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The Current Transcript for March 18, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: The key message that Canadians need to hear right now is this is the crunch time. This is the time where we all have to pull out the stops, really take that personal sacrifice seriously, because this is what's going to help us get through this.

MATT GALLOWAY: These are difficult, challenging days for all of us, but especially those suddenly laid off as businesses close to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This morning, as the prime minister and the finance minister get set to announce at least $25 billion in financial assistance for those thrown out of work by the coronavirus, a look at how governments across this country are handling an unprecedented crisis. Also this morning.

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VOICE: I want to say my job and my lease are the last of my priorities during a health instance that's new to everybody, nobody knows anything, but it's not. It's a three front war.

MG: Many Canadians have been asked to work from home, many others can't. Conversations with Canadians who need to be on the job, from personal support workers to electricians keeping our lights on. We begin though with much needed assistance for a sinking economy. Good morning. How are you doing? I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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Will Trudeau enact Emergencies Act? The Current’s national affairs panel weighs in

Guests: Catherine Cullen, Robert Benzie, Andre Picard

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VOICE: We will be there as a country for our citizens, for our businesses, for Canadians who are worried, whether it's making sure that small businesses remain viable through this difficult time, whether it's so that families can take care of their loved ones or put food on the table, we will make sure that Canadians are able to hold through this difficult time. We don't know exactly how long this is going to take, whether it takes weeks or months, but we know that every step of the way we will be there to support each other.

MG: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledging the stark truth of this pandemic. It is still not clear when life will go back to normal or when Ottawa will reverse its emergency measures. What we do know is that the prime minister will speak once again today and that's where we begin with today's national affairs panel. Catherine Cullen is a senior parliamentary reporter for CBC News. Robert Benzie is the Queen's Park bureau chief for the Toronto Star. Andre Picard is a health reporter and columnist with The Globe and Mail. Good morning to you all.

CATHERINE CULLEN: Good morning.

ANDRE PICARD: Hi.

ROBERT BENZIE: Good morning Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: Catherine, let's start with you. In the start, the economy obviously will be front page news. And that's the lead story as we try to figure out how to help those, as I say, who've been thrown out of work, but there is news this morning that Canada and the U.S. have figured out or are close to figuring out some sort of mutual deal to restrict non-essential travel across this border. What do we know about that?

CATHERINE CULLEN: Well, we know that the announcement could come as early as today. People will remember and it may seem like days and days ago now, but it was actually only Monday that the prime minister announced this massive move on Canada's borders. Right? If not closing them entirely, certainly seriously restricting who could come into the country. And one of the major exceptions, of course, was U.S. citizens. Immediately, the prime minister faced a lot of questions about that, because, of course, when we look at the state of the fight against COVID-19 in the United State., there are some very serious concerns. For instance, British Columbia, even in light of the prime minister's announcement, saying that two U.S. citizens could continue to come in. BC's health minister said don't come. This is a bad plan. This is a bad policy. We are very concerned about who is coming in from Washington state. But the sense we were getting from Canadian officials is that they were very concerned, given our deep ties with the United States, notably economic ties, what would happen if they just shut the border to U.S. citizens. Particularly, some have suggested they were concerned about angering Donald Trump. So there have been discussions going on for days now. It's possible as early as today, we will see that now U.S. travellers, U.S. shoppers, for instance, are not allowed or not going to be allowed into Canada, although, of course, the flow of goods, trade and commerce, that would still continue.

MG: That's one thing that we could hear this morning. The other thing that we're expecting to hear is further details on what we're reporting is at least a $25 billion investment into the Canadian economy. What do we know about that, Catherine?

CATHERINE CULLEN: Yeah, a massive injection of cash, but that is what economists have said is necessary, that if this is going to make a difference, it needs to be at least 1 percent of Canada's gross domestic product. So as you say, billions and billions of dollars. You heard the prime minister foreshadowing it in that clip you played earlier, Matt and in fact, this is something he's been foreshadowing since last week. He has been talking about the fact that Canadians should not have to worry about being able to afford groceries. They should not have to worry about their mortgage or their rent as more and more of them are being told to work from home or just losing their jobs entirely because of this economic situation, this massive downturn. So today we are expecting that they are going to find ways to get money in people's pockets that can be through employment insurance. We're also hearing about talk of using existing mechanisms like, say, the Canada Child Benefit, a way to just siphon more money to people immediately. And there will be news for businesses as well to try to get them through these difficult times. This is something we're seeing happening around the world. If you look at France, for instance, Emmanuel Macron said there that they are not, that no business in France will be allowed to fail during these times. This is Canada's the next step, I guess we should say in Canada's attempt to step up.

MG: That's a remarkable statement, no business will be allowed to fail. Rob Benzie, what do you make of what you're hearing and what from your perspective and people that you talked to that this economy needs right now?

ROBERT BENZIE: I mean, well it needs an injection of funds, as Catherine said. I mean, small business is employs millions of people in this country. And, you know, they don't have the option you know of staying home or or shutting their doors for extended periods of time. But people, by and large, and in Ontario at least, are abiding by these directives. Remember, we had a state of emergency declared by the premier yesterday and that sent a signal of the seriousness of the situation. It's not like there is martial law or they're imposing curfews or anything like that. But I think there is a sense that we have to do more for containment, because if we don't, this is going to spread even further. So there's a lot of anxiety, understandably, from businesses and from people concerned about their paycheques. And I think this morning's announcement from the federal government will go away to allay that fear, but obviously, much more will have to happen down the road if it's 25 or $30 billion. That's great, but that's, there's 34 million people in this country who are going to be affected by this thing.

MG: You mentioned the state of emergency and the premiers about 24 hours ago in Ontario announced that, we've since seen Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, also declaring states of emergency. Is that where we're headed across the country, do you think, Rob?

ROBERT BENZIE: Yeah, it looks like we might see the prime minister announce the Federal Emergency Measures Act, which of course, is the is the legislation that is based on the War Measures Act that his father invoked in 1970 during the FLQ crisis. The new act has never been invoked across the country. And this is again, I want to stress to folks out there, this is not about, you know, soldiers in the streets or anything like that. This is about making it easier for government to flow money to flow the kind of funds that Catherine's talking about that are going to be coming from Ottawa and spreading across the country as quickly as possible. Because remember, many, many people live paycheque to paycheque,s so they can't afford, you know, a week or two week curfew or sorry, quarantine and then they don't have any money for their rent and their mortgage payment and so on.

MG: Andre, you wrote a piece in the paper that said it was talking about the need for a consistent message. And one of the things you said was enough of the pussyfooting around in the name of provincial autonomy and constitutional division of powers. What do you want to hear from the federal government?

ANDRE PICARD: I want to hear a strong, unified message. You know, if you have an emergency in five provinces, well certainly you have an emergency across the country. So invoking the Emergencies Act would be a good start. Getting the public health officials together to have the same rules on testing, on isolation, those things have to be crystal clear to Canadians, regardless of where they live.

MG: In the absence of that you have a number of people who say that they are hearing mixed messages. One thing perhaps from local health authorities, another thing from provincial health authorities, perhaps another thing entirely from the federal health authorities. What is the effect of those mixed messages, Andre?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think it tells people that they're not sure what to do, especially about the testing stuff. You knows people don't know from one province to the next if they should get tested, if they can get tested. That just creates confusion. You want people to understand that this is really the crunch time. This is the time social distancing will work or not and it can't be a half measure. It has to be a full court press. Everybody has to get in on this if we're really going to have an impact on that epidemic curve.

MG: What's your sense as to how the health care system is handling what's going on? Because the numbers are still rising. There has been concern over a lack of beds and ventilators. And as Catherine mentioned, that was one of the reasons why perhaps some people were reluctant to completely close that border off between Canada and the United States because of the flow of medical devices from the U.S. North. What's the state of the health care system broadly, Andre?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, with 600 confirmed cases roughly, we can still handle this. So the health care system is still doing okay, but it's just starting to feel the pinch. It's also flu season. We can't forget that. It's a lot of people with the flu, especially elderly people. So it's we're really getting up to the edge now of having to take measures, getting people out of hospital who shouldn't be there. We had a lot of so-called alternative level of care patients in Canada, people living in hospitals because there's not enough nursing homes, about seven thousand of those. We're going to have to start getting those people out of the hospital soon to make room for four patients. And the Emergencies Act, one of the most important parts of the Emergency Act is it allows us to, allows the federal government to create emergency hospitals. It allows them to declare workers essential workers like nurses and doctors or whoever, to ensure that care can be provided.

MG: Catherine, is the Emergencies Act likely to be implemented? Is that something, a step that the government would take?

CATHERINE CULLEN: It is certainly not something that they're ruling out. We heard Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland saying yesterday that it is a sort of last resort, something the federal government has really been emphasizing in all of this is that if they are going to invoke the Emergencies Act, it's something they're going to do in coordination with the provinces. They say right now it seems that the provinces have things under control, but that the Emergencies Act, I believe it was the prime minister said it's not an end unto itself. Right? It's a tool. It's a means to an end. So they are looking at the situation, trying to decide, is this a tool that would help get them a result that they need right now? They are basically not being equivocal about the answer to that. We're still waiting to see what it is they choose to do, but they have absolutely left the door open.

MG: And the prime minister has talked about the idea of recalling parliament, not just for that. Is that necessary?

CATHERINE CULLEN: He says that it may be necessary in order to enact some of the measures that they're looking at. It's important to note that it would not require all 338 parliamentarians, members of the House of Commons, I should say, to return to Ottawa. They can do it with a much smaller group, I believe it's in the neighbourhood of 20 people in fact, that can actually be recalled as a sort of representative of parliament. But again, and this is a phrase we're hearing over and over when we ask the government questions this week, Matt, and even last week, which is we are looking at it, all options are on the table. They're really not willing to close the door to anything. That is certainly a very live possibility.

MG: Rob Benzie when the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, was speaking yesterday, he said that when asked he had been in conversation with a number of other premiers, presumably federal politicians as well. What's your sense of the state of those conversations? What's that coordination looking like?

ROBERT BENZIE: Well, it's looking like they are all singing from the same songbook. And that's an encouraging thing. You know, in this country, we have a lot of sniping between federal and provincial governments. It's a kind of a tradition here. But we haven't seen the kind of snarky kind of debate between premiers and the prime minister that we're seeing, for example, between the president, United States and some governors. You saw Trump yesterday attacking the governors of New York, Washington and other state that just escapes me because of his or Michigan, because of his concern of how COVID-19 was being handled. We don't, we aren't seeing that here and I think it's because the information is flowing well. The deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, is doing a good job keeping the provinces informed as to federal moves. Yesterday, after Premier Ford declared a state of emergency, the prime minister was out saying this was the right move and he praised Ontario for doing that. Here in Ontario, our legislature is going to be recalled tomorrow for a very brief session for emergency legislation to ensure that workers don't lose their jobs and that they don't have to produce doctor's notes to justify being away. So there is a sense that all of the governments of the country are on emergency footing in a containment push. That's not to say they won't snipe or disagree about certain things or this, that and the other thing in the days and months ahead, but I think right now we're on war footing.

MG: Andre, given what you were looking for and then what you articulated in that piece, how do you think the federal government is doing in addressing this crisis? It's unprecedented. Nobody, there's no playbook for something like this. How is the government doing?

ANDRE PICARD: I think both the federal and provincial governments are doing relatively well. When we compare ourselves to countries around the world, I think we just have to have a little bit more of that unity. You know, Rob was saying everybody's singing from the same hymn book, and that's true, but they're singing in different times. I want them singing all at the same time. This, you know, message after message, it's similar, but not identical. Is it still a little bit confusing? But I think that the big thing the federal government is doing well is the economic measures and that means, coming from a health reporter, but you have to remember, the single biggest determinant of our health is income. If people don't are scared about their future, about their income, it's going to force them to do all kinds of things that harm our health. They're not going to respect social distancing if they're desperate for work or they can't pay the rent. So those economic measures are probably the single biggest health measure we can take at this time.

MG: I want to go back to, you used that word again, pussyfooting. And there was a representative from the World Health organization who spoke in the last couple of days who said that governments need to move quickly, that there's the fear of making a mistake and we don't have the time to think about that right now. That we need to move and seize the opportunity now. Do you think, Andre, that the government is doing that, that the government is is seizing those opportunities, or is it still worried that it could overstep? That it might make a mistake, that if it takes truly decisive action, that that could be seen to be overstepping its bounds?

ANDRE PICARD: I think there's a little bit of fear there. You know, we have our classic federal provincial boundaries and I think there's a lot of fear driven by that. We don't want to say too much because of the problems. First we want to get, you know, all around the table and discuss it for 48 hours. I think that's a lot of the pussyfooting. I think the other place where it's happening that's really troubling is a reluctance of public health officials to say that there's community spread in Canada and that there's widespread community infections happening. And this is a big deal that, you know, we have to fight this war on two fronts. One is cases coming in from abroad and we've given a lot of attention to that. We've done relatively well dealing with that. But now this virus is spreading within Canada. You can get infected by a stranger walking in downtown Toronto or in a party in Toronto and that's a whole new battle that we have to fight. And there's been a real reluctance, especially in Ontario. I don't understand, Ontario is reluctant to talk about this. Alberta and B.C. are talking quite openly. Community spread is now what we have to focus o. And Ontario is kind of pussyfooting around, if I can use that term again.

MG: Why would there be that reluctance, Andre?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think there's, they don't want to scare people too much. I think it's trying to find that balance. I don't envy public health officials. You want people to be worried, but you don't want them to be alarmed. You want them to, you don't want them to forget about the imported cases. So it's hard to do all of these to juggle all these balls at once, But again, that quote you had from Mike Ryan of WHO, go up there, be firm, overreact is okay. You can fix that. And don't be afraid to make mistakes. I don't think we're going to criticize our public health officials, our politicians, if they go a little bit overboard right now.

MG: Catherine Cullen, this is a minority government. Where are the opposition leaders in all of this? Jagmeet Singh and Andrew Scheer, in particular.

CATHERINE CULLEN: I mean we do still see them weighing in from time to time. But I think in many ways they have perhaps been a little bit crowded out by what's going on. The perhaps most powerful critics, I think, at this moment of the federal government. Certainly the premiers have the possibility to do that because they are speaking for the people of their provinces. And we have as much as I think, you know, my co-panellists are correct to say there's been a relatively harmonious tone. We certainly have seen moments of criticism. You know, pushing to close the border. For instance, Quebec premier Fracois Legault over the weekend was saying that was something he really wants to see, criticisms of how some of the actions have been handled in the airports, vis-a-vis returning travellers. But really, the premiers are really strong voices and doctors as well in all of this, I think really because they are the experts in what's going on. In many ways they've kind of crowded the provincial or rather the federal opposition parties out of this discussion.

MG: When the prime minister is speaking almost on a daily basis, what do you think people, Catherine, are looking to hear from him? What do they want to hear from him in particular? Is it is specifics? Is it a more reassuring tone?

CATHERINE CULLEN: I think the federal government has put a real emphasis on reassurance and if you listen to any of the news conferences of the prime minister has given over the past few days, I'm particularly struck. I was actually present at the one last Friday. And in that instance, they had all the cabinet ministers come out and speak first in a different location in Ottawa. And then that was the day that we had found out that the prime minister was the person we'd seen him since he began self isolating, because, of course, his wife has tested positive forC OVID-19. And he came out of his house, he spoke at the podium. It was this extraordinary press conference where he was, you know, perhaps a little bit further from journalists than he normally was. He really in that particular moment, I will say, didn't give us any new information. I think the thing that was so significant at that moment was this act of coming out and saying, listen, I'm still here, we can get through this together. Of course, Canadians probably do want to hear that, but I think this whole discussion has laid bare the fact that they need an awful lot more than that. That reassurance is important. The question of not panicking, incredibly important, but there are actions that are required on so many fronts. And all of this is really happening. Not only at I think what seems like a breakneck pace to a lot of Canadians, but you just consider the size of the moves that are being made. Right? $25 billion upwards of that, that's going to be announced today. Borders closing. It now appears to, you know, virtually everyone around the world, aside from people who are coming in for essential purposes, trade and commerce, these are enormous things that are happening. So reassurance, yes, but I think people are also just looking to understand what's going on around them.

MG: And so given that, we'll ask all of you the same question. What, you can't predict what's going to happen tomorrow, in some ways in this story, but what are you expecting to happen in the hours ahead? What are you going to be looking for, Catherine?

CATHERINE CULLEN: Well, obviously, we know today is going to be another enormous day. So we want to see what is the shape of this economic aid, I'll call it, that's being given to Canadians, Canadian businesses. We want to know what's going to happen with the border and, of course, the thing everybody wants to know, this new phrase, it's become a part of so many of our vocabularies, flattening the curve. Are we making progress on that? You know, I don't think we we know the answer to that yet, but it's something that everybody is going to be looking to see.

MG: Robert Benzie, what are you gonna be looking for?

ROBERT BENZIE: I think we're going to see more of an emphasis on what this new social distancing, something no one had heard of a couple of weeks ago.

MG: And now here we are, social distancing each other.

ROBERT BENZIE: We're all socially distancing each other, all over the country, the four of us. But I think that we're going to see in Ontario, for example, right now, they don't want gatherings of 50 or more people. I think that that may be scaled back to something lower. And we're going to see more and more of that kind of thing to Catherine and Andre's point, the the economy is the sort of the second most important thing in all of this and we have to make sure that the money is flowing to people as soon as it can because, you know, we are a lot of people are on the edge. And you can't have people a sort of a black market economy developing out there because people have to eke out a living somewhere. So that's a very, very risky thing. So this is a time when everyone needs their government. There are no neo-conservatives or libertarians in a pandemic, you know.

MG: Andre Picard, last word to you. What are you gonna be looking for in the hours ahead?

ANDRE PICARD: I'm going to be looking again for how we do the risk communication. You know, it's really important to reassure, but not to over reassure. We have to recognise that this is going to be a marathon and a really big question for me is these emergency measures that are taking place, social distancing, isolation, these are economic packages. How long can we maintain some of these sacrifices we're asking the public to make? Because it's not going to be ending tomorrow. This is going to go on for weeks and months and we're not going to know for at least two weeks whether we're making a dent with all these sacrifices we're making.

MG: It's good to speak with you all. Take good care of yourselves, OK.

CATHERINE CULLEN: You, too.

ANDRE PICARD: Thank you,.

ROBERT BENZIE: You too, Matt.

MG: Thank you. Catherine Cullen, senior parliamentary reporter for CBC News. Robert Benzie, the Queen's Park bureau chief for the Toronto Star. And Andre Picard, health reporter and columnist for The Globe and Mail. The CBC News is next. And then we will go on the job with those who cannot work from home. You'll hear why they're showing up and how they're staying safe. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

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Independent Toronto grocery store ups mental health support for workers amid COVID-19 outbreak

Guests: Cecilia Sparrow, CJ Chiddy, Wayne Lewchuk

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

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MG: Still to come, stranded by COVID-19, hundreds of Canadians abroad are struggling to find flights back into this country. I'll speak with a couple of them in our next half hour, but first, working from home to stop the spread. It's great advice if you can take it.

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MG: You know, on a typical Wednesday morning, you might be tuning in to The Current on your commute to work. Maybe you'd be at work. You'd be sitting in the office listening to us on the earbuds. Nothing is typical these days. Many Canadians are staying home in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. That's not an option for everyone though. From nurses to movers to delivery people, the work goes on, despite this pandemic. Cecilia Sparrow is a self-employed personal support worker. She also works part-time at Shoppers Drug Mart, and we've reached her in Toronto. Cecilia. Good morning.

CECILIA SPARROW: Hi. Good morning.

MG: How are you doing?

CECILIA SPARROW: I'm all right. And you?

MG: I'm okay. All things considered. It's a strange time.

CECILIA SPARROW: It is.

MG: You have a couple of jobs that you're still working at. Tell me about the personal support worker job that you have and why you're continuing to do that.

CECILIA SPARROW: So I'm a self-employed PSW and I have two clients that I would say rely on me to go because they don't have another option. And I know one of my clients, for example, has been nervous because there's been a couple of other workers, staff that hasn't been able to show up because they're not feeling well or they're in self-quarantine. And so I would say I'm one of the few options that she has right now.

MG: What can you tell me about your clients? Who are they?

CECILIA SPARROW: So I have two clients right now. One of them I've been working for about 15 years with her. She's a quadriplegic. And so you know I help with sort of everyday things like helping getting dressed, eating and all those things. And I really enjoy working for her and I know that she's been really worried about all the looming COVID-19 things. And I also have another client. She's an artist and she also relies on her workers to come and help and once again, with all the daily living, things of daily living, like you know, getting dressed, up from bed, eating, feeding the cats.

MG: And you say that they don't have any other options, that if you weren't able to to help out, that they, what would happen to them?

CECILIA SPARROW: Well, like so my one client, her mom has been helping a lot more, but she's also older. And so she can't do a lot of the things and it's a lot, it's a strain on her. So if her mom wasn't able to also help, yeah, it'd be really hard. So I feel like I have to go and help and so it's really hard for people who don't have the option of like their family or people in the city also that I, yeah.

MG: And then you have the other job where you're working at Shoppers Drug Mart. What is that like right now?

CECILIA SPARROW: It's been I have to say, it's been crazy. I feel like I see people have a lot of, they're nervous. They're worried. And especially like we haven't been able to keep stock on hand. So things are, a lot of things are sold out. And so there's been a lot of people getting angry and upset and I know that some of it comes from just some being worried.

MG: Angry and upset at you?

CECILIA SPARROW: Yeah, sometimes it comes out as that.

MG: What's happened?

CECILIA SPARROW: For example, we are out of toilet paper, which is apparently the thing to stock up on for some reason and there's been a lot of people yelling that, you know, we're hoarding it in the basement or that we don't, you know, that we're just keeping it from them or things like that. And I think people are also getting angry that we had to put a limit on how much you could buy on certain products.

MG: Do you understand where that's coming from? As you say, people are stressed out, like these are, this is.

CECILIA SPARROW: Yeah, I know that. I'm not saying that, you know, like I'm sure people could be jerks, but overall, I feel people are just really nervous and scared and it comes out as that. And I'm trying not to you know take it personally and just understand that it's a worry.

MG: These are nervous and scary times. I mean, for you, could you take a break from working either one of those jobs? Is that an option?

CECILIA SPARROW: Well, I've had to, because I also have two kids who are seven and eleven years old. So I've been like today I actually ended up taking it off, so I could hang out with them and do stuff with them, and also it's hard like because we don't have our usual people that look after our kids either. And they're not in school, so I've been, yeah, I've been trying to take some time with them too. But also I feel like I've been extra busy now that all this has happened.

MG: How are you coping with all of that? I mean these are strange times and everybody is processing all of this differently, but with a couple of jobs and jobs that you have to be at, how are you processing that?

CECILIA SPARROW: I'm trying to keep calm. I feel like I've been, some of it I had to keep calm because of the kids and I'm trying to do, you know, I've been trying to do art and crafts with them and for myself too, which makes makes me calm. My mother's elderly, too. So I've been trying not to worry too much about her and like get you know, and I've been, I'm finding talking to my mom daily has helped. And I feel like I've been having talks with my kids and doing crafts and arts and that seems to help and obviously lots and lots of hand-washing.

MG: Take care of yourself and good luck.

CECILIA SPARROW: All right. Thank you, Matt.

MG: Cecilia Sparrow is a personal support worker and an employee at Shopper's Drug Mart. We reached her in Toronto. You know that health care workers are on the frontlines of this pandemic. There are other people as well who are in the hospitals besides the health care staff and the patients. Matthew Hoadley is an electrician working on the redevelopment of one of the hospitals in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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VOICE: We work close with a lot of the patients or around where the patients are, like people coming out of surgery, people in the waiting rooms waiting for x-rays. We are close to the assessment centre for the COVID-19. They put that in where the old gift shop used to be.

MG: And so that means he's working near people who may be infected.

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VOICE: We're trying to stay positive, obviously working in the hospital and with everything going on, obviously in the world and in Canada, you know, tensions get high. People have a lot of concerns and anxiety. So try and stay positive and take all the appropriate steps, but you know, there's still like that underlying anxiety, especially when you're there and you know, you see people coming in, they put the masks on, they wait in the office, they're there getting swabs. You see that right.

MG: Matthew Hoadley says he asked about how safe it was to actually continue to work at that hospital.

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VOICE: The Nova Scotia Health Authority, also you know the representives come in with like some of our safety officers and stuff. They did let us know like the hospital is one of the safer places to be. Whereas like they take all the precautions, whereas if we're out in the general public or out at different establishments, we're more likely to catch it there. When I heard them say that, me and a lot of the couple of the other guys, we all still have just, you know, have doubts and stuff. Cities are shutting down and like a lot of stuff even here, like in Halifax, businesses are shutting down. People are home and you know, sometimes, you know, just get worried.

MG: Matthew Hoadley is an electrician in Halifax. In the province of Ontario, a state of emergency has been declared. There are far fewer people out on the streets and that means that many businesses are closing. Food stores are still up and running. CJ Chiddy is the co-owner of The Sweet Potato, an independent grocery store in Toronto. CJ, good morning to you.

CJ CHIDDY: Good morning.

MG: What's it like in your store this week?

CJ CHIDDY: It's been exceptionally busy.

MG: Exceptionally busy?

CJ CHIDDY: Yes.

MG: If you could quantify that, I mean, how many more times busy is it than, you know, in a normal week in March?

CJ CHIDDY: It's definitely around between 70 to 80 percent busier in traffic and sales.

MG: Wow.

CJ CHIDDY: It's almost like it's Thanksgiving week every day.

MG: What was it like, the end of last week, that's when people seemed across the country to really feel as though they needed to stock up. And we heard the stories of people buying and irrationally buying huge amounts of things, you know, carts full of toilet paper and what have you. What was it like in the store at the end of last week?

CJ CHIDDY: It's when things really definitely started to ramp up. Like we ran out of shopping carts and shopping baskets. Like people were loading them up. The average transaction went way, way up over normal. So, yeah, it was super busy. Energy was good. Customers seemed happy that we had product at that time. You know, it's nice to be really busy sometimes when you're a retail worker, you can just keep going and like the day passes fast. But it was challenging to keep up with the demand.

MG: Why have you decided to stay open and keep working yourself? This must be a difficult decision, given the advice that we're hearing from many public health officials, which is stay home if you can.

CJ CHIDDY: Yeah, it it's definitely a challenging situation cause we care about our staff and their wellness as well. But we provide food for people, and that's important. And given that we provide local and often alternative diet food that feels important to be able to give people food that meets their dietary requirements.

MG: How has it changed how you do business in terms of in particular, taking care of your employees?

CJ CHIDDY: We've put in a bunch of new measures for them. So we've like increased cleaning in the back room areas and given them hand sanitizer to use. We increased paid sick days for them and they don't need to provide us a doctor's note. We've given job security to anybody that needs to or wants to go into self-isolation, they're able to. And this week, I've been negotiating with a couple of organizations to offer remote mental health supports for our team so they can access counselling remotely.

MG: How difficult is it to actually find people who will work right now?

CJ CHIDDY: Because our team is getting stressed and just as long days and the hard hours, it was actually I posted personally on my own social media asking friends to recommend people and we were inundated with hundreds of people who needed jobs.

MG: Really? What are you offering employees? Are there things, I mean, you mentioned the mental health support in particular. That's the kind of thing, I guess that a lot of employees would be looking for. Something to help them ease some of the stress in terms of being on the job in these difficult times.

CJ CHIDDY: Yeah. What we're hearing from our people is that they're stressed. A lot of them are a little bit worried about just having to be front line workers because it's an unprecedented situation. And our team is, you know, not trained as health care professionals would be on how to be front line workers in this situation. So they're feeling some anxiety, they're feeling some stress. They're tired. So we just wanted to give them the support so they can talk to somebody to air their concerns and help them work through it.

MG: One of the things that we've heard and this again, we were talking earlier just about the range in numbers, but public health officials are saying limit the number of people that you're around. This started out as being, you know, 500 people then 250 people then 50 people, in some jurisdictions, perhaps even lower than that. What does that mean in terms of a busy grocery store? Are you limiting the number of people who can come in or how does that work?

CJ CHIDDY: As of today, we started limiting customers in the store to 50 customers at a time. Our store is quite large. So, 50 dispersed through the stores gives everybody a lot of space. And we've set up sort of lines in our checkout lines to indicate how much space people should be giving the person ahead of them so that they don't crowd the checkout lines.

MG: We were hearing as well from Cecilia. She's working in a drugstore. And she was saying that customers, because they can't find what they want, and these are tense times, losing their patience. Snapping at her, for example. How is it dealing with customers? How are they doing?

CJ CHIDDY: Our customers have been great. We have a really great community. We haven't experienced a lot of that. Some of them are frustrated around things not being in there, but they've generally been able to find an alternative. And we started putting up signs, letting people know when things would be back in stock, so they would know when to return.

MG: So people have generally taken this in stride?

CJ CHIDDY: They've taken it in stride. And a lot of customers have expressed some concern about our team and how our team are doing it, as well as being very appreciative of them and they've been reaching out to be like, what can we do for your cashiers? They've been so great and that sort of thing.

MG: What would it take for you to consider closing your doors? Because it's not just for your employees, it's for you as well. You have to go out at a time when people are being told to stay home if they can. So is there something that would lead you to close the store?

CJ CHIDDY: I think that it's somebody on our team got COVID, it would be something to look at and we would take our advice from Toronto Public Health. I think that prior to closing their doors, we would probably get to a place where we were doing phone and online orders and having our staff pack them in house and meeting people outdoors doors in some capacity.

MG: So that might be the next phase of where you're going?

CJ CHIDDY: Yeah. We're prepping for the next phase. We're hoping we don't need to get there, but if we need to get there, we'll be ready for it.

MG: You have I mean, in selling food, this is, whether people officially call it or not, but this is an essential service. This is something that people need. Do you see yourself in that role?

CJ CHIDDY: You know, I had never really thought about it before this happened. So it's been interesting to me, like how did I end up in this business? I'm an essential service and I don't get to just stay home. But it makes a lot of sense, and especially in light of restaurants closing, it makes sense that people need food. They really, I get it and I support it and I want to be there to help.

MG: It's good to talk to you. Stay healthy and be well. CJ, thank you.

CJ CHIDDY: You, too. Thanks so much.

MG: CJ Chiddy is the co-owner of The Sweet Potato. It's an independent grocery store in Toronto. Across Canada there has been a push for employees to work remotely. Employers are figuring it out on the fly. In many cases, it's not something that's possible. Anita Gates is a bus driver in Edmonton.

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VOICE: I noticed two people wearing masks, but the rest of them doesn't seem to faze them. You know, there's still this, the chatty selves on this, the kids on the bus. And, you know, most people, they get on and they nod or smile cause I smile at them and they get on right to their phones or they close their eyes for the trip. And maybe somebody would cough or sneeze and you'd get a couple extra looks that I noticed. People are like hmm, is that something to be concerned about? But other than that, I think most people just ignored it so. This is our job and this is what we do every day and we come in contact with these people all the time. Just more of a sense of humour with it. And just wondering, like, when is this going to end or you know, if there's gonna be an end or how this is going to look in the future.

MG: Those are all the questions that everyone is asking. Anita Gates is a bus driver in Edmonton. Wayne Lewchuk is a professor emeritus at McMaster University's School of Labour Studies and the Department of Economics. Wayne, good morning to you.

WAYNE LEWCHUK: Good morning, Matt.

MG: It's interesting to hear Anita say this is our job. What do you think when you hear stories and people who are still working right now?

WAYNE LEWCHUK: Well, you know, Matt, this is a difficult time in Canada. As you've pointed out, it's very stressful. It's a particularly difficult time for workers. And I think what we're really seeing is some of the gaps right now that we have in terms of how we deal with workers and issues such as are we really doing everything we can to make sure they're safe? What happens if they do get sick? Is there some kind of coverage that can provide them with income? Did he really have to be working? And if they don't have to be working, well, is their job protection? I think all these things are looming in the minds of many workers these days, making this an even more stressful situation than for the average.

MG: How much pressure do you think people are feeling to keep working?

WAYNE LEWCHUK: Well, I think some of the pressure is self-imposed. If you don't have an alternative source of income, then you really don't have much choice other than to go out and work. But I think the other issue here is that if you decide not to work, then it's not clear you'll have a job when you come back. And so I think we have to really make somehow a distinction between services, which really are essential. I mean, we just can't have our society completely ground to a halt. I think Cecilia is a good example. She's, there are people who depend on her. You know, CJ for instance, needs to deliver food. But it seems that CJ is really trying to fill some of those gaps, as you know, made special efforts around sick pay and making sure that the workplace is as safe as it possibly can. That, you know, the employer has a responsibility to minimize, they may not be able eliminate the risk, but they certainly have responsibility to minimize. And, you know, I'm not sure that that's always happening.

MG: What sort of rights, if you're an employee, what sort of rights do you have? We heard from Matthew Hoadley, the electrician who's working in one of the hospitals in Halifax. And he has questions about, you know, safety and where he's working and what's around him. What sort of rights to somebody like him have to figure out whether he needs to be at work or not if there's that pressure there?

WAYNE LEWCHUK: Yeah, well, I mean, there's you know, there's certainly a protection that's under the Occupational Health and Safety Acts, that you know, you have the right to refuse dangerous work.

MG: You know, it's not clear and I have to, I don't personally know, but I don't know if there has been a case where an employee has refused work because of Cauvin and whether or not the Ministry of Labour has accepted that, because, again, you know, it's up to the Ministry of Labour to decide whether the the refusal is actually valid. You know I think the bigger issue here is, you know, the relationship between employers and employees and there's a bit of a power imbalance. And so if you refuse a request to work, in the protection you have of keeping your job afterwards, if the employer decides they don't want you anymore, is fairly limited.

MG: Well, and that's the thing we heard Anita talking about that. This is the question that everyone's asking is how long is this going to go on and what's going to be waiting for us at the other end of this? If you're an employee, what do you need to be worried about in terms of the long term game here?

WAYNE LEWCHUK: Well, I think you need to be worried about your own health, obviously. I think you need to be worried about how do you pay the basic bills and I think both of those fronts, there are gaps in Canadian society. You know, for a lot of people, if they're not working, they're not earning. If they're not earning, they can't pay the bills. And so I think what we need is a real fundamental change and in terms of how we deal with these things. I mean, there's been a lot of discussion about how we maybe need an emergency basic income program. Actually put money in everybody's pockets so that they don't have this fear that they have to go to work no matter what and risk their health just to put food on the table for themselves and their kids.

MG: In the United States that was proposed by Senator Mitt Romney. Everybody gets a thousand dollars. Is that realistic in these times?

WAYNE LEWCHUK: Oh I think it's absolutely realistic. You know, I think we have to understand that what we have is a very massive public health problem and that we all have an interest in everybody not working if they're sick. And so right now, if we have a system where there are all kinds of incentives to work, even if you are sick, that's not good for anybody. That's not good for the people who are working from home because eventually this virus will spread throughout the system and we're gonna be in this for a longer time than we have to be.

MG: Part of this is also about the changing nature of work. We talk about the gig economy and the rise of the gig economy, where people are working contract to contract and they're deemed not to be employees, but independent contractors. Often they're delivering food and they're the ones if people don't want to go to restaurants, for example, or they can't go to restaurants because they're closed in some provinces and you can't sit down, they're the ones who end up having to continue to work. Do they have any rights in this situation?

WAYNE LEWCHUK: Well, they're in a particularly vulnerable situation because they're very clearly there the weakest of all the workers. They don't tend to have unions. They often are not covered by many of the labour standards because they're deemed to be self-employed and so they're even more vulnerable than the average worker. And it certainly is a serious problem for those folks.

MG: The government has made access to employment insurance easier now. Does that ease the burden in a significant way?

WAYNE LEWCHUK: Well, I mean, the problem here is that an awful lot of Canadian workers are not eligible for unemployment insurance. And certainly if you're in the gig economy and you're self-employed, you're almost certainly not covered by the unemployment scheme unless you decide to self enroll and many people don't self enroll because if if they're self-employed, they have to pay both the employee premiums and the employer premiums. So it's quite expensive for the self-employed to become part of this. And so in general, they're not part of the unemployment scheme, so it's not going to help them.

MG: People are looking at the big picture economy and the long term effects of this. We've been talking about the effects on workers. What do you see in terms of the economy long term?

WAYNE LEWCHUK: Well, I think I'm hoping that this is a bit of a wakeup call that we need to to rethink some of the ways we deal with workers. I think, you know, in the long run, you know, I am an economist, but I don't have a crystal ball. One would think that we will recover, but I think this is going to do some permanent damage to our psyche in terms of our security, how we interact in the global economy, how we interact with each other. This is likely not the first time we're going to see this kind of a health crisis spread throughout our economy.

MG: And in the meantime, for people who feel like they have to go to work, but they aren't sure what they should do right now, what's your advice to those workers?

WAYNE LEWCHUK: I think be careful. I think talk to their employer. You know, make sure that everything is being done that has to be done to make the workplace as safe as possible.

MG: Wayne, thank you.

WAYNE LEWCHUK: My pleasure.

MG: Wayne Lewchuk is a professor emeritus at McMaster University at the School of Labour Studies and the Department of Economics. We'd love to hear from workers on this. Are you going to work? Do you feel like you have to continue to go to work? How are you navigating and negotiating that when we're being told by public health officials that you should stay home if you can? We've heard from a number of people, from bus drivers to personal support workers to people who work in grocery stores that they can't not go to work. Let us know. You can find us through the website cbc.ca/thecurrent, click on the Contact link or you can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. CBC News is next. Coming up in about 90 seconds, Canadians abroad being told to come home as soon as possible. The only problem with that is that many of those Canadians who are abroad can't find flights to get on to get back home. For those in Morocco, that country is closing the borders. What are those travellers meant to do? We'll hear from some of them. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current. Stay with us.

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“We’re in the dark” say Canadians stuck in Morocco

Guests: Dorothy Maraprossians, Kaitlin MacDonald

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We need your help. That is part of a message from Dorothy Maraprossians. The Mississauga woman is stuck in Morocco with her family, including two young daughters, and she wants to come home. Most flights in and out of that country have been suspended to limit the spread of COVID-19. Kaitlin MacDonald is from Moncton. She's also in Morocco and she also wants to come home. She was quoted $20,000 for a seat after her flight was cancelled. She's there in that country with friends celebrating her 30th birthday. They're both in Casablanca. Good morning to you both.

KAITLIN MACDONALD: Good morning, Matt.

DOROTHY MARAPROSSIANS: Good morning.

MG: Dorothy, where are you right now?

DOROTHY MARAPROSSIANS: I'm currently on the bus. We're just leaving a hotel in Casablanca. We were told that there is some Air France flight out leaving today and we have been able to secure a ticket for 10 days from now on Air France and anybody with a valid ticket has a chance to get on standby. So we are going to the airport hoping we'll probably be going to be there for 12 to 14 hours, hoping that we will get a standby ticket for the next one to three days.

MG: How are you feeling on the bus right now?

DOROTHY MARAPROSSIANS: Well, a bit excited because we're going somewhere, but not sure that it's going to get us anywhere.

MG: When was the last time that you were at the airport trying to get out of the country?

DOROTHY MARAPROSSIANS: Yesterday.

MG: And what was it like there yesterday?

DOROTHY MARAPROSSIANS: Pretty much everything was closed. The Air Canada counter was dark. There was no one there. We hold a valid ticket for Air Canada flight, which was now cancelled. There was no one there from Air Canada to talk to. We have a Royal Air Maroc ticket also to come home to. The Royal Air Maroc was closed as well. The only two airlines that were open that had anybody there was Egypt Air and Air France. Egypt Air had a few flights to Cairo. They were quoting extra exorbitant prices. It was like in the $20,000 range. The Air France counter had hundreds of people lined up at it and if you did not hold a valid Air France ticket, you had no chances.

MG: Kaitlin, where are you today?

KAITLIN MACDONALD: We are currently in our hotel in Casablanca. We have been in Casablanca for the last four days. My days are kind of getting all mixed up together because it's just been such a mental drain trying to find a way out of the country.

MG: I mentioned in the introduction you're quoted $20,000 for a seat to get out of the country?

KAITLIN MACDONALD: Yes. When I finally got through to the Flight Network on the evening of March 15th, they were offering a flight business class only through to London and it was 20 grand.

MG: Wow. And so what do you do now? I mean, what have the last few days been like for you? And you're there with friends as well?

KAITLIN MACDONALD: Yes. And I'm here with two friends, Erica and Gerardo. We're attached to our phones. We are trying to social distance ourselves. That's why we're not at the airport. So we are kind of bunkered down in our hotel room. Each of us are on our phones constantly looking for flights. One of us is trying to get through to the Flight Network. We get on hold for an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, then get disconnected without speaking to anyone. I also have travel agents in Canada, along with my mom and other family members trying to get flights for us as well. Currently, we have a flight booked for Sunday, leaving Casa Blanca, going through Frankfurt, then Montreal and then home. We have not received official communication from Air Canada yet, but others in the WhatsApp group that we have started have advised that their flight, which is going through Frankfurt, the same flight that we're on, has been cancelled. So that's really frustrating because we don't even have a confirmed cancellation, so we feel like we're in limbo in that respect.

MG: How are you holding up?

KAITLIN MACDONALD: It's getting harder day by day. We're really trying to stay positive and, you know, keep ourselves healthy because that is the main, that's the most important thing, because we know even if there's a sniffle, we might not be able to get on that plane. So we're really trying to stay positive, stay healthy, and just get home as soon as we can.

MG: What about you, Dorothy? How are you holding up? You're there with your daughters.

DOROTHY MARAPROSSIANS: Likewise. I mean we're on a Gate 1 tour so the tour guides are very, very helpful there, keeping us informed of any information that is available from the Moroccan government, from the embassies. Our tour officially ends tomorrow, but they promised to stay with us until everybody flies out. So overall, we're you know, we're in good spirits and in good health and relatively well taken care of, but we just don't know what's going to happen, you know, beyond the next couple of days. We'd really like to go home.

MG: Yeah, I would imagine. What are your daughters make of this? How old are they?

DOROTHY MARAPROSSIANS: My daughters are 15 and 10. And, you know, it's emotions. One day they want to go home, next day this is a big adventure. I mean, overall, everybody's feeling now we just want to go home. We love Morocco. We love the people. Now it's time to go home and move on.

MG: Kaitlin, you mentioned the WhatsApp group that you've put together. What are other people who are in a similar situation saying about their options? Has anybody been able to get home?

KAITLIN MACDONALD: Obviously, like people are sharing their flight paths and things like that. There's a lot of communication this morning about budget airlines releasing flights into Paris and to London. The thing is, once you get to those places, you need to show them that you have a confirmed flight back into Canada. So that's the issue right now for us, A, getting a flight into either Paris or London and then be getting that flight through to Montreal or any of the four open airports.

MG: Have you heard on that group of anybody who's managed to get out? Has anybody actually secured these tickets? I mean, this kind of you know, it sounds like, you know, you need to get here, you need to get there. It's a bit of a chain in some ways. Has anybody been able to piece those pieces of the chain together?

KAITLIN MACDONALD: I's quite difficult, honestly, to keep track. From what I've heard, just looking through it this morning, people have arrived in France and they do have flights within the next couple of days into Canada.

MG: As this drags on Kaitlin, what are you most concerned about?

KAITLIN MACDONALD: Obviously, our health and you know, the longer it drags on, the more unlikely it seems that we're going to get out. And as much as we love Morocco, I really don't want to be here for the next 30 days or onward. We're fortunate enough, like Dorothy, we have a tour guide with us who has committed to staying with us until we're able to get out of the country. And they're doing our driving and translating for us, which is very helpful, but we really, we just want to get home. Erica has a 6 year old child and we all have family that are extremely worried about us and we need to get home.

MG: What do you want from the federal government?

KAITLIN MACDONALD: My plea is that they work with the Moroccan government to open airspace after the 18th. We've been told that as of tomorrow, all international flights will be cancelled outside of Morocco. We have heard that France has negotiated, as well as Turkey and a few other countries negotiated it with the Moroccan government to get more flights in to take their citizens out. What we're seeing in the news, it is that that is not an option right now with the Canadian government. We're not sure why, but it's obviously very frustrating. Anytime we we talk to officials, whether it be through the Ottawa hotline or through the embassy, via email, we're all told the same generic message of get your own flight home, essentially.

MG: We contacted Global Affairs Canada about what's going on in Morocco. This is part of what they said. "Global Affairs Canada is fully aware of the very difficult situation many Canadians abroad are currently facing as a result of COVID-19. I can assure you that we're doing everything to provide assistance under these unprecedented circumstances. We're actively doing all we can to assist Canadians currently in that country and in order to better assist Canadian seeking emergency assistance. The Embassy of Canada to Morocco is suspending non-emergency services until the 31st of March 2020. Dorothy, what do you want from the federal government?

DOROTHY MARAPROSSIANS: We're really hoping that the Canadian government will step in and provide some assistance. I read this morning that there is a, was a negotiation with Air Canada, but it fell through because Air Canada did not meet the Moroccan government's requirements of not allowing the crew of the plane.

MG: You mentioned you're on your way to the airport and you probably are gonna be waiting a long time there. What happens, Dorothy, if you can't get on that flight? If you have these standby tickets, but there isn't a seat available?

DOROTHY MARAPROSSIANS: We come back to the hotel and we do this again tomorrow.

MG: I wish you the best of luck. I hope that you manage to get on this plane and get out of there. Dorothy, good luck. Thank you.

DOROTHY MARAPROSSIANS: Thank you very much.

MG: Kaitlin, good luck to you as well.

KAITLIN MACDONALD: Thank you very much Matt.

MG: You went there to celebrate your 30th birthday.

KAITLIN MACDONALD: Yes I did.

MG: Not the kind of birthday that you were hoping for.

KAITLIN MACDONALD: No, unfortunately not. I mean we did have the few days that we were able to kind of enjoy ourselves in Paris prior to arriving in Morocco and we did do a little bit of sightseeing in Morocco before things escalated the way they did, but now the focus is just to get home.

MG: I hope you're back here home soon enough. Thanks again. Good luck.

KAITLIN MACDONALD: Thank you very much, Matt. Have a great day.

MG: Dorothy Maraprossians and Kaitlin MacDonald, two Canadian tourists who are stuck in Morocco.

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No 'us-versus-them mentality': Creator of Pandemic says board game has lessons for how to approach COVID-19

Guests: Matt Leacock

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. Still to come. Have you ever played the board game Pandemic? A lot of board games out right now, obviously, on people's tables. This is a time when people are stuck indoors to play those board games. Pandemic has been around for more than a decade, but as you might guess, there is some renewed interest in this game now. I'll speak with the game's creator from his home in California, where he is living under an order to shelter in place. That's coming up on the program. Wanted to let you know about a special edition of The Current that's coming tomorrow. We are opening our phone lines to you for a call-in show. And we're asking, how are you coping with this coronavirus pandemic? What impact is it having on your life, on your family, on your work? What are you doing to stay healthy physically and mentally? How is that social distancing working? Are your kids going stir crazy? I have a couple of young kids in the house and it's not easy, to say the very least. In the midst of this crisis, we'd also love to know what's giving you a little bit of hope? Spring is popping up in parts across this country. Maybe there are some acts of kindness in your community, people helping each other out. We'd love to hear about those as well. A bit of joy in the midst of what we're all going through. I'll be joined by public health officials, frontline experts, people who are working right on the frontlines of this who can answer your questions. One of the great things about radio, the miracle of radio in many ways is that it is a tool to connect people. And so this, in the midst of all of our social distancing, will be an opportunity to have kind of a national conversation and connect with others from your own home. Hopefully you'll be part of that national discussion. That's tomorrow. You can join us. I hope to talk to you then on our special phone-in show. Speaking of coping with the pandemic, you know, the Canadian singer songwriter Steven Page? He was a former member of the Barenaked Ladies, posted a really interesting video on Instagram yesterday. For the last little while, he has been working on a musical for the Stratford Festival. The show is called Here's What It Takes. Right now, the cast should be in rehearsals getting set for the premiere. Instead, they are in a holding pattern, waiting, as many of us are, for the coronavirus to at some point in time peter out. Steven Page says he started writing music for this musical nearly seven years ago. Rather than dwell on the disappointment of being in that holding pattern, he's decided to make even more art. And so here's Steven Page with some music from self-isolation.

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[Song by Steven Page]

MG: Steven Page, isolation. A song about your filthy phone and all the other things that people are now coming to terms with in the middle of this coronavirus pandemic. If you're stuck at home this week, you're likely looking for ways to fill the time. Maybe you have turned to some of your favourite board games. There is one in particular that might have caught your eye. It's called Pandemic. It was first released in 2008, but it's getting, as you can imagine, renewed attention these days. Matt Leacock is the creator of Pandemic. Matt, good morning.

MATT LEACOCK: Good morning.

MG: Is it a bit too on the nose to be playing a game called Pandemic right now?

MATT LEACOCK: It is a bit, isn't it?

MG: This game I mentioned was first released in 2008. What was the inspiration for it? Where did it come from?

MATT LEACOCK: Two things, really. I was really looking to design a game that I could play with my wife and we had played negotiation games in the past and they did not go real well, but we found that cooperative games when we played those, we always got along great and felt good whether we won or lost. And when I set out to design the game, pandemics were very much of the news back then as well. SARS had just hit and so viruses seem like a really good antagonist for such a game.

MG: And so how does the game work for people who haven't played it before?

MATT LEACOCK: Yeah, it's a cooperative game. So unlike a lot of other games where you're you're working against each other, in Pandemic, all the players work together to try to defeat the game, essentially. You're working against the disease. So you all take turns. You do different actions on your turn to move around the world. You're all playing scientists and researchers and dispatchers, basically a team and you travel the world and try to take care of local emergencies. Lots of different people need treatment. So you treat disease. And all the while your goal is to come up with four cures to the diseases that are ravaging humanity.

MG: And you have to work together if you want to win?

MATT LEACOCK: That's right, yeah. Everybody has their own unique skill and it takes everybody kind of working together and taking advantage of each player's strength in order to to win.

MG: It's very different than most board games where you really take advantage of each other's weaknesses to try and beat that person. If someone is playing this game for the first time, what are some of the mistakes that they might make?

MATT LEACOCK: Well, one of the things you really need to focus when you're playing the game is sort of balancing, trying to deal with all the crises that you see around you. There's infected pocket of infected populations around the world and your kneejerk response is to run around like crazy, trying to take care of every small emergency, but if you do that, you're going to lose. What you need to do is kind of balance the short term emergencies against a long term threat. So you need to be thinking about, well, how are we going to co-operate? How are we going to co-ordinate and manage our resources so we can find the cures. So it takes a good mix of short term thinking and long term thinking and a lot of communication. If you're playing the game and only thinking about what you yourself are going to do on any given turn, you're going to fail. You need to be talking and coordinating with all the other people.

MG: As you mentioned, you created this as SARS was around us. What was the reaction that you've received from doctors, from epidemiologists and people who know this stuff about this game?

MATT LEACOCK: I think a lot of them are just excited that there's a game that is about stuff that they do. It's not about, oh, I don't know, Italian princes trading spices, right? It's something about them that they're in and it's enjoyable. So I think it's fun for people in the medical community and so on to have something that feels like their game.

MG: And now here we are in the midst of this. Are there lessons that you think we could learn from this game about the real life situation that we find ourselves in?

MATT LEACOCK: I think so. I mean, the game is really all about worldwide cooperation and working together. It's not, it doesn't have an us versus them mentality. I think when you look at a lot of what's talked about the political situation around the world, people are throwing a lot of blame, when really what we need to be doing is coming together and figuring out how we can work on this big problem together.

MG: Have you seen a huge spike in the number of people who want to get their hands on this game now?

MATT LEACOCK: I've noticed it is selling out in some stores. I think it's a great way to pass the time when you're shut in with your family. You know unlike really heavy competitive games, you tend to get along with people when you're playing this one and it's ivery topical. So it's not surprising that it's trending.

MG: Speaking of being shut in with your family. You're in San Jose or near San Jose in California, right now. What is life like there?

MATT LEACOCK: It's markedly different than it was a week ago. We've all been ordered to shelter in place, so you know we're all kind of adapting. Schools are shut down and we're all getting to know our telecommuting tools. Kids are doing a lot of video chat and basically trying to figure out how to stay connected with each other without actually physically being near each other.

MG: The shelter in place. What does that mean? Are you allowed to go outside?

MATT LEACOCK: We can go outside to like walk the dog, exercise and so on, but we're being told to be six feet away from anybody else. And basically any kind of social visits are are you know, heavily discouraged or, you know, basically stay away from other people. That's the current order. Stay in your homes, basically.

MG: How are you coping with this? This is all something that we're learning about kind of on the fly and we're trying to figure this out as it's unfolding. How is it for you?

MATT LEACOCK: Honestly, I got to say, for me, it feels relatively easy, I can see a lot of people would have a much harder time. I work from home, so I've got it fairly easy. I collaborate with people around the world, you know, through video already, but I think about all those folks whose day to day lives there are totally thrown up in the air and I just can't even imagine what it's like for them. So, yeah, I mean and I'm saying this here on what date and two or three, ask me in a couple weeks, it's going to be another story.

MG: Just finally, we talked of a Pandemic. What is the guy who creates board games, what's your favourite board game? What are you playing while you're sheltering at home these days?

MATT LEACOCK: Oh, last night I played Yellow & Yangtze with some friends on the iPad. We did some video conferencing and we were able to play a game on our phones. It's important to be able to actually see each other and talk though. So, yeah, that's what I enjoy quite a bit.

MG: Maybe we'll see a resurgence, not that they ever went away, but there could be a real spike in interest in board games while people are trying to figure out how to pass this time. Matt, thank you. It's good to talk to you.

MATT LEACOCK: Thank you. Take care.

MG: Matt Leacock is the creator of the board game, Pandemic. That is our program for today. Coming up on CBC Radio One, it's Q. Columnist Elamin Abdelmahmoud will be on talking about how this pandemic is inspiring artists to broadcast their work online. We heard Steven Page earlier performing on Instagram. You have folks like John Legend and Jann Arden who are live streaming their concerts. Not just music as well. Comedians are also performing sets online. Here is Stephen Colbert doing a late show monologue from his bathtub.

SOUNDCLIP

[Clip of Stephen Colbert doing a monologue]

MG: Stephen Colbert's monologue from his bathtub. Of all of the livestreams, perhaps the most surprising might be from Neil Young. Neil Young is a notorious audio purist, hates mp3, hates most digital streaming as well. Put those feelings aside though, to play an online rally for Bernie Sanders.

SOUNDCLIP

[Clip of Neil Young's live stream]

MG: And we wanted to play the performance from his livestream, but we actually didn't think the audio was clear enough. So here instead is the album version. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Take care of yourself.

[Song: "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young]

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Mar. 18, 2020 episode transcript

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