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The AIH Transcript for March 23, 2020

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: Defenseless. The medical director of Critical Care at a Toronto hospital is asking the public for donations of protective equipment to keep frontline workers safe as they can save lives.

CH: Near death experience. After months of isolation, a man in Wuhan China says there's finally a light at the end of the tunnel. And he has advice for those who haven't seen the worst of the coronavirus yet.

CO: Haul in. As businesses and movements slow down across the continent, long-distance truckers need to keep essential goods moving. Our guest says the light traffic is great, but the job is getting harder.

CH: Before fist bumping, there was fist pumping. And there's perhaps no one better at it than a guy named Ray Slater. There was nothing at all in his hand when he began, but he ended up holding a world record 17 hours later. An encore presentation.

CO: All cheers, no jeers. Around the world, people are saluting healthcare workers at a prescribed time each evening with raucous shouts and warbling woops from their homes. Who says there are no more house calls?

CH: And when pigs fly. A P.E.I farmer is now accepting cash-stuffed toilet paper rolls and he's literally throwing bacon and sausages at his customers through their car windows in vacuum sealed packages of course. As It Happens. The Monday Edition. Radio thinks everything is going to be just swine.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Hospital shortages

Hospital shortages

Guest: Michael Warner

CH: One of the doctors on the frontline of Canada's COVID-19 fight is warning that shortages of key equipment are putting the people we're most going to rely on at risk. Michael Warner is the medical director of Critical Care at Toronto's Michael Garron Hospital. The hospital has resorted to asking for public donations of protective equipment for its emergency room teams. We reached Dr. Michael Warner in Toronto.

CO: Dr. Warner, what kinds of things are you worried most about running out of at this point?

MICHAEL WARNER: So, Carol, personal protective equipment works as a system. So we need gowns, gloves, masks and eye protection. But if we're missing any one of those elements, the entire collection of personal protective equipment is ineffective. So if I'm short on gloves and I'm long and everything else, it actually doesn't matter. So we need to have adequate supplies of everything.

CO: And how close are you to not having those adequate supplies?

MW: So my hospital, we have an inventory and we have what I call a "burn rate" so that's how quickly we're going through things based on the last four weeks of use. So in the kind of pandemic period where we have an assessment centre going, we're seeing some patients who have COVID-19 but were necessarily not in the midst of the pandemic. And there's some items that are estimated to run out in approximately three weeks. So that's highly concerning because we don't know when the deluge of patients is coming. I mean, hopefully it isn't. But we have to prepare for the fact that it very well might.

CO: And so these past four weeks may not be typical. This may be much less than what you're going to need.

MW: To be honest, Carol, I mean, we could start burning through this, you know, at a rate that's an order of magnitude faster than what we have so far, which is why I'm so encouraged by the fact that the government has announced, you know, production of this equipment. But we do need some way to bridge the gap between now and then because there's production and there's also the logistics of getting into the people who need it.

CO: Okay. So what call are you putting out to people who might have new and unused protection equipment that might be useful to you?

MW: Yeah. So as we knew, it can't be expired. And, you know, this personal protective equipment exists in the community: dentists, veterinarians, other health care practitioners, the construction industry, drywallers, woodworkers, I got a call from a stonemason today who wants to help, pest control, et cetera. Even people who have gloves -- tattoo parlors, nail salons. So my friend and I created a website called "theppedrive.com" -- and my hospital right now is collecting these items from the members of the public, decontaminating them, organizing them, and then once we have everything we'll distribute to whichever hospitals need it the most. And the website was built such that other hospitals with their local community can add onto our website and put a map, put a list of things they need and hopefully have this done coast-to-coast. People really want to help. And I think we need to find a way for them to help. And in addition to donating PPE, the website is set up so if people have ideas, innovations, they can submit that and we will get back to them.

CO: All right. We're hearing about also shortages of swabs to do the COVID-19 testing in hospitals and clinics. What are you seeing where you are?

MW: So, you know, I've been in media lately talking a lot about social or physical distancing, which is really important, but that's a rather blunt instrument. To really go on offensive, COVID-19 and we need to know who has it. And then we need to separate those people from society for a period of time or bring them to the hospital if they're sick. So testing, testing, testing. W.H.O. is saying it's absolutely fundamental to getting ahead of this. If we don't test, we're going to be chasing COVID-19 the whole time. So I believe the government is working hard on trying to get swabs produced and distributed. And I would encourage that as being essentially as important as producing PPE. Although without PPE we can't even treat people. So, you know, from where I sit on the front lines, that's the most important thing to me. But the testing materials are very important as well.

CO: And PPE is a personal protection equipment.

MW: Yes. Personal protective equipment.

CO: Okay. But where's the bottleneck? If we know people, everyone who knows someone who's been tested and is waiting for results sometimes for days or a week, where's it being stopped? What's slowing it down?

MW: So testing. The first thing is we need to figure out who should be tested and who should just self-isolate at home. So I believe there are apps or online assessment tools where the walking well can input their symptoms and figure out whether they actually need to be tested. Because, you know, if you have coronavirus and you're not sick, the treatment is the same. You stay away from people for 14 days. So if there's some way for people to determine that without lining up in an assessment centre, which, you know, consumes tests but also consumes PPE, because the people who are testing people in the assessment centres have to wear PPE, I think that would be an important first step to reduce the burn rate on the test kits. I think private labs may be engaged by the government to start doing this more often like they have in the United States. And I think that if, you know, the industry knows what people need, there are lots of innovative people in Canada we need to gage everybody to create anything and we need to get testing done and test results back to Canadians quickly.

CO: Once again, I know this is not your area of expertise, but there is much talk about new strategies possibly for rapid COVID testing, some that may have been already approved by the FDA -- it's a matter of trying to get it into the hands of the hospitals and the frontline workers. What message would you give to our governments about if there are new strategies, if there is a way to do this more rapidly of getting that accessible now?

MW: So it is extremely urgent. There's other than PPE, it's the most urgent -- no expense should be spared. The South Korean experience has taught us that they focused on testing. They had drive-through testing. So a focus on testing and the challenges, you know, our geography is vast and people live in many different places and it's not very dense. So testing people, especially up north or in First Nations communities is very important as well. So this is a logistical challenge, but I think the government should call on industry and businesses to help.

CO: Just finally, you have seen what's happened in China. We have spoken with people in China. We've spoken with doctors in Italy. And we all know what happened there or how overwhelmed they were. What is your greatest fear at this point of what's to come?

MW: So Italy is my greatest fear. Italy is not over yet. And Spain is just beginning. The greatest fear is having a supply demand mismatch between what people need and what we can provide. So let's say I have enough PPE, but there aren't enough doctors or enough beds, there aren't ventilators -- and people still keep coming and I can't save them. My colleagues can't save them. I think that's my biggest fear. And also, we have to understand that other health care problems continue to occur. There are overdoses, heart attack, stroke. The collateral damage of COVID-19 is that people who have other illnesses may not have access to care that they have today. And we can't forget about that either, because those problems don't stop. So that is my biggest fear. And I think everybody in Canada is fearful in general because there's no way to escape COVID-19. When I leave work, it still is a global problem. For all health care workers, this is something that lives with us and our families when we go home as well.

CO: Well, my greatest fear is wearing out our frontline workers like yourself. So I will let you go. Dr. Warner, thank you so much.

MW: My pleasure. Thank you, Carol.

CH: Michael Warner is the medical director of Critical Care at Toronto's Michael Garron Hospital. That's where we reached him today.

[Music]

Trucker problems

Guest: Dave Redl

CH: The US-Canada border is closed to nonessential traffic, but that doesn't include long distance truckers. While most people are being asked to stay away from work, drivers remain on the roads helping deliver essential supplies. But since the coronavirus outbreak, it's not exactly business as usual for them. Dave Redl has been a long distance trucker for 10 years. He's from Ste. Anne, Manitoba, and we reached him on the road.

CO: Dave, where exactly are you right now?

DAVE REDL: I'm just south of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

CO: And how is traffic?

DR: There is next to nothing. You see the odd car here and there. The only thing you're going to see out here now is semi trucks.

CO: Wow. So is that an upside to what's going on here and North America?

DR: Oh, yes, it's great for going around major cities and having not to deal with rush hour traffic anymore.

CO: What's it like crossing the border?

DR: It's the same as normal. You just get a few extra questions. I'm a little shocked at that, to be honest.

CO: Give us a sense of what you're encountering when you cross the border.

DR: Well, last time I crossed the border, probably about three or four days ago. And you get your standard questions, "Where have you been? What do you have to declare?" And all they ask is -- the officer was asking me -- if I had any flu like symptoms, sore throat, stuff like that. And the way you went. I was a little shocked at that. I was kind of expecting a little bit more there --crossing the border, to be honest.

CO: What's it like going in the other direction crossing into the United States?

DR: So I was already in the States when everything started taking off, so I haven't crossed yet since the border was shut down.

CO: And are you hearing anything from other truckers about what it's like to go back into the US?

DR: It's basically business as usual. They're just not letting cars across, to my knowledge.

CO: Okay. So I guess that's the convenience -- the convenient part is that you're crossing easily. But there are lots of things that you have to deal with that you didn't before. I mean, what's it like as far as just trying to get what you need on the road?

DR: It's become a nightmare. And it became a nightmare very very fast without warning. We're finding places that we normally park -- for example, Pennsylvania shut down 13 rest areas. On a perfect day, it's hard to find parking in Pennsylvania any day, so now that you remove those, you can't find parking there. I've heard stories in Alberta that they've shut down the washrooms and rest areas. Finding places to park, places to eat, truck stops are shut. They closed down all their diners. So now it's impossible to find food. Places where you normally go to restaurants you can't go. It's a drive-thru only. And a lot of places where you walk to the drive-thru, they tell you you need to be in a vehicle. I've noticed you just recently, restaurants are allowing truckers to walk up. But last week it wasn't so nice. I was living off of chips and chocolate bars for two days.

CO: Well, that's not healthy.

DR: Not at all.

CO: Okay. That's a lot to be shut down. If you can't park someplace for a sleeping area, where do you actually go to spend the night?

DR: That's the problem. You almost have to break the law. You got to go park in a residential area. Park on a street. Park on the side of the highway with your four-ways is really unsafe for us to do that. But when you've been working 13 hours in the day, you're tired, you need to find a place to park.

CO: Especially if you're living on chips and chocolate bars.

DR: Oh, yes.

CO: So, I mean, is there anything being done? Because basically, I mean, trucks are carrying -- you're the bridge between us and food and medicine supplies, all the things that we're going to need...continue to need. So is there anything being put into place as far as you know, to make it easier for the truckers to come and go?

DR: Not that I know of. I know some restaurants are allowing or they're accommodating us. But as for the government stepping in, I've heard nothing yet.

CO: And have your associations made it known to the government that if they want to keep getting supplies that are essential back and forth across the border, then the truckers need to be able to have some infrastructure.

DR: Everyone has voiced their opinion. [Chuckles] It's very loud in this industry right now about all the stuff that's going on.

CO: What are the biggest loads that you carry? What are the things that are essentially needed on both sides of the border?

DR: Me -- I will haul anything from farm equipment to pipes to put into the ground to hospital equipment, so all the way from lasers to air purifiers. Anything that fits on the back of a flat deck trailer, it gets all.

CO: What seems to be the priority right now?

DR: Agriculture.

CO: Like animals. Livestock, that sort of thing.

DR: More for farming. Farming equipment: combine, seeders, planter's -- stuff to make sure that the farms are able to plant this season.

CO: Spring is upon us. Whether COVID-19 virus or not we have to start planting, right?

DR: If those farmers don't get their equipment, we're all going to starve.

CO: So as far as crossing the border, when will you go back into the US?

DR: I am thinking later on this week.

CO: And you're expecting any problems?

DR: No, I expect it just to be business as usual. A few extra questions and that should be about it.

CO: And what about as far as encountering other motorists on the highways? I mean, when you go to the rest stops, try to get some food -- anything that other travellers can do to help you?

DR: If you see a trucker walking up to a, let's say a restaurant or a fast food joint and, you know, they're closed, you're sitting in the parking lot. You're eating your lunch or whatever. And you see one of us walking up and grab the door, and the door is locked, and see us walking back to the truck -- maybe just offer to go through the drive-thru for us. We're not asking you to pay for our stuff. We were going to pay for it anyways. We just need a means to try and get our food.

CO: All right, Dave. The word's out then, and I hope you got places to stay as well. And thanks for speaking with us.

DR: You're welcome.

CH: Dave Redl is one of many long distance truck drivers still on the road during the pandemic. We reached him just south of Saskatoon. And just after the interview, Mr. Redl added that service stations are beginning to shut down showers now, which he described as, quote, "make or break for us."

[Music]

Sound of the Day: Martha Wainwright

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[Crowd cheering]

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CH: That's what it sounds like every night at 7:00 p.m. in some Vancouver neighbourhoods. Residents are showing their appreciation for healthcare workers on the frontlines of the battle against COVID-19. It's a new ritual in many cities around the world these days. And so as we've heard, are balcony concerts by amateurs and professionals alike. Last night, a professional, Martha Wainwright, belted out Leonard Cohen's "So Long Marianne" to a well dispersed crowd. She'd invited Montrealers to come to her window for a balcony based singalong. And here's that performance. Our Sound of the Day.

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[Guitar being played]

[Martha Wainwright singing "So Long Marianne"]

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CH: Martha Wainwright performing Leonard Cohen's "So Long Marianne" from a balcony in Montreal last night. And rest assured, the harmonies you're hearing are performed live, but from a generous distance.

[Music]

From our archives: fist-pumper

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VOICE: That interview, it's joined the pantheon of my favourite As It Happens interviews. It is the smoking hot fist pumping guy. Man, it was so great. Keep up the smoking hot work.

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CH: From May of 2012, as listener Wendy Reynolds from Kingston, Ontario, who was powerfully moved by an interview that we'd run the day before. An interview with a man who had bravely glued his fingers together to inspire a generation. During the pandemic, we're paying daily visits to the As It Happens archives, finding stories from when things were normal. And tonight, we have Carol's conversation with Ray Slater. In 2012, he was a radio producer on the syndicated American Country Music Program, The Bobby Bones Show. And as he called himself a body builder by trade. Mr. Slater had just broken a world record. He had pumped his fist for 17 hours and 15 minutes with no shirt on, obviously. Now, here's quite possibly the greatest story of human triumph we've ever aired. Carol's interview with Ray Slater. First broadcast on May 17th, 2012.

CO: Ray, what's your secret for prolonged fist pumping?

RAY SLATER: Oh, my goodness gracious: be confident in yourself, have a great body, and you, too, can become a fist pumping world champion.

CO: Do you think that's what you've done to have broken the record?

RS: The record has been not only broken, I shattered it! James Peterson of Ohio literally had the record for two days. My boss, Bobby Bones, says, "Hey, dude, do you think you can break it? Let's do it." Well, the news then spread all over America by Monday. So we went into emergency panic mode. And he said, "Dude, I know you haven't slept because you've been doing your radio shows, but you need to do this tonight." So not only did I break his record, I went 17 hours fist pumping -- I went 35 hours without sleeping!

CO: What did you have to do in order to keep pumping your fist in the air for more than 17 hours?

RS: Well, I'm a body builder by trade. Every day I do radio. And after my show, boom, I'm in the gym. I'm doing shoulders. I'm doing laps. So being sore and moving your muscles for extended periods of time is something I'm used to. But this was just whacked out and it was all in my mind. And you could almost say it was in my heart too. But I knew I could do it.

CO: Come on. There's a few things you had to do in order to make it. You couldn't hold your fist that long. What did you do to make that happen?

RS: Right. What I did is followed suit with him. He had put in an article -- I superglued my hand. Great idea. We're actually going to use that idea and then go ahead and just beat your record. But I superglued my fingers all together. And within five minutes of pumping my fist, they were completely numb.

CO: So why did you have to go your fingers together?

RS: Just because I figured it would be natural for your hand to want to open up after extended periods of time. So we went with it and it was the smartest decision ever. Even though my hand literally felt like a rock and not even something that was attached to my body anymore, it was the smartest decision because then all I had to do was throw my hand in the air and not necessarily concentrate on keeping it closed fist

CO: [Chuckles] Which hand were you doing this with your left to your right?

RS: I decided to go with my right hand. That's my strongest hand. And I knew with my left hand that eventually it was going to get worn out. Go with what hand has been your strongest your entire life and just totally go with your guns. Bam! We played sports with that hand. You write love letters with that hand. Now you need to fist pump for 17 hours with that hand.

CO: Why did you have to fist pump for 17 hours? Why did you do this?

RS: It was presented to me as a challenge. "Hey, this will be fun. You can do it." But within the first hour, it got real serious. And it was "If I don't do this, I'm letting news crews down." They had been notified on the Internet throughout the wee hours of the morning. I had hundreds of people Justin.tv talking about me, commenting, cheer me along, asking me to divulge secrets. And then as I broke the record, the moment that I did, I had over three thousand people on Justin.tv -- they are celebrating with me, chatting. Maybe they're a little weird for being on an Internet program, commenting on a random guy. But I told them, "I love you guys. Thank you for the support."

CO: Well, what do you think that you have achieved here?

RS: Well, I will be making it in the Guinness Book of World Records. I thought, oh, this is just something fun, pretty stupid, fist pumping. But I have a sit down interview with the most respected TV personality in the city tomorrow. And now in my local city, I am literally a household name, and I can only imagine that that's going to then go statewide and then go all over the country.

CO: Well, you are talking to another country right now.

RS: Exactly. They tell me, hey, you just landed an interview with Canada and that immediately tells me this is it. If New York doesn't pick up on this, and I'm not on one of those network television shows doing a morning interview, then I'm really going to be shocked.

CO: Do you have some music that you are pumping to?

RS: We would question hour people were really intrigued by me. I do have an eight pack and I did have my shirt off, so I was answering questions [CO Laughs].

CO: You have an eight pack.

RS: Absolutely. And then they would also request songs. And so I had interns there. And let me tell you, the city that I'm in these interns in the radio industry are smoking hot. So I had them for motivation. And then, yeah, we would play music and it was a dance party and it was just something that was so so fun. But I had to keep focused on the fist pumping.

CO: So what was the tune that helped you pump the best?

RS: I would say Top 40. If you go on Billboard.com, any of those Top 40 songs we listened to, whether it was Justin Bieber -- I don't know if you guys have heard of him [Laughter] we were listening to all the hits right now that are getting played in the clubs.

CO: Have your fingers unglued yet?

RS: Yup. The minute that I broke the record, all those viewers online, I wanted them to be as much a part of the experience as possible. So I showed them I said. You guys thought I was lying, that I didn't superglue them. Look! And I tried to open my hand and my hand was just crippled. And they could see the super glue on my hand. And when I put my arm down for the first time after 17 hours, I literally had no control over my arm. And as you can see in the video, all you need to do is type in fist pumping Bobby Bones Show, my arm just starts to go crippled. It was the most craziest sensation I've ever had when I put my hand down for the first time in almost a day.

CO: Will you ever write love letters again?

RS: Oh, my gosh. You have no idea how many girls I have been getting contacted by because of this. I'm probably going to be writing a lot of love letters and there's going to be more loves in my life.

CO: You know, Ray, there are people listening to this who have no idea what we're talking about.

RS: Well, they're gonna. Because I was trending in the world when I broke the record. So if they don't know what is going on, then they don't wake up in the morning before 10:00 a.m. and they don't turn on a TV and they haven't paid their cable bill.

CO: Okay. [Laughs] We'll be watching for you Ray.

RS: Thank you very much. You guys are awesome. I love being in Canada. Don't you know?

CO: Okay. [Laughs] Okay. Thank you I guess.

RS: I love you all.

CO: [Laughs] Okay. Bye.

RS: Bye.

CH: From our archives, Carol's conversation with Ray Slater, who had just broken the world record for fist pumping in May of 2012.

[Music]

CO: Ranald, how good is your aim when you throw?

RANALD MACFARLANE: My aim is getting better.

CO: [Chuckles] Have you had any six pound hams go through anybody's window so far?

RM: No, no. They're remarkably easy to throw actually. Usually people don't trust me to throw them through a truck window or something, especially when the vehicle is new. But anyway, there's hams, there's packages of stuff. It's all prepackaged and frozen. I can only sell stuff that's been packaged at an approved facility. But when you start throwing roast and pork chops and stuff like that through a car window, your aim gets better and better.

CO: [Laughs] Have you had any misses?

RM: Not really. Some people just don't trust me. They get out of the car and we have a chit chat from over 14 feet. And I just throw this stuff and they catch it.

CO: I understand you're also selling eggs. So are these hard boiled?

RM: Oh, no, no. We sell a very few farm eggs. And usually I don't throw those [laughs]. They are in cartons, but people don't trust. I usually just put them in somebody's trunk. Anybody can just pop a trunk and I can put stuff in your trunk, too. Right. It's not hard to keep social distancing in a drive-thru like mine.

CO: And so this is literally at the farm gate.

RM: Well, it's literally backdoor sales. We have a lovely back porch that we put on the house and there's an upright freezer there and the product is there and the people phone ahead. Especially what I'll do is I'll just have a box of frozen product sitting on top of that freezer.

CO: I understand you've also found an ingenious use for toilet paper rolls.

RM: Oh, yeah. Sometimes if people take cash, they just stuff the cash in the roll of toilet paper and chuck me the toilet paper. That works for me.

CO: Because that toilet paper might be worth [chuckles] just maybe currency for you at this point. These are just empty rolls, right?

RM: We just have a normal amount of toilet paper in the house. But stock markets tell me it never hurts to stock up, right?

CO: [Laughs] Right now, yes, you could be really -- they could be paying you in toilet paper.

RM: Yeah. I don't think P.E.I really went through the toilet paper panic like they did in some of the people on the YouTube or the Internet. But I don't think we have nearly the toilet paper panic. People are definitely a little concerned out here. They want to know who their local farmers are. And a lot of cases I've got a friend that does a lot of CSA sales, box sales, stuff like that. And his business is as good as it ever was.

CO: Where do you normally sell your pork products?

RM: Well, my farmer's market in town is where I sell. There's a group of us at our farmer's market. And when P.E.I went into a state of emergency, then the building got shut down, which is fair because we needed a plan to deal with social distancing and stuff. And I guess we didn't have one. We thought we had a plan. But anyway, the health department shut the farmer's market down. And so now I have about 100 pegs worth of inventory walking around here. And at some point we will have to find some way to reopen the farmer's market or we can do the back yard sales as long as all meat is packed and approved to sell, we are good.

CO: And how are your hens doing? How is the egg production?

RM: Well, we only have about seven chickens. And they're not high producing chickens. So we usually have about two dozen spare eggs every week to sell. No great quantity, but people want them.

CO: For sure. Yeah. I can think of a lot of people who would like to be near your drive-thru. So now in general, are you seeing your neighbours? Are you having any contact with other folks besides those who roll through?

RM: Generally, no. I've got neighbours across the way. I can see their house and they'll go for a walk everyday, but they'll leave stuff in my mailbox for me. They left me some quarantined cookies in the mailbox one day [CO laughs]. I left them bacon in their mailbox and they leave the money in my mailbox. And we just do basically mailbox trade. My neighbours are self-quarantining because my neighbour is a cancer victim and she's been through the chemo and she can't really take a risk of getting sick. So I respect that. And I mean, I know what they look like. I can see them from 200 feet when they walk down the road. But that's as close as I'm going to get.

CO: So you are self isolating. Do you have any tips for how to keep from going shack wacky these days?

RM: Yeah. Just be yourself. I am every bit myself as I always was. And self-isolation for me has never been a problem. People aren't really that fond of me. [CO Laughs] If people persist in coming around just shower, I guess.

CO: But you're playing a fair number of board games and card games these days.

RM: We're going through the board games and my young fellow is 11 and he's really really really proficient at checkers. I can't beat him, which is driving me crazy. I taught him how to play crazy eights and sometimes I can beat him. Sometimes he beats me. We get our physical activity out of playing cards because there is a lot of roughing and trashtalk and smacking each other into the boards while we play cards.

CO: All right, Ranald, I'm glad you're keeping active and it's great to talk to you again.

RM: Well, if you're ever in the neighbourhood, Carol, drive through.

CO: [Laughs] Get some bacon.

RM: We can have -- yeah, I can look after your pork needs and we can have a conversation from 20 feet.

CO: [Laughs] Ranald take care. It's great to talk to you. Thanks.

RM: Well, you have a good day. Thank you.

CH: Ranald MacFarlane is a pork and dairy farmer who continues to make his products available to P.E.I. residents by tossing them through car windows. We reached him in Summerside, P.E.I.. And you can watch Mr. MacFarlane throwing pork at: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Joyce Milgaard

CH: In 2008, an inquiry concluded that the criminal justice system failed David Milgaard. But in his 815-page report, Alberta Justice Edward MacCallum was critical of Mr. Milgaard's mother, Joyce. Justice MacCallum said aspects of her long campaign on her son's behalf were irresponsible. Here's how Joyce Milgaard responded on September 26, 2008.

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JOYCE MILGAARD: If we hadn't done all of those things, if I hadn't pushed the way I did and all the things that I did, it wouldn't have happened. If you as the media had not followed me around and pushed and brought it out to the public, and if it hadn't been through the tremendous public support, I mean, all across the country, women were up in arms. And finally, even truck drivers [chuckles] and things like that, were calling me at home and saying, we support you and and we're going to help you. And without that tremendous support, it wouldn't have happened. I really don't regret any of my actions.

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CH: Joyce Milgaard who spent decades fighting to clear her son's name, died on Saturday. She was 89 years old. In January of 1970, David Milgaard was convicted of murdering a 20 year old nursing student named Gail Miller. Joyce Milgaard says she never doubted her son's innocence, and began working to get him freed. Over the years, she conducted her own investigations, interviewed witnesses herself, sold her house and her car so she could offer a reward and tried repeatedly to get the attention of the authorities. At one point in 1990, by recording a song with one intended listener, then Justice Minister Kim Campbell.

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[Guitar being played]

VOICE: [Woman singing] Please madam minister listen to me. Please madam minister set David free. He is not guilty, you have the proof. How can you stand there so cold and aloof?

[/sc]

CH: It probably wasn't the song on its own, but in 1992, Mr. Milgaard was released from prison, at which point Joyce Milgaard focused on his exoneration, which came in July of 1997 when a DNA test cleared him completely. That day guest host Ann Medina spoke with Ms. Milgaard on As It Happens.

ANN MEDINA: Mrs. Milgaard, you must feel mighty fine.

JOYCE MILGAARD: Well, I can't tell you. I'm terrific. [Laughs]

ANN MEDINA: I bet.

JOYCE MILGAARD: You know, it's just a dream day. I've been looking for so long for this day. And just coming on the plane this morning, not knowing at that point -- you know, knowing that we were going to have a result, but not knowing for sure whether we would get a good result as far as the other party. I was thinking that it was so important that this be right for the Miller family as well as for us. And so I knew, of course, that the result as far as David was concerned, I had no concerns of that. We planned the news conference because we knew that there could only be one result there.

ANN MEDINA: I went back through some clippings and came across a quote from the Saskatchewan justice minister. And this was when there was no clearing of criminal wrongdoing. And he quoted -- he said, you just have to turn the page on this and consider that the book has been completed and is now closed. Life goes on. You didn't close the book, did you?

JOYCE MILGAARD: No. And I never could have, because whenever I would look into David's eyes -- his sister said this once, I see the pain in the back of his eyes. And she said, I don't know whether it'll ever go away. I haven't seen his eyes, but I've heard his voice today. And, you know, there's a lightness, just a different sense to his voice that I haven't heard since she was 16. [Chokes up] And it's just lovely. I'm sorry.

ANN MEDINA: I mean, it is so wonderful to hear, if you will, tears of joy.

[/sc]

CH: Ann Medina speaking with Joyce Milgaard on As It Happens, on July 18th, 1997, the day a DNA test exonerated her son, David Milgaard. Joyce Milgaard died on Saturday. She was 89.

[Music]

Nick Heath Commentary

CH: Now that most major sports leagues have suspended play, sports fans everywhere are finding creative ways to get their fix while still practicing safe social distancing. Take Nick Heath, the British sports broadcaster who started posting play-by-play videos on Twitter, reminding us all of the high drama sport of everyday life. For instance, here's his video of two friends kicking around a soccer ball. It's called "Two Lonely Blokes in a Park."

[sc]

NICK HEATH: While you join me here live at Tooting Common. This is the final of the two lonely blokes in a park contest. And oh, that was absolutely terrible. It's what we've come to expect really from these two. They have been here for some time. A few runners in the distance, not keeping enough distance, frankly. While these two are utterly useless. Looking forward to the third fourth place play off later.

[/sc]

CH: If two lonely blokes aren't your speed, here's Mr. Heath's call as he followed a team of stroller pushing parents.

[/sc]

NICK HEATH: So this is the international four-by-four pushchair formation final. And well, we've got the up front pair, of course Johansson and Ericsson from Sweden. And they're in with the Brits here -- and Smith and Black, they are doing particularly well stand quite close with them around this very delicate bend. Of course, they're pretty familiar with this course. And that's what saw them become European champions just a few months ago. Great to see them back.

[/sc]

CH: And things got pretty heated when a dog walker entered the race.

[sc]

NICK HEATH: Well you join us live here on Tooting Common once again. Carla the cavapoo, coming along very nicely on the mundane war. And oh, my goodness! Who's this? Oh, it's Colin. He's broken free. Bless you. Well he's going to be disqualified. Carla, she seems quite happy, though. 5.8 across the board. Lovely.

[/sc]

CH: And finally, arguably the most extreme event in everyday sport: Pedestrians crossing at an intersection.

[sc]

NICK HEATH: Crossroad dash. Light turns to red. We wait for the beeps. There they are now. Then JD Sports Man! He's got a decent start. Leggins on the outside. Oh! JD was so distracted over the shoulder and Leggins is going to get there! Oh, she does it again! Three titles in three days off past Vegas Gold for the Lap of Honour. Victorious!

[/sc]

CH: That's British rugby commentator and journalist Nick Heath. His play by play videos of everyday life are trending on Twitter with hundreds of thousands of views.

[Music]

Part 3: McGill ventilator

McGill ventilator

Guest: Reza Farivar

CH: As we heard earlier in the program, the message from healthcare workers everywhere is clear they're going to need more equipment, especially respiratory devices, during this pandemic. To help meet that need, Montreal hospitals are challenging the public to get creative. The assignment to design a low cost, easy to use, simple to build ventilator that could eventually save lives. The prize: $200,000. Reza Farivar is one of the organizers of the Code Life Ventilator Challenge. He's also the Canada Research Chair in Integrative Neuroscience at McGill University. We reached him in Montreal.

CO: Professor Farivar, just first of all, just tell us briefly how important are ventilators at this point of time of a pandemic?

REZA FARIVAR: From my reading of it, which is that they're quite important for the percentage of COVID patients that experience advanced symptoms. This is a really important lifesaving device, effectively helps enhance the delivery of oxygen to the lungs because the lungs may be quite severely affected by the disease.

CO: All right. So you've launched this challenge just last week. What kind of response have you received so far?

RF: It's been really amazing, to be honest. We've had, as of this morning, 520 teams signing up and over 1200 participants from all over the world are joining as members. We've also had an outpouring of support from experts offering their mentorship to support and time to the design teams. We've heard support offers from partners willing to make their, you know, for example, software platforms available for free to the contestants offering additional services and so on. So it's just been an amazing amazing amount of support and energy around it.

CO: But it seems to me that ventilators are fairly complex and a precise piece of equipment. How easy is it to actually come up with fast ways of turning these things out?

RF: That's an excellent question. So there I would say two different things. There are the ventilators that are in the ICU and those are very sophisticated devices because they have to be used for lots of different respiratory needs. If we focus in on only what the needs for the COVID patients might be -- the advanced COVID patients or the acute COVID patients, their needs are a bit more specific. So we can narrow down the demands on the device a lot more. And it's that action as being the goal for the challenge to yield a simple design that could be built anywhere, that would be simple to use and maintain and it would address the needs of these patients. And it would also be inexpensive because again, you know, we in the rich world, we have lots of resources. But there are going to be a lot of people on this planet that are going to get this disease on their doorsteps and they may not have anywhere remotely like the resources we have in addressing their patients.

CO: Are you looking for one design or would you take several different versions?

RF: We're actually planning on announcing three finalists that would all be suitable, the fact that they all meet our needs, the needs that are specified on the sheet online. And also that our judges feel that they meet the requirements, sort of the qualitative requirements that they are easy to build and use and they would address these patient populations.

CO: And this is not going to be this limited as far as access to a handful of people -- to those in our countries. This is going to be everybody, right?

RF: Exactly. Exactly. That's a really important part of it, that these designs will be endorsed by us. So we will do internal vetting. We have compliance and manufacture ability experts. We're going to review and help find those finalists so that once they're announced, these would be designs that people around the world could basically -- not blow with a 3D printer, but manufacturers from around the world could basically access to build.

CO: You know, places I've been in war zones or refugee centres where they are extremely inventive in their hospitals trying to figure out ways of using equipment they have. Is this contest open to everyone in the world? Because there are some tremendous innovators in other countries.

RF: That's an excellent point. It's absolutely open to everyone. We do want everyone to make them themselves aware of the design specifications that we've outlined with our advisory panel and our experts. So maybe our requirements are going to be a little bit higher than someone who, you know, as a last ditch effort just has to figure some way of keeping someone alive. But otherwise, the whole hope is for this to catalyze these innovations. So we definitely want as many inventive people to submit their ideas as possible.

CO: Okay. And the prize is $200,000 Canadian.

RF: That's right. And this was -- I have to credit the Montreal General Hospital Foundation. They stepped up to this very quickly at the beginning, the MUHC and the Research Institute of MUHC. They jumped in on supporting this from a very early phase. So that's why we're able to get to where we are now. Everyone now is becoming really worried that this could be incredibly important and valuable. So we're really grateful for their support.

CO: The deadline for submissions is...

RF: March 31st.

CO: All right. We'll get the information out there. Professor Farivar, thank you.

RF: Thank you very much. Have a great day.

CH: Reza Farivar is one of the organizers behind the Code Life Ventilator Challenge. He's also the Canada Research Chair in Integrative Neuroscience at McGill University. He's in Montreal.

[Music]

Dr. Li Wenliang

CH: In December, a young doctor first warned his colleagues of a SARS-like virus spreading in Wuhan, China. In January, Dr. Li Wenliang was reprimanded and detained by police for, quote, "spreading false rumors." He was forced to sign a document admitting that he had, quote, "seriously disrupted social order, an offense under the law." That was, of course, before it became impossible to contain news of the virus or the virus itself. And in February, Dr. Li died of the same disease he'd warned about. He was 34. Now, authorities in China have officially exonerated Dr. Li, and lauded him for his courage. The Wuhan Public Security Bureau says it has solemnly apologized to Li's family. It also says the two officers responsible for reprimanding Dr. Li have themselves been reprimanded. Chinese officials have also said that, quote, "punishment will be carried out to relevant departments and personnel for their slow response, lost control in the prevention process, and ignorance of their job duties during the epidemic."

[Music]

Germany extremist monitoring

Guest: Stephan J. Kramer

CH: Far-right terrorism is on the rise in Germany, but so are efforts to tackle it. Earlier this month, Germany's domestic intelligence agency labeled a faction of the popular Alternatives for Germany Party as extremist. That announcement concluded a one year investigation into the AfD -- as the party is known. Specifically a faction known as Der Flugel or the Wing. The federal investigation coincides with one launched by the State Agency for the Protection of the Constitution in Thuringia in central Germany. Stephan J. Kramer is the president of that agency. We reached him in Erfurt.

CO: Mr. Kramer, how significant is it to see your federal counterparts label the Wing or Der Flugel as extremist?

STEPHAN J. KRAMER: Look, in the last 18 months, in my case and in the last 12 months of the feds, we've been going through open source information. This was not intelligence information. And we found severe evidence for right-wing extremism and mostly cooperation with right-wing extremists among the parties. We found anti-Semitism. We found hate of Islam. Racism against migrants and Muslims. I think that is pretty serious. And that is also the reason why we came up with our results like we did.

CO: Tell us a bit about why this wing of the Alternative for Germany party is now to be considered an extremist group -- this Der Flugel group?

STEPHAN J. KRAMER: Look, the Flugel is a part or group of the party itself. It is across state lines nationwide, which makes it also very tricky and difficult to look upon. But the key leaders of the Flugel like Bjorn Hocke and Mr. Kalbitz from Brandenburg, are the ones that were, of course, focusing on. And me myself and the agency in Thuringia -- we're focusing on Mr. Hocke, and he is very outspoken to it. Now, if one person, even if it's the leader of a group, tells the world what he thinks and the way he is doing it, we also have to make sure that it's not just him as an individual who is representing these positions, but that also the group within the party or the party as such is behind that in following him closely.

CO: This Bjorn Hocke -- he's not just the leader of the Flugel, of the Wing, but he's also the leader of the Alternative for Germany party, which is a very strong and popular opposition party in your country. So what does this actually say about Mr. Hocke? What are you investigating in terms of him as a leader of a political party that has a lot of legitimacy, apparently, in Germany?

STEPHAN J. KRAMER: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And let me just clarify one thing -- I mean, he is, first of all, the leader of the party section in Thuringia. He is also considered by the federal leaders of the AfD, an integral person of the whole party. So he's not somebody who's on the fences on the outskirts of the party AfD. He's considered one of the key leaders, among the others in the middle of it, which was very important for us to think about now. The Flugel is one thing, but how is the influence of the Flugel going to influence basically the whole party. And we came to the conclusion that there is a big big influence of him. We cannot at this moment with evidence say that the whole party in Thuringia is the same like the Flugel, but he is coming very close. And that is also one of the reasons why we just took one more step upwards from a test case to a suspected case, which is also a case where we can use intelligence sources to get further information. We have to have hard evidence that proves that the Flugel is the same like the party in Thuringia and that's what we're mainly working on right now.

CO: As you do this, as you pursue Der Flugel -- the same time, though, how do you account for the fact that the Alternative for Germany party is so popular in your country?

STEPHAN J. KRAMER: That is a very tricky question, which actually I would not have to answer as a head of domestic intelligence agency, but rather as a Democrat and citizen of my country. But almost every third Thuringian voted for the AfD. They are in every state parliament and they are in the federal parliament and have a number together, which makes them crucial also for political decision making and in the future, possibly also for creating possibly a government. So this is a very serious issue where we see anti-constitutional evidence, which is beyond the political opinion competition that you usually would welcome in a democracy and which is part of a democracy. And that's the reason why we're after them.

CO: But as a citizen, as a German, are you not worried about how strong this party is given your history and given what Germany went through to develop its constitution? Are you not worried as a German about what you're seeing?

STEPHAN J. KRAMER: Look, as an agency head, as a citizen, as a Jew by the way living in this country, I'm very concerned about it. And even before I started my job in December 2015, when I was secretary general of the Council of Jews in Germany and the party was already starting to rise, I made very clear in public that I see a very very serious threat for our democracy and for our society, taking, of course, in consideration to historic events between 33 and 45. And I demanded a political fight about these issues. But in the meantime, the threats became much bigger. It's much more part of the establishment already. And at those days we started with 5, 7, 10 percent and now we're up to 25 to 27 percent. And what I said publicly is that even people you know, in the meantime, since 18 months when we started with our investigation also on my state level and we made it public, which was a big controversial discussion over here, whether we should make such investigations public or not. And I thought look if this is about transparency, this is about a political party within a democratic competition, we cannot do this behind closed doors. If we do such investigations and we find evidence that makes us doing this, we have to do this open. We have to tell the people where we see the dangers. And interesting enough, even raising all these issues and it was not just us, it was also civil society groups, other political parties who tried to raise an alert society about what was going on. And the problem was that people, even knowing him, voted for him. And so I came to the conclusion that they did not vote for him just because, you know, aside of that, all these things, but because the way he argument-ed in the way he did. So people are definitely in favour of his arguments and even by knowing that they are extremist, racists, and basically pure hate speech.

CO: All right. We're going to leave it there. Mr. Kramer, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

STEPHAN J. KRAMER: Thank you so much.

CH: Stephan J. Kramer is the president of the State Agency for the Protection of the Constitution in Corinthia, Germany. We reached him in Erfurt, Germany.

[Music]

CO: What does that mean for your employees? How did you tell them?

RB: Well, we just did it in pre-shift meetings. It wasn't an awful lot of time. It was an instant thing. The governor made an announcement that, gee, at 9:00 tonight, you're closed. So, you know, it's not like we could say, okay, we're all going to get together and talk to everybody about it. It's like right now.

CO: And so how many people are we talking about being laid off?

RB: I think at this last payroll, we had about 165 employees. So that's a lot of families to not get a paycheque after this.

CO: I understand you have a pretty loyal group of people working for you as well. Entire families sort of working together for you.

RB: Oh, that's the tear-jerk deal. We're a real family business. And not only am I fifth generation in this company of the ownership, but we've got, you know, lots of second and third generation employees whose parents work for us, their grandparents works, now they're working for us. You know, there's lots of family here.

CO: And in this announcement, this package that the U.S. administration and President Donald Trump announced the trillion dollar offer that would include cash payments to Americans, to individuals, and 300 billion for small businesses to help them continue paying their employees. So is that going to help you at all?

RB: I'm absolutely sure that it will. I don't know the terms of that and I don't know how it will be administered.

CO: Now, just going back to Antoine's, your restaurant weathered a lot -- your restaurant has maybe, not you specifically -- but over 180 years must have been a lot of history that this restaurant saw.

RB: It's a ton of time. I mean, two world wars, depression, probation, hurricanes. My family's been doing this a long time.

CO: Did they ever close during the two wars, Hurricane Katrina, depression? Was there a time before when this restaurant closed down?

RB: Well, if it wouldn't be fair to say that the restaurant has never been closed, but it varies.

CO: Now, your history with working there and being in charge, I guess, would not have covered Civil War, Great Depression and World Wars. But you were there for Hurricane Katrina. What was that like for your employees and for your restaurant?

RB: It was devastating to my employees. It was devastating to their lives. And we learned a lot in Hurricane Katrina as both a family and as a business. It takes a long time to put the world back together. You can't turn off the switch of an economy in the United States or Louisiana or New Orleans or my business, and then turn that switch back on some time later and expect that it's going to go back to where it was, where you turned it off.

CO: I understand some people really suffered. Some of your employees had a really rough time during the hurricane.

RB: Some of them had a horrendous suffering. Thank goodness we didn't have very many deaths in my employee group. I was very very worried that we could have had that. But we were incredibly blessed that that didn't happen. We only had two. My maitre D had the roughest time of it because he and his son died in the flood. They both drowned. [Voice softens] That was horrible. That was tragic.

CO: I'm so sorry.

RB: But the rest of everyone, you know, struggled tremendously because basically they lost everything. You know, it's like your house burning down except that everybody's house burned down at the same time.

CO: How do you survive this? How do you turn it around after you've gone through something like this?

RB: Well, you know, I just think that I'm very hopeful that the powers that be, that the government officials will understand that this is not a turn on-turn off sort of event. This isn't, gee, we're going to postpone the NFL football game and we're going to just all go to the stadium next week instead of this week and it's all going to be the same, it's all going to be okay. And the longer the government keeps this economy in a box, the longer it's going to take for the economy to get back to full speed.

CO: So what do you think the lasting effects will be on Antoine's?

RB: Oh, I think Antoine's will recover. I think Antoine's will be Antoine's. On the other side of this, if we were able to open up in 30 days, then I think, you know, our recovery time will be maybe 12 months-18 months and we'll be back to where we were pre-pandemic. If we aren't allowed, if the economy is not allowed to go back to work, not only Antoine's but everybody else for 60 days, well, then it's a matter of years to recuperate. If it becomes 90 days, then it's, you know, substantially longer than years.

CO: All right. Well, let's hope for the best, Rick.

RB: Oh, I'm hoping that this whole thing passes in the next few weeks and that my employees all come back to work in the shortest possible time.

CO: Well, I'd like to share your optimism. But we'll see what happens. I hope you're right.

RB: I hope so too.

CO: Rick, thanks.

RB: Have a wonderful day. Thank you.

CH: Rick Blunt is the CEO of Antoine's Restaurant. We reached him in New Orleans.

[Music]

Doriot Anthony Dwyer

CH: The world has lost a trailblazing flutist. And if you doubt that there is such a thing, then you don't know Doriot Anthony Dwyer. She was appointed to the position of Principal Flute of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1952, a time when orchestras were dominated by men. The appointment made her just the second woman ever to hold a principal chair with a major American orchestra and the first female flutist. She held that position for 38 years. That's because she had nimble fingers and impressive breath control, of course. But it's also because she had guts. In 1952, after an initial round of auditions, the Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor found the male musicians wanting. So he proposed a ladies day. To prepare, Ms. Dwyer memorized solos and full orchestral scores. Figuring that if she missed even a note, she'd lose the opportunity. She even told her then boss that she needed a week off for surgery in order to travel across the country for the audition. It was all a huge risk, but as she told one interviewer, once she arrived, she felt surprisingly relaxed. She said I had nothing to worry about because I wasn't going to get the job anyway. Doriot Anthony Dwyer died on Saturday at the age of 98.

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March 23, 2020 Episode Transcript

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