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The Current Transcript for March 8, 2019

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Today I am here to say sorry. To offer an official apology for the federal government's management of the tuberculosis epidemic from the 40s to the 60s.

LAURA LYNCH: An apology decades in the making from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this morning in Iqaluit. TB ravaged Inuit populations in those years but Ottawa's response, tearing people away from their families, caused even more trauma and it echoes down the generations. That's first up today. After that the 'S' word is creeping into mainstream political debate south of the border.

SOUNDCLIP

For me, democratic socialism is about getting a modern and moral and wealthy society. No person in America should be too poor to live.

LL: That is Democrat Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most vocal visible new members of Congress. Her embrace of socialism signals what some believe there's a growing movement in America, even as others suggest it's on the wane in Canada. And also today on this International Women's Day, we're revisiting our conversation with a Canadian woman who forced her own path in the male dominated world of engineering and whose recent mega donation to he Alma Matur will help the new generation of young women follow the trail she helped blaze.

SOUNDCLIP

I'm just a small part of the big issue in making women realize their capacities and persuit their dreams.

That's Gina Cody in an hour from now. I'm Laura Lynch and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

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Apology for treatment of Inuit with tuberculosis must be followed with 'action': Inuit leader

Guests: Natan Obed, Eva Aariak

SOUNDCLIP

I brushed off the plaque, it was covered with snow. And I told him, look, it's your dad. This was the first time they have seen their father's grave. Their dad left and he never returned. No communication whatsoever. My father had been hurt by it.

LL: Joanasie Akumalik's story sadly is not uncommon amongst the Innuit in this country. He was speaking there with the CBC David Common about the moment he discovered his grandfather's grave. His grandfather was one of the thousands of Inuit sent away to southern Canada for tuberculosis treatment from the 1940s to the 1960s. Many of them never returned. And in many cases their families weren't notified of their death. They weren't even told where their loved ones had been buried. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau couldn't deliver a long awaited government apology in the Nunavut capital of Iqaluit yesterday because of a winter storm yesterday. He tried again this morning and he was successful. So here's an excerpt from his speech in the Baffin room at Iqaluit's Frobisher Inn.

SOUNDCLIP

To the people who were sent south, we are sorry. We are sorry for forcing you from your families, for not showing you with the respect and care you deserved. We are sorry for your pain. To the people whose loved ones were taken away, we are sorry. We are sorry for breaking what is most precious - the love of a home. To the people who still don't know what happened to your children, your mothers, your fathers, we are sorry. We are sorry that because of our mistakes many Inuit don't trust the health care system, so they can get help when they need it. We are sorry the colonial mindset that drove the federal government's actions. We know now that what we did was wrong. We know now that we must work to make it right. It shouldn't have taken us so many years to tell you that. We are sorry that you have carried this burden for too long. We are sorry that because we waited there are many loved ones who will never hear of this apology. Today we take responsibility for the harm caused by the policies and actions of the federal government, the racism and discrimination that Inuit faced was and always will be unacceptable. But an apology alone is not enough. We must also promise to do better. And although as a country we can't change what's already done, we can choose what we do next. Today we are choosing to create a better future, a future built on respect and partnership. As Prime Minister, I have pledged to renew the relationship between the government of Canada and Inuit, to work together to correct the paternalism and colonialism that was visited upon your communities to continue on our shared journey of reconciliation. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. We cannot impose solutions. That's why we're taking a new approach. Our government is investing in your plan. Just like our new approach is founded on working in partnership, it's also based on seeing TB for what it truly is; a disease that cannot be cured by medicine alone. We must address poverty, food insecurity and inadequate housing.

[Applause]

LL: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologising for how governments mistreated Inuits who went south for Virtual Care decades ago. Natan Obed was there as The Prime Minister made his apology. He is the president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami ITK. The national organisation representing Inuits in Canada work to secure this official apology from the federal government. Natan Obed joins us from Iqaluit. Hello.

NATAN OBED: Hello.

LL: What did it mean to you to hear those words from the Prime Minister?

NATAN OBED: I thought that the Prime Minister's words were sincere and I was emotional about what they meant, especially for Inuit who were taken south for treatment in sanatoriums for sometimes as many as three and four years. People who were tied to their beds, people who weren't allowed to speak their language. People who didn't have a taste of their own food, their own diet for years, what they might be feeling and what an apology from the government would mean to their healing. Because a lot of people live with us their whole lives haven't had a chance to have anyone recognize the violation of human rights and also the fact that it was wrong. So I was emotional for that, knowing that that people were finally going to hear is that what happened to them was not right. And as the governor of Canada was not going to let it stand and was going to apologise.

LL: So you found it sincere and you found it moving. Was it enough?

NATAN OBED: It's a part of a larger picture. The treatment of TB and the way that it happened was neither an isolated experience for Inuit when it comes to medical care. Out TB are still approximately 300 times the average for all Canadians in Canada and the federal government and Inuit leadership has pledged to eliminate TB by 2030. So the work that is to come to a show the real action behind the apology will be the work that we do on TB elimination. If it works it will include doing things to combat poverty, to decrease food insecurity, to increase public health measures in our communities to increase housing so there are overcrowding conditions the way there are now. It's also to ensure that there is enough medical care that it is able to be delivered in a way that is culturally competent. All of these things will well be the next step in this new positive path with the federal government.

LL: I wonder how much confidence you have that the actions will match their words then?

NATAN OBED: In 2018 there's 27.5 million in over five years that was dedicated to TB elimination. The ambition that was stated by the government will demand that there will be more money that will be allocated to this initiative as it progresses. Hopefully on World TB Day. We will be able to announce Regional Inuit TB Illumination Plans and the costing of that and the partnership with public governments, the federal government and provinces and territories that will dictate in the end whether or not there is just good intent alone or if we are going to see this through. On the Inuit's side, this is a huge priority for Inuit leadership and we are on our side will do all that we can to see all of this through. We do hope that the federal government is sincere and we do hope that we will have provincial and territorial leadership and ambition as well.

LL: You mentioned something there you talked about medical care that was culturally competent. And I wonder what role the historical experience of the Inuits with TB plays in the ability and willingness to seek treatment now. Was that what you're talking about?

NATAN OBED: Just for consideration, a person from [unintelligible] in the northern community in Nunavut, if they were under suspicion of having active TB, they would have to be flown to Ottawa, in many cases, to have the diagnosis and treatment. That happens in English. Imagine if a person from Ottawa had a medical condition and had to go to the southern United States or Mexico have care delivered in Spanish. That is the reality for Inuit today and how Inuit have to interact with the health care field. We're hoping that in the future there will be more - If you Inuit have to travel there will be more respect for our language, our society and the consideration of Inuit coming from small communities to large urban centres for care. But also the way in which doctors and nurses and all those health professionals that attend to Inuit, that they actually can have an understanding of who we are and what we've been through to get to that appointment. Because too many times people are weary of care because of how they are treated when they are cared for, and sometimes language barriers then diminish the ability for a doctor or a health care provider to articulate what is wrong with a patient and how to solve a medical condition. So we are working with public government and service providers to ensure that there is a greater appreciation of the cultural components of health care delivery.

LL: We will leave it there for now. Natan Obed, thank you very much.

NATAN OBED: You're welcome.

LL: Natan Obed is the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national organization representing Inuit in Canada. He was in Iqaluit. Eva Aariak was also in the audience today for the Prime Minister's apology. For her, the story is personal. Her mother grandmother and great grandmother were all taken to southern Canada for treatment for TB, only her mother returned. Even react as a former premier of Nunavut, a special adviser to the Qikiqtani Truth Commission and a negotiator for the Qikiqtani Innuit association. That's a not for profit society that represents approximately 14,000 in the Qikiqtani or Baffin region of Nunavut and she is in Iqaluit. Hello.

EVA AARIAK: Hello Laura.

LL: What was it like to hear those words from Prime Minister Trudeau?

EVA AARIAK: It was very important. It very much appreciated by everyone. It was a full room of people and there was not a dry eye in the room, which really illustrated how much people have been yearning to hear the kind of things that the Prime Minister was saying in terms of apology and acknowledgement of the colonial policies that had been imposed upon people. So it was very much appreciated and [unintelligible] me deeply as a person will have had direct experience. It brought back a lot of memories. I thought about my mother and her mother that she never got to see her great grandmother. It's the same kind of sentiment was all around the room, and as Natan said so eloquently that it was needed. We the people in Nunavut and beyond are so very much appreciative of what happened this morning and this is the beginning. There is more to come. But everything is all connected to one another. You mentioned the fact that I am a special advisor for the Qikiqtani Truth Commission, it's an Inuit association. We very much party to what the next step to this important incident that just happened this morning. It is very important for the people of Baffin Island that the colonial policies that were inferred upon back in [unintelligible] still need to be addressed. And I was encouraged and glad to hear the Prime Minister mention some of the issues that we're dealing with, which illustrated the fact that he had some understanding and I am sure that - with our input and continued working relationship with the federal government - we can go much farther and,turn the page go on to the better things, so that we can focus on the positive side of our society and move forward particularly with such a young population in our area. They need the assurance that we can do it. And the fact that we can move forward with healthy mind and so on. So it was very much appreciated, very much looking forward to the next step up within our region.

LL: Can we briefly look back though, because of your own personal story. As I said three of your family members were sent to Southern Canada. Your mother was sent twice. Tell me what that was like for you.

EVA AARIAK: It was very much of a traumatic experience as a young at age five or six which your mother being taken away, all of a sudden in one day, was very traumatic for me. And it was just traumatic for me when it happened the second time around several years later. And I'm sure it was even more to marry her my mother who never got to see her mother or grandmother and does not even know knew where to go see the brave person and say a special goodbye, to have a closure. We don't have much closure at all without being to see the graves and so on, because they are in the South. So it is still a heavy heavy feeling that brings our society to the way socially things are going on. So there needs to be much healing and this is part of the healing process, the apology that took place this morning.

LL: One of the other things that the Prime Minister mentioned that we didn't play there was with exact regard that, of people not knowing where their loved ones are buried. Is an announcement of a fund to track those things down and even allow people to travel to where they were burried, what did you think of that?

EVA AARIAK: I was much appreciative in hearing now. Under the Inuit Qikiqtani, under the Inuit organisation, it is very much wholeheartedly working towards that because they fully understand the need to have that closure. And we don't know, my family, we don't know where our grandmother is buried, or our great grandmother. And along with that, my mother was expecting in the moment when she was taken away that medical ship [unintelligible] so my sister Genie was born in the Greenland waters. So we live about our little sister Genie until she was three years old. So those are the kind of things that almost every family in different varying degrees have experienced. I am very appreciative of the fact that the Prime Minister mentioned the initiative that he announced, called 'Nalinavut', let's find them, and that will be very important part in providing closure to individuals and families.

LL: We have under a minute left and I'm just wondering with everything that you heard today how optimistic are you that TB will be eliminated?

EVA AARIAK: This is very very challenging situation because we have such a high housing shortage and the food insecurity is high up here was the high cost of living and cost of food. And people need to supplement their daily diet by providing country food, what we call a country food that we hunt from here. It's essential that we supplement our meal that way. But at the same time in order to catch the meat so that we need to do it also cost a lot of money to accommodate that. Also the infrastructure is lacking tremendously, as well as resources that are needed, medical staff. I mean we in Baffin region alone we have 15 communities and we have only one community that has a doctor.

LL: Eva, we're sorry but we are running out of time but I very much appreciate you speaking to me today.

EVA AARIAK: Thank you very much, Laura.

LL: Eva Aariak, the former premier of Nunavut. CBC News is next. I'm Laura Lynch and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

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U.S. millennials are embracing democratic socialism because the American Dream is 'crazy': writer

Guests: Marissa Brostoff, Bhaskar Sunkara, Leo Panitch

LL: Hello I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come today is International Women's Day. We'll revisit a conversation with a Canadian woman who's been honoured with an important first. Gina Cody's name now graces the School of Engineering at Concordia University in Montreal. The engineering executive and Concordia grad has worked to help open up the bill to women her whole life. That is in half an hour. But first, why the new millennial pink is socialist red?

SOUNDCLIP

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, greed works. Greed for life for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge in mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only mark telgar paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

LL: A scene from the 1987 film Wall Street that seemed to sum up the credo of Reagan era America. Michael Douglas played Gordon Gekko a corporate financier in a slick power suit. He preached the gospel of unfettered capitalism. And, My, how things seem to have changed since then. Now for the first time in a long time there is a different-ism in the US zeitgeist, socialism.

SOUNDCLIP

It's not about government takeover. It's about how much do workers have a say in your business. Do you have workers on the board? Do workers enjoy a. Decent amount of the wealth that they are creating? Or is the majority of these profits going to shareholders while you're paying a worker 15 dollars an hour to live in an inner city apartment. So that to me is the difference. It's not that public the public sector is democratically socialist and the private sector isn't. It's really about one last understanding of how our economy should work.

LL: That is U.S. Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explaining her vision of democratic socialism. And she's not alone in using that once toxic S-word. With no apologies, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, a group that's seen its membership grow from 6000 to more than 50000 and most of those members are millennials. We'll be talking about the state of socialism in Canada in a few minutes, but first we're talking to some young Americans about why they're turning to socialism for answers and what they're doing to promote it in their communities. Marissa Brostoff is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and she's in New York. Hello.

MARISSA BROSTOFF: Hi. Thanks for having me on.

LL: First of all as you heard from that clip with Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, socialism means different things to different people. So what does socialism mean to you?

MARISSA BROSTOFF: Well so I should say at the outset I am a DSA member and in a different context I'll call myself a socialist or a communist. But I actually think one thing that should just be said at the outset that the left that's growing in the U.S. right now is actually bigger than just DSA or just people call themselves socialists. And people have different ideas about whether we should be focusing on electoral strategies or on building labor power. But for me basically what this means is there's actually political will now to try and build a really radically different alternative to the neoliberal kind of order that we've been living under for you know as long as I've been alive, and to capitalism in general which didn't seem really possible until the past few years.

LL: That's why you believe is a political movement. What does it stand for or does it only stand against?

MARISSA BROSTOFF: Sure. I mean in the kind of classic Marxist terms, socialism or communism proposed different versions of workers owning the means of production. Meaning that instead of capital controlling resources and making a profit off of them by exploiting workers, the people who do the work actually are the people who stand to gain from the things that they build. And that really means something for people who are being exploited in whatever workforce they are a part of, which certainly applies to the vast majority of people who live in the U.S.

LL: How does that apply to you? What attracted you to this?

MARISSA BROSTOFF: I mean I've identified with leftist movements since I was a kid. I just kind of got into it on my own as a kid, but as an adult it's become a much more living reality for me from having worked in media jobs and being a graduate student in industries that are basically falling apart and not providing living wages, or really a chance to- I live in New Yorker, extremely expensive city, and I've never worked in an industry where I've made enough money to you know be able to functionally pay my rent for example. And obviously I'm in a position of relative privilege. A lot of people have a much worse.

LL: I want to play a clip. This is Ken Langone the founder of Home Depot and who is also the author of I Love Capitalism, reflecting on the popularity of Bernie Sanders.

SOUNDCLIP

Watching, in early 16 when I can’t pay [unintelligible]. I noticed there were a lot of people attracted by Bernie Sanders. I said oh my God these kids have given up before they even start. I said, like it or not, nothing's perfect but capitalism is the way forward. Look at America. What it's done for us as a nation. Look at the prosper-- Yes. Do we have problems in America? Income inequality, we got all dress entitlements. Public education is a disaster. But damn it, against everything else out there, capitalism is it.

LL: Now I’m wondering, listening to how you would respond to that notion that embracing Socialism is in effect giving up on the American dream.

MARISSA BROSTOFF: Yes I mean I think we're looking at really different Americas. When I hear the phrase 'look at America' I'm not picturing anything very rosy here. I am picturing you know a state that is full of police brutality for some people. You can take anything. You could take any anything in the news like kind of random. Like there is skyrocketing opioid addiction. There's like rising suicide levels. Like Trump is the president. I mean I think that in 2018 to take the American dream seriously is- I mean that honestly feels crazy to me. And I think that most people I know, at least who are around my ed feel the same way.

LL: Socialism has long been a dirty word in American politics. Why do you think then other young people, aside from you, are giving it a new look?

MARISSA BROSTOFF: Yes. So I mean one major historical shift obviously is the end of the Cold War. What happened in 1989 when I was four. And the way I would period that there was a period where people just don't really talk about communism or socialism at all in the United States. That was something that had ostensibly been defeated with the collapse of the Soviet Union. And so in a way I think people my age and younger actually grew up with our hearing so much about those terms at all, either positive or negative directions. And I think there has been a chance actually for a kind of new version of socialist ideas to kind of ferment without actually even having a relationship to the Cold War.

LL: Okay so then in that context, what role do people like Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez play in its rise in popularity?

MARISSA BROSTOFF: I think that they've actually write these ideas into the realm of political possibility. It was one thing before to say well this is what we want as a sort of utopian hope. I was trained as a academic and that's the thing that many academics on the left have been saying all along. But it didn't really have teeth in a way. There wasn't any actual political power to speak of, at least not on anything approaching a national level. So I think Bernie meant actually was to kind of make this real. And many of us are conservatively I think to the left of Bernie at this point. And we are trying to push him. And in some ways you know we could say the same of Ocasio-Cortez. But they also have done something incredible in the sense of galvanizing this movement and making it into you something that can be put on the ground and not just kind of dreamed about.

LL: Marissa Bostoff, thank you very much for your time.

MARISSA BROSTOFF: Thank you very much for having me.

LL: Marissa Bostoff is a member of Democratic Socialists of America and she was in our New York studio. And not everyone is happy about the shift towards a new socialist generation. Here it is Steven Pearlstein. He's a columnist at The Washington Post and a professor of public affairs at George Mason University.

SOUNDCLIP

The concerns have about more and more young people being attracted to socialism is that it's a little unclear in my mind and probably in their minds what they mean. What they mean probably is: I don't like the capitalism that we now have. Socialism seems to be the opposite so that's why they say they like it. One of the problems is I'm not sure that young people know exactly what they're for. I suspect they know a lot more what they're against.

LL: That was Steven Pearlstein of The Washington Post and George Mason University. For more I'm joined by Bhaskar Sunkara the founding editor and publisher of Jacobin magazine. He is also the author of the Socialist Manifest: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality. He's in Boston. Hello.

BHASKAR SUNKARA: Hi. Thanks for having me.

LL: How do you respond to what Steven Pearlstein said there?

BHASKAR SUNKARA: Well I think there's two things to say. One is the socialist movement has always been very broadened. So I [unintelligible] on just about everything over the past hundred years. Part of the social movement obviously ended up following the path of social democracy helping that establish a really you know great welfare states you see in Scandinavia. Other parts remainde with more revolution aspirations not just fixed capitals but to go beyond capitalism. And we saw at times the tragic consequences of this with the authoritarian states that arose in Eastern Europe. On the other hand we saw radical movements never took power but always were on the right side of democracy, fighting both authoritarianism in the West and the east in the form of [unintelligible] these other movements. So socialism has always been diffused and it has always had not just one meaning. I think that what young people are looking at as they're seeing as a society in which so much of life is accidents of birth. In the United States today you could fall into a medical debt to no fault of their own. You can be saddled with student debt just trying to pursue basic education that we're told as young people that we need to succeed in the job market. Any sort of calamity can [unintelligible] and we don't even have a basic welfare state. So I think all strands of the socialist ideal at the very least believe in making less of life accidents of birth. And I think that's what's so appealing about things like Medicare for all.

LL: So tell me where you fall in the spectrum of socialism? What does it represent for you?

BHASKAR SUNKARA: To me socialism is about taking the democracy that we enjoy in the political sphere, fighting for it, defending it. Of course socialists in the United States were some of the first forces really pushing for expanding the suffrage fighting for civil rights and so on. So political democracy is very important to me. So as a bedrock of civil rights. Just going the opposite of democracy though, we need to think about extending democracy into social and economic grounds as well. So in other words if we were to agree that democracy is a good thing to have in the voting booth and in society why not also have in the workplace? Why are we from at best nine to five - more like eight to six that is - have to deal with bosses that run workplaces like dictatorships? Shouldn't there be more restrictions on the freedom of capital to use labor? And that freedom might sound like I'm saying that we should give up freedom for equality, but instead what I want to ask and I think is the coreof the social idea, is freedom for who? Do you get the freedom to employ labor for 12 hours a day? Or do we have the freedom to just end the day at eight hours then there's four more hours that people have to you know sit at home and watch basketball or do whatever they want to be all for their spare time?

LL: But at this particular moment do you think that those who are beginning to embrace socialism in the United States should be focusing more on entering into the democratic process, or should they be more of the movement that is playing the oppositional role in the United States but outside of mainstream politics?

BHASKAR SUNKARA: I think the you should be to do both without Bernie Sanders, without these broad social democratic politician is like Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, I think these are peoples politics to use Canadian example probably maps closer to the old left wing of the NDP than to anything more radical than that. These people are creating space for five ideas about restoring and expanding the welfare state primarily. And they're injecting American politics with new discourse. It's not just about us expanding this welfare state, but also about doing it through conflict with millionaires and billionaires that benefit from the status quo. Well I think this has been a boon to labor organizing another, this more oppositional movements that are emerging in the States. I think the tune goes hand in hand in hand. Right now, do I think people are really looking for an immediate sort of radical break with capitalism today? No. I think primarily what people are trying to do is trying to organize to get them a bit more security and a little bit more dignity. I think the logic of this this fight for a better future for them will have put them into conflict with the people who are currently benefiting for how unequal the untited states is. So there's still going to be conflict involved.

LL: How does the conflict shape up?

BHASKAR SUNKARA: Well I mean I think what we're seeing here in the United States is as we push for Medicare for all, which you which is our way of saying a single payer system, we're going against insurance companies that are making billions of dollars off being middlemen in the delivery of health care. The commodification of healthcare. There are certain things that other countries - every other industrial country in the world including Canada - have been trained to think of as social rights we think of as a commodity. You could buy the commodity if you can afford it. If you can't afford it then tough luck. And we can make our case on moral grounds saying this is common sense. Everybody deserves healthcare. But at the end of the day there's a large portion of economic elites in this country, there's tens of thousands of them that are making their living off having private unequal health insurance. So, this isn't as a moral case that you make without conflict and I think it's playing on terrains like this. This isn't necessarily some very abstract thing were there's a bunch of young socialists in America. They are going up against older or conservative people. No, it's more convenient than that. In Brooklyn there's a large Tennants' Union that has formed that's fighting for things like rent controls and certain rights from their landlords. So there's these local conflicts there's these broader conflicts with certain segments of the economic elite. But we shouldn't overestimate to what extent the U.S. is in the grips of a massive class conflict, but compared to what was happening five years ago it's incredible.

LL: We will have to leave it there. Thank you very much for your time.

BHASKAR SUNKARA: Thanks for having me.

LL: Bhaskar Sunkara is the founding editor and publisher of Jacobin and the author of the Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality. He was in Boston. So what's the situation with socialism here in Canada? Leo Panitch is a political science professor emeritus and senior scholar at York University. He's also the author of The End of Parliamentary Socialism and the Socialist Challenge Today. He's here with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

LEO PANITCH: Hi Laura.

LL: You just had a picture of socialism in the United States on the rise of millennials in the U.S. What's your sense of the situation in Canada?

LEO PANITCH: Well let me first of all say it's marvelous to see this happening down south. We tend to think that there isn't that, or hasn't been that much of that kind of sentiment. And for someone like me - a very different generation born in 1945, who became a socialist in the heady days of the 60s - it's marvelous to see people like Bhaskar - who I know very well - reading my old work and telling me that he's been influenced by it and publishing my new work. That's a remarkable thing. And it comes I think out of the frustration that young people had in the anti-globalization movement all the way of the Occupy movement. Here we saw it with the great protest in Toronto against the G-20 if you remember.

LL: Right.

LEO PANITCH: I think young people who were never enamoured with neoliberal globalization who were marching in Seattle in 1999 began to realize with Occupy that you could protest forever until hell freezes over and you wouldn't change the world. And they turned from the anarchist protest type of politics increasingly towards being interested in changing the state, in getting into party politics.

LL: But here in Canada you might argue we aren't seeing that same rise of socialism among millennials when you see that the least federal NDP seems to be having some struggles.

LEO PANITCH: No you don't see it hardly in the NDP at all. But you see it in Quebec with QS, Quebec Solidaire, which almost beat the Partie Quebecois for a third place in the last Quebec provincial election. You see it here in Toronto with young people exactly like Bhaskar, the same age who are very active in the socialist project, which isn't an electoral group but is engaged in a campaign to have free public transit, which is getting engaged in a campaign to organize working people on the Keele street corridor against the terrible bus service they have, which is engaged with the teachers' unions here, as so many DSA people in The States are spending their time supportive of the teachers'--

LL: So you wouldn't expect to see them get involved in electoral politics.

LEO PANITCH: Well no I think that depends. I think that if the opportunity comes, if there is a break of the kind that Corbyn represented in the British Labour Party.

LL: Jeremy Corbyn. But he's lost he's lost MP as in recent weeks.

LEO PANITCH: He's lost him MPs but they've gained even more supporters than the DAS has in the [unintelligible] and Labour Party's largest party in Europe. I think it's important to see that, were Sanders to get in, in the United States with these people's support, you would find equal types of difficulties, conflicts, tax which would make it look like 'hey this isn't so easy'. People will realize, I think, people we've been interviewing, that taking steps in the direction they want to take is no easy route, obviously.

LL: But can we focus a little bit more on the NDP which has been the traditional historical home of socialism in Canada. There still are NDP governments for example in British Columbia and Alberta. Do they represent what you consider to be socialists?

LEO PANITCH: No they don's. They haven't since the 1950s explicitly represented socialism. If you were talking about the Regina manifesto in the 30s, they would have. They explicitly didn't. And one of the reasons you saw this explosion of young people in the anti-globalization movement and now in socialist movements, making the stand they're taking, is because of their disappointment with social democratic parties that in the 1950s decided the next welfare state economy was the end of history. Instead we got Gary Gekko's who you began the program with. And these parties were left to themselves sponsoring many of the policies that led us to the crisis of 2008. That's why even the greatest German social democratic party now has less than 20 percent of the vote and you get young people trying to find alternatives to it, and engaged in the kind of transformation that those parties use to be engaged in.

LL: But federally, what's the alternative.

LEO PANITCH: There isn't one. There isn't one. And one of the tragedies for instance of the current SNC Lavalin crisis is that the discussion hardly is focusing - as I must say you did on this program yesterday - on the question of how can it be there the former head of the Privy Council under the Harper government is now running SNC Lavalin? How can it be that we have corporations and Canada too big to fail? What are the consequences of being too big to fail? The discussion has talked in terms of the 9000 workers who would suffer if they failed. But that is entirely in the hands of the stockholders, the CEOs, the lenders to SNC Lavalin. And you will find increasingly I think the scene type discussed at this situation being vented by young people in Canada.

LL: We will have to leave it there. Obviously so much more to discuss but I thank you for coming in.

LEO PANITCH: Glad to be here, Laura.

LL: Leo Panitch is a political science professor emeritus and senior scholar at York University. His books include The Socialist Challenge Today. He was with me in our Toronto studio. Well coming up: engineering new options for women in the future. A conversation with Gina Cody in our next half hour. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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École Polytechnique massacre 'left a scar,' says first woman to have engineering school named after her

Guest: Gina Cody

LL: I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the Friday edition of the Current.

SOUNDCLIP

The name Gina Cody means opportunities for women. For women, more women in engineering to encourage young women not to this scared of their dreams and to go for what they believe.

LL: That's an engineering student at Concordia University, in Montreal, where the name Gina Cody now graces a new engineering building. And that's a first. Last September, Concordia became the only university in Canada with an engineering building and faculty named after a woman. Here's what some other female engineering students at Concordia had to say about the news at the time.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Since the name just came out. I think it would push more girls younger than me to go into engineering because they know that 'oh look' there is this person who went through, and she's making such an impact in the field then so it will push them to go into the field as well.

VOICE 2: Her name signifies an importance for women because women don't actually have recognition in the engineering field, as a lot of males are coming in the feel and Gina Cody is like a new definition for engineering now.

LL: The Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science was christened after the school received the largest endowment in its history - A 15-million-dollar gift, last September, from Gina Cody. In honour of International Women's Day, we're replaying the Current's conversation with Gina Cody. Anna Maria began that conversation by asking her about her feelings at the response from female students about the naming of the school.

GINA CODY: Emotional. So it's nice to see that the effect that was in my heart and in my mind is flourishing and women are being encouraged to go to engineering, because frankly I believe they do belong as much as their male counterparts.

AMT: One of them said you're the new definition engineering, how do you see yourself?

GINA CODY: I'm just a small part of the big issue. I'm doing my very very small part in making women realize their capacities and pursue their degree. You cannot believe how many women have come to me and told me that they wanted to pursue engineering and their parents discouraged them.

AMT: I sat right? Even now?

GINA CODY: Even now.

AMT: So you gave them a 15 million dollar endowment. Why?

GINA CODY: Giving back to university was not for me a choice rather than a duty. I felt that you all have a duty to pave the road for a future generation, if they can. When they came to Canada in 1979 I arrived with 2000 dollars in my pocket. I was supposed to go to another university but I didn't even have enough to pay my tuition. So my brother, who had just graduated from Concordia at the time in engineering, had spoken to another professor and he had arranged from me to me meet this professor named Cedric Marsh. So the day after Labor Day weekend I went to meet him and after an hour interview he liked what I was talking. He looked at my transcript. He looked at my acceptance from the other university and said, "Why don't you come here. I provide you, Concordia provide you with a scholarship and financial means'. So that day, the day after the Labor Day weekend while I arrived two days before in Canada my life changed.

AMT: So it was a man who encouraged you to be the engineer that you became through that school. Where you expecting to have your name put on the building.

GINA CODY: The notion came into fruition as you spoke and it wasn't about me really. All I wanted to create a gender identity in the engineering and computer science. So the whole issue was how to do it. For me it was the identification of the faculty of engineering in computer science, a female. That's what I cared for.

AMT: And you put your anglicised name there, Gina. And your Iranian name is?

GINA CODY: Parvaneh. Actually, believe or not, when I was born I had big eyes. Everybody starting saying - it was during the Gina Lollobrigida's fame. So these story calling me Gina. So it's not a name that was adopted, rather than was given. So it was my, not actual name but it was my nickname.

AMT: But also it was a conscious decision to put that name because it was so obviously a female name.

GINA CODY: Yes because also if I had Parvaneh they don't recognize. Parvaneh in the North American society is a female name. But Gina speaks loud than clear. It is a female. And I was very insistent on making sure that Gina doesn't fall off. They don't refer to as school of Cody because usually they drop the first name. I wanted the Gina to be there.

AMT: Again as a message that this as a woman and again it's a first.

GINA CODY: Yes.

AMT: Are you surprised that it's the first engineering school to carry the name of a woman?

GINA CODY: Yes I was. I wasn't aware of it till it happened and then we did the research. It's a first Engineering and Computer Size faculty I believe in the world.

AMT: I shouldn't lave out computer science because computer science is huge too. And so what's it like to see your name up there?

GINA CODY: I think it puts more pressure on me to carry the message further. I look over and say this is my school. I have a responsibility to carry the message.

AMT: Well I want to know more about how you got to this point. You say you came in 1979 from Iran. That was the year of the revolution. That's when Ayatollah Khomeini took over the country became a theocracy.

GINA CODY: Yes.

AMT: First of all what was your life growing up until that point.

GINA CODY: I grew up in a family that was very open. You know one of the things for example my father encouraged me, and so did my mother, like I had to learn to swim very young. I had to learn to ride a bicycle. I had to learn horseback ride. I had to learn driving the minute I was allowed to get my license. My dad used to say you have to be able to get out of any situation. So if you're in a river and you want to rescue yourself you should be able to swim. So as independent woman, you have to stand on your feet. You have to study hard. My mother who married young and never finished high school, her message to me and my sister who became a dentist was: as a woman, to be independent you have to pursue higher education.

AMT: Did she regret that she had to curtail her own studies?

GINA CODY: I believe she did it. But she had children. She had five kids; three boys and me and my sister. I was the youngest one. But her focus on me and my sisters’ education was much more than her focus on the boys.

AMT: What about your dad? What did he do?

GINA CODY: My dad ran a boys' high school. He was a teacher. At the time when I was 16, he made me teach at his boys' high school during summer.

AMT: What was that like?

GINA CODY: He would sit at the end of the class so he made sure the boys are behaving and his message was if you can manage these boys you will be able to manage anyone.

AMT: And how did that experience inform other parts of your career as you move forward then?

GINA CODY: I think it made me to be strong and never feel out of place. Because in the area that I practice, I was many many times the only women in a group of men. So I never felt out of place because I was brought up that way.

AMT: And so you came here. What were your impressions of Canada when you first got here?

GINA CODY: Iran of that day was much different than the Canada of that day. However what I loved was the way the university as a whole embraced me with open arms. The society accepted me with open arms. So when I take both inclusivity, diversity, equality for different genders I really want them to have the experience I had.

AMT: And so you become the first woman to graduate with a PAGG in building engineering at Concordia.

GINA CODY: Correct.

AMT: What year was that?

GINA CODY: It was in 1989.

AMT: 1989 was the year that four women were killed at Ecole Polytechnique.

GINA CODY: That's correct.

AMT: They were engineering students.

GINA CODY: Correct.

AMT: Do you remember that night?

GINA CODY: Absolutely.

AMT: Tell me about it.

GINA CODY: It left a scar. But what I learnt from that tragic experience is to look to the future, make a future that the women are allowed in engineering. This should be shot at just because they women. That is my hope by poor thing a name that we are equal. We belong there, we are going to be there. We are going to be strong in numbers and we will get there.

AMT: But you know when I asked you about it, right away I could see you getting emotional like it really did hit you back then.

GINA CODY: It still does. It's a scar. It will be there, but I look at this in a way for the future, that we will have women in engineering that outnumber maybe even their male counterparts.

AMT: And on their say anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, the 29th anniversary, how do you think those women should be remembered?

GINA CODY: They have to be respected for who they were and who they wanted to be. They will always be a reminder to women of today that they have to pave the road for more women to come into-- I think they have to and I can't believe that we are in 2018. The numbers are so low.

AMT: Well I was just going to say to you the image of a woman in a hard hat is still something foreign to a lot of people, what would change that?

GINA CODY: The numbers. I constantly say the strength is in numbers. If we have only 20 percent of the graduates from engineering are only women and then from that we reduce it to 12.8 percent - based on Engineers Canada - that are practicing in January, and then goes to some fractions of engineering that are way more male dominated then women. So then the number keep reducing in computer science the numbers are even lower. So we are living in an era, we are in the fourth industrial revolution where computer science, Internet of things, artificial intelligence, these are all replacing the old way of manufacturing. And society is changing as a whole. And if women don't get into computer science and engineering, they will be left further behind.

AMT: We had one of our producers go to Concordia University to speak to Amir Asif who is the dean of the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science. I want you to listen to what he had to say about you and women in engineering. So.

SOUNDCLIP

The adamant, first of all, establish Cody as a great role model for young women in juniors, for young woman students. But the participation of women in engineering has always been a big issue for Canada, as a matter of fact for all developed nations. If you look at all different levels of women representation starting from undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty members, professional engineers working in the field, it's about 20 percent.

AMT: He's saying you're going to have an impact just by making sure that other people know who you are now.

GINA CODY: I hope so. That's my vision and hope that there will be more of women in engineering and computer science.

AMT: And so he uses that 20 percent figure and you have made the point that the number of engineering students and faculty is 20 percent female. But the number in the work place is 12.8 percent. So where do the rest of them go?

GINA CODY: Exactly. They may not work in the field. They may go to other areas of practice. They may go to other professions and they do.

AMT: What was your first engineering job?

GINA CODY: My first engineering job actually was when I came to Toronto I worked there with the ministry of housing in the development of building code. And shortly after that I started, believe it or not, inspecting cranes.

AMT: What would that entail?

GINA CODY: Climbing up the cranes and looking at the structure, designing foundations for them, designing how they can be climbed in the structure. I was the only woman in that industry at the time. I remember attending a conference. There were 700 participants. I was the only woman. And when the MC stated his introduction he said, "Lady and gentleman".

AMT: And how were you treated? How were you received on those job sites way up there in the sky?

GINA CODY: The people who knew me, they respected me. But one winter day which was very very cold, it was -30 or something. There was a construction side that was shut down because they had some deficiencies. They wanted me to do the inspection the early in the morning so I can correct the deficiencies and the start the job. So after I came back down from the tower crane, an elderly construction worker called me to the corner said, "Miss. Miss, why don't you learn how to type? You don't have to do this". He didn't mean it in a bad way. He meant that I am a weak person, I shouldn't do that. That's how women were received on construction site.

AMT: How did you respond to him?

GINA CODY: I was very pleasant to him. I said thank you very much and I really admire your concern for me, but I love what they do.

AMT: So you go up to the top of the crane.

GINA CODY: Yes and to the boom. The end of the boom.

AMT: You've walked to the end of the boom?

GINA CODY: Yes.

AMT: So you are both literally and figuratively not afraid of heights.

GINA CODY: No no absolutely.

AMT: Did you have to get used to that? You're talking to someone with a bit of vertigo here.

GINA CODY: Yes you do get used to it. To be honest, but the first time I did it was not as comfortable as the second time and then you started loving it. Then I used to make a joke that people pay to go to wonderland and those places and here it is, I'm getting paid to go up these places.

AMT: And what did the men on the site then think when you first started doing it? Were they looking for weaknesses, or you would get out on that crane and not show any?

GINA CODY: The people who were in that business they all knew me because it was a very very exclusive type of work. But I remember once that I was at the tip of a very tall building. At the time was the tallest building in the skyline. And the power crane operator started moving the boom, while I was there, which is totally unacceptable and it illegal. He just was trying to see if I'd get scared and I was just smiling. Came back. Said bye to him and came down.

AMT: You could have slapped him with a fine if you were looking for safety. Could you not?

GINA CODY: Yes. By the time I think I wanted to be accepted then creating yeah people who dislike me. So you have to prove yourself constantly.

AMT: I want to ask you a little bit more about as you progressed up the other career ladder, not the literal one but the figurative one. You become principal shareholder and president of a large engineering firm and Toronto’s CCI group. You also would allow women returning from maternity leave to work at home.

GINA CODY: Absolutely.

AMT: At that time that was unusual.

GINA CODY: I received more productivity from women who worked from home than those who came to work. It was amazing. They would get up early in the morning because now they had the time. If the kid was asleep they would get up and do the work and deliver it. I had once an advertisement to hire someone. She showed up she was seven months pregnant, and when she came in I said, "Oh my god you're going to be giving birth soon". She says, "I want this job". I said, "You have this job. A woman that comes for an interview, seven months pregnant, to me should be rewarded and admired for their strength and devotion. You're starting tomorrow" and I cancelled the rest of the interviews.

AMT: Um were you seeing others hiring like that or were you seeing people afraid to hire a woman for fear - "fear" in quotation marks - that they would leave to have children? Because that sort of these stereotypical view in very traditional business.

GINA CODY: It is a real thing for men. The first thing they interview, even though these days it's illegal to ask, but subconsciously in their brain is that question when is this woman going to leave to have babies.

AMT: You have a real problem with that view?

GINA CODY: Yes I do because I believe in their subconscious, they never ask themselves when is that man I am interviewing is going to leave me for another job that pays more. And also I believe having a child is a dual responsibility. I think we have to come to a point that men take as much responsibility for bringing up their children as much as the women do. We feel that it is our obligation to constantly nurture and give and multitask and work and cook, pick up the children, do all of that while our male counterparts and the fathers have the ability to go to work, go networking drinking beer after work, have their golf courses taken care, and without taking the responsibility that there is a child at home. So I think we have to change the mindset first.

AMT: Do you have kids?

GINA CODY: Yes I have two daughters. One is doing her PhD engineering and the other one is finishing her degree.

AMT: And when you talk to them do you channel the words of your mother back when you were a teenager?

GINA CODY: Absolutely. I think they have enough of that. And I'm hoping that they will pass that message down to their children and people around them.

AMT: Is your mum still alive?

GINA CODY: Unfortunately not. Both my parents have passed away. I wish they were alive to see.

AMT: I was just going to ask you. What would they think? What would your mother think after telling you, you and your sister, this all those years about education what would she think about seeing your name on that faculty?

GINA CODY: I think she would be proud. I think she would feel that she has then okay by bringing her daughters up.

AMT: And you came here many years ago now with 2000 dollars and a hope of getting a place in a school. What would you say to other women who have just arrived in Canada with their own hopes and dreams?

GINA CODY: They tell them if a woman from Iran can do it, you can do it. Nothing stops you. Just pursue your dream, whatever that dream is.

AMT: When you walk down the streets of Toronto and you see those cranes still over so many construction sites, knowing what it was like to be up there early on in your career, what do you think?

GINA CODY: I see that this city is getting bigger and bigger it is improving. I wish there were still more women climbing up those and there are not that many. It still is very very minimal, but I am a proud Canadian. I'm a proud woman. I am an immigrant. So I am also sending a message to immigrant people that they are contributors. We want to be good citizens and giving back is part of our DNA. We just don't Take things for granted. We are grateful the opportunity is given to us and we want to provide a platform for those coming after.

AMT: Gina Cody good to talk to you. Congratulations. Thanks for coming in.

GINA CODY: Thank you. It's great to be here.

LL: Gina Cody is the former executive chair and principal shareholder of CCI Group, a large engineering firm in Toronto. She's also the first woman in Canada to have an engineering school named after her. She spoke with Anna Maria last September. Coming up on Monday on the Current: what happens when the technology we all use is designed with only half the population in mind? In her new book "Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, "Caroline Criado Perez describes real world consequences for women. Consequences that range from annoying to downright deadly. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Tom Power speaks with Yeardley Smith who's been the voice of Lisa Simpson for more than 30 years! I'm Laura Lynch. Thanks for listening to the Friday Edition of The Current.

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