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The Current Transcript for February 12, 2020

Host: Matt Gallaway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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Diamond Princess coronavirus quarantine was 'fundamental failure,' says Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer

Guests: Dr. Isaac Bogoch, Laurie Garrett

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If Canada means anything, then we need to be able to work together constructively. Reconciliation doesn't mean allowing a couple of people to shut down the national economy.

MATT GALLOWAY: What does reconciliation mean and what does it mean when protests continue to spring up across this country in support of hereditary chiefs and opposition to a pipeline? As many of those chiefs head to Ontario to meet with Mohawk protesters and criticism of the prime minister gets louder, we'll get the latest on attempts to turn down the heat and hear from those affected by the blockades. That's coming up in an hour. And also this morning:

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He said to me that he had some old rope and some gear and stuff that he might want to donate. And when I got down, he said to me, no, he said, I kind of lied to you about the gear donations. I said, well, what do you have for me then?

MG: Our interview last month with Shawn Bath, the Newfoundland diver who's hauled more than 20000 pounds of garbage out of the sea, touched many people. In 30 minutes, we'll check back in with Shawn to hear about a donation that has changed his life's work. But we begin on a different ocean, in a cruise ship going nowhere and a quarantine that went terribly wrong. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that only Canadians who are asymptomatic and pass through our screening process will be out on board.

MG: When Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister of Francois-Philippe Champagne, talks about allowing people onboard. He's talking about people like Trudy Clement. She's been quarantined onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan, along with 250 other Canadians. Over 600 people on that ship have tested positive for Coronavirus, the highest concentration outside of China. And today, Japanese authorities said two of those passengers had died. Trudy Clement is hoping to be on board a flight home very soon.

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TRUDY CLEMENT: Hopefully we're going to get our health checks from the Japanese health authorities. And we've seen the embassy about when the plane is going to supposedly leave at 3:00 in the morning, Friday. And we phoned and they said they're still processing them. But like I said, we need these certificates to leave Japan and fly home to Canada.

MG: Those certificates would certify the treaty. And her husband, Stephen, are not showing any symptoms of Coronavirus. 47 other Canadians won't be getting that clearance. They're being treated for the disease in Japan. We spoke with Trudy Clement in the midst of all of that screening about what the whole experience has been like.

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TRUDY CLEMENT: Being contained in our room, being allowed out only every three days for an hour out on the deck. It's been very difficult, emotional physically on my husband, Stephen, and myself. We have a lot of ups when we talk to family back home and a lot of encouragement from friends and family in the community. And that helps a lot. But then the times when we get really down and emotionally fatigued, we do tend to sleep more than we're used to. The days are long and the nights are even longer. We've been filling that time the best we can with TV and books and puzzles. We're lucky enough to have a balcony that we can step out on to and get fresh air. Unlike some of the people that have been shut in inside the inside cabins, I really feel for them. That's got to be horrible. We clean our own room. Nobody is allowed in here. So I've been changing my own beds and cleaning the bathroom. And they gave us this little mini broom to sweep the floors and mostly doing laundry in the sink and hanging it out in the balcony to dry. But it's an emotional roller coaster for us and we can't wait to get home.

MG: Doesn't sound like much of a vacation. Even if her flight departs soon, it'll still be a while before Trudy Clement will be home because the Canadians all face another quarantine once they reach Canadian soil.

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TRUDY CLEMENT: Getting home to us means familiarity. Family for sure. Families on top of the list to see them and talk with them and to let them know we're okay. We kind of think the Canadian government waited a little bit too long to react to this situation. I don't know if they thought it was just going to ride out the two weeks and everybody could step off the boat. But when they saw the numbers escalating quite rapidly more than whatever thought, they should have been reacting before they did.

MG: Trudy Clement isn't the only one questioning how this whole thing has been handled. That cruise ship she's been on is the site of the largest coronavirus outbreak outside of the epicentre in China. And now people are questioning if the quarantine on board simply made the situation worse. Laurie Garrett is a former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Pulitzer prise winning science writer. She's the author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. Laurie, good morning.

LAURIE GARRETT: Good morning.

MG: In the best case scenario, what was the goal of this quarantine?

LAURIE GARRETT: Well, I think it was a combination of two things. One, to minimise the possibility of the virus getting onto the shores of Japan and affecting Japanese people. So to separate the people on the boat from the people on the land. And the other was to determine who was really sick and to separate them from the possibility of sickening the rest of the passengers and crew. That one clearly failed.

MG: How did this all go sideways?

LAURIE GARRETT: Well, first, I think there's several things going on here. The first is a failure probably to understand how likely it was that the virus could be transmitted through oral faecal routes. So here's the problem. We know the cruise line industry is consistently plagued with issues related to norovirus and other kinds of viruses that spread easily through basically dirty hands, touching food, touching towels and sheets and things. In other words, you get on a cruise line and you and everybody else ends up having diarrhoea and so on. Well, it's been a consistent problem and that should have been considered. And I don't think it was adequately appreciated that this was more than a respiratory virus, more than a contact virus, that it also exploits the ability to be passed through human faeces and waste. And that means that everybody's hands are potentially vehicles of transmission. And I think there's another potential route that certainly no one considered. And we won't know if this really is the case until a very thorough investigation is done of the ship. But with the SARS epidemic in 2003 and I was in the SARS epidemic all over China at the time, we saw in Hong Kong a very strange situation involving the Amoy Gardens condominium complex. It's a complex of several towers. One tower had a huge number of SARS cases. And it later turned out it seemed to be related to off gassing from the toilet facilities so that the people at the top of the building got more SARS than the people at the bottom and it gassed up through the plumbing system. This may be a possibility on a cruise ship.

MG: The sense that this could be happening on this cruise ship as well?

LAURIE GARRETT: Yes, it very much could be. And, there's a couple of things where we're going to want to know and we hope somebody will study very thoroughly. One is whether people who were in the enclosed rooms that didn't have balconies and had limited ability to get fresh air, had a higher rate of illness than people who had open air balcony rooms. That will tell us a lot about whether there is some kind of off gassing that was spreading the virus inside the cabins. And the other is, you know, we're finding in China and we're finding on this cruise ship that when you ask people to quarantine in place, locked into their homes or into their rooms, there's a tremendous probability of spread from one person in that room to the other in that room. In many ways, by putting people on lockdown in these small cabins, you're asking them to be at risk with their own cabin mate. That's a bit terrible.

MG: There's a video that's been circulating and it involves a man named Kentaro Iwata, who's a Japanese infectious disease expert, managed to get on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship. And after he got off, put this video up on YouTube describing crew members circulating through the ship, people eating food with protective gloves. Have a listen to a bit from the video.

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I dealt with lots of infections more than 20 years. And he was in Africa during the Ebola outbreak. I never had fear of getting infection myself. But inside Princess Diamond was so scared because there was no way to tell where the virus is. No Green Zone, no red zone. Anybody there could have virus. And everybody was not careful about it. There was no single professional infection control person inside a ship. There was nobody in charge of infection prevention as a professional. Bureaucrats were in charge of everything.

MG: He said it was completely chaotic. No Green Zone, no red zone, no real separation of people who were second who weren't sick. Were surprised given that that so many people have fallen ill on this ship?

LAURIE GARRETT: No. I mean, that's a recipe for disaster.

MG: It's what it sounds like.

LAURIE GARRETT: You know, one of the most important rules of effective quarantine is to separate the sick form the well, that's the whole point. But in this case, the ship was quarantined, so it wasn't really effectively about separating the sick from the well, it was about separating the ship from the shore. And I think that's the fundamental failure. So what went on onboard really had no steps or measures taken to safeguard the wellness of those who were not yet infected. And, you know, there quite a lot of YouTube videos posted by the staff on the crew, especially the lowest paid immigrant labourers, mostly from Bangladesh and India, who worked in the kitchen and in the cleanup crew. And they posted videos many times saying how scared they were, how nobody was telling them how to protect themselves and how they were expected to go from cabin to cabin to cabin, delivering food and so on and didn't have protection. If that's true, then that's a fundamental failure. That means there was no effective infection control on the ship at all.

MG: We're hearing from Japanese government officials saying that further cases are now being discovered. This is this morning. So a couple of quick questions before I let you go. One is, is there a risk that passengers leaving the cruise ship, even those who have tested negative for coronavirus, could unwittingly end up spreading that virus on land once they get off the ship?

LAURIE GARRETT: Of course, there is such a risk. We know that people can transmit this virus when they have no symptoms or none that they can recognise because they're so mild. And we also know that the incubation time for this virus might average somewhere around six or seven days, but can be as long as 24, 25 days. So it is possible for an individual to get off that ship and for three weeks be spreading virus and not know it, not have any sense of it. We don't have an antibody test, so we don't have a way to fundamentally prove that an individual has, in fact, had the virus in their body. And the RTPCR test, as it's called, that's been used just to identify the presence of viral particles in an individual's bloodstream is not perfect. In fact, in China, it provides false negatives about half the time. And here in the United States, we had a false negative issue and they had to withdraw and recreate the tests right before redistributing it to our state.

MG: Just a couple of seconds left. Eventually everybody will get off the ship. What do you do with the Diamond Princess cruise ship now?

LAURIE GARRETT: Oh, boy. You've got to study every inch of it. Swab it to find samples of virus. Try to figure out how the virus was moving inside that ship. And then it's going to have to get pulled out of use and scrubbed down like nothing has ever been scrubbed down before, before it can be put back into commercial use.

MG: And presumably they'll change the name of it because who's going to go on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, given the story that we've been talking about for the last several minutes. Laurie, thank you. It's good to speak with you about this.

LAURIE GARRETT: Thank you.

MG: Laurie Garrett, former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Pulitzer prise winning science writer. Dr. Isaac Bogoch is an infectious disease specialist at Toronto's University Health Network. He's been tracking the Corona virus outbreak for weeks and he is with me. Good morning to you. Good morning. You've heard the criticism of what went wrong on the Diamond Princess quarantine. Hundreds of people trapped on a ship. The sickness spreads. Do you agree that this quarantine essentially worsens the outbreak, that it turned it into a bit of a breeding ground for this virus?

ISAAC BOGOCH: Yes, unfortunately, this just didn't work. I mean, I think their goals were laudable. They really felt that, you know, by quarantining individuals, they perhaps could slow the spread of the infection. I completely agree with Laura's assessment that they obviously didn't want to bring any infections on shore and protect the Japanese public, but also, you know, hopefully could quell this infection on the ship. And as, of course, we've seen this play out. This was just a failure.

MG: What could have been done differently? Do you think? I mean, we heard the video from the infectious disease specialist who said it was chaos on the ship and no areas quarantined off. What would do you do differently?

ISAAC BOGOCH: I mean, obviously, in a perfect world, whenever you hear about this, you want to bring people off the ship. You want to find suitable accommodations where they'll be comfortable, where people's medical needs will be cared for, where there will be appropriate infection prevention and control measures enacted to ensure that there's no subsequent transmission of the virus. But in the same breath, I think we have to take a step back and think about some logistics here. I mean, imagine a ship shows up to your shore and says, hey, we need accommodation and medical care and public health capacity for 30,700 people and we need it right now.

MG: You're probably going to send it on its way because you don't want to that virus coming to your shores.

ISAAC BOGOCH: I mean, I think the logistics of managing this would be challenging at best. And then same token, I mean it when things were clearly turning sour on the ship, a pivot in strategy was necessary. And sadly, that wasn't done.

MG: In the meantime, you have 256 Canadians who are on board. The federal government has chartered this plane to bring some of them home tomorrow. But it's not entirely clear how many will be on the flight from Tokyo. Should the government have moved quicker to get those Canadians off the ship?

ISAAC BOGOCH: I mean, it's hard to say. I mean, clearly, everyone, including the public health agencies in Canada and the federal public health the Public Health Agency of Canada was watching this closely. I'm sure they were in communication with the Japanese public health authorities. And I you know, I'm aware that they were in touch with individuals on the ship as well. I'm glad that Canadians are now being brought home to Canada. But, you know, the speed in which this was done, I mean, it's hard to say, in retrospect, it's easy to say.

MG: Sure.

ISAAC BOGOCH: You know, yeah, of course, we should have done this faster. But I think in real time, those might have been more challenging decisions to make.

MG: I guess the question is, if you have a delay, is there the possibility that that could contribute to new infections, as Canadians are spending longer on that ship where the virus seems to be spreading freely?

ISAAC BOGOCH: Yes, I mean, certainly we know that the virus was being transmitted on the ship based on all the evidence and the data that we have available. And there may have been more infections by by staying on the ship longer. And in fact, the policy now for Canadians returning to Canada to have another 14 day quarantine is completely appropriate. I mean, that's reflective of the potential for people to have acquired this infection on the ship.

MG: So tell me more about that. We'd asked to speak with Patty Hajdu, the health minister, as well as the chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam. Neither were available to speak with us this morning. But there are questions as to why if you're already having quarantine for 14 days, you're going to come back to your home country and then be put back into quarantine. Why would that be necessary?

ISAAC BOGOCH: Yes, I mean, I get it that, you know, people who have already been in a quarantine, especially in this very, very challenging situation on a ship, will not be too happy about coming back to Canada and having another 14 day quarantine. But if we step back and look at the 30,000 foot view here, we can appreciate that there is clearly infection transmission on the ship. So your last point of contact on the ship could still be a potential source for infection.

MG: You hanging onto the railing as you step off.

ISAAC BOGOCH: Should we just have to assume that from the time that someone has left the ship, that is the last potential opportunity that they could have acquired this infection. And the clock gets reset to zero and then you step foot in Canada, here's another 14 days, because you may have acquired this at any point on the ship.

MG: Although it may or may not be 14 days. Because, Patty Hajdu the minister of health is saying that's the length of the quarantine will be made on a case by case basis?

ISAAC BOGOCH: Fair enough.

MG: It makes sense to me. You have to play it's kind of just individually.

ISAAC BOGOCH: I don't entirely have any insight to what she's thinking or the data that she has. But, you know, traditionally these quarantines have been have been 14 days because, you know, the incubation period for this virus appears to be about four to six days and most individuals and does not appear to be longer than 14 days. I know your prior guest mentioned that there may be some shreds of evidence suggesting that there could be even longer incubation periods. But by and large, I think the 14 day quarantine period has seemed to be adopted globally for now, and it does seem to be working.

MG: You and I first spoke about this. I had to check on this four weeks ago.

ISAAC BOGOCH: Oh, my.

MG: As this was starting. What has surprised you most about the coronavirus?

ISAAC BOGOCH: To be fair, I was a little surprised at perhaps the potential, I have to use words carefully. The potential efficacy of the massive public health control efforts in China in possibly slowing down this infection.

MG: What do you mean?

ISAAC BOGOCH: I think - and when we chatted for weeks ago, we saw this just escalating rather quickly in China. And of course, we have to be very sceptical about any data that we receive from any country in any place, including China. But we do seem to have a growing body of evidence suggesting that the massive public health initiatives in China have done some significant good in slowing down the spread of this infection.

MG: Those massive public health issues, including locking down entire cities.

ISAAC BOGOCH: Restricting travel internally, externally, and this social distancing and just doing this on such a mass scale. And I mean, I was a little sceptical that this would work. I thought the cat was out of the bag at that point. And, you know, it still might be. This might just be slowing down the inevitable of spread of this throughout the world. No one really knows. But it does seem to have significantly slowed down the spread of the infection, including cases exported from China to the rest of the world.

MG: That sounds, again, you're very cautious in the words you're using, but that sounds like cautious optimism.

ISAAC BOGOCH: I think it's the whatever the step is before cautious optimism. I think that's right. Because like in all fairness, you know, it's hard to know the quality of the data that we're seeing. It's hard to know what the actual ground truth is. But, you know, we're looking for shreds of evidence that are pointing in, with arrows pointing in a single direction. And you know what? I really, truly think that those massive initiatives have at least slowed down the pace of this virus being transmitted in China. And you know, what's happening in China will certainly impact what's happening in the rest of the world. And, you know, if we think about the counterfactual, if these weren't initiated, would we be seeing way more exported cases from China, elsewhere in the world?

MG: We may talk again. Doctor, thank you.

ISAAC BOGOCH: Anytime.

MG: Dr. Isaac Bogoch is an infectious disease specialist at Toronto's University Health Network. Should mentioned, we just learned that Trudy Clement and her husband did get the certificates they needed and they have been cleared to return to Canada. Coming up after the break.

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If you look at it on average, we have along the lines of 10000 people being displaced per day. It is the fastest growing displacement crisis that we have seen in Syria throughout these years of war.

MG: Indiscriminate attacks on an already traumatized population. That's how the U.N. is characterizing the growing crisis in northwestern Syria. We'll get the latest on that situation coming up in about six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Remembering Lindsay Petten

Guests: Nick Petten, Shawn Bath

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

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MG: Still to come, new blockades in Quebec and Alberta have been stopping even more rail traffic. We'll get the latest and speak with some of the business people who are increasingly frustrated. But first, how a tragedy led to a life changing gift.

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NICK PETTEN: He's a factory cruiser, had 26 people, total large amount of deck space, a lot of room for moving around, and then we still got that protected area in the upfront [unintelligible] along with the cab. So you got somewhere nice and warm to warm up after a dive and you got lots of deck space as well to still trash and still gear. And it's sewed up. For a dive boat, it's a great platform.

MG: This is Nick Petten in Port de Grave, Newfoundland. And the boat he is telling us about, Catch of the Day, has become a symbol for his life's greatest loss.

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NICK PETTEN: Found those memories. So it was picking up, going out in a truck with him, putting it up on the red gooseneck trailer we had at the time and rigging up police to get on board.

MG: Two days before Christmas, Nick and his father, Lindsey, went scuba diving for holiday scallops and then something went terribly wrong. For reasons that are still unknown, Lindsey, who is just 46 at the time, died under the water during the dive. Lindsey Patton was one of Newfoundland's top fishermen, and he cared so deeply for the sea that sustained him and his crew that he went to extremes to keep it clean. Nick Paton is with me in St. John's. And as you're about to hear, sometimes loss can blossom into something beautiful. And in this case, it's a gift. Nick, good morning.

NICK PETTEN: Good morning.

MG: I'm sorry for what you've been through.

NICK PETTEN: Thank you. It's hard to put in words, but it's still fresh but it's at the same time, it's I know it's going to scar, but it's- we're getting through it.

MG: Tell me about your dad.

NICK PETTEN: Oh, it it's hard to describe, especially knowing that for the most part, you got him. Sometimes you just got to meet a person to really get any sense of who they are. But with dad, the things that first come to mind would be patience, which he had a lot of raising me and my little brother, my little sister but the patient's kindness.

MG: Yeah. He loved the sea.

NICK PETTEN: Oh, the sea. He loved us and his family. And this sea gave him a way to provide for me, my mom, my little brother, my little sister. And that's to be honest. That's where the love stems from. But it's not only that. I think about what some stuff my mom talks about with him and how we'd always go on sailing trips together as a family. Like couple Christmases ago us where we spent it in south actually, and between the boat and bay sailing trips with the family and just being down on the wharf, being down on the docks, down by our building down at the fishing gear. It's where dad was the happiest.

MG: He did a lot to protect the sea. I mentioned that he worked to try and keep that water clean. What did he do?

NICK PETTEN: A whole lot, but not a whole lot. He never went out in search of it. He never went out with that being a main objective. What are the things with dad? It's when it comes out, it's just a sense that his attitude towards the issue of basically leaving no trace, leaving no impact. It almost just stemmed from his general attitude that he had in terms of the basic concept and idea that you can't control other people's actions. You can only really control your own. It's just a little things for one. He'd never leave something out there unless it was absolutely dire as a last resort. And then not only that, but like he was the skipper that would go ahead and he'd deviate off course or 45 minutes to pick up a balloon that was merked by of another boat, not ours, but one of a different vessel that end up coming off of their fishing gear and floating off. I remember one time there is a set of balloons, let off a bit of crab care and he'd watch it under radar first to see if it was attached to anything. He'd give it a track and if it would move, he'd know that as an attachment he thinks he would alter course, go out and we'd retrieve it. And that type of stuff happened a lot, whether it was that or a lobster trap that had to wait to come out of it and basically float back up to the surface, going up to bay. We've picked that up before. Tarps, covers crab boxes, but not only that, but then also when we fish, a lot of boats would go ahead and anything that's decomposing bowler would break down. They toss over. But dad always had the attitude of why would we do that? We have space on board, stowed away and put it in the proper means as suppose when we got home. I guess what I'm trying to say is that dad done a lot in terms of his conscience. And like his conscious efforts, like in his decisions that he made. And really when it comes down to it, that's what it means to make a difference.

MG: You said this is still raw. What can you tell us about the day that he died?

NICK PETTEN: It's surreal to think about it. But that day basically, it happened towards the end of her dive. Well, we're coming up for a safety stop and we were both at the same depth on probably 10 feet below the surface. And I was only an arm's length away from my dad and that's when things went south. It's just the fact that in those seconds that mine, my brothers, my sisters and my mom's life were all just turned upside down. And there's something that we're never going to have. What we had before. We're never going to get dad back. But at this point, it's just basically learning. Learning to get used to the new normal, which is going to be hard, and then basically learning- I mean, we're never going to fill in Dad's footsteps because to say he was a remarkable man was an understatement and his work ethic was that of no other person I know. But it's a large set of shoes to fill. And I know that we're not going to come close to doing that. We're not going to fill him. At this point we're just trying to get by.

MG: After he died, he was described as a role model. He sounded like a remarkable man. And the community recognized that. I'm just wondering that this is a terrible thing to go through and little things may or may not help. Does hearing that hearing what he meant not just to you, but also to the community. Does that help?

NICK PETTEN: It do, yes. But at the same time, it's growing up. I knew that dad was a remarkable man. I mean, I don't have any memories of my father getting upset, which is something that I'm super fortunate and super lucky to be able to say. I mean, dad was such a gentle, warm, loving man. And it's people, too, like at his funeral and stuff that. People that we didn't even know beforehand but they came up to us and they were they were like, oh, he'd wave to us when he went for his runs in the morning. When I'm home, it's five dogs. But he'd be running with this entourage of canines. And people would just say, hope he'd stop and talk to me every morning. And like you would just make me feel loved, make me feel like, it's just basically the energy that he brought with him. And it was nothing, it was nothing besides positive.

MG: You were talking about the boat. Catch of the Day, and you've decided to donate that boat to somebody that our listeners might remember. Have a listen.

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I grew up here in Newfoundland. I spent a lifetime in and on the water. And everybody I know made a living off the ocean route. My father whom my grandfather, my great grandfather, me. And to see people just blatantly disrespecting something that fed them and gave me entertainment and just give them a way of life for all these years. Definitely heartbreaking to me.

MG: That's Shawn Bath. He was on the program last month. He's a diver who figures that he's lugged away about 20000 pounds of trash from the bottom of the sea. He's done this, as we talked about on his own in the freezing water in this wet suit that's kind of glued together and occasionally leaks in some of that cold water. And he wrote us to tell us about your donation and he's been listening in. Shawn, good morning to you.

SHAWN BATH: Good morning, Matt.

MG: When did you first see Catch of the Day?

SHAWN BATH: A year and half will probably. I was driving on the Port De Grave to look at the boat centre cause I'm by no means I love to spend time, run all the big boats. And every day I drove down there, I drove past a small boat [unintelligible] a day, and I kind of noticed that wasn't being used for a while. So I pulled in and had a look at it. And Nick came by there and we started talking for a bit and I asked him if it was for sale. He said, not really, but he said he would check in with his dad, see if he would consider selling it or whatever. They weren't using it and they liked what I was doing. So about a year and a half, we still really never have the funds to buy that boat. And one day I got a message from Nick, asked me to give him a call. And it certainly wasn't expecting him to be donating their boat to me. He said to me that he had some old rope and some gear and stuff that he might want to donate. And knowing the ordeal that he just went to, went through losing his dad, I thought, well, hey, maybe you can be donating some of his dad's dive gear. [Unintelligible]. I asked you after seeing that, seeing what he had to go through. I didn't think he'd ever be diving anymore. And when I got down or he said to me, no, so I kind of lied to you about the rope and gear donation, he said. And I said, well, what do you have for me, then? And he said, What about that boat? And he pointed a boat ring. Man, when he said that. I said, well, I give a big hug and almost cried. What do you say? Somebody donate something more. 30 grand [unintelligible].

MG: Nick, why did you do that? Why did you decide you wanted to donate the boat?

NICK PETTEN: We were driving back after it happened. We kind of took some time as a family, just us. And we went to our cabin. And after the weekend or the week, however long we were out there, we were headed home. And it just kind of came to my mind on the drive back. I just said to mom that boat, The Catch of the Day, would you mind if I offered that to Shawn? And at first was kind of thing like, okay, will think about it. It was. I mean, at that point in our lives, I was the least of our concerns. But it was kind of type of thing where I said, like, okay. Like, it kind of established. I've been thinking about that and we kind of let it go. And just to pick up on another day and I just recently had to come back home from up in Labrador where I'm going to school. And basically I use as an opportunity now. Now things are far from John and her family. But it was just a chance to basically, I brought it up again and kind of saw the opportunity to be a good time to maybe present Shawn with that. So it's just the fact that it never really left me after Shawn was down that day asking about it.

MG: What did you what did your dad think of what Shawn was up to, hauling this trash out like a superhero out of the out of the bottom of the sea with tyres on his arms?

NICK PETTEN: I always would be talking about Shawn's project to dad out on the boat and off shore. I mean, I fish with him as well, like on my off season during the summers. But we always just to talk to him and show him pictures of what Shawn was doing and like his initiative that he has started. It was to the point that like dad, dad would say, oh, I got some rope here. I got some stuff. If so-and-so don't come get that or so-and-so don't want that or don't buy that, maybe you should see if your buddy Shawn. Shawn might want to come grab that. Shawn might have some use for it.

MG: How's this boat going to change what you do Shawn?

SHAWN BATH: Well this boat is one of the biggest items we needed and it's going to put us on the water in a much more safe and efficient way of cleaning up. Come this spring, and once we get everything else we need for the boat. We're going to have three divers and two tenders, more dive boat. Rather than having to swim to 300 yards. Now with a rope my hand, I can just jump off the boat and go straight down and tie on some tyres and stuff. And the skipper of his board to boat in a tander will pull the tyres up to the surface rather than me and swim back 20 yards at five or six tyres on my terms.

MG: What's next? This keeps building and building and when we had this conversation a little while ago on the program, the response that we got from listeners was overwhelming. People were so gratified by what you're doing and felt as though there had to be some way that they could get involved in this. What's the next step for you?

SHAWN BATH: Well, the next step for me is, like I said, I want to get this boat going and restart diving this summer with a team of divers and we're going to videotape, we're going to film everything and put it on the Internet for everyone to see what we're doing, because I firmly believe once people see the amount of trash we're taking out of water, our funding issue will be over. People are going to see what we're doing, our capabilities, and they're going to want to help make sure we do this on a much bigger scale. Just so much money being spent right now in environmental protection and ocean cleanup. But it's not showing results. And I think it should. We can, for a very long process, we can show a lot of results. We just got to get the gear we need.

MG: Nick, what do you think your dad would have made of this?

NICK PETTEN: It gives Shawn a tool that in a way is going to let him take care of something that dad loves so much. And I think he he'd- It's just hard to think about what he would have to say about this. He wouldn't expect it. He wouldn't like the attention. Not at all. But yeah, he'd like to see it used. And then I'm sure he'd be proud to see the work that is going to be done out of the boat by Shawn and basically, the impact is going to make, because I know me for one, I believe that is huge.

SHAWN BATH: And by Nick.

NICK PETTEN: And hopefully by myself as well.

SHAWN BATH: You're definitely getting them out in the water in the spring, buddy.

MG: But you're going to get out, I mean, you're going to go on one of Shawn's dives, Nick.

NICK PETTEN: Oh, I'm itching to get back in the water. I'll be taking it a little bit slowly, easing myself into it, but I'm definitely antsy to get on board that boat and go for a dive with Shawn. Definitely.

SHAWN BATH: I'd just like for the fishermen in Newfoundland to understand that we need their help cleaning this mess out. These guys here are the ones who got the gear. They've got the knowledge. They've got the motivation for it. So we need so many fishermen as possible to come on board with us. Hopefully we can get them out and get funding for them to go out, dragging these [unintelligible] out of the water and even possibly clean up all over in the harbours and the waters.

MG: This is a terrible story in terms of what happened to your family. But the generosity that you've shown in the wake of that is really quite something. And I appreciate you telling us all about it.

NICK PETTEN: Well, I mean, if anything, it's a little bit of positivity that can come of everything that happened to us.

MG: Good on you, Nick. Thank you.

NICK PETTEN: Thank you.

MG: And Shawn, keep up the good work.

SHAWN BATH: Thanks. Thanks, man.

MG: Shawn Bath is the founder of Clean Harbours Initiative in Newfoundland and Labrador. Thus far, it's mostly one man diving operation to clean up the harbours of his province. Nick Petten is donating his family's boat to Shawn in memory of his dad, Lindsay.

[Music]

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Syria's looming humanitarian crisis

Guest: Christian Reynders

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway.

SOUNDCLIP

[Arabic speech between a man and a child]

MG: the video, looks like a tender moment between a dad and his daughter. And then this happens.

SOUNDCLIP

[Arabic speech]

[Child laughs hysterically]

MG: Hysterical laughter probably isn't the reaction you might expect when airstrikes hit. But that is how Abdullah Mohammed has taught his three year old daughter, Salwa, to cope with the bombs falling around them. They are just two of the 900,000 people forced to flee their homes in Idlib province in Syria as their own government continues to bomb the region, the last opposition stronghold. Christian Reynders, is the field coordinator with Doctors Without Borders. He's in the region and we've agreed not to identify his exact location because of security concerns. Christian, good morning.

CHRISTIAN REYNDERS: Good morning.

MG: As I mentioned, 900,000 people displaced. Why are they on the run?

CHRISTIAN REYNDERS: Well, as you actually mentioned it very well in the in the introduction is because of these there is a conflict ongoing with frequent shelling, airstrikes that basically pushed all these people, more than 900,000 people, to run away for safety in areas of north of Idlib mainly. And I would like to say that actually among these 900,000people, everything happened very, very sudden. And more than 600,000 people have had to flee in just a matter of days.

MG: Where are they now?

CHRISTIAN REYNDERS: Well, at this stage to be honest, they are everywhere. The thing is, they are wherever they can be, wherever they can be saved., wherever they are not targeted by I mean, wherever they are not bombs and the airstrikes falling. That's where they are, mainly in north Idlib. And they go where they can go mainly in Fortune camps, on the roads with a tent, in whatever shelter they can find, either in house, community, houses or partial structures. So they are everywhere in an area which not so long ago contained only, only a couple of hundreds of thousands of people as the host community. So they are stretched in a micro area where there is no space.

MG: And it doesn't seem as though they really have anywhere to go because Turkey has closed its borders as well. So what does that mean for people who are trying to find safety?

CHRISTIAN REYNDERS: Well, for people as for people who tried to find safety, their main preoccupation is safety. Not going to turkey or things like this. Their main preoccupation is to have safety. We have testimonies from people that we met through our activities from displaced persons who told us, you know, where do you want us to go? Like, basically, we don't have anything left. We just had to grab some stuff in a matter of minutes. We have been already displaced. Some of them is the third or fourth time that are already displaced. And they said we don't have any money when we don't have any resources. We had to pay the last money we had. We had to give it to pay for our transport to jump on a truck. And, you know, let's flee for safety. So that the main priority for these people is to basically live in an area where they don't they don't fear to die at any minute during the day.

MG: The other element in this I mentioned Turkey, is that Turkey has threatened a military operation to push back the Syrian government. What would that do to those, as you mentioned, who have been displaced time and time again?

CHRISTIAN REYNDERS: I'll be honest. We are, of course, ourselves following the situation, and the only thing we want to say in regards to this is to for all these people, all this decision makers that have an influence, politically speaking, on the situation, Doctors Without Borders, as everybody knows, we are completely neuter, neutral in our approach. We are therefore humanitarian actions and not to intervene politically. So we don't have an influence on these events. But those who have an influence, we just want to ask them to put the priority on human life to end this human suffering that is during for so long already.

MG: We heard the voice of that little child, three year old in my introduction. More than half a million children have been displaced since the beginning of December. What kind of conditions do they find themselves in and what kind of care in particular do those children need?

CHRISTIAN REYNDERS: Well, everything. Again, the situation they're in areas where the climate is, it's very cold this winter. It's a bit of a rocky mountainous areas. And they do not have access to shelter is limited. The access to heating material is limited. So what do they need is, again, it's a protection against all this. We've seen it through our activities. We support- today medical facilities among our three hospitals. And we run mobile clinics in the in all the camps, in many camps. We have seen like for January only that we have done 21000 consultation, 7000 of them are children under five. And we see them suffering from diseases like the respiratory infections, like anaemia, which went down to we point out to these conditions that the humidity, the cold, the lack of proper food are making children suffer. And it would be a huge priority. But on this side, I want to point out that it's an unprecedented crisis, what's happening that from a humanitarian point of view. And we are overwhelmed. As Doctors Without Borders, we have started all our emergency response and deployed everything we can deploy. Our teams are working round the clock, day and night. But we are overwhelmed. We are simply overwhelmed with this situation.

MG: When you say that it's an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, is your sense the civil war in Syria has kind of ground along for it for nine years now. Is your sense that the world has stopped paying attention to what's happening in Syria?

CHRISTIAN REYNDERS: I don't know about this. To give you a very honest answer, what we do know is that it needs to stop. It just needs to stop.

MG: Christian, I appreciate the update. It's a harrowing situation. Thank you.

CHRISTIAN REYNDERS: Thank you very much.

MG: Christian Reynders is a field coordinator with MSF. Well, coming up in our next half hour, blockades and protests are continuing across this country. People trying to conduct business or getting increasingly frustrated as the flow of goods is delayed or stopped altogether. Meanwhile, some of those hereditary chiefs who have been at the centre of this story in northern B.C. are travelling to Ontario. We'll get the latest on the situation and talk about the truck disruption in the flow of goods. And that's coming up after the break in about 90 seconds. Stick around. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Farmers and the rail blockade

Guests: Allison Ammeter, Dennis Darby, Jorge Barrera

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current. Rail service disruptions continue across Canada today. One of the latest was a blockade on the CN rail line west of Edmonton, a blockade that led to some tense confrontations.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Eight of 13, hereditary chief.

VOICE 2: The hereditary chiefs.

VOICE 1: 20 bands.

VOICE 2: They trying to negotiate.

VOICE 1: Want that pipeline.

VOICE 2: Let me speak let me speak.

VOICE 1: You're making it about something that it isn't.

VOICE 2: [Repeating in the background] Let me speak. Let me speak. Let me speak. Let me speak.

VOICE 1: And you're standing in their way.

VOICE 2: Let me speak. I will speak but you--.

MG: Now, four of those hereditary chiefs from the Wet'suwet'en first nation are on their way to Ontario to meet with the Mohawks of Tyendinaga, who are blocking the rails in support of the B.C. chiefs and their opposition to a natural gas pipeline. Jorge Barrere is a reporter with CBC's Indigenous unit has been following this story. Haha. Good morning.

JORGE BARRERA: Good morning.

MG: What do we know about this planned meeting between the four hereditary chiefs and the Mohawks of Tyendinaga?

JORGE BARRERA: Well, very, very little. At this point in time, the last information that I got from one of the organizers who were involved in trying to set this up from Kahnawake, which is the Mohawk community south of Montreal, was that they were the Heritage churches were heading to Tyendinaga. And there they are simply supposed to be there to think, you know. The Mohawk community in Tyendinaga for, you know, the showing and the solidarity through the rail line demonstration. It's unclear how long they're going to be out east. I've heard, you know, they could be here into the weekend. But in terms of people who are who I've spoken to that are were either involved in planning or know about the planning, that a lot of these details are in flux.

MG: That demonstration continues. The OPI is on scene, but they haven't the force hasn't enforced an injunction to clear the protesters and allow rail service to continue. How tense is the situation there in time?

JORGE BARRERA: Well, I left there on Monday, so I haven't been there for a couple of days. But based on the reporting that's coming from our report on the ground there, Olivia Stefanovic, that she's spoken to demonstrators there and they say that they're ready to dig in and to stay for the rest of the winter if need be. The elements are harsh there. They're exposed that camp along the rails. When I was there they're being heated in these camps, tents with some propane heaters and Beral Fires. And there's people keeping watch 24/7, keeping an eye on activity up the road where the OPP sort of park some cruisers. You know, you're living in with- if you're on the front lines, you're living in constant tension because this is a pretty extraordinary situation where this real line demonstration or not blocking the trucks, they are right next to them, for now two weeks. And there's a lot of pressure that's bearing down on what's happening there. But what happens there is completely connected to what happens with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs, because the Mohawks of Tyendinaga have said we are not moving until the RCMP withdraws from what sort in territory.

MG: And the RCMP has not moved from the territory.

JORGE BARRERA: No, but there has been a little bit of movement on that front. The RCMP told us earlier this week that they were aware of the wet suit and requests and it was being discussed. And just last evening, there was a report [unintelligible] by Global News that obtained an internal letter from the deputy commissioner, Jennifer Strachan. And they report that that letter opens a door possibly to moving this detachment that's in the clan territory of Chief Woos, the hereditary Chief Woos from getting them. And he wants this detachment that's been there, sort of a mobile detachment. It's been there since last year, because the RCMP also enforce injunction last year. They're open to discussing moving it and that the deputy commissioner had actually written to the chiefs to discuss this. And but Namoks, another heriditary chief, said we are not talking until you remove that detachment first or you withdraw from our territory.

MG: While all this happens, these blockades and the demonstrations are continuing. There was one outside of Edmonton and that led, as we heard, to a confrontation where some counter-protesters arrived and essentially dismantled the blockade that was there. Peter Mackay, who is the leadership candidate for the Conservative Party, put out a tweet on Twitter saying: I'm glad to see a couple of Albertans with a pickup truck can do more for our economy in an afternoon than Justin Trudeau could do in four years. That tweet was later deleted. But what do you make of that involvement of Peter Mackay and the way that he got involved in this?

JORGE BARRERA: Well. You all you have to do is look back to what happened in Caledonia and Six Nations in a land reclamation that happened there, where were the Iroquois from Six Nations reclaimed land that they said that they said was actually had been taken from them. And there were a lot of tensions between that action and Six Nations and the neighbouring community of Caledonia. There were confrontations and the OPP had to step in and try to keep both sides apart. And then you go look back to 1990 during the Oka crisis and what's known as the rocks at Whisky Trench, when they were evacuating people from Kahnawage Mohawk community, South Montreal, that had blocked the Mercy Bridge in support of [unintelligible], which is, you know, west of Montreal, which was a sentence the epicentre of the Oka crisis. And as people were being evacuated, people from neighbouring communities, Quebeckers were throwing rocks at them as they were evacuated and smashing car windows. And there were burning effigies of Mohawk warriors in the streets. So, you know, for a former justice minister to basically praise civilians for getting involved in this situation is- it's sort of interesting that he hasn't taken into account the history of what happens when people from neighbouring community start getting involved in this and how potentially dangerous that is.

MG: Well, just briefly, is there the concern that that could happen elsewhere if the government is trying to figure out how to ease these blockades? But as you said, people, the Mohawks in Tyendinaga perhaps are willing to dig in for the winter. Is that the concern that that could repeat itself elsewhere? That's sort of a scene of people showing up and saying, well, we'll clear the blockade if the police aren't going to move it.

JORGE BARRERA: Yes. That's a possibility when you have someone so high profile, a former justice minister saying this, it does signal to others that will maybe this is acceptable when someone of that profile, you know, sort of promotes that. But all you have to do is just think of the history of this. And in 2006, I mean, it was very, very intense. You know, I covered part of that, sir. I went down to Caledonia. I remember meeting with both sides and meeting with both residents, you know, who are involved on a six nation side and people in Caledonia. The tensions between the two communities at that time. And how people in Caledonia, especially by the subdivision or the land that was supposed to be developed that was caught in this. They were living nearby. And the OPP worked hard to try to diffuse it, because if that gets out of control, then it's really, really difficult to corral. So I'm really surprised that this went out given Whisky Trench in 1990, in Caledonia 2006, when the Harper Conservatives were in power.

MG: We'll leave it there. He has deleted the tweet and kind of clarified on Twitter what he was trying to get across. But we'll leave this part of the conversation there. I appreciate it. Thank you.

JORGE BARRERA: Thank you.

MG: Jorge Barrera with CBS Indigenous Unit. Those blockades continue in some parts of the country. And in Alberta, grain farmers are starting to feel the financial squeeze from the disruptions. Allison Ammater is a farmer near Sylvan Lake. About halfway between Calgary and Edmonton, she grows wheat, barley, canola and peas and she's at her farm. Alison, good morning to you.

ALLISON AMMATER: Good morning, Matt.

MG: How important is rail service to the livelihood of your farm and to the activity on the farm?

ALLISON AMMATER: It's critical. Canada, simply because of its geography, is really dependent on rail service to move our products to one of the coasts in order to export them, and we do export 80 to 90 percent of the crops that we grow. So when we cannot get our crops to export, farmers are not able to sell anything. We're simply having zero cash flow. If we cannot sell our crop, zero cash flow. Well, we do not make money when we harvest a crop. We make money when we take that crop we've harvested to a buyer, whether it's an elevator or somebody in the trade. And if those elevators, terminals traders have not got the ability to move the crop to export, they're not going to buy right now.

MG: Are you already feeling the pinch from these blockades?

ALLISON AMMATER: Oh, there's a number of areas across the prairies where the elevators and inland terminals have put out the word, sorry, we cannot take any of this because the trains aren't moving. And so if they can't take it, we can't haul it and therefore we don't get paid for anything.

MG: So how does that affect your day to day operation? I mean, we know that, you know, living on a farm and working on a farm can be a bit of a knife edge in terms of being in the black or being in the red. So how is that affecting your day to day life?

ALLISON AMMATER: Well, I mean, farmers are accustomed to having to make sure that the money is there for things like loan payments and such. You can't spend money just because it's in the bank. We don't get an every two weeks salary or something like that. But when the when the money is not coming in through things like this, you just have to cut back everywhere. And I think what we're going to find is it's not just the primary agriculture that's hurting, but it trickles down into the community when the farmers are not going out and spending money on anything other than what is absolute necessity.

MG: What do you want from the federal government when it comes to the situation?

ALLISON AMMATER: I think the federal government needs to really consider that this is not simply an issue of what the protests are, but that it's affecting candidates international reputation. I'm not just concerned about being able to hold grain this month. I'm concerned that our customers internationally will look to other countries, not just for their contract this month, but maybe for their contract next month and next year that they'll say we can't depend on Canadian exporters because their rail system is a gong show. And so we'll look for it elsewhere. And we've heard that from our trade a number of times. So I don't know if the protesters realise they're not just squeezing Canada right now in February. They're potentially squeezing us five years into the future as they hurt our export reputation.

MG: The protesters have been saying, and this is across the country, they've been saying that this is a big picture issue, that this is about the environment and it's about solidarity with indigenous people in the Wet'suwet'en First Nation in B.C. who are opposed to this coastal gasoline pipeline. Do you have sympathy with the perspective that they are bringing to this, that they say that there's an immediate disruption, but the immediate disruption is outweighed by the larger concerns that they have around, as I say, indigenous solidarity, but also the environment.

ALLISON AMMATER: You know, I'm not going to say I don't have sympathy with the protests, but I don't think protesters should be able to affect our global reputation and to affect, for example, farmers in the prairies and also in Quebec and so on. I think it's very unfair of them to take their issues and apply it not just to everyday Canadians, but to people that we're exporting to around the world. It's way too big of an impact for way too local of an issue. And I do not think that's entirely fair at all. That's taking the protest to a far larger stage than it's fair to the average Canadian.

MG: We have just a couple of seconds left. How do you think this is going to be resolved? We saw the situation yesterday where counter-protesters arrived and dismantled the blockade and it it got hot there on that scene. How do you think this gets resolved?

ALLISON AMMATER: Well, I think it's really unfortunate when the government says that rule of law doesn't matter. Then people tend to think that they'll take it into their own hands. And we all know vigilante justice is not a good way to go. But there's a lot of people feeling there's no justice. So things happen, don't they?

MG: Allison, it's good to speak with you. Thank you.

ALLISON AMMATER: Thank you.

MG: Allison Ammater is a grain farmer near Sylvan Lake in Alberta. Across the country, as you heard, businesses that depend on rail are feeling the pinch in. Ian Wilson is president of Wilson Fuel. It's the leading propylene propane supplier in Atlantic, Canada. That region relies on rail deliveries of propane. And Ian says that his company is already rationing fuel to make sure it gets to people who need it most.

SOUNDCLIP

We're putting a priority on people who are using propane for heating because if they don't get the product they need, then they risk their house is freezing up and that's just not okay.

MG: The figure that circulating is that every day the rail stoppage continues, about $425 million worth of goods sit idle. Dennis Darby is president and chief executive of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters. Dennis, good morning to you.

DENNIS DARBY: Good morning.

MG: What, you reaction to to what you been hearing from Alison Ammater? What do you make of what she said? That people are feeling the immediate pinch, but also this is an international issue now?

DENNIS DARBY: Well, I think she said she said it quite succinctly at the end of the day. So much of our economy depends on exports. You know, 65 percent of everything we export or manufactured goods and almost half of those travel on rail, whether it's food products or chemicals or car parts. And so what we're seeing is a real slowdown in the economy because of this choke point in Bellville and other protests. So it's it's true. People are getting frustrated. Companies are worried. I think in the early days, people thought, well, maybe this will resolve itself because some of the blockades have come down. But as it drags on and on. We're hearing more and more from companies sent. I can't get my parts. I can't get my supplies.

MG: And you're hearing that directly from your members.

DENNIS DARBY: From member companies, because so many of them a part of it is geography's, Matt, because 75 percent of our whole manufacturing output is in the Ontario Quebec quarter. And that Quebec Windsor quarter, I mean, that's where the highways are. That's where the rail lines move. And that's where most of the stuff goes back and forth from the ports and also to the U.S. Given that we're so integrated with the U.S. economy, it's not like people keep large stockpiles. The example you've mentioned, you referred to from the earlier comment earlier, propane, for example, of rationing supplies. Yeah. Because Sarney is the major producer of propane for the eastern part of Canada. It has to go mostly by rail. You can't take a lot of it by truck. The truck system right now is overloaded. And so we result in that kind of rationing, which is regrettable. The next thing you'll probably see the things not on the shelf because consumer product companies are saying they can't get their stuff in.

MG: Things like what?

DENNIS DARBY: Regular consumer staples you'd buy in the store, you know, everything from toilet paper to diapers, that kind of stuff.

MG: Why wouldn't that be able to be transported by truck?

DENNIS DARBY: Just because the roads are already overloaded? So right now, as I said, about half of all manufactured goods and parts go by rail. So, yes, yes, trucks, if you ever get on the fourth one, you know how many trucks there are. But that system is at capacity, but for a lot of large, bulky items and for large amounts, rail is the most actually is the most efficient, actually the most it's the most GHD efficient way to move your goods. And so we use rail. A lot of people have asked me the last few days, well, I didn't think we used rail anymore. Yes, we do. In fact, it's more important than ever. In fact, it's been important for 150 years in this country. W

MG: When do you think consumers would start to notice this? I mean, outside of industry, I'm not discounting that. But when somebody goes to a store, when are they going to see that something that they might expect to be there is not there.

DENNIS DARBY: What we've heard from our member companies across the country, big and small, is probably in the next you know, the next week or so, their supplies start to run out, start to run down. I think the bigger impact, if I could say, is when companies start to cut shifts or cut back production and then, you know, everyday Canadians are going to find themselves temporarily laid off.

MG: There are people who will hear this and say that this is fear mongering that shows that you're just, in a tense situation, you're adding fuel to a fire?

DENNIS DARBY: I would disagree. I think when you think about where this particular rail blockade is, Matt, in in on the Sea Airlines, which is a private line that serves our industrial heartland, I don't think it's- I think what we'd like to point up to the government is it's really important that they take this dispute off of the rail line and into a conference room because this is not helping any Canadian.

MG: Your organization called on the federal government - these are the equitation - "to step up and take immediate action to end the blockade".

DENNIS DARBY: Oh, I think that would be that would be absolutely true.

MG: What does that mean?

DENNIS DARBY: I think I think the prime minister is in the best position because of his relationship with first with the first nations. I think he's in the best position to to broker that type of a of an agreement. I understand those concerns are valid, Matt, and they are longstanding. And the federal government has that responsibility to negotiate that. And we and we don't want to diminish, I think as my colleague for a moment, was it one of the measures that at all.

MG: But it's also complicated. And you've heard this, that the protesters in Tyendinaga or Bellville won't leave their protest until the RCMP leaves the lands, Wet'suwet'en lands in northern British Columbia. All of these parts are connected. So until that happens. How do you how do you end the blockade with immediate action, what do you specifically calling for?

DENNIS DARBY: Well, that's why I'm not a politician. I represent and I'm a part of the manufacturing sector. But what I would say is I think the government needs to be able to find a dialogue and say, we understand your problem. Remember this, the project at Wes'suwet'en was approved by every level of government. Yes, there were consultations. We need to find a way. Let me go back to where you asked about fear-mongering. What I actually say is manufacturing industrial industry needs predictability. And right now, you know, we're not looking so sharp relative to our biggest trading partner. Over 75 percent of all our goods go. We're part of a global and mostly a North American supply chain. So right now, this is not something we can blame on the U.S. or we can blame on China. This is something that we've created. And I think it's up to the federal government, the prime minister being the head of the federal government. We stand ready to help in any way. But business is not going to be able to solve this. This is a private rail line that's being blocked where most of our goods travel.

MG: Do you believe the police need to go in and clear that?

DENNIS DARBY: That I would not recommend. I listen to your caller. I don't recommend, you know, vigilantes aren't recommended. This is this has to be, this is a political problem at the end of the day. And I think the government has to step and say, we understand your concerns. Have the protests in the public square. Is there a way we can get the economy back? Because it's at that point. At this point, we're very close to this point. In fact, if you think the 425 CN workers who got laid off in Montreal.

MG: Although there's question as to whether that's at all connected with this.

DENNIS DARBY: We can only say what the company tells us, but we know that 4500 cars a day of goods are normally loaded in Canada for manufacturing and none of them, or very, very few no being loaded today. So if there are layoffs, it makes sense. It makes sense economically. But let me go back. Let's make sure that this doesn't affect everyday Canadians, because I think that's when public support will start to disappear.

MG: Dennis, we'll leave it there. It's good to have you here. Thank you.

DENNIS DARBY: Thank you very much.

MG: Dennis Darby is president and CEO of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters.

MG: This is the current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. Oh boy. We've got a lot of mail yesterday in large part thanks to this story.

SOUNDCLIP

The seat has a recline button on it. That's like telling you not to use your tray because it bothers somebody. You paid for the seat. It recline. No. You know, we can all be adults. And if the person behind you is very tall or is having dinner, I mean, I don't think you have every right to simply jam your seat back and send things flying. Use your seat responsibly.

MG: Perhaps easier said than done. Recline Gate 20/20 was sparked by a video of a woman getting her reclined airline seat repeatedly thumped by the man who is sitting behind her, cue outrage and a lot of commentary around whether it's all right to recline your seat on a flight or not. Our senior producer, Karin Marley, is here to go through the current mailbag. Good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Hey, Matt, I have to say, first of all, that last time I flew, I was certainly too nervous to put back my seat. So that's my thought on this. We heard from M.J. Saunders from Maple Ridge, B.C.: As someone who works as a flight attendant, I see my share of despicable behaviours on planes. The question of reclining is a thorn in our sides. Courtesy is lost on our society. Look around. Make sure not to jam your seat and the person behind and let them know you're over reclining.

MG: Be curious to hear what else MJ Sanders has seen in terms of despicable behaviour. Don Orloff from Winnipeg Advisors: For overnight flights whenever they turn the lights low for the night, I think that the airline attendant should announce that those who wish should feel free to recline their seats. This way, everyone would understand the rules of the game and the trip would become a little more tolerable.

KARIN MARLEY: Geoffrey Holmes has a personal experience. He writes: I am six feet six inches tall when flying economy. My knees are jammed up, flush with a seat in front of me. It is a matter of physics that my knees cannot magically disappear to allow the seat to recline. I've had numerous occasions where I've had to inform the passenger in front of me of this fact after being repeatedly assaulted by their attempts to recline their seat through my body.

MG: Gordon Garland tweeted The point, though, is that there is even less room if the person in front of you reclines their seat. I think there should be no debate about it. Full reclining shouldn't be allowed except for medical reasons. Whatever they would be. And on overnight flights.

KARIN MARLEY: And finally, Igor Lander writes: If you really want to demonstrate etiquette, don't board the beeping plane.

MG: Did he'd actually write beep? Perhaps not.

KARIN MARLEY: He did not, but we use that on radio. According to global stats, about 95 percent of the world's population will never fly in an aeroplane. That means 5 percent of the population is exhausting millions of litres of fuel over the rest of us. Is that polite?

MG: Karin, thank you.

KARIN MARLEY: Than you, Matt.

MG: Karin Marley, our senior producer, you want to comment on anything you hear on the program? Get in touch. You can send us an email through the website. cbc.ca/thecurrent find us on Facebook or Twitter. We are @TheCurrentCBC. That is The Current for today. Stay tuned to CBC Radio One for Q Sarah Harmer has brand new music. First album in a decade. It's called Are You Gone? Her new single called Just Get Here is on heavy rotation in my house. You'll hear her perform live and talk to Tom Power, coming up in just a few moments. We're done with listener feedback just yet. One final piece of mail about reclining seats. This comes from Mary Dylan writing from Rohde's corner, Nova Scotia, suggesting we check out a tune called On the Plane by Cheryl Wheeler. She called it hilarious about everything that is bad about air travel. Well, Mary, we checked it out and you're right. So here it is. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. And we'll talk to you tomorrow.

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[Song: On the Plane]

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Thursday February 20, 2020 Full Transcript

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