove that they fired someone for a reason other than pregnancy or maternity leave, what, in your mind, what would they have to do?

FRED HAHN: They would have had to have done it. They would have had to have started a progressive discipline process before somebody announced to them that they happen to be pregnant.

LL: A discipline problem. They would have to prove that there was something wrong with the employee, that it wasn’t a simple restructuring.

FRED HAHN: I think so. Or if there’s going to be a restructuring-- Look, in this situation the “restructuring”, quote, unquote, involved one job and it took that job out of a bargaining unit and made it a non-union job. Those are things that we deal with all the time with employers, but this situation just seems, you know, it doesn't pass the sniff test.

LL: I’ve got one more clip here from Kate Sellar, the legal counsel at the Human Rights Legal Support Centre about the precarious situation women find themselves in if they lose their job during a pregnancy.

SOUNDCLIP

Most women need to find other work before the baby is born. And we know that it's particularly difficult to find work when you are showing. So you're in a particularly difficult situation because then you're trying to get enough hours to qualify for your EI maternity leave once the baby is born. When you lose your job while you're on leave the challenge is that you don't qualify for EI regular benefits because you've just taken a year of mat leave. So it leaves women in a really precarious situation financially, in addition to the emotionally.

LL: What's your reaction to that?

FRED HAHN: Well, look, I think this is helping us all to understand that we still have real issues of systemic discrimination against women in the workplace. We know that there's a gender pay gap. We know that women are paid 31.5 per cent less than men who do similar or comparable work. That's well known, well stated. You know, in fact, the government has a whole review to erase the gender pay gap. And now I think we can see that these things that some might have assumed were long dealt with in our workplaces simply aren't. And so this is an opportunity for us to say, we want fairness in our workplaces. We want to make sure that women who are having children are treated fairly.

LL: Does it make a difference if the woman is in a union or not?

FRED HAHN: It makes a huge difference. Again, you know, Gilary has access to a collective agreement. She has access to a grievance procedure, grievance arbitration. Even the human rights complaint that she's filed, you know, the human rights code is deemed to be part of the collective agreement. There are supports that she has available to her that we're proud to provide. But, sadly, too many women don't have access to a union. In fact, it's difficult to join a union in the province of Ontario. It's one of the things we're asking for in the changing workplace review. It should be easier for women to access the support of unions for these situations and others.

LL: Now, as we mentioned, the government of Ontario is undertaking its review of its employment labour laws. We asked for an interview or a statement about what to expect. They said it's too early. You've mentioned some things you want to see. Just briefly, what else do you want to see come of it particularly with regard to this issue?

FRED HAHN: Well, certainly, we want there to be some clarification and strengthening around the rights of women to return to the same or comparable work. But we've been working with the Ministry of Labour, as have many others, to talk about how we need to modernize laws, how we need to make sure that workers have paid sick time, how there can be easier access to parental leave for both parents, how we can modernize our workplaces to make sure that jobs are actually liveable jobs so that people are living in precarious work – not knowing their schedules, not knowing what they're going to be able to raise their families on. There are lots of issues.

LL: Okay, Fred Hahn, thank you. Fred Hahn is the Ontario President of CUPE, the Canadian Union of Public Employees. He was in Toronto. For another perspective on this, I'm joined by David Whitten, who is an employment lawyer with Whitten & Lublin. He has represented both employers and employees in disputes. He is also in Toronto. Hello.

DAVID WHITTEN: Good morning, Laura.

LL: What's your take on what happened to Gilary Massa?

DAVID WHITTEN: Well, I represent both employers and employees, but this morning I'm going to take the employer's perspective on this issue. I mean, first of all, I believe that the provisions of the Employment Standards legislation are actually quite strong in this regard and provide a lot of protection already for pregnant women and their spouses who want to take parental leaves as well. So, I think we have a good legislative regime in place already. But to your point earlier, I mean, employers, especially in a dynamic economy that we live, have to have the ability to restructure and if that unfortunately involves terminated somebody on maternity or parental leave, well, they need the legal right. They need that flexibility.

LL: Okay, but let's talk about this particular case and Gilary Massa. Let's talk about a few things with her job. First of all, as Fred Hahn mentioned, her job was eliminated and it was turned into a management position and the person who took over that job is performing many of the same duties that Gilary Massa did. So what does that mean in terms of restructuring? It's still the same job by and large.

DAVID WHITTEN: Well, I guess we'll have to see how that plays itself out in the arbitration process. I, frankly, think Ms. Massa has a number of challenges that she faces in advance of her arbitration. First off, my understanding is there was a third party analyst that recommended the restructuring and the elimination of her position. So right off the bat, the Ryerson Student Union now can rely upon a supposedly objective party for having recommended this change. The second issue is, I mean, I've heard this from the employee side of the table where a woman will come in and tell me look my job has been eliminated, but the exact same job has been posted elsewhere. And when you dig a little bit deeper you see that, in fact, no, the job that has been posted elsewhere or the management position, in this instance, is not in fact the same position. It's very different or it may involve some overlap, but substantially different duties. And an employer is allowed to do that. They're allowed to create new positions that may take, in this case, the role out of the bargaining unit and hire somebody else for it.

LL: And in this case, again, though, there was no attempt to tell her what was going on, that, in fact, there was something taking place in her workplace. There was no attempt to tell her that, perhaps, she might want to apply for this other job. These are also indications of a workplace that didn't maybe handle things correctly.

DAVID WHITTEN: Oh, I couldn't agree more. I mean, the communication strategy, if there was one at all, was incredibly poor in this situation. When I'm advising employers I tell them if you are planning a legitimate reorder, first of all, contact the positions that may be impacted, especially those people that are off on a maternity leave or parental leave, because they’re at home. They don't know what's going on. They may just be hearing rumours or scuttlebutt from their colleagues. Contact them. Tell them, look, we're reviewing a number of positions, yours included, we’ll keep you up to date and we’ll let you know what the results of the review are. The other thing I would say is how you implement termination, I mean, there's a way to do it that would have softened the blow, potentially, for Ms. Massa. When I've advised employers I say, okay, if you're going to terminate a pregnant employee and it's legitimate because it's a proper reorganization, then consider structuring the severance in such a way that the woman's employment continues through to the beginning of the mat leave and then the severance is implemented at its conclusion. So that she gets the protection of EI and then she enjoys the severance that she's entitled to at the end of it to provide a further cushion to find a new role.

LL: What about the broader concerns that Fred Hahn raised about discrimination toward pregnant women and women on maternity leave that they still face in the workplace?

DAVID WHITTEN: Well, I have ultimate respect to Fred's comments. I mean, I don't believe it's as, perhaps, an issue of systemic discrimination, as he described it. I think definitely pregnant women are being affected in reorganizations across the country, but the reality is, unfortunately, our businesses across Canada have had to restructure significantly in the last number of years to compete globally, so there's bound to be, depending upon the size of the employer, some pregnant employees and they get caught up in a restructuring. Now, that being said, Ms. Massa is part of a restructuring of one, that too bothers me, but—

LL: And also a union that probably doesn't need to compete on a global scale at the Ryerson Student’s Union. They're not looking at that kind of factor.

DAVID WHITTEN: You make a good point. I’ll tell you, honestly, where I see this more recently is with the restructuring at the banks. And it's not with respect to pregnant employees. We’ll see the recent downsizing tends to include a higher percentage of older employees. And it's a very clever way of terminating people over 55 if you pepper in a number of younger employees in a broader subset and classify it as a restructuring. So my experience is not necessarily been pregnant employees have been targeted, but it's actually more older employees have been targeted in these restructurings.

LL: So then do you have no concerns about employers hiding behind the cloak of restructuring to justify firing a woman who's on maternity leave? Are you saying it never happens?

DAVID WHITTEN: No, I'm not saying it never happens, but what I'm saying is we have a very strong legislative regime. And Fred, for obvious reasons, believes in the union movement and the benefits of it, but even a non-unionized employee has the benefit of being able to go to the Employment Standards Branch of the Ministry of Labour if they believe they've been terminated on maternity leave and the Employment Standards officer, since 2000, has had incredibly remedial power to either reinstate, award compensation, which would exceed what the person would normally get in termination scenario. They don't need a lawyer to represent them in that process, although it's advantageous. We have the Office of the Worker Advisor, which is also open to non-unionized employees. And we have the human rights system where, as you've noted, there's a human rights support centre that provides free legal advice to employees that don't have legal counsel. So I guess what I'm saying is, yes, it happens, but there is a lot of support for even non-unionized employees to advance their concerns.

LL: But is it right that in this day and age that women who are pregnant or women who are on maternity leave have to go to that extent to ensure that they are protected and they get the rights that they are supposed to have to return to work after they have their children?

DAVID WHITTEN: Well, as a broader sort of social comment, it’s unfortunate that we need police too to enforce the law, but it's a reality that not in every instance do employers or the broader public do the right thing. But, I guess what I would say, just back to the regime that is in place currently, is what happens is if a woman believes that her rights have been violated because of a pregnancy, it creates what we call a reverse onus, which means all she needs to do is bring that application to the human race tribunal or the Ministry of Labour and immediately the onus switches to the employer to justify the termination on some other basis than the leave. So, it's actually a very powerful way of ensuring accountability for employers.

LL: In your experience, how easy or difficult is it for the employer to prove that?

DAVID WHITTEN: Well, it's always fact specific, but I'm back to what I said originally, I think Ms, Massa’s challenge here is for the employer, in this instance, they have a third party analyst that produced a report that recommended her position be eliminated. So, that's the type of compelling evidence that I think the Ryerson Student’s Union is going to rely upon strongly. But an employer is going to have to rebut that onus and that’s going to require generally more than a statement that, no, we just decided to target this one particular position as part of a reorder. They’re going to have to show that there was a lead up to this decision, that it was a legitimate analysis that was made, and that that position truly has been eliminated.

LL: David Whitten, thank you.

DAVID WHITTEN: Thank you.

LL: David Whitten is an employment lawyer with Whitten & Lublin. He was in Toronto. Now, we want to hear from you. Did your pregnancy or maternity leave jeopardize your job? If you're an employer, what kind of challenges have you faced? You can email us at our website by choosing the Contact link at cbc.ca/thecurrent, or find us on Facebook or on Twitter. We're @thecurrentCBC. I’m @lauralynchCBC. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you are listening to The Current.

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Zika concerns prompt call to cancel Rio Olympic Games

Guests: Amir Attaran, Kevin Wamsley, Andrew Zimbelist

LAURA LYNCH: Hello, I'm Laura Lynch, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, and this is The Current.

[cheering]

LL: Well, the cheers over Rio de Janeiro’s winning bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games have since given way to concerns for the health of those attending. Despite efforts to contain the spread of the Zika virus, the number of suspected cases in Rio de Janeiro is the highest of any state in Brazil and in February the World Health Organization elevated the virus outbreak to a public health emergency. For some Olympic athletes, the threat of Zika means weighing the glory of competition with the possible effects of a potentially harmful virus. US soccer goalie, Hope Solo spoke about her worries earlier this year.

SOUNDCLIP

It's scary and I have a lot of reservations going to the Olympics. At some point I do want to start a family and I don't want to be worried; I don't want those anxieties; I don't want those constant tests. I don't want to risk the safety of a child, the health of a child. It's just a scary time and there are really no clear answers to it.

LL: Now, since then, Ms. Solo has decided she will go to the Games, though not without significant worries about contracting the virus. It is not only athletes considering pulling out of the Rio Games, though. Some public health specialists are calling for the Rio Games to be cancelled, postponed, or moved to another location. Amir Attaran is a professor in the Faculty of Law and Public Health at the University of Ottawa. He’s just published a paper in The Harvard Public Health Review outlining the threat to global health if the Olympic Games continue as planned in Rio. Amir Attaran is in our Ottawa studio, hello.

AMIR ATTARAN: Good morning, Laura.

LL: Why do you think the Olympics in Rio should be cancelled?

AMIR ATTARAN: Well, the real question to ask is, why should they not be postponed or moved? I’m not advocating cancelling them. There is no need to cancel the Olympics. They are a wonderful event. I love them, many people love them, but the appropriate question is, is now the right time to send a half million visitors into Rio, into the heart of a disease outbreak that is very dangerous, for these Games, or would it be better to postpone the Games, get the disease under control first, or maybe, have the Games somewhere else.

LL: Frame the risk for me because as I understand it, the risk is only to pregnant women or those considering getting pregnant.

AMIR ATTARAN: No, that’s not right. There has been a lot of science done since the outbreak and some of the findings have been absolutely appalling. They’ve only come in the last few weeks, so for anyone who thinks that Zika is limited to babies, that’s not right. We have very good scientific evidence that the risk of Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which affects adults, is a neurological disease, it can paralyze, it can give rise to various types of nerve damage, or it can even kill. The risk of Guillain-Barre disease has increased 60-fold with Zika infection. 60-fold. And that’s adults, that’s not just children, but of course, it is the children who are most affected. We now know, again from scientific studies only a couple of weeks old, that 29 percent of children who, in their mother’s womb, the mother becomes infected, will have birth defects.

LL: So how do you respond when Dr. Bob McCormack, who is the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Chief Medical Officer says the risks of Zika are minimal for those who are not pregnant and that 90 percent of those who are exposed experience no symptoms at all?

AMIR ATTARAN: Well, the doctor should go read The New England Journal of Medicine or The Lancet in the last few weeks. Those are the world’s top medical journals where you have the exact studies I’ve cited to you. The risk of microcephaly, the small head that these babies have, increases 23-to 53-fold. The risk of Guillain-Barre disease, 60-fold. Now, if the doctor cares to actually read the science, I’m sure he’s say something different, but what he said to you is simply not truthful and not honest.

LL: So you’re calling for a postponement, moving the Games. That’s doesn’t appear to be happening. Given that, what’s your advice to athletes and spectators who are planning to go?

AMIR ATTARAN: I don’t know that it’s not happening. The Olympics have been postponed in the past. They have been moved in the past, the World Cup, too, so we’re not to the point of saying that is not happening. I think what needs to be examined is how to turn this negative of Zika into a positive. We could have, instead of a disease catastrophe in Rio de Janeiro, we could have a very positive outcome. We could have the first ever global Olympics. Some of the sports could be moved to London, some could be moved to Beijing, others to Sydney, others to Athens. These are cities that have hosted recently, we could have a global Olympics. What’s not to like about that?

LL: We contacted Perdita Felicien, I’m sure you know her. She’s a former Canadian hurdler turned broadcaster, and I want you to listen to her reaction to your essay.

SOUNDCLIP

It is scary to know that you might get an infection in your body that infects your family and you know your unborn child. At the same time being an athlete myself, you trust your governing body, you trust the COC, you trust your handlers to keep you safe and protected. And if they say it is fine to go, you will go. And make no doubts about it, I have been through 3 Olympic cycles, every year before the Olympics, there is a thing, a shadow that is put against the Olympics and you are told it is unsafe, it's dangerous you will be harmed. Whether its suicide bombers in Sochi or a security threat in the Athens Olympics, the venues won't be ready in time, you are faced with these things as an athlete but you will still go because you have probably chalked up thousands of hours to be prepared, and to be distracted by those things is you not doing your job.

LL: She says it’s up to the COC to assess the risks. Risks like this have come up before.

AMIR ATTARAN: It’s up to the COC to assess medical risks? That’s a new one on me. I would rather follow the advice of the Centres for Disease Control in the United States, which has said consider postponing travel for work reasons. These Olympians are going to work, that’s what they are doing, and the advice of the authorities on the public health world is consider postponing it. Now if athletes want to look to the Olympic Committee, which is an obvious conflict of interest, they’re pocketing money from all the sponsors for these Games, if that’s where they want to get their medical advice, there is nothing I can about it, but it doesn’t seem very sensible.

LL: Is that what you would say this is about? Is that why there is a refusal, so far, to do anything you are calling for? You think it is about money?

AMIR ATTARAN: Of course it is. I mean, it’s a multi-billion dollar event, but what it should be about is, listen to these words carefully: Fetal Brain Disruption Sequence. That’s the medical condition that affects the infants in utero as they are being gestated because of Zika. Fetal Brain Disruption Sequence means that as a child is growing in the womb, the brain begins to die and collapse. The skull collapses inward. The skin however, on the scalp may continue to grow, and that’s why it’s floppy at birth. These are children who will never have a chance at a normal life, or for example, to be an Olympian, because they will have suffered this disease which is avoidable. But right now, Laura, as I speak to you, Rio is not at the fringes of Zika, it’s in the heart of Zika. There is no state in Brazil that has a higher number of Zika cases than Rio de Janeiro and looking at another insect-borne disease called Dengue Fever, it is up 600 percent—

LL: But the risk is supposed to be lessened because the Games are being held in their winter, so there wouldn’t be as much of an outbreak of mosquitoes carrying the virus.

AMIR ATTARAN: Lessen doesn’t mean it makes it safe. When you begin 2016 with mosquito-borne disease 600 percent above 2015, then sure, it can dip in winter, but it is dipping from something that is 600 percent as high. That doesn’t sound very good, does it?

LL: Amir Attaran, we will leave it there, thank you.

AMIR ATTARAN: Thank you very much, Laura.

LL: Professor Amir Attaran is from the University of Ottawa and he joined us from Ottawa. Worries over the Zika virus are just the latest in a long history of various concerns about safety and ethics at the Olympics, but relocating or cancelling the Games at this point would be unprecedented outside of war time. Kevin Wamsley is the former director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario. He joins us on the phone from St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where he is Academic Vice-President and Provost. Hello.

KEVIN WAMSLEY: Good morning.

LL: Now, you’ve had a chance to listen to Amir Attaran just now. What do you think of what he said? Should the Olympic Committee consider postponing or relocating the Games?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: Well, I think the IOC is a very practical organization, a very stubborn organization, historically. I have no basis to judge Professor Attaran’s arguments because I am not a health expert, however the practicality of it is, we would need another thousand voices like his to get the IOC’s attention at this point. Moving the Games just is not possible with two months left to go before they start.

LL: You also heard him level the accusation that the reason there is resistance, or outright denial of the need to move or postpone, is because of money. What do you say to that?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: I think that there would be a certain stubbornness associated with that. We’ve seen this historically. The country has been preparing for seven years for these Games, and they would be very reluctant to knock them off their four year cycle. The IOC is not ready for a global Olympics. That may be an event in the future, and I think that would be a great idea given the cost of hosting, but these are not practical solutions at this point.

LL: You seem to be accepting the fact that this about money?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: I think there are many things. It’s about politics and it’s about money, so I would say both. The IOC is interested in sustaining the organization and having its four year festival have as much impact on the world ideologically in a corporate sense, in terms of replicating the model into the future, and so, since the 1980s, the major decisions having to do with the Olympic Games have been about money.

LL: We’re not just talking about Zika now. There are other things going on in Brazil. There is political instability and just yesterday, Brazilian soccer great, Rivaldo, was telling tourists to stay away from Rio for the Olympics because of the danger of endemic violence. What responsibility do Olympic organizers bear for the safeguarding the health and safety of competing athletes and spectators?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: The IOC has been in this business since the Munich massacre of 1972, and Montreal saw the biggest security budget to date, in 1976. Since 9/11, they’ve created fortresses around the Olympic Games to protect both the spectators and the athletes. There have been significant security risks since 9/11 and most countries have spent more than a billion per Games to ensure the safety of the athletes. The United States itself spends another billion to protect its team. Security is not a new risk at the Olympic Games.

LL: And health?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: That’s a different story. The health question has not often been raised historically with respect to the Games, at all.

LL: Again, what is the responsibility for Olympic organizers with regard to health?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: I think if you had a pandemic issue at play, and I can’t speak to the magnitude of the Zika virus at this point, but once again, if you had several thousand physicians making declarations, then I think the IOC would have to listen a little more closely, but so far in the press, we don’t see an extremely compelling argument. I’m not disagreeing with Dr. Attaran’s argument, but it’s not getting a lot of press right now.

LL: Given what you say, do you think it is reasonable, and given what we know about the Zika virus, do you think it’s reasonable for an athlete to decline to compete out of concern for his or her health?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: Athletes have that choice to make at various times. When Beijing was awarded the Olympic Games for 2008, athletes asked themselves if human rights were an issue, and you know what? These athletes are in the business of training, it’s all that they do, and some of them have been training for eight, ten, twelve, years for an opportunity to compete, and it will take a lot—they put their bodies at risk in normal training procedures to the extreme that average people don’t understand, and so this is a group that is very committed to attending the Olympics. It would take something of great magnitude to prevent that.

LL: In Dr. Attaran’s essay, he also argued that proceeding with the Games would violate what the Olympics stand for. Do you think there is an ethical issue here?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: I think that the ethically based human spirit dimension, that’s been a house of cards from the outset. I don’t know. The Olympic Games have always been a political organization and commercialized series of events, always. There have always been serious issues with it, and so the IOC can proclaim what it wants, but on the ground, it doesn’t operate that way.

LL: When people talk about the ethics of the Olympics, are they being too idealistic? Is that not what the Olympics stand for? Did they ever stand for that?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: No, I don’t think so, but it’s been a very useful ideological tool to interest people in the Olympics and to try and make them something special, and that has works. It’s been used to distance the Olympic Games from the World Championships and other forms of competition. It’s been used to elevate the Games and it’s been a very successful strategy.

LL: What’s your bet on Rio? Is it going forward?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: It will go forward at this point.

LL: And what do you expect to happen there? Everything will go off without a hitch?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: Nothing ever goes off without a hitch, but this is fairly typical of the Olympic Games. There are security concerns, there is overspending, cities aren’t generally prepared to host, these are the common issues that go on and on, but when that 16 days happens, usually all of these issues fall by the wayside.

LL: Do you plan to go?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: No, I don’t.

LL: Would you go if you had the chance?

KEVIN WAMSLEY: [laughs] I don’t attend the Olympic Games, it’s better to watch from afar.

LL: [laughs] And maybe healthier. Kevin Wamsley, thank you.

KEVIN WAMSLEY: You’re welcome.

LL: Dr. Kevin Wamsley is the former director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario. He joins us on the phone from St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The Current asked the Canadian Olympic Committee to comment, but no one was available for an interview, but the COC sent a letter saying the safety of athletes and coaches is a top priority and that quote, “Team Canada’s medical team is monitoring all health risks in and around Rio in anticipation of the upcoming Games, and is taking appropriate steps to ensure our athletes can compete without worries” unquote. Now, my next guest has been following the lead up to the Olympics closely. He says the Zika outbreak is just one of many serious problems plaguing the Rio Games. Andrew Zimbalist is the author of Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup. He's also a Professor of Economics at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where we've reached him. Hello.

ANDREW ZIMBALIST: Good morning, Laura.

LL: What do make of the debate over whether the Rio Games should be relocated, postponed, cancelled altogether, due to global health concerns over the Zika virus?

ANDREW ZIMBALIST: Well, I guess I fall more in the camp of Kevin Wamsley than Professor Attaran. I’m not a biologist, I’m an economist and so I can’t fully assess all of the health risks, but I do find the argument Professor Attaran to be a bit alarmist. That said, I think there are many things going on in Rio right now which present problems and dangers to potential visitors. One of them you referenced, the soccer player Rivaldo, who was a star in the 2002 World Cup that Brazil won. I think he scored something like five goals in the World Cup. He’s a very well-known Brazilian, a great soccer star, and he’s urged people not to come. He says the crime levels are too high, it’s simply much too dangerous, a 16-year-old girl was shot down in the streets the other day, there were 320 people killed in Rio by the Rio police over the last year because the economy is going downhill and the political situation is terribly unstable, and the crime levels are just going higher and higher. I think that that is a very serious concern for travelers, and on a more mundane level, there have been reports that hotel prices are three times normal, at least that is what they are asking during the 17 days in August during the Games. There are many, many other problems we could talk about, so [chuckles] I think there are lots of good reasons to stay away, unless you have urgent business during August.

LL: But even so, you doubt there would be any move to actually do something to cancel, postpone, or move?

ANDREW ZIMBALIST: It’s very unlikely. What Kevin Wamsley said is absolutely correct. The IOC is a mega-business operation, they have commitments to sponsors that are worth billions of dollars, they have a commitment to TV networks around the world, the largest one being NBC in the United States, they have spent $1.23 billion to broadcast the Games back to the United States. They’ve already sent their anchor, Bob Costas, down to assess and prepare the broadcast. They’ve sent technicians down to all of the 30-plus venues to make sure everything is lined up technically to broadcast the Games. In addition to paying the rights fees, NBC has put a lot of money and strategy into it, and they have sold advertising to US companies for the Games. They have dozens, if not hundreds and hundreds of hours of airtime—

LL: And to be fair, and in the interest of full disclosure, CBC also has broadcast rights to the Olympic Games in Rio, and so has invested money as well.

ANDREW ZIMBALIST: Practically each country in each region of the world has their own network that has made similar arrangements.

LL: So beyond the networks, what would be the total financial cost of postponing, relocating or cancelling?

ANDREW ZIMBALIST: Well, the cost to whom? Everybody has their own stake here, so I’m not sure what you mean. The total revenue that is generated by the Summer Olympics, counting the ticket sales, all sponsorships, all memorabilia, is on the order of $4 - $4.5 billion. Rio itself, if you include all of the infrastructure investments, along with the venue investments and operational expenditures, they’ve spent, by some estimates, close to $39 billion to host the Games. Rio, I think, would be hit hard by this. It’s going to be hit hard one way or another because even if they do have the Games, the level of visitors and tourists is going to be way down. By the way, tourism is always down. Not always, but almost always down when you host the Olympics, even if there aren’t alarmist scares out there. London had tourism drop six percent during the month of the Olympics. Beijing had a drop of over 20 percent during the month because normal tourists stay away. They don’t want to deal with congestion, high prices, possible security incidents, so it’s going to be that much worse for Rio. The largest cost is not to NBC, not to the sponsors, but to Rio and Brazil.

LL: And the people who live there. We are moving into a broader discussion about what are the benefits of hosting an Olympic Games. Has there ever been a case where a host country ended up with long term economic benefits?

ANDREW ZIMBALIST: I think you can make that argument in at least two cases. One of them is Los Angeles in 1984. That’s an interesting case because it followed the Olympics that have already been referenced in Munich. 1968 Mexico City was also a very ugly Olympic Games, and then in 1976 Montreal, which I’m sure your listeners know all about, Montreal had a cost overrun of ten times the initial budget, and they lost over a billion dollars. So, what happened was when 1978 came along and the IOC wanted bidders for the 1984 Olympics, there was only one city that was bidding and that was Los Angeles. So LA had all the bargaining power and the IOC did not have its traditional leverage and Los Angeles said to the IOC, we’ll do this on a couple of conditions. Condition number one is that we are not going to take financial responsibility for cost overruns and revenue shortfalls, you have to provide the financial backstop. The IOC didn’t have a choice, and they said okay. They never did that before and they haven’t done it since. Los Angeles also said to the IOC, you have to let us use the Memorial Coliseum from 1932, we’re not going to build another stadium. IOC said okay. Los Angeles also said you have to let us use the dormitories that UCLA and USC use instead of building an Olympic Village. For those reasons, and the venues were virtually already in place, they spent very, very little and it worked out very well. Peter Uerberoth innovated the sponsorship models, and they ended up with a $200 million dollar surplus. Los Angeles 1984 was a successful case.

LL: [laughs] And very exceptional.

ANDREW ZIMBALIST: Very exceptional. Nobody can reproduce that.

LL: Since then we have seen the creature evolve, particularly at Atlanta in 1996 when we began to see this huge wave of corporate sponsorships move in. Has all that made it impossible now to actually call down any Olympic Games?

ANDREW ZIMBALIST: I think so. I think that the notion that Professor Attaran put out, which is to have a global Olympics, and he said what’s not to like about it? Well, what’s not to like is that the carbon footprint will be a lot higher if people are flying around to different cities, and at least the pretense of unity, togetherness, and international community that gets engendered when you have an Olympic Village; when you have 12,000 athletes plus a couple thousand trainers and coaches all staying in the same place, that sense of community, that sense of engendering world understanding and peace, that goes out the window. The fundamental mantra of the IOC I think is surrendered in that case. I don’t think the idea of 35 venues, you have 35 different countries hosting the events makes any sense whatsoever. It’s certainly not something that the international broadcasters or sponsors are going to go for.

LL: Andrew Zimbalist, thank you. Bye bye. Andrew Zimbalist is the author of Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup. He is also a Professor of Economics at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusettes. Now we want to hear from you. Do you think it safe for Canadian athletes to compete in Rio? Let us know. Tweet us @the currentCBC, or me @lauralynchCBC. Email us by clicking on the contact link at cbc.ca/thecurrent. That is today’s edition of The Current. Anna Maria Tremonti will be back tomorrow. I am Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and thank you for listening.

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May 10, 2016 full episode transcript

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