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The Current Transcript for April 8, 2020

Host: Matt Gallaway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

So at the currently stance, we qualify for nothing. We're providing really essential, important service to our clients, paying double rents and we're still not eligible for anything.

MATT GALLOWAY: First and foremost, we're told by public health officials, the COVID-19 pandemic is a health crisis. As anyone who has seen their job vanish or their savings deplete knows, though, this is also an economic and financial crisis. We asked for your money questions when it comes to this pandemic. In 30 minutes, we'll get some answers. Also this morning, one question that many people who grow our food are asking is who's going to work the fields this year?

SOUNDCLIP

I know that I have a family to take care of and that my happy wish by going from Jamaica to Canada and from Canada to Jamaica.

MG: With borders closing, the migrant workers the Canadian agriculture relies on may not arrive. What will that mean for them, for farmers and for you when you shop for food? We'll find out later. How are you missing your book club? It's like so much of our lives these days has moved online. An author and a book club organiser talk about keeping the discussion going. Plus, Tom Power remembers the brilliant singer songwriter John Prine. We start, though, with a ground breaking collaboration in Canada to treat those with COVID-19. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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Trials of COVID-19 vaccines aren't risk-free, but this volunteer says possible benefits 'far outweigh' danger

Guests: Dr. Donald Arnold, Sean Doyle, Umair Irfan

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MG: It is a scary thing getting an infection with no known treatment, and that's why many who recover from COVID-19, are eager to help. Richard Carl is a Toronto resident who got the virus in February and has since made a full recovery.

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I'll be giving a pint of blood. My plasma will be taken out of that, the good stuff, you know, it'll be tested. And, you know, it's our belief that it will contain some of the immune characteristics that are going to be so important to finding treatment for this virus.

MG: Now that he's better, Richard Carl is donating his blood plasma to research, specifically a major Canadian effort to find a treatment for COVID- 19. It's a clinical trial involving 40 hospitals across this country. Dr. Donald Arnold is one of the lead researchers. He's director of the Centre for Transfusion Research at McMaster University in Hamilton. Doctor, good morning. Good morning.

DR. DONALD ARNOLD: Good morning, Matt.

MG: There is a lot of excitement around what you're doing. We heard Richard Carl talking a bit about what he's hoping for in the study. Can you explain what you're doing with the blood plasma from people like him?

DR. DONALD ARNOLD: Absolutely. So the concept is that once a person gets COVID-19 infection and then recovers, their body has produced what's called antibodies so that they can fight off the infection themselves. And that's really the key kind of foot soldier to get rid of that virus. And then once they get better, those antibodies stick around in their plasma. And so the concept is to take that plasma from people who have recovered, which is full of those great antibodies that could continue to fight virus and give it to people who are acutely ill in the hospital.

MG: If you do that, that will - you talked about the foot soldiers - that will puts those foot soldiers into the bodies of those who are in the midst of that fight and help them along.

DR. DONALD ARNOLD: That's right. So one of the things that we know that the body does in terms of fighting off the infection by itself is to make these antibodies. And when people are acutely ill, requiring to be in hospital and needing oxygen, etc., they're in that kind of critical period where they need all the help they can get. And so if we can give them additional antibodies from people who have already successfully fought this off, the hope is that this would clear the virus quicker and they would get better.

MG: What is the hope based on? Where else have you seen similar work done to that that would lead you in this direction?

DR. DONALD ARNOLD: So this isn't a new concept. In fact, this is a really old concept and there's nothing particularly scientific about it, actually. I mean, this is a concept that's been around since the Spanish flu pandemic 100 years ago where people would take blood from folks who had recovered and give it to others. And and the reports that came out from even far back then were promising and, you know, it's hard to know what to make of it. Even in the more recent pandemics, though, [unintelligible], there was more of a concerted effort to try to do this. And again, it worked but the studies were very, very small. And even the flu pandemic, for example, they tried this as well. But there really hasn't been any definitive study that would say this is better than what we're currently doing as a control group. But the data is pretty promising. And even from the current pandemic in COVID, things are, things are coming out of the light which means that even from recent experiences in China, a recent scientific paper about five patients and another one about 10 patients, looks like it was promising.

MG: You talk about lightning speed. How accelerated is the process in this case in terms of the work that you're doing?

DR. DONALD ARNOLD: Really, I'd say unparalleled like nothing I've ever experienced before. I don't think anyone has. What we're doing is setting up a clinical trial and across the country. So both of those things require a lot of time and planning. Something like this would normally take six months to even just get the question right. And the logistics down pat and the protocol nailed down. We just miraculously were able to get together the top researchers in clinical science and clinical research, literally across the country, to come together fast and do something really well, but really efficiently. It took us probably seven days to do what would normally happen in six months.

MG: How did you do that? You say you say it was miraculous. How did you manage to do that to get everybody onside? Is it just the scale of what we are all facing right now?

DR. DONALD ARNOLD: Yes. You mean the community isn't that big, so, you know, we know who's in this- who's working in this field. And there's lots of collaborators that with, you know, within two or three degrees, we could find experts in in transition medicine, infectious disease, in critical care, all these all these folks and no one [unintelligible]. They were so eager to sign up and so committed that they were on the conference call that, you know, 9:00 at night on a Sunday and et cetera, et cetera, just on and on so that we can hammer this out well. And I just, I can't even reiterate enough about the collaboration that's gone in this. And it's really an effort across the country with just about every major medical school, both blood suppliers in Canada. So Canadian Blood Services and Hema Quebec kind of we're all working together to just get this done right, but get it done fast.

MG: We heard a little bit from Richard Carl at the beginning. He's one of the donors who has become the patient representative that's working with you. Have a listen to how he reacted when his doctor asked if he would be interested in being a plasma donor.

SOUNDCLIP

I suggest to her before I even knew what I'm saying yes to. I just I saw almost duty bound to help. But it's actually been through the stress and anxiety of wondering what happened to me, to us, to people have been infected, which frankly were turned out to none. But I understood what that feeling was about. And that's sort of almost helplessness. And I thought, here's my chance to help, and you should know I spent very little time considering I'm getting involved.

MG: How many donors like Richard will you need for the study?

DR. DONALD ARNOLD: Well, so the study is set up so that there'll be a large group that gets the plasma and a smaller group that doesn't. In other words, they get this current standard of care. And the goal is to compare them and then come to an answer very quickly as to whether or not this treatment work. So it it would probably require close to a thousand, maybe a little less people who are going to be donating their plasma and eligible donors. That doesn't mean that everyone who wants to is able to. They have to kind of meet certain criteria for safety and all that stuff. But it's a fairly large number.

MG: We just have a couple of seconds left. When you say you're hoping to get results very quickly, when do you expect to have meaningful results?

DR. DONALD ARNOLD: Yes. Again, this is the kind of thing that would normally take two to three years on average to get something like this done. We're looking at a timeframe much, much more accelerated than that. I'm super hopeful that, you know, within four or five months from now, we will have something known that would be amazing. More realistically, maybe it's six to 10 months. I think it's still going to be relevant because this infection isn't going away entirely and maybe the wave of the pandemic will be done by then, but there's still going to be patients who need therapy for this.

MG: Good luck. As I say, there's a lot of promise around this in that sense of collaboration is really exciting as well. Doctor, thank you.

DR. DONALD ARNOLD: Thank you so much, Matt.

MG: Dr. Donald Arnold is one of the lead researchers on a new trial for a potential treatment of COVID-19. He's director of the Centre for Transfusion Research at McMaster University in Hamilton. We heard how that Canadian study is looking for volunteers to help the search for a virus treatment. Volunteers are also key for the many researchers that are working to find a vaccine for COVID-19. And some of those efforts are already starting clinical trials in humans. Humans like Sean Doyle. Sean's a med student at Emory University. This is not the first time that he has put his body on the line in the fight against a deadly disease. Sean, good morning to you.

SEAN DOYLE: Good morning, Matt.

MG: How did you get involved in this trial that you're in right now?

SEAN DOYLE: My involvement in this current COVID-19 trial stems from my previous involvement in an Ebola vaccine trial, which was a long process, about 18 months, but I successfully completed it as a healthy participant. So the investigators that are helping to lead this trial at Emory thought I would be a great candidate for this COVID-19 trial.

MG: And so briefly, explain what you're involved in right now. What's the process?

SEAN DOYLE: So, sure, I can speak from the perspective of a participant. And the process for me right now for this study — which is a phase one clinical trial, mainly to see whether or not the vaccine is safe to give to individuals — is to assess health overall after getting the vaccine, and then to perform laboratory research experiments to see whether or not an immune system response will be generated. So for my participation, my involvement began with a really extensive questionnaire to determine whether or not I had any underlying health conditions, because for this particular trial they were looking to enrol healthy volunteers from ages 18 to 55. And then beyond that, I went in and had some extensive bloodwork done just to confirm that everything looked okay and I was healthy. And from there I have received the first vaccine dose, and am continuing to be followed up on by the investigators of the trial to make sure I'm doing okay, and to give blood samples so they can see how my immune system might be responding to the vaccine they've given me.

MG: And the vaccine that they've given you is a vaccine that potentially could be used against COVID-19.

SEAN DOYLE: That's correct. So at this stage, they're just looking to make sure that there aren't any really serious side effects as a result of getting the vaccine. But if the results are promising, they're hoping to expand this trial as quickly as possible to look at efficacy.

MG: How are you feeling?

SEAN DOYLE: I'm very happy to say that I'm feeling well. So for me personally, getting this vaccine, which was given as an injection into my shoulder muscle, it was basically just like getting a flu vaccine. So I had just a little bit of tenderness at the side of injection for about a day. But other than that, absolutely no issues whatsoever.

MG: Are you worried at all for your health or any sort of negative outcome, side-effects? I mean the reason that you're doing this is because they need to figure out what could happen if people get this vaccine. Are you worried about being part of this?

SEAN DOYLE: Absolutely. There is always a worry with something that is new in terms of treatment, like getting a new vaccine. But for me personally, I think especially because I am a medical student at Emory, I sort of have a good understanding of how vaccine trials work and what the potential benefits of vaccines are. And the potential benefits on a sort of population level far outweigh the individual risk. The chances of having a really adverse side-effect that would require medical attention are typically very low.

MG: What did they tell you that the side effects could be?

SEAN DOYLE: So the side effects can range. In cases of sort of mild to maybe moderate effects, like I said, you might have a little bit of tenderness or soreness where the injection occurred. There also might be, you know, like a little bit of like a higher temperature, just like feeling a little bit out of it for a little bit. But oftentimes it's not a bad thing because it mean the immune system is able to start generating a response to the vaccine that's been given. And then in very rare cases, there can be severe effects that include anaphylactic shock — that only occurs in about one in four million people. And that would produce the same type of sort of allergic reaction that someone that is allergic to bee stings might experience after being stung by a bee.

MG: What's the timeline for this? You get the shot in the arm, as you say, and you're being monitored. Have they given you a sense as to how, if this were to go well, how long it would take to start producing an actual usable vaccine from all of this?

SEAN DOYLE: So I know that the investigators for this trial are trying to expedite this process as much as possible, and they're really moving at light speed to kind of echo what your previous guest was saying. So a process that would normally take years, they're trying to condense down to a few months.

MG: That's right. That answers it. It's just a people are trying to figure out in the midst of a pandemic what that timeline is going to be. And you're right in the middle of it.

SEAN DOYLE: Yes.

MG: Appreciate you talking to us about this, good luck and I hope it works out. Sean, thank you.

SEAN DOYLE: Great. Thank you very much.

MG: Sean Doyle is a med student at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. There are a lot of people writing hope on the search for this vaccine and the real push to try and figure out a way out of the pandemic that we're in right now. The trial at Emory University is one of many studies that are looking into this. Umair Irfan is a reporter with the Web site. VOX has been following the race for vaccines and treatments very closely. Good morning to you.

UMAIR IRFAN: Good morning.

MG: This is fascinating research. We hear from somebody who is essentially, you know, [unintelligible] describe it, maybe a human guinea pig. And also people who are looking at treatments. How would you describe what's happening right now when it comes to the search for a vaccine?

UMAIR IRFAN: Well, what's interesting is that it's building on past efforts on related viruses. One could argue that we are now better positioned to come up with a vaccine for this novel coronavirus than we have been for any other disease. But we're still running into some of the same hurdles that play all other kinds of research in terms of getting consistent level of funding and also just the development timeline. But, you know, we have experience with past diseases like SARS and MERS, and there were vaccine development efforts that started but sort of petered out that researchers are now picking up on and carrying the ball forward.

MG: You mentioned funding. There was news last week that Bill Gates and others we're talking about spending money to produce the range of possible vaccines. Bill Gates said that he would be happy to lose a few billion dollars if that meant that a vaccine came out of some of that research. What's the upside of that sort of approach?

UMAIR IRFAN: Right. That's been one of the big concerns is that governments tend to lose interest when once a pandemic sort of fades away. And so in 2017, there was a group that was created called the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation SAPI, and they started pooling a lot of research dollars to devote to finding a vaccine for the Ebola virus outbreak. And eventually they did come up with a vaccine back in 2019. And these philanthropy led efforts are casting a wide net and putting forward a lot of different approaches to the same problem. And to help solve this problem of, you know, a lack of focus or lack of attention once pandemic fades, basically they keep advancing the ball even once the public health impetus has sort of faded away. And I think that's going to be a critical element going forward.

MG: While all of this is happening, the U.S. president has been talking a lot about his support for the anti-malarial drug hydroxy chloroquine. What is the evidence about that option when it comes to treating or dealing with COVID-19?

UMAIR IRFAN: Well, hydroxy chloroquine, as you know it, it is an anti-malarial drug and it's already available as a generic. It's used to treat illnesses like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. And that's why it's so appealing, is that it's a cheap off the shelf drug that's already cleared for use in humans and it has some vague anti-viral properties. And in some instances in different countries in the world, doctors who are dealing with emergency cases reported some success using it. That said, with COVID-19, we know that a lot of patients get better on their own. And so it's really hard to tease out the effect of a drug to make sure that this is what's causing an improvement rather than a patient getting better on their own. There's also some very serious side effects that can occur. It can interact with drugs that, you know, that are being used for heart and diabetic conditions and it can cause neurological impact. So this is not something that you can just hand out to everyone. This is something that has to be kind of doled out on a case by case basis. And now there are some very large clinical trials underway. But the evidence to date is fairly anecdotal, though. Some of there have been a couple randomised clinical trials, but they've only been with a few dozen patients. And so there are larger efforts now underway to see if this would work or not. But it's still too early to say.

MG: We've talked a lot in this country about the sense of collaboration. We heard a bit of that from Dr. Arnold at the beginning. Just the sense that people are working across fields, out of silos to try and get a handle on this. Is that happening internationally as well?

UMAIR IRFAN: Absolutely. All the researchers that I've spoken with are talking about just an unprecedented level of information sharing, pre-publication, information sharing as well. You're seeing a lot of journals that are putting up articles before they've necessarily cleared peer review and putting them up for free for the public to read. These are typically things that are held behind a paywall. And yes, a lot of researchers in different countries are saying they're just an unprecedented level of forthrightness, that people willingly sharing some of their raw information and letting other people look at their models and their results early so they can help modify or tweak their own experiments. And yes, this is something that I think is going to help facilitate finding both a treatment and a vaccine for this virus.

MG: And yet this is a long process, even if things are accelerated. Just finally, what is the timeline if you're looking at trying to actually have a vaccine that would allow people to resume normal life and kind of lower the fear that people have of COVID-19? What's that timeline?

UMAIR IRFAN: I mean, as your earlier guests noted, that, you know, there's been a sort of severe acceleration of this process. Something that would take years is now on the order of months. But a treatment is likely to come to fruition sooner because it's meant for more urgent care. But for a vaccine. This is something that has to be cleared for safety for a wider section of the population. This is something that you're eventually going to give to healthy people and potentially millions of them. And that testing process can take up to a year minimum at that at best, depending on what vaccine trials first show results and first are cleared for safety. And so it is a slow process. And that's why, as your guests noted, that, you know, it could not, it may not emerge until after the peak of the pandemic fades, but it's still a worthwhile endeavour and one where we should still be devoting resources.

MG: Umair, to speak with you about this. Thank you.

UMAIR IRFAN: Thank you.

MG: Umair Irfan is a reporter for the website VOX, talking about the race for not just a vaccine, but for treatments for COVID-19. The CBC News is up next. And then in about six minutes time, we are going to answer your personal finance questions. The consultant, Lesley-Anne Scorgie standing by. Maybe you're confused about the emergency response benefit. Maybe you feel overwhelmed by rent and taxes this year. You're wondering how you're going to make ends meet and what has become not just a health crisis, but an economic crisis. You submitted your questions. Want to get some answers for you coming up after the news. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

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Your money questions answered

Guests: Lesley-Anne Scorgie, Jennifer Robson

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

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MG: Still to come, our national affairs panel gauges the federal response to the pandemic, specifically what's happening in Alberta. What we learned from the premier, Jason Kenney last night. But first, COVID, cash, your questions.

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MG: It took just two days for more than one and a half million people to apply for the new Canada emergency response benefit. That is an astounding figure. It speaks volumes for the fiscal fears that Canadians have right now. In fact, in the time it takes for me to tell you this, four, maybe 500 applications will be processed by the Canada Revenue Agency. We asked you to write in or call us with your financial concerns and we got many, many important questions. And so let's get some answers. Lesley-Anne Scorgie is a personal finance author in Toronto. Jennifer Robson is an assistant professor of political management at Carleton University. They both join us now. Good morning to you both. Good morning and morning. Jennifer, we'll start with you. Those numbers in terms of people who are looking for financial assistance are astounding, as I say. What do you make of that?

JENNIFER ROBSON: Well, I think it's an early preview of what we're going to see more of tomorrow when we get some new unemployment data coming out finally. I think it it's a reminder that putting a, you know, an economy in a medically induced coma is no easy task. Right. And it really does have a cost at household and individual level. So the same time, you know that the necessity of us all to stay home, to follow the public health advice and orders has to come with some financial support. These two things really do have to go hand in hand.

MG: We'll talk about that support and how it is or isn't reaching people. Lesley-Anne for you, how overwhelmed, inundated, busy are you with questions coming from people at the moment?

LESLEY-ANNE SCORGIE: I've never been busier in my entire career. And it speaks to the concern people have for the day to day budget. How are they going to stitch together this month's required expenses. And the other that the data coming through right now about the volume of applications also says to policymakers right now the wage subsidy program for businesses is not working yet. Will it work? I hope so, very soon. It can't come fast enough. But we have people that are out of work right now because they have no work. Their employers have let them go either temporarily or permanently. And so it's having these. It's causing people to come to these application portals in droves. So we need to deal with, you know, day to day finances but we also need to get money into the hands of businesses so that they stop laying people off.

MG: So we got a lot of questions and I want to try to get through as many of them as possible. Let's start with this one from Michelle Hayes. She's in Hanover, Ontario. And she writes, I've been laid off from my job at a factory that makes auto parts for Toyota and Honda. I also have a casual job to supplement my income as one income is not enough. The casual job is still operating and I only get about two weekends a month. I've applied for employment insurance. Will I get EI or be switched to CERB, the emergency response benefit, and do I qualify for either one since I still have that casual job? It's not enough to live on. Lesley, and how would you respond to Michelle?

LESLEY-ANNE SCORGIE: So Michelle can actually apply for EI in this particular case. You are allowed to collect EI benefits, but they will be scaled back slightly because she still has this additional casual job. So my advice here is please expeditiously get your application in for the EI benefit and then they'll the particular calculations for her situation and let her know that, yes, she's qualified. She has to have been laid off and not have lost her job because of a fault that she incurred while she was working. It sounds like this is the right avenue for her. The other thing I just want to mention is if she is still earning income, she's not eligible for the CERB at the present moment.

MG: We've heard that from a lot of people wondering whether if they're picking up little jobs here, they're doing some freelance work perhaps to keep contacts going so that when this ends, they're still able to get that work, whether they're able for this to get the CERB. And that's the case that they're not eligible if they're still making any money.

LESLEY-ANNE SCORGIE: Mm hmm. The other thing just to mention here is that on Monday, Trudeau did announce that we are looking at a third tranche of support which would address this particular situation where you still have people - like freelancers or even students who are earning a little bit of money, but their incomes are still drastically reduced because of the crisis. So we are waiting for more details on what that third tranche will look like. But we've been promised that it's on its way.

MG: Let's keep on rolling. This next question comes from Robert Lidington in Saskatoon, who writes, The Bank of Canada dropped its main interest rate from 1.75 Percent in January to 0.25 percent. I was expecting the banks to pass on lower rates to their customers. I received my line of credit statements yesterday and was surprised to see the rate had only dropped by half a percent. Why aren't banks dropping their rates and can the government legislate them to do so? Jennifer where do you want to start with Robert's questions?

JENNIFER ROBSON: So let me start with kind of the top down. The Bank of Canada does work independently from the government of Canada. And they set that overnight rate, which is the rate at which the central bank is lending money to commercial banks. And it does take a while often for rate adjustments to work their way through the economy, because some commercial lending uses a variable rate that is set at prime plus some sort of percent. But other products are not priced that way. So, you know, those adjustments can often take time. And there is no current law that lets the government set prices on the products sold by banks. In a centrally planned economy is actually come with some pretty big trade-offs. You know, the bank act does give the government the power to regulate financial institutions in terms of their governance or liquidity. And actually, as it turns out, some of those requirements with regards to liquidity that are meant to, you know, ensure stability can actually result in some constraints on the banks ability change prices on their products on some things. Now, there is a section of the criminal code that does protect Canadians against usury. But I don't think that that would be very helpful in these situations because that law currently sets the maximum percentage for lending at 60 percent. So, you know, banks have said that they are giving mortgage deferrals, but consumers have to ask, you know, the consumers have always had the opportunity to ask to switch into a lower cost credit cards or other product and that option is still there. And remember, markets only work when consumers make demands. And of course, yes, banks have to not be jerks. So if people are dissatisfied with the response that they are getting from their bank, there are complaints processes. And there's also the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada that is there to oversee the relationship that consumers have with their banks.

MG: Your point being that there's not a whole lot that the government can do. I mean, you can say, you know, banks need to be onside and as you say, not be jerks, but they don't have a big stick that they can shake in front of those banks.

JENNIFER ROBSON: No. And that's actually for a good reason because we want competitive markets. And, like I said, if you if you start actually creating legislation to regulate financial markets at that extreme, there are some real trade-offs.

MG: Next question comes from Maurice Fox Read in Saskatchewan, who writes, I am a senior on a fixed income. I do not have a defined benefit pension plan. I depend on the Canada Pension Plan old age security and a small amount of money I withdraw from my investments monthly. Due to life events, I continue to have a mortgage. My concern is that the length of time I will be able to stay in my home is dependent on my investment funds. And given the situation with the market, this time likely will be shortened. What can I do? Should I sell my house and try to hang onto my investment money as long as possible? Lesley-Anne what advice would you offer Mars?

LESLEY-ANNE SCORGIE: So three quick things. The CPP in old age security are not increasing as part of a financial aid package. Wharton To note that because if you are expecting additional cash flow from those sources, it is not coming. Second thing, if this person has money in what we call a whiff of retirement income registered retirement income fund, the amount that the person has to withdraw has now been reduced by 25 percent and that is in an effort to extend the time horizon that that particular nest egg would have to wait. Like I get to wade through that difficult time. So if the recovery period of 18 or 36 months, by having to take out less money, hopefully the nest egg will remain more intact. But let's deal with this real estate question, should you sell or should you stay? What I know from a lot of the investment community right now is they're taking a wait and see approach with an expected recovery window up to three, maybe even longer years. So my advice here is wait and see. Hang in there. And if you need additional support, see what you can do by advocating for yourself with your local representative about CPP and old age security and do contact your investment adviser, if you have one, you need to shore up your investment portfolio so that you don't incur additional losses.

MG: All right. We asked people to send in recordings of their questions as well. This one comes from Neil Fox. We'll get to Neal's question in just a moment. We'll bring in a different question first. This is a question really just about. I mean, I think if you're looking at what Neil's question is, it's sort of about the basic income. One of the things he was talking about, we can get to it now, is how to figure what we're going to see after this. There have been calls for basic income for a long time. And Neil wanted to raise that.

SOUNDCLIP

Hey, Matt, I just read an article. It said there's an estimated 650 trillion dollars on the Planet in wealth today. And I'm just wondering, you know, with the current economic situation, so many people out of work, what's the tipping point for us to adopt a universal basic income model?

MG: Jennifer, this has been, as I say, something that people have debated for a long time. Is this the tipping point?

JENNIFER ROBSON: So I don't have a crystal ball for sure. I'm not saying no never to a universal basic income, but I do think it means very different things to different people. And I think we have to keep our eyes on the prise right now. And the goal right now is to get money out fast to people who need it. And if we need to do more as it becomes clear that this is, you know, this is clearly a marathon, not a race, then we need to also be thinking about things that can be repeated and scaled up if need be. There will be a lot of time, I think, once we get to that economic recovery to deal with the fallout. But first, we have to get to that recovery. So I think some of the debate on whether we should just launch a UBI right now are about, you know, do we skip the application step, even the short one that's in place now for the simplified employment insurance, emergency benefits and the Canada Emergency Response Benefit. But remember, government doesn't have a magic list with everybody's names and addresses and bank accounts. And it certainly doesn't have a list that where they can tell who needs help right now and today. So normally I don't like applications. I see them as a way to actually reduce accessibility often for income support. But I would say that the option of trying to figure out who needs help and how do we send a check to them could actually be slower. And so ethically, I just think it is better for us to be focussing on a tool where people can come fill it a very quick application and get money quickly. And that is what we're seeing so far with CERB and the emergency response, our emergency benefit night. So I think ethically we need to do the thing that is fastest and gets help to the people who need it right now.

MG: We heard from - and thank you for that - we heard from a lot of students and parents who are worried about summer jobs and paying tuition and what this is going to mean for life when this is all over and done with. Kathleen O'Brien is one of the students. She's finishing up a law degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax and she's on the line with us. Kathleen. Good morning to you.

KATHLEEN O'BRIEN: Thanks for having me.

MG: Thanks for joining us. Tell us what your situation is. Are you working right now?

KATHLEEN O'BRIEN: So I am. I'm currently working as a teaching assistant. I just do that part time. I've done that through both my second and third year of my program.

MG: And you were supposed to start articling this summer, right?

KATHLEEN O'BRIEN: I was in the last stages of a competition for an articling job. And at the very last stage, there was a hiring freeze and that was unfortunately put on hold.

MG: And so what happens now? There's this CERB, the emergency response benefit. Do you qualify for that, do you think?

KATHLEEN O'BRIEN: I'm not sure, given that my income, albeit upcoming income through my articling position, was directly affected. I haven't lost any job in progress as my teaching assistant contract is up in about a week or two.

MG: And so are there other avenues for financial help that you've been looking into?

KATHLEEN O'BRIEN: So I financed my legal education through a professional student line of credit with a financial institution. And a benefit of that line of credit was that once you had secured articling, you were eligible for extra financing on that line of credit. So an extra bit of money, unfortunately, given that I was stopped short just of getting that paperwork, I don't have anything to go to my financial institution to get that financing. I've reached out to them, but I've absolutely gotten no responses on that front.

MG: So we have experts on the line. You have a question for them?

KATHLEEN O'BRIEN: Yes. So I think my first question may be for Jennifer would be in regard to qualifying for the CERB, I've been told that I do and that I don't. And so just given that upcoming employment has been directly impacted and indefinitely delayed. Should I apply anyway?

MG: Okay. And you had a second question as well.

KATHLEEN O'BRIEN: And then my second question, I guess, would also be any advice that maybe Lesley-Anne would have for me to go into my financial institution when asking for an extension on my line of credit just to kind of help me support myself for the next few months.

MG: Good luck and thanks for your questions. We'll get answers right now.

KATHLEEN O'BRIEN: Sure, thanks.

MG: Kathleen O'Brien is a law student, Dalhousie University joining us to answer those questions. And we would be cycling through a lot of them. Lesley-Anne Scorgie, who's a personal finance author. Jennifer Robson, associate professor of political management at Carleton University. Jennifer, did you want to tackle the issue of the CERB, the Canadian Employment Relief Benefit? Is that something that Kathleen would be eligible for?

JENNIFER ROBSON: So it sounds like she might. So if she actually has been working and that employment and now coming to an end. Remember, the CERB eligibility criteria are that you made at least $5000 in employment or self-employment, including gig income in the last year. And that's since March 15 that you have a 14 day period with no income, no, you know, implement or work income coming in, including self-employment. So it sounds like in her case, there will be a period very soon where she will that TA income will be stopping and she doesn't have another job that will have started. So it sounds to me like she may very well be qualifying for serve.

MG: Excellent. Lesley-Anne what about the issue of student loans and lines of credit? What have we heard from governments but also financial institutions that would help students like Kathleen get by in this time?

JENNIFER ROBSON: Kathleen is not alone here. And she actually needs to proactively begin a negotiation with her financial institution. So what I can tell you is that the banks have said, please call us. Let's have a dialogue. And it's better to do this on the phone. I know that the phone lines with almost every financial institution are clogged right now. But stay the course. You need to get them on the phone. And what you're asking for is additional availability on that line of credit at a reduced rate because rates have come down. So Kathleen is still going to take her law degree. She probably needs a little bit more, maybe 20, 30 percent more than what she thought she would. And this is all a negotiation. The other thing I just want to add here, in Kathleen's case with students, this is a group that has been identified by the government. And on Monday, we had that announcement from the prime minister that came out that said students are going to be addressed in this next tranche of funding that we're waiting to get more information on. So in Kathleen's case, and for all students, this is good news. It's welcomed news. It also applies for seasonal workers or gig workers. So if she finds she's not able to qualify for the CERB, we know that something else is coming. But in the meantime, Kathleen needs to get on the phone and begin that negotiation with her lender for more credit and at a reduced rate. The other thing I just want to add here we're also entering [unintelligible] scholarship season for students. We know statistically that 70 percent of scholarships are not claimed because students aren't applying for those, especially with graduate programs. But I would also encourage if you've got the time on your hands, Kathleen, do apply for some of these scholarships, take advantage of the fact that, you know, you're going to be one of the very few people that actually completes the application.

MG: Excellent. Okay. We have about five minutes left and I want to go through a handful more questions so hopefully we can answer these quickly. And thanks, Kathleen, for those questions. This is from Seefra Selee on Twitter who wrote, Regarding investments, should I be changing the profile for my kids? RESPs from moderate risk, for example, to lower risk investments? Lesley-Anne briefly, what's your advice there?

LESLEY-ANNE SCORGIE: It depends on the age of the child. Generally with 10 plus year timeframe until the child goes to school, you can ride this out and hopefully catch the rebound on the market. But if you're dealing with a much compressed timeframe where you can't risk losing that RESP money, then what you would want to be doing is inserting a more protective approach in that portfolio. This is a discussion that needs to be had with your investment advisor. But there are tools that we use, such as more balance in the portfolio using fixed income securities and or even, you know, GICs and money market mutual funds. There's a variety of tools that are available to insert that protective component of the portfolio. So again, it depends on the age of the child. But talk to your investment advisor.

MG: All right. This next question comes from Elle Chen in Vaughan, Ontario, who writes, I'm a small business owner. Our spa has been closed since March 16th due to COVID-19. We're experiencing lots of difficulties, especially struggling to pay our monthly rental fee, which is over $8000 with zero cash flow. We already sent a request for relief to our landlord. We're still waiting to hear back what flexibility or forgiveness programs are available to small businesses like us. Jennifer.

JENNIFER ROBSON: Okay, so if they brought him at that request and if they're landlord is carrying a mortgage and the landlord gets that mortgage deferral from the bank, there should be some flexibility to pay that forward to the renters. In addition to that, small businesses, actually all firms I believe, are covered through a deferral of paying their income and sales tax plus any custom duties. It's not the same as bringing in new revenue, but at least it reduces some of the pressure on the accounts payable for the company. If they have workers that they want to retain, remember that wage subsidy will be coming soon. The Canada Emergency Business Account, which is going to be providing interest free loans of up to $40,000, where 10,000 of that is actually going to be completely forgivable. That will be emergency funding available to tide small businesses over. That's coming online soon. The application will be actually through financial institutions with federal funding. There is also already the Business Credit Availability Program, which created a pool of $40 billion to make low cost loans, again backed up through federal money. And that's already running. Those are loans that are up to six and a quarter million dollars, again, available through financial institutions. And then last but not least, if those small business owners are self-employed or even if they've been paying themselves as employees on a salary, they may very well be eligible for either the CERB that covers [unintelligible] EI or the EI emergency benefits.

MG: Let's sneak in one more question. This is from Montreal. Nicholas Simpson works in the hotel industry and writes, I have a wife and three kids. The two hotels I work for have closed temporarily. I was one of the lucky ones that was not laid off, but my hours have been reduced to 20 hours a week from 40. I'd like to know if a program is coming for people like me because I cannot support my family on part time hours. I don't know if I should stop working and collect the CERB because I don't qualify for the other benefits that are out there. Lesley-Anne, briefly, what's your advice for Nicholas?

LESLEY-ANNE SCORGIE: Nick's employer definitely need to look at getting the wage subsidy program for their staff. But Nick, if you leave your job voluntarily, you can't get your CRB benefits right now. So you're in the third tranche that we're waiting to get more information on people who have had drastically reduced income but are still working. This is along with students we're looking to the government to provide additional details on what is coming for in terms of support for this group. Hang in there. And again, if you leave your job voluntarily, it's going to be impossible to get your EI and CERB benefits.

MG: This just in again, the range of questions that we've got speaks to the desperation that many Canadians are feeling. And you said this, Jennifer, that the economy in some ways has been put into this medically induced coma. It speaks to how desperate people are and how concerned people are that the programs that are out there aren't there to meet their needs yet.

JENNIFER ROBSON: You know, I think that if the government, you know, provincially and federally have been focussing on speed over perfection, I am glad to see actually when, whether it's the prime minister or provincial premiers, say we realise that this hasn't been covered yet. We need to do something else. So I think that those voices of people who feel that they have not been covered are being heard and certainly amplified by some terrific advocates. This is really hard. You know, it is probably one of the hardest policy challenges that we will have faced as a country. We're doing some things really right. You know, you mentioned the speed at which applications for some of those programs are being processed right now. That actually puts Canada in a you know, I would say at the vanguard of other countries in terms of the social policy response on this. But again, it's a really big challenge and different people are in different circumstances and need different forms of help.

MG: Thank you both for answering these questions. We got a lot. And maybe we'll have you back to answer more than this is not going to go away anytime soon. In the meantime, thank you and take care of yourselves.

JENNIFER ROBSON: You too. Thank you.

LESLEY-ANNE SCORGIE: Thank you so much.

MG: Lesley-Anne Scorgie is a personal finance expert, the author most recently of A Modern Couple's Money Guide. Jennifer Robson, an assistant professor of political management at Carleton University. And thanks to everybody who submitted their questions as well. If you have more questions, we'll do this again, I'm sure. You can ask your money questions through the Web site. Go to cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. We're back in about 90 seconds time with our National Affairs Panel on what's happening broadly across this country and specifically in Alberta. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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National affairs panel

Guests: Kathleen Petty, Mia Rabson, Jason Markusoff, Tom Power

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

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We now project that Alberto will hit the peak of infections in mid-May. From the beginning of the outbreak to the end of this summer, we could see as many as 800,000 infections and between 400 and 6600 deaths. Now, I know that these numbers can be overwhelming, but these models are not a done deal. I want Albertans instead to see them as a challenge. Perhaps the greatest challenge of our generation.

MG: That's the premier, Jason Kenney, delivering a stark message in a televised address to Albertans last night, calling the pandemic the greatest challenge of our generation. He spoke about the medical and economic challenge that lies ahead for a province already in an economic tailspin. And our national fair's panellists are ready to talk about this and other issues. Kathleen Petty is executive producer for CBC News Calgary and host of the West of Centre podcast. Jason Markusoff is the Alberta correspondent for McClain's. Mia Rabson, National reporter for Canadian Press. Good morning to you all.

KATHLEEN PETTY: Good morning.

MIA RABSON: Good morning.

JASON MARKUSOFF: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Kathleen, let's start with you. What did you make of what the premier said last night? What stood out to you in that address?

KATHLEEN PETTY: Well, obviously, the numbers from the modelling, I know that a lot of the observations were, one, it was good to have the information. I think people have really sort of hungered for this. On the other hand, I think there were a lot of people who would have preferred, at least initially, to have had that from Dr. Hinshaw, just because there are a lot of very specific questions that most people would, I think, argue that she would answer more fully.

MG: That's the province's medical officer of health.

KATHLEEN PETTY: Yes, exactly. So because, for example, even if we look at the probable scenario that the premier laid out, which is that the peak would be in mid-May and by the end of summer, 800,000 thousand and 400-3100 deaths. Now 800,000 infections is key because he wasn't saying 800,000 cases. And so what needed to be clarified after the fact was that he was talking about people who wouldn't ultimately even be officially diagnosed. And those are the kinds of details that I think are important and that the people of the province probably would've liked to have had before hearing his message, which obviously included a lot of conversation about where the economy is headed.

MG: I want to talk about the economy. But given that, why would the premier deliver those numbers and those projections and not the medical officer of health?

KATHLEEN PETTY: Well, it's a good question, and it's one that will probably be asked of him. And I suspect Dr. Hinshaw isn't going to be interested in entertaining a question like that when she does her availability today. I think it is a good question. I mean, people obviously wanted to hear, you know, something's calming at a time of great anxiety. And I think, generally speaking, you know, the premiers is good at these kinds of speeches and addresses. And he did it in a very calm manner but, you know, full of really daunting, daunting detail.

MG: Mia Robson, why is that information important, that sense of transparency, even to Kathleen's point, if the numbers that come out are daunting?

MIA RABSON: Well, oneof the main reasons that governments and I think even sort of the public want to see these numbers, is that a lot of unknowns about this. How long are we going to be doing this and why are we doing it? And so governments, I think, partly want to release this data because they want Canadians to see, okay, these are the numbers if we do really, really well at this physical distancing thing. And if we do nothing, and that was one of the things Jason Kenney said yesterday for the people who think we should just let this virus run its course, it will be like three to four times as bad in terms of the number of deaths. And that's the same message that's been coming when Ontario released its numbers last week, when Quebec released its numbers yesterday. If we don't do things or if we don't follow the rules and physically distance ourselves, the number of cases and the number of people who will die from this will be significantly higher. And it's one of the ways to actually explain to people why we're doing what we're doing, why we're hurting the economy, the way we're hurting it, and why we're being asked to stay home.

MG: Jason, what was the message that the premier was trying to send from your perspective?

JASON MARKUSOFF: He's trying to send a few messages. He he'd certainly want to talk about those numbers and give people a sense of agency as other provinces have done. The range of deaths in his scenario was between 400 and 5600. And what a politician or a chief medical officer of health, that's the type of person who's been releasing this information in other provinces, the politicians have been stepping back. Kenney, for whatever reasons, he has wanted to be at the forefront of his message. It gives people a chance, as Mia said, to help control those numbers. Help, help, help, help! Fear that destiny. Away from the higher numbers, toward the lower numbers. But Jason Kenney was- One of the reasons I think Jason Kenney, I haven't heard this directly, but I've I'm figuring that Jason Kenney wanted to take the lead on this, is that he wants to make sure, he wants to pivot this conversation gradually toward the economy. Because once the dust settles from the coronavirus in some months time, there's going to be a whole bunch more dust kicked up from the lingering pain of the oil recession. The starkest number that Jason Kenney gave yesterday, actually wasn't in the speech, was in a speech he gave earlier, and that's 25 percent unemployment, the likes of which no province had seen before in Canada. It's a number that he spoke about at an energy summit online earlier in the day. And that was the one of the most jarring numbers, asides from the coronavirus figures.

MG: What was interesting is that he was one of the first, maybe if not the first then certainly one of the first leaders in this country to start laying out a bit of a roadmap as to how you turned the economy back on, how you plug things back in and sort of make things happen again, talking about when this could possibly end, but also how you start to bring the economy back to life. What did he say, briefly, Jason, about that?

JASON MARKUSOFF: And that was another really interesting thing that the chief medical health officers might not be doing there, perhaps would've been reluctant to do. He told us, he told Albertans, that, look, you have to- this is going to take till May. If we actually want to be serious about controlling the curve, we're not going to be reducing, changing things until the end of May. And even after then, we're going to have a very different a gradual reopening of the economy. Gradual public service is coming back, gradual gatherings. We should be working masks more. He was much more firm on masks than any of the public health officials have been. There's going to be a serious testing regime. There's going to be a serious quarantines and isolation of people who do have coronavirus once we get past the peak.

MG: He talked about the borders as well.

JASON MARKUSOFF: Yes. He spoke about a very firm quarantining of people coming across the borders. I mean, you know, obviously Jason Kenney can't control the borders himself, but he spoke of some quarantine. I mean, this is the issue, one of the big issues with Kenny did as Kathleen laid out, whether this was a televised speech. There was no opportunity to question him, ask for details, get context. Then, indeed, many of the numbers were being misinterpreted in the premier's office had to clarify some of the numbers because the suggestion that a televised speech, not in the briefing.

MG: Kathleen go ahead.

KATHLEEN PETTY: I would just say and clarify, Blake, practically within minutes of the speech starting, I would point out that's how quickly they sent it out. So they understood that there was going to be a misinterpretation to some extent of the numbers because they were so stark, but part of the reason for this. You know, Jason mentioned the fact that we're going to be ramping up testing. Just to give you an idea of how much the goal is to ramp up to 20,000 tests a day, 20,000, way beyond anything any other province is doing. And Alberta has been leading in the number of testing that has been done. And he talked about new tests being developed that are more rapid and can be more easily administered. So, you know, that's another one of the reasons why we're going to probably see numbers [unintelligible]. He talks about the peak in mid-May. As Jason mentioned, it's up to 6600 deaths that he was projecting, but the 6600 is the high end. On the in the less likely scenario, the probable scenario is 3100, but 400 to 3100. So we have to remember these ranges are huge and part of what he's trying to tell people is obviously as other provinces have done, that the range is huge because it depends on the effectiveness of the mitigation that everyone is doing. And so it is dependent on individuals in the province following that public health direction.

MG: He also talked about an economic reckoning to Jason's point, to the fact that when this ends, the economy in Alberta will be in worse shape than it is now and it's in bad shape now. How are people, Kathleen, feeling in your province when it comes to the future of their economy?

KATHLEEN PETTY: Well, it's interesting. It just so happened that we were polling. We commissioned a poll at CBC in Calgary. And so we were in the field marks a second to eight in the March, 9th to 18th. And we did a similar poll, Matt, in 2018. So in 2018, Albertans, 18 percent of them thought the economy was getting worse. Two years later, in the first part of the poll, from the second to the 8th, it was 60. 3 percent. So the anxiety was already very high. We were just starting to get a sense of what we were confronting this COVID-19. And then we pulled again from the 9th to the 18th and that number shot up to 79 percent. So and then, of course, that was reinforced, obviously, by the premier's message that employment could hit 25 percent, perhaps even in excess of that. Keep in mind, I mean, everyone in the country is going to be looking at high unemployment numbers, but the CBO's estimate for the country's 15 percent. So 25 percent since we've kept records since 1972, the highest unemployment ever registered was Newfoundland at 22.7 In 1984. So just to Jason's point, if we had that 25 percent, it's easily the highest this country has ever seen in any province.

MG: Mia Robson, we've heard a couple of times from the finance minister, Bill Morneau, including on this program last week, that there would be some assistance for the oil and gas sector, the energy sector. He said initially it would be hours, potentially days, said it was still coming. It hasn't arrived yet. What's the hold-up as you understand it?

MIA RABSON: Yeah, well, as I sort of said, a technically isn't wrong. I mean, I guess we could still counted it hours. He just didn't say how many hours. But the clock is ticking. I mean, there is not a specific answer yet from the government on even when we might see this money. When I was asking them about it last week, it was we don't know yet. Part of the problem is this government is rolling out programs that are so big. I mean, the numbers on them are almost mind-boggling and they do programs that the government normally wouldn't roll out for like two years and they're rolling them out in two or three weeks. So there's so much attention in the Department of Finance right now trying to get this emergency worker benefit out the door and now working on this wage subsidy. There aren't that many people to turn around and say, okay, now we can work on this project. And so they're sort of having to prioritise. And they've decided that getting money out the door fast for individuals was their number one priority. And they will turn to look at the other things that have to happen when they can. So I don't know that we will see that package this week. I mean, he mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I believe in on March 18th, he said there would be money for orphan well cleanup in Alberta. It was something we were expecting in the federal budget that was supposed to be on March 30th, which obviously has now been postponed indefinitely. So that program should have been mostly together by March 18th. And we still haven't seen any indication as to when that's coming. And it's really difficult just because there's just so many things happening in that department and with kind of revenue agency and others right now, there aren't the people to work on it.

MG: Kathleen, go ahead.

KATHLEEN PETTY: I was just going to mention. You know, the thing I noticed from the prime minister, every time he is asked about this, his focus in his answer is very much about the workers. He really doesn't talk about oil companies or the industry in any specific way.

MG: What does that suggest to workers? What does that suggest to you about what might be coming?

KATHLEEN PETTY: Well, it suggests to me that, haven't they? So far, we haven't got it figured out. I mean, because as Mia says, it's just so big. And some of the estimates I've heard in terms of what will be required is something in the neighbourhood of 20 billion dollars. And then you have to decide how that money is used. Presumably it's to backstop is to provide lines of credit to companies that can no longer borrow. And then it's you know, the question is, I guess you don't want to look to be picking winners and losers on one hand. But on the other hand, if you're going to provide lines of credit and credit backstop, you need to be sure it's going to companies that at least before this were relatively solid, that there were any number of companies that were teetering on the edge already.

MG: That's the question. Jason, can it be politically viable to I'll use this phrase, it's loaded one to bail out companies, backstop companies, if you want to call it that, that are multinational, that, to Kathleen's point, might not be financially viable? Can you politically do that or do you need to direct that money to those who have lost their jobs and find themselves wondering how they're going to pay the bills?

JASON MARKUSOFF: I mean, in part, they'll have to do better to do two things. It seems like and this is even with, even Jason Kenny and his minister, [unintelligible], after signalling that they're looking for and expecting the government to do two, to do both things, they're going to give these credit facilities, give some financial backstop so the companies least have can borrow money somehow. And that's going to sure go to multinationals. A lot of the ones that are struggling, a lot of the lot of the multinationals have left the industry, frankly. They, because of oil prices being where they were in the 20s, in the $50 range per barrel of oil back a few years ago, people were leaving. It wasn't expensive. Now that it's $25, there's almost you know, there's just that the national, you know, regional Western producers left and even they're not-- Some of them are just shutting in production so uneconomic to work at and refineries because of demand stopping don't want it. So there's going to be a big [unintelligible] in the expectation for them to get money. But the worker piece is going to be big. And it's actually getting these smaller mom-and-pop service companies who work on the rigs who supplied oil sands, get them to work with these make work projects of cleaning up these abandoned wells that have been left because of the financial crisis. I think they're looking for two things. And one of the most startling things in this whole thing is that for the last five years, conservatives, like Jason Kenney and Andrew Scheer and other conservatives in the movement, have been attacking Trudeau incessantly and even blaming this all on him. Well, right now, it's so clearly not his fault, this current acute crisis. It's the demand plunge because of coronavirus. And it's the supply crunch because of Saudi's and Russia,.

MG: Could he swoop in at some sort of hero in the midst of that?

JASON MARKUSOFF: They're expecting him to do that. And, you know, you're not hearing sniping or anger or the normal frustration either from the oil patch or from Jason Kenney about him. They're expecting him. They're relying on him to be the hero. In fact that they need him to be the hero.

MG: Kathleen, you're not you're not hearing that across the country. You're hearing Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, singing the praises, not just of Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister, but of the prime minister himself, somebody who the prime minister seemed to be running against in some ways in the last election when he spent so much time criticizing Doug Ford. What do you make of that?

KATHLEEN PETTY: Well, it's pretty remarkable, isn't it? I mean, I think everyone clearly noticed that. And I mean, Kenny has been fairly circumspect in his commentary, certainly not singing praises, not being as critical as he normally is. And part of the reason for that, Matt, honestly and again, I'll go back to the polling that we did because it's so interesting. We also asked people what the Fair Deal panel. We heard a lot before this crisis hit about how Alberta wanted to assert its autonomy. And Kenney was very bullish on that. And talking about how when they bring in the recommendations, he plans to implement them, some of them, I guess, but go to a referendum. And they include things like a separate pension plan, separate tax collection, a provincial police force, etc. Well, we polled on that and the support for autonomy was anaemic, to say the least, in the 30s. So I can't imagine what it would be now, because I think what has become plainly evident to Albertans and people across the country is how critically important it is that we sort of all pull together and work together to help each other out. I mean, the inter-dependence provinces and provinces to the federal government. And, you know, even take a look at the Canada Energy Response Benefit, although Jason Kenney offered an emergency isolations support payments to people, it was over a very short period. And he characterized it as a bridge to this federal benefit that he expected people to apply for. And of course, there were any number of complaints about denied applications and broken links and long delays and that sort of thing. So he made it very clear that a lot of the federal spending and programs is part of what he's relying on. In addition, I would point out as he's facing what he acknowledges is the deficit that he suspects is now going to triple to about $20 billion.

MIA RABSON: here's not a lot of public appetite right now for the kind of intense partisan sniping that we have seen in this country over the last couple of weeks.

MG: And that's I was going to say, where does that leave the opposition parties? Andrew Scheer was on the program last week and I asked him what is the role of the opposition party? And he said it's to hold the government to account. But how do you do that if there isn't, to your point, that appetite for, as you say, partisan sniping.

MIA RABSON: Well, part of it, and they've been walking a fine line on this is pointing out when the government comes forward with these programs. But let's be honest, when you're pulling out a 71 billion dollar wage subsidy in a week, it's not going to be perfect. And so you put more eyes on it, opposition eyes, other eyes, they're the ones who will say, well, what about this? And I think this might be a loophole. That's where the opposition's role is right now. Not to say that to sort of throw off the hurt, the insults and things like that, but to point out the legitimate flaws in programs. And, you know, they did the first time the federal government came forward with their first emergency bill. They were trying to put forward some extra extraordinary powers about being able to tax people without going to parliament. For whatever reasons they were trying to do that, it did certainly come off as a power grab. And the opposition stood up and said, no, that is not going to happen. And the government had to back down. So that's the role of the opposition here. It's to point out the problems, point out the flaws in programs that are rolling out very, very quickly, but didn't do it in a much different way than we have seen criticism from political parties over the last couple of years.

MG: Jason, and that in the last minute that we have, how do opposition parties thread that needle?

JASON MARKUSOFF: They struggle to, I think that they take sort of a loss. They have to look. They have to stand back. They can't be seen as too partisan. Peter Mackay and Erin O'Toole have been pretty excoriated. We've seen some provincial opposition parties get hyper partisan and it doesn't become a good look in it in a time when every [unintelligible] needing the government in charge to do the right thing for people. You know, it was interesting. We saw it creates unusual bedfellows. The Conservative Party federally, they're not usually a big advocate group for students, but they've been hammering on this week, actually, not only the small businesses, they're typical up backing, but they're saying, look, students are not getting the benefit of the CERB. We had to do something for them. Otherwise we're going to have a giant crisis among our young people. And, you know, we have, in fact, heard Trudeau yesterday said, we hear you. We're going to work on other deals for these people.

MG: We will all talk again. In the meantime, take care of yourselves. Stay healthy. And thank you for this.

MIA RABSON: You too.

KATHLEEN PETTY: Thanks, Matt

JASON MARKUSOFF: You're welcome.

MG: Kathleen Petty, executive producer of CBC News Calgary. Host of the West of Centre podcast. Jason Markusoff is the Alberta correspondent for McClain's. And Mia Robson, national reporter for the Canadian Press. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. You might be waking up this morning to some sad news. Or maybe you heard it last night. The legendary singer songwriter John Prine has died from complications related to the coronavirus. He was one of our best. And Tom Power, host of Q, is with us now. Tom, good morning.

TOM POWERS: Morning, Matt. How are you?

MG: Well, I'm okay, but I'm really sad to hear this news because I try to think music is like a time machine and it takes you into a specific place and brings back the memories of those places. And so many memories are attached to the music of John Prine for me.

TP: Yes, it is a really tremendous loss. You know, I was saying to a friend of mine last night that it's a testament to how much music can really mean to people, just how the sadness that so many people are feeling today, because to lose John Prine can feel like losing an uncle and losing feeling an old friend. It can feel like losing someone who's been kind of been there for you throughout the years. You mean such a tremendous songwriter.

MG: Why did people love him so much?

TP: I mean, he was sort of everything you'd want in a songwriter. He could be the funniest songwriter you'd ever hear. He could be the saddest songwriter you ever hear. He could speak in everyday language like you talk to your buddy at the bar. He could be profound and write poetry you'd spend weeks deciphering. You know, typically you're able to do one of those things you're a great songwriter. To be able to do all of them is is almost impossible. He was really the total package and his music was simple enough that it was accessible to any people. You know, it was, it opened up great song writing to working people. And he was just incredible.

MG: But for songwriters, I mean, I think of the tributes that have been paid already from people like Ron Sexsmith in this country. Brandi Carlile in the United States, the list goes on and on and on. He meant something special to songwriters.

TOM POWERS: You know, I think, yes, again, he was sort of the ideal of what you wanted a songwriter to be. There's a great story of, you know, when he first got up on stage to do an open mike in Chicago and he was a mailman, he wrote songs and his route and he got up on stage. And Steve Goodman, the legendary songwriter who wrote songs like City of New Orleans. He was sitting in the audience and John got up and sang a couple of songs, one, I think we're going to play in a second. And there was no applause. And John was terrified. But the reason there was no applause because everyone was just blown away. No one had ever heard anything like they were stunned. And Steve called Kris Kristofferson, flew him in. And Kristofferson hated John Prine. You know why? Because he was so much better than everybody else without Ryan. So Chris loved him. Bob Dylan said he was, you know, he was among his favourite songwriters, Sodium Randy Newman. They just he and he's inspired a new generation of songwriters, like you mentioned, Brandi Carlile and Jason Isbell, people who value the beauty in simple everyday language.

MG: We're going to play a song in a minute. But you spoke with John Prine a couple of years back.

TP: We're going to be airing on Q on the evening edition tonight. Mike, my conversation with him that we did a few years ago, it was a dream. We got to talk a little bit about, you know, his relationship with Canadian music. His relationship with Newfoundland music. And I got to read him a line of his that I sort of repeat my repeat to myself over and over again. And I got to ask him about it. But, you know, overall, he was just a simple mail man who just wrote real good songs. Who said he always liked to do it until he got paid for it and found a way to do it anyway. A tremendous songwriter. And, you know, we'll miss him so much.

MG: It is almost impossible to choose a song to play to remember him. But you have done that. What song are we going to play?

TP: So I wanted to play this because I think it's the story I was telling earlier is that he got up at stage at an open mike at his first ever concert, the first ever show. No one knew who he was, you know. And he played two songs. He played Angel from Montgomery. Imagine doing that as your first ever song. And went on Bonnie Raitt covered it and you do a huge song. And then he also did this. And Roger Ebert, who reviewed one of his early shows, said it's amazing for a 24 year old to have this much empathy. This is a song called Hello In There.

MG: Tom, thank you.

TP: Thank you. Matt, this is John Prine. And hello in there.

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[Song: Heloo inThere by John Brine].

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Seasonal farm workers

Guests: Nickoy Patterson, Shelley Bradshaw, Ken Wall, Evan Fraser

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to an extended edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come this morning, a doctor who wants you to rethink your spring activities not because she hates physical exercise or joy, she's just looking out for you. But first, how this pandemic is hitting Canadian farms and their seasonal workers.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU: We understand that our agricultural producers have farmers right across the country, as well as fish processors and the fisheries industry rely on temporary foreign workers to make sure that we can feed our country. At the same time, we see many, many Canadians out of work who are wanting to help out students who are looking at opportunities for summer jobs that they might not otherwise have.

MG: The prime minister trying to reassure food producers that the government is doing everything it can to ensure that critical temporary foreign workers will be available in the coming season. And while many farmers will still be awaiting their help at Sandy Shores Farms in Ontario, some labourers have already begun to arrive. Nickoy Patterson is one of the more than a dozen workers who arrived from Jamaica on Sunday. He's been coming to Canada for the past four years. Won't be going straight into the fields just yet because he is in his 14 day isolation period. Nickoy Patterson is on the line now from a bunkhouse in Norfolk County, Ontario. Nickoy, good morning.

NICKOY PATTERSON: Good morning, Matt. How are you?

MG: I'm okay. What's isolation and quarantine like for you?

NICKOY PATTERSON: Well, it's not so bad. You know, just come to the country and we need to stay safe and everybody safe as well. So we have to [unintelligible].

MG: Tell me a bit about this, you're in, as I said, the bunkhouse there's only about 15 of you there that are on the farm right now, but there will be hundreds at some point in time. What precautions have they been undertaking at the farm to make sure that everyone's safe?

NICKOY PATTERSON: Basically we are carted off, yellow tape off [unintelligible]. So as the others come, I think they'll move us to another location so when the other ones come, they will go into quarantine as well. different as well. Some don't get this disease right.

MG: How many people usually are in the bunkhouse?

NICKOY PATTERSON: 10, roughly 10.

MG: 10. And so are you able- we talk about this physical distancing where you need to be, you know, six feet, two meters away from people even. Are you able to do that in the bunkhouse?

NICKOY PATTERSON: Yes, right. No, because we are three in the bunkhouse as we speak. Three persons.

MG: Yes. But once everybody else arrives, is that going to be possible?

NICKOY PATTERSON: Yes, I think so. I think so. If the [unintelligible] is finish, we have a couple [unintelligible] right? So who went to a quarantine, they would go somewhere else, basically.

MG: You've been coming here to the farm for four years now.

NICKOY PATTERSON: Yes.

MG: And what do you do? Tell me. Describe a typical day of work for you.

NICKOY PATTERSON: Basically in the irrigation field to irrigate the plants, to fertilize and water and so on, take care of the plants.

MG: Why is it important for you to come here and work every year?

NICKOY PATTERSON: Actually, it's important to me because this feeds my family, [unintelligible] and it's really hard to get a stable job when in Jamaica.

MG: So how much more money - I apologize for asking about money - but how much more would you be making here than you would if you were working in Jamaica?

NICKOY PATTERSON: Well, it's a lot more. I can't say it was a lot more.

MG: And so you wouldn't be able to pay for the things that you need if you just had that job, you have to come here and do that.

NICKOY PATTERSON: No, I won't be able to do that.

MG: What sort of sacrifice do you have to make to do that? I mean, you're away. How long are you here for?

NICKOY PATTERSON: Eight months and I have to leave my family, you know. And that's really hard, but we have to do it right because we still need things on there so somebody have to make the sacrifice.

MG: And who are you leaving behind?

NICKOY PATTERSON: My girlfriend, mother and my sister.

MG: This is hard work. How would you describe how difficult the work is that you do?

NICKOY PATTERSON: Well, it's difficult to, like basically a sunny day, if it's really hot we have to work 24 24/7. You have to water the plants and everything so they keep going.

MG: And that's worth it. I mean, that that hard work is worth it because of the money that you have to make, as you say, to send back home.

NICKOY PATTERSON: Yes. Yes. It's worth it.

MG: Were you worried, as this pandemic took hold, we know that a lot of countries have closed their borders off. Were you worried that you wouldn't be able to get here to do that work?

NICKOY PATTERSON: A bit. Yes, it was a bit worried. This is my job, basically, right?

MG: When did you find out, Nickoy got here on Sunday, when did you find out that you'd be able to get on a plane and get up here?

NICKOY PATTERSON: Actually, it was Friday and they called me into coming on Sunday.

MG: So not very much notice at all to say goodbye.

NICKOY PATTERSON: No, no.

MG: What would you want Canadians to understand about the work that you're doing?

NICKOY PATTERSON: This work I think Kenny engined put their hands more and basically, you know, we like this job and so on, but would like them to come in as well and get the local farmers go in properly. They do have the send to Jamaica to get on hour.

MG: Why do you think people haven't done that? As you say, put themselves in and put their hands in it more.

NICKOY PATTERSON: Well, maybe that thing gets cheap or something like that for them. Yes, but the exchange rate for us, it's a bit better. Right. So I think that's the reason.

MG: And so you're here now for eight months.

NICKOY PATTERSON: Yes.

MG: And you'll have to be in in these 14 days when you're in isolation, you can't go out and work. What are you doing to pass the time?

NICKOY PATTERSON: Just eat, sleep. That's all, right.

MG: Take care of yourself and stay healthy. It's good to speak with you. We'll give you.

NICKOY PATTERSON: Okay Matt, bye.

MG: . Nicoya Patterson is a seasonal worker from Jamaica employed by Sandy Shore Farms in Ontario. In a typical year, but 60,000 temporary migrants are what arrived to work on Canadian farms. They come from Jamaica. They come from Mexico. They come from Trinidad and beyond. And they are indispensible help for many operations, operations run by my next guests. Shelley Bradshaw is a co-owner of Beck Farms in central Alberta. She and her family farm about 50 acres of vegetable crops. Ken Wall is the CEO of Sandy Shore Farms in Norfolk County, Ontario. He has about 1500 acres, and that is where Nickoy is working. Good morning to you both.

SHELLEY BRADSHAW: Good morning, Matt.

KEN WALL: Good morning.

MG: Shelley. Let's start with you. How many temporary migrant workers do you have on your farm every year?

NICKOY PATTERSON: Yes, we have. We have five. We have a a small farm here. Like you said, in central Alberta. So we have five workers that come from Mexico and some of these workers, the one was this was going to be his 18th year with us. And so we have a couple others that are 16 years. So they're very reliable. It's really important for us to get them. We have a hard time finding local labour here. When you live in a small Alberta town, there's not a large labour pool to choose from. And they're really not willing to do the stoop type labour so that the type of labour our fellows are doing there in the field, weeding and hand-picking product. So it's not the kind of job that most people really want to do in Canada. So we have a really hard time filling those positions. We do have other jobs on the farm where we hire- we hire about 10 local people as well. And they're working in our commercial kitchen. They work in our carrot operation, which is mostly mechanically. It's all mechanically harvested and washed. So they do all day at the sorting and bagging in there. They work at farmer's markets for us. And so we do hire local where we can. But these five fellows have really become an integral part of our farm.

MG: And are they there yet?

SHELLEY BRADSHAW: No, they're not. Our first seller was supposed to arrive April 1st, and then we have another one comes in May and three come in July. So they just come as we need them, as we don't need them all at the beginning of the season. We can do a lot of the planting ourselves with our family members. And so we just have them come as we need them. This year that's probably going to change a little bit if we are able to get them to come. We'll probably have some come a little earlier. And a couple come a little later so that they can all come at the same time and be quarantined at the same time.

MG: Ken, we heard from Nickot, who works on your operation. How many men would be typically here with him at this point in the season beginning of April?

KEN WALL: Normally, we'd have about 25 or 30 men here already and working in the fields, planting, preparing and getting ready for the for the planning process.

MG: Tell me a bit more about what they'd be doing right now. He was. He says he's working in irrigation, but what else would people be doing right now?

KEN WALL: Well, we're actually planting asparagus grounds as we speak, trying to Plattsburg as grounds without the offshore workers. There's a lot of other additional work in terms of preparing for the for the crop. We grow a lot of asparagus. We grow a lot of bell peppers. And a lot of those tasks are required to be done now in April, long before the crop is actually planted or harvest. There's a lot of palpatory work that needs to be done.

MG: If those labourers don't arrive. What's your contingency plan?

KEN WALL: We've always employed- our plan is always to attempt to employ local folks here and within the community, employ Canadians as much as we possibly can. But that simply isn't possible. We've brought up somewhere between 125, 150 offshore workers over the last number of years. We employ another 150 to 200 local Canadians. And so we're still accessing and utilising as many as we can local Canadians and using them when, whenever and wherever we possibly can.

MG: I want to ask about the local hires and what you could do in that situation in a minute. But Nickoy is talking about trying to stay safe. In the bunkhouse. I mean, if people have seen on those farms, there are a lot of people who are sleeping in one area. How do you go about keeping people safe and healthy in this era of physical distancing?

KEN WALL: Yes, it's a tough one. But what we've got is federal guidelines that the minister of health has put out, the federal ministry of Health. They've got an army of disease, infectious disease specialists and opinion biologists who are putting in place and have put in place guidelines to enable us and to allow us to house workers in a safe condition. So, for example, Nickoy made a comment about a bunko set that is approved by the authorities for 10 people. In fact, the guidelines that the feds have come up with have required us to adjust the housing condition such that probably will only be able to get seven or eight people into that Bronco's, enabling them to socially distance, to keep away and to stay safe.

MG: What's that going to mean for you just in terms of trying to figure out where to house people?

KEN WALL: It's significant without question. And so the guideline but we can live with those and those guidelines apply right across the country, throughout Ontario. What we are struggling with at this point is that we've got additional guidelines have been put in place by our local health unit, and that's a struggle force. They've attempted to, they've not just attempted, they put in, in fact, put in place some very, very stringent guidelines and are going to further restrict entire [unintelligible] bags in terms of accessing local workers or offshore workers. And so this is a bit of a struggle force here in Norfolk County.

MG: And so why not - and I'll ask Shelly, though, she's hinted at this as well. But I'll start with you, Ken - given the fact that hundreds of thousands of people across this country are applying for income support, their jobs have just disappeared. Can you turn to local workers to say, listen, here are some jobs and we need people to work on the farms? Would you be interested?

KEN WALL: Absolutely. And we've desperately attempted to do so and we're continuing to do so. We put up job postings throughout our community into London, Bradford and even into the GTA. So we are aggressively pursuing and attempting to find people. As Shelley mentioned. This is work that is relatively difficult work. A lot of it is stoop labour. And so the Canadian workforce is typically not accustomed to that type of work.

MG: What do you pay? Can I ask?

KEN WALL: All of it is minimum wage, although we are providing bonuses throughout the year?

MG: Okay. I just wondered whether part of that might be that people may assume that you would pay temporary foreign workers, migrant workers less than you would have to pay local hires.

KEN WALL: Everything is is regulated through the Provincial Employment Standards Act. And so we're bound to pay everyone basically that minimum wage base. But we do pay bonuses throughout the year.

MG: Shelley, given the times that we're in right now, as so many people out of work, do you think that the situation that you described earlier, where it was difficult to get local folk to come and work on the farm might change this year?

SHELLEY BRADSHAW: We're doing the same. You know, where we're out there looking to see if we can fill these positions locally as well. We haven't had any success. And yet, like I said, we are in a small community, so we don't have a huge labour pool to choose from. Any major centre is an hour away from us. So it's difficult to to get people to come out. So we haven't had any luck thus far finding anyone. Our plan going forward, if we can't get all of our workers, they'll be crops that we will not grow.

MG: What wouldn't you grow?

SHELLEY BRADSHAW: Well, we will be able to do some of our what we call coal crops. So the brussel sprouts. We won't grow. We won't grow cauliflower, broccoli. If we grow any cabbage, you'd be very little. You know those are the crops that we bring these fellows in to help us with. And we just won't have the labour to do that. So at this point, our son does all our transplants for the field and he is starting them in the greenhouse in hopes that we will have labour to harvest them. But, you know, they may just get left in the field if we don't have help to hire.

MG: Ken, what about for you? If you can't get the labour that you need, what are the implications not just for yourself, but for those of us on the other end of the food chain that buy your crops?

KEN WALL: Here's what I had to say. In terms of Norfolk County, we're producing somewhere between five, six, maybe 700 million pounds of fresh produce on an annual basis. If we cannot get the workers, if we cannot get access to reliable supply of labour to plant and harvest and make those crops available, we will be looking at shortages within our grocery shelves, within our canneries and our freezing plants throughout the summer, in the fall. And Canadians will see shortages within grocery store shortages of what produce produces fresh and frozen and can produce.

MG: And if the things are available, would there be a cost increase, do you think?

KEN WALL: Well, there's no question. Produce is highly elastic in terms of the supply and demand quotient. So if you see a small shortage of produce, you're going to see a significant increase in pricing.

MG: It's good to speak with you both about this. Good luck. And perhaps we'll follow up as the story continues. Thank you.

KEN WALL: Thank you so much, Matt.

SHELLEY BRADSHAW: Thank you for having me.

MG: Shelley Bradshaw, co-owner of Beck Farms in Central Alberta Ken Walsh, CEO, Sandy Shore Farms, Norfolk County, Ontario. Evan Fraser has been watching this. He is a Canada research chair in global food security and the director of the Food Institute at the University of Guelph. Evan, good morning to you.

EVAN FRASER: Good morning. Thanks for calling.

MG: Thanks for joining us. How much does it it's interesting hearing not just the story of Nicoya, who's working on the farm, but to people who are trying to get people at the farms to work. How much does Canadian agriculture rely on temporary foreign workers, seasonal labour these days?

EVAN FRASER: Well, the numbers are high. And last year I looked up, it was 60,000 people largely from Latin America and the Caribbean. Well, people like Nickoy, I arrived in our country for short periods of time to help with the growing season. So that's 60,000 people who entered our country last year doing this. So that's a big chunk of the agricultural workforce.

MG: How did we get to this point where these farms rely? And as you heard from Ken, some of the products that. Well, expect to be able to buy in the summer may not be available if we can't rely on those workers.

EVAN FRASER: Well, we're in this situation, I think largely because of urbanization and wage increases and in Canada that have like Shelly and Ken, your previous guest identified, that have drawn Canadian workers, Canadian youth, away from farms and into city city-based jobs. And I mean, this is my own personal experience. I spent summers stooping at my grandfather's strawberry field in the Niagara Peninsula. Those were great summers, but they convinced me that it was easier to talk and write about farming than it was to actually be a strawberry patch. And so I left the farm and grandpa relied sometimes on temporary foreign workers. And this was in the 80s. And even those trends have continued. And so we have moved away from having an agrarian route to our labour force by importing people from Latin American, the Caribbean.

MG: What do you think the biggest misnomer is about this labour force?

EVAN FRASER: Well, my opinion is that we often think about this as unskilled labour, and I think that would be a mischaracterization of what we're talking about is skilled labour. It's a skilled in a different kind of skills than, say, a Canadian high school student with and I mean, again, reflecting on my own experience, I was a terrible strawberry picker for years. And I eventually I learned how to be a good strawberry picker. And there's a level of skill there. Another one that I've heard about that is affecting Ontario producers right now is we use a lot of temporary foreign workers to prune our apple orchards. And again, that's some, that's skilled work. You can't just, you know, give any old 17 year old that a pair of pruning shears and say have at. So there's a level of skill there that is very difficult to replace quickly in terms of, say, unemployed Canadians who have skills waiting tables, or pulling pints or serving coffee or something.

MG: The prime minister has suggested that Canadian students and perhaps others who've lost jobs in the midst of this pandemic could fill those labour gaps. Is that realistic?

EVAN FRASER: In the medium term, probably. In the short term, no. The logistical challenges of getting kids from the GTA in an organised and coherent way and training them to be a useful workforce for people like guy like Shelley and Ken would be a significant challenge. And we would be sort of essentially bringing in kids that have no. And I say kids, I don't mean that disrespectfully. We're bringing in young, young people to a large extent probably who have been laid off jobs. People like my 17 year old son, who was a lifeguard, is no longer a lifeguard. We would be trying to figure out how to get someone like him into a farming environment and to train them up quickly in a set of skills and a set of tasks that they have no training for.

MG: These weeks are important. We heard from Canada that about what's being planted. The government has talked about perhaps chartering planes to get Caribbean and Latin American workers into this country. A lot of the normal processes have been erupted. How unprecedented is this if you take a look at the sweep of history when it comes to farming?

EVAN FRASER: Well, we have a situation that structurally our farming system, in particular, our produce sector, is structurally dependent on the 60,000 people coming into our country every year. And this is a massive disruption. And we can't understate the significance of that disruption. My suspicion is that the food system will limp along over the course of the summer. And I guess one message I'd like to leave with listeners is, is that we shouldn't panic. We are talking about a major disruption. But I don't think anybody necessarily will go hungry over the course of the summer. At least I truly hope my comments are accurate.

MG: Going hungry is one thing, though. Ken said that. I mean, he's talking about planting asparagus now that there could be any number of crops - and Shelley mentioned this as well. Cover crops might be planted instead of other things that they would harvest because they can't get people out into those fields soon enough.

EVAN FRASER: Yes, and in this regard, the one of the things that's concerning me is it seems to be experiencing, for instance, a very early spring. So it's not like we're delaying planting and delaying tending. The fields are actually doing it earlier in the calendar than we normally would. Which I mean, although as a consumer stuck at home, I'm glad that the sun's shining from a farmer's perspective with their labour in quarantine or having difficulty getting their labour, this is this is extremely stressful. This is a serious problem, no question.

MG: What sort of protections are there for those workers? We've heard in past stories of temporary foreign workers arriving here and being traded at like as though they were brought in, not under the protections that other workers, the Canadians might be welcome to. What sort of protections are there for them in the best case scenario and what protections need to be there now? In a very difficult and dangerous situation.

EVAN FRASER: Well, as Ken spoke to there, there, there. These workers are offered the same sort of protections as any Canadian minimum wage. Think, think things of that nature. And that's all clearly articulated in the government's Web page. There is evidence that in some cases those standards are not adhere to and these people are sometimes too often unfortunately exploited.

MG: And it's difficult for them to speak out because in many ways their time here is dependent on the employer.

EVAN FRASER: Precisely. So there's all sorts of what you might call imbalances of power that make it very difficult to identify this problem. And certainly I've participated in research that has uncovered significant abuses within this system. I also know tons of farmers who treat their workers with a high level of credibility and respect and dignity. So there's a spectrum. Like in anything else. And we do our we do our best, I think, given the current predicament where things are happening very fast and we risk at being in a chaotic situation and there's a sense of imminent urgency to get farm or get workers into the fields at all costs that that then opens and other opportunity for exploitation and abuse in the system. I truly hope that doesn't happen. But I think that potential is larger this year than it is in other years.

MG: Just in a couple of seconds, does it also give the opportunity for us to think differently about who's actually growing our food?

EVAN FRASER: Well, I mean, in the conversations that I've been in about called it in the food system, we were thinking about two weeks time frames, how we muddle through in the next two weeks, how do we prepare ourselves over two months? And what do we do over two years? So I'm going to jump out to that two year thing. And I think when the dust has settled on this and one of the legacies of COVID, it will probably be a, in terms of food, will probably be a massive introspection on the kind of food system we have where it's proven to be vulnerable and what do we want. And I have a feeling, very strong feelings that we will be looking very closely at this issue of our dependence on international labour and thinking maybe that's not the kind of system that we ought to have. And then there'll be a process of re envisaging that will probably involve some mechanization, but maybe also some awareness of or better standards around labour and how we treat labour.

MG: Evan, thank you.

EVAN FRASER: It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.

MG: Evan Fraser Canada Research Chair and food security at the University of Guelph? We did receive a statement from the Office of the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Inclusion saying in part, Temporary foreign workers do receive similar health care coverage to other residents in the province or territory where they are residing. If provincial or territorial health care is not provided from the first day they arrive, equivalent private health insurance must be provided by the employer. Coming up in 90 seconds or so, we're going to talk about the numbers around this pandemic and what you should pay attention to, perhaps put to the side. That's coming up. This is The Current. I'm Matt Galloway.

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Understanding COVID-19 data; Broken bones and pandemic-time health care

Guests: David Spiegelhalter, Dr. Nathalie Kouncar

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. There are a lot of numbers making the rounds right now. Projections. Death tolls. Infection rates. And then there are the debates around those numbers. Questions like, can we trust them? What are the numbers actually even mean? With that in mind, we have invited David Spiegelhalter to help make sense of the data. He's the former president of the Royal Statistical Society and host of a podcast called Risky Talk. David, good morning.

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: Good morning.

MG: Are you as overwhelmed by some of the numbers as all of us are when it comes to the amount of data sets that are coming our way?

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: exact- Well, I'm a statistician, so, you know, I do like numbers, but you know, it is quite tyring because I'm clicking away, looking at the different sites who are plotting them, graphing them, drawing conclusions. And of course we are. You know, every day we get the announcements from the U.K. We've just five minutes ago had had some more numbers about the deaths yesterday, were reported yesterday. And so, yes, it can get quite exhausting. And I am medical statistician, so I'm used to numbers reflecting, people dying and so on. And I really feel sorry for anyone who is obsessively following all of these.

MG: And yet a lot of us are in part because the news is changing day by day, minute by minute, but also because we want transparency. We want to know what officials know. And we feel like we'll be able to have a better sense of what's going on if we can see those numbers. Is there an upside to that? Is that is that a good thing to be able to have access to high end information?

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: I think this is extraordinary historical crisis. I mean, we haven't had anything like this in an age of social media and an expectation of openness to get these data releases around the world of [unintelligible] and to be demanding this. I think it's great. I think everyone should you know, it means that everyone's turned into an amateur epidemiologist and multi-layer and everyone's discussing these things. But I think it's absolutely right. And it's only by doing this that actually people taking an interest suddenly find that these things are not perhaps what you think they are and certainly not as reliable as you think they are.

MG: Do we need amateur epidemiologists? I mean we're in the era of social media where everybody is an expert on something they'd never heard of, an hour ago.

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: I would rather they were amateur epidemiologists than saying it's all caused by 5G, perhaps. I think there are worse things that can happen on social media than a lot of people weighing in. And there are some, you know, some very good comments that are coming out and maybe not complete amateurs. But I think the fact that this is opening up to a wider community, a lot of people contributing to this. But it's enormous work by scientists working together on this in a way that governments aren't. I think it is extraordinarily impressive.

MG: So in the avalanche of information, what are the numbers that you pay, you pay close attention to?

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: Well, I suppose I do. I look at the daily number of cases and the daily number of deaths that are reported in the UK and elsewhere. And I look at the graphs of those. Now, I know both of those are highly imperfect measures in the UK and they are testing has been very backward. We still any really testing people who are sick in hospitals. So that we've actually no new cases reflects really the number of people who are getting sick in hospital and not reflecting how much virus is in the outside community. The other thing about the deaths I've been trying to look at the Canadian reporting system, but it probably is not much different from us, is that there are considerable delays. These used to be reported as all of this many deaths that were reported, just as if they had occurred yesterday and aided by three or four days delay on average, someone going back 10 days, two weeks. And also those deaths being reported are only those happening in hospitals, the ones happening at home or in care homes, the ones that even COVID isn't suspected of not being reported. And so we know those are failed, but in a sense, the better data source, which is the official death registrations. Who is it had COVID on that death certificate that comes in 10 days late. And so and so we know what's happening ages ago. So monitoring something is changing so rapidly. And, you know, we're just about we just looks like we've got to 900 deaths being reported yesterday. In the UK, our biggest number so far. And, you know, it's flawed, but it's all we've got and we can still look at it and take some lessons. But for example, in the UK, you know, Monday there were 450 deaths and Tuesday 850. It's because nobody's reporting over the weekend. So, you know, we go out for those artefacts and don't be too impressed by single day.

MG: People talk about the rate of change and that that is an important thing. If you're looking at numbers, you need to be able to step back a little bit. Tell me a bit about that.

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: Yes, exactly. The point is that while a lot of an epidemic is really on the rise when it's shooting up exponentially, as we say, the curve is shooting upwards. Then I'm asleep plotting the total number of cases and seeing how that's rising, how fast that's taken to double is really valuable. Now the stage which many countries have reached, which is getting towards a stable number of cases being reported each day, which looking at the graph. Now for Canada looks like it that's reached that stage now in Canada, followed by one would hope a week, ten days later, the number of deaths stabilizing and then starting to go down. We just plotting the extra cases. You know, the total numbers is very bad. It's not a good graph to use. You want to look at the daily rates to see where this is peaking and then coming down. And then hopefully, of course, when it comes down far enough that we could start relaxing some of these measures. We got a full lockdown in the UK and it's really paralyzing everything. So that comes crucially of interest. But the daily measures wobble around all over the place to try to say when have we reached a peak, which is what everyone's interested in is a real problem. And we've had, we're getting projections that are just come in from the states for the UK saying the peak is going to be in 10 days time or so and it's going to be 2800 deaths a day. Wow. And hospitals, it could be completely overwhelmed. Our intensive care is going to be overwhelmed.

MG: What is your advice when people hear that?

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: Well, I am deeply sceptical of these projections. In fact, I mean, you know, the models being used at fitting smooth curves that using just the bit the start of the curve to predict everything that's going to happen all the way through to the end and telling us we're expected to jump 66,000 deaths. This is not what other people are predicting. And I'm rather suspicious of it, actually more than rather suspicious of it. So these are reputable model is coming up with very different conclusions from what other people are coming up with.

MG: You look at something and again, people are trying to make sense, not just of where we are, but where we're going to go. Whether you're in a full lockdown or whether your life has just been, you know, significantly disrupted, not entirely disrupted. You look at something called mortality, displacement. What is then?

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: Well, this is the big question that everyone's asking, because, you know, this lockdown is paralyzing the economy. Many people are suffering because of the lockdown. People are asking, well, in the end, at the end of it, what is the harm that we're protecting us from? You know, and put it really crudely, how many extra people are going to die, you know, over the course of the next six months?

MG: Would you mean extra people?

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: Well, this is it, because actually during the winter certainly, you get big fluctuations due to cold snaps and due to flu epidemics. In the UK with 70 million people or so, we can easily get 25,000 extra deaths during this, during the winter, because if we have a nasty flu year. And that sort of is why we take that on the chin, because it's spread over the whole of the season and flu does not produce really horrible respiratory problems. COVID does and the health system can cope. Now, the problem with this epidemic is that it's coming all at once and there's really intense use of intensive care because of the really nasty disease that people get. But everyone knows that the people who are dying of this disease, usually of one to three extra health problems, they sadly are elderly or vulnerable because of another disease they've got. Awful, tragic, tragic circumstances in which they die. Families come visit them, is awful. But many the idea of mortality, displacement is a suggestion which we got to investigate that many of these people might well have died over the subsequent yet anyway.

MG: You could imagine that people would take that idea and they would they could do a couple of things with it. One is that they could say, to your point, some of these people were going to die soon. Why are we doing all of this? And the other people could say the lockdown isn't necessary because healthy people may not be affected to the same degree and they should be let out. Now, we know that there are healthy people that are falling ill to this and ending up in the ICU or dying. How do you take that on if it's how people might interpret an idea like morality, displacement,?

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: Both claims would be made and they will be made at the end of this, because if we do get away, we get away with sort of bad flu year. Twenty five times an excess extra deaths or something like that. And the health service hasn't collapsed. People say, well, why did you do this? You know, these are just people. It's just like a bad flu year. You're just bringing forward some old people who are going to die soon anyway. And actually, it does happen within, you know, cold snaps or hot spots during hot weather that, you know, is excess death. But then it's followed by a bit of a dip in the death rate later on because of these deaths to be brought forward. I loath to mention it, but there is a technical term for this, which is all appallingly vivid, which is harvesting.

MG: What an awful term.

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: I know, I know it's embarrassing, but it does give this very vivid image of the Grim Reaper coming along a bit early for people. Unfortunately that is a term is used.

MG: It also speaks to the impersonal nature of statistics. I mean, these are people that we're talking about.

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: I know. And I'm very aware of that. And I'm aware of stories of, you know, people are suffering and I'm a vulnerable person myself. That's why I'm trying to be careful. So, but it does show, though, actually in the end, when we're looking at statistics, we are counting things and we are counting death.

MG: Just before I let you go, then, how you say you yourself are a vulnerable person, how are you calculating your own personal risk during this pandemic? Given the amount of information that we are facing.

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER: I've done a few sums. Other people have done this well and looked at the risks if you get infected, look very roughly, but amazing. It's not bad at all. Like the risks that you would normally face during the whole of the rest year, the rest of the year in terms of your mortality risk, which shoots up hugely with age. You know, our risk of dying next year for young people is incredibly low. It goes up and up and up. And that's you get into 90 schools. And the risks that you face if you get the virus is very similar to that. And that means if you

know, if actually you're not at all worried about know dying in the next year, you know, as you get the virus, that's about your chances of surviving the virus. However, if you are vulnerable and you do feel your you know, you have got some raised risk, then what the virus does is just pump that up over. Put it all into a few weeks. I think for me gave me a vivid feeling of why I would need to be careful. But it also actually for me, again, I and other people respire told this to other people. They get terrified and other people are reassured. But it does put it in perspective that basically it's roughly the risks that you face anyway during the subsequent year.

MG: David, stay healthy and stay safe. And thank you for helping us try to make sense of some of these numbers.

MG: Thanks very much indeed. David Spiegelhalter is the former president of the Royal Statistical Society. He also hosts a podcast. It's called Risky Talk. While you're taking stock of Personal Risk. Consider this A group of Kobach orthopaedic surgeons wants us to rethink some of our spring traditions. Things like pulling out the rollerblades, hopping on a bike, maybe you're cleaning out the eaves troughs on a tall ladder. And that is because this year doctors believe those activities may be just too risky. Dr. Nathalie Kouncar is part of a team of orthopaedic surgeons at Cite Dallas Santé Hospital in Laval, Quebec. Doctor, good morning to you.

DR. NATHALIE KOUNCAR: Good morning, Mr. Galloway. How you are you?

MG: I'm well, thanks. In your orthopaedic department, what is life like these days?

DR. NATHALIE KOUNCAR: Well, actually, we had to cut down on a lot of activity. Spring is a big time for us. Very busy in orthopaedic surgery. But during this preparation for a pandemic and in the pandemic, we had to lower our clinics very much. We have, we only see patients that really need to be seen. We're not operating anymore. Elective surgeries, the operating room, for example, at my hospital. There is one operating room running and a backup team for a second operating room, if we get emergencies, two emergencies at the same time. So only very urgent surgeries are done. And in orthopaedic surgeries, everything elective, everything that is, it can wait, wait.

MG: And so given that you and other surgeons wrote a letter telling people these are not normal times, don't do normal things, why did you want to do that?

DR. NATHALIE KOUNCAR: Well, it's all about awareness and prevention. As we wrote in our letter, we like to come out during spring. Right. We go out, we play, we clean our gutters. We take our Christmas decorations down. We ride our bikes and motorcycles. And actually, we always prone that as orthopaedic surgeons, we encourage our patients to live an active life and to stay healthy and active. But during this time, we're not telling people not to go out and not to, you know, walk around and do activities. We just want to have them have an awareness of the importance of calculating the risk. You know, if you're riding a motorcycle and you get into an accident, you most likely will end up in the hospital. And motorcycle accidents have very severe injuries. You will need multiple surgeries, maybe even go to the intensive care unit. So we want people to be aware of that, that this is not normal. It's not a normal time. We have physical and human resources that must be carefully used. We can't give the same service that we usually give. And it's kind of our way to lower, if you can say, orthopaedic traffic. You know, people that are going to come in the E.R. with heart attacks and strokes, women giving birth. We can't control that, but we can't control the number of people who come in with fracture. You don't want to be in a hospital these days. You want to stay home. You know, you want to practise social distancing and confinement. Still, you know, breathe in some fresh air and be active. But just be aware that you have to calculate the risk and you do not want to be in a hospital and have to have a surgery.

MG: And as you say, one of the risks in this is that we these are your words. We may not have a bed for you. Exactly. When you sit when you sit with you. I was going to say, when you say that, what is how do you expect the average person to respond to that? Who would assume that the bed would be there if they were to require.

DR. NATHALIE KOUNCAR: We've heard all over Canada, all over the world, people are preparing for war. Right. We're waiting for the swarm of people to come in. We don't know when it's going to come in, how big it's going to be, how long it's going to last. So everything in a hospital is getting ready to, you know, care to the people who have COVID which is a terrible disease. And we don't know if the hospital beds are all going to be full, if, when and how. So that's why we can't promise a bed for someone. We can't even promise to be able to operate on them. Not that we're not going to take care of their pathologies if there's a broken bone. There's different ways that to treat it. You could put it in a cast. You could postpone the surgery. It won't be like the optimal treatment that we always give and or orthopaedic surgeons can give.

MG: What would be safe or of a lower risk right now because people were being told to stay home. But people are still going out walking the dog. They might want to go for a run. They might want to get a bit of exercise or fresh air. It's been a long winter and spring is on our doorstep. So what's the safe thing to do?

DR. NATHALIE KOUNCAR: Well, first of all, I think people need to think that if if they're going to let's say, right, they're biking. I'm not talking just to stroll around the neighbourhood and ride your bike with your family. I'm talking about, you know, clipping on your shoes and riding with your spandex. And you have to think that you haven't done it for a long time. You know, you're not as used to it as it's when you're riding your bike towards it the end of the summer. And you have to calculate the risk. And the risk, as I was saying, is depending on what you're doing, if you're going up a ladder, taking down Christmas decorations and you're alone, nobody's holding the ladder. You shouldn't be doing that. You should be doing like staying active. Walking the dog is a perfect example of walking around with your family around your neighbourhood, riding your bike like normal people ride their bikes. Not like if you're going to the Olympics. Now, all these activities need to be synced. Think over.

MG: How has this affected you and your life in terms of what you and your family might do?

DR. NATHALIE KOUNCAR: Oh, well, I have two active boys and a trampoline in my backyard. My boys are not happy. The trampoline now tarped off their safety tape around it or something.

DR. NATHALIE KOUNCAR: It's there. But it's just that I get the look when they ask me if they can go and I say no. You know, the look, there's so, you know, riding their bikes around the neighbourhood with their friends. And, you know, I guess it's difficult. You know, where Winters done. And we're happy to go out and have fun and we're excited to go out. But we just, you know, meet to think it over.

MG: It's hard. I mean, these are not normal times. But what you're saying about the fact that you're not going to get the treatment that you might otherwise expect. I think it is a bit of a wakeup call for people.

DR. NATHALIE KOUNCAR: It is, the operating rooms are limited, the physical human resources. We heard about the masks and about all the equipments. And you don't want to be in a hospital even though you have a small fracture and it's something that could be easily treated. I don't think anybody wants to come to the hospital, you know, and be exposed. I think people need to just think it over and say, you know what? This is not forever. It's part of multiple factors as social distancing and confinement, doing less activities that are at risk of this, all the multiple factors will help bring down the number of people who go into the hospital. We'll keep the beds and the operating rooms opened and the respirators, you know, free for people who really need them. And it's temporary. That's what we have to think about. And every if everybody's pushing in the same direction, I think we'll get there healthier and faster.

MG: The trampoline will be waiting for you when this is done.

DR. NATHALIE KOUNCAR: Oh, yes, I'm sure. I am sure. Yes. We'll get busy after. I'm positive.

MG: Doctor. Take care of yourself and stay healthy. Thank you.

DR. NATHALIE KOUNCAR: Thank you very much. Have a good day.

MG: And you, Dr. Natalie Kouncar is part of the orthopaedic surgery group at Cite De la Sante Hospital in Laval, Quebec.

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MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway, we are always happy, more than happy to hear from you. That is truer now than ever before with people cooped up at home, a lot of people looking to connect. We're hearing from a lot of you these days. The current senior producer, Lara O'Brien, is here with some of your mail. Lara, good morning.

LARA O'BRIEN: Hi, Matt. Yesterday we talked about bread and why so many people are baking now. Feels like my Facebook feed is full of people showing off their fresh homemade loaves. I don't know about yours.

MG: Yes, indeed. And the house is full of bread as well. And that means all this baking the yeast is difficult to find in stores. Luella wrote us from Kitimat, B.C., saying, I was saddened that I am unable to get yeast at the present time when I run out of my last jar and will be unable to provide friends with homemade bread. I have one recipe that has only five ingredients and a couple of friends who are battling cancer find this is the one thing that will settle their stomachs on the week they have chemo. For other friends who are totally shut in, homemade bread gives them comfort and this makes me happy. I am praying to find yeast back on the shelves ASAP.

LARA O'BRIEN: And in McMaster wrote from Ottawa, at the beginning of this crisis, I decide to bake some Kentish huffins, large rolls that my English grandmother used to bake for my lunch. Searching through my cupboards, I turned up four envelopes of Fleischman's E dated 2013 and a jar dated 2007. Would it still be alive? Well, it turns out 13 years is a bit too long, but the plucky 2013 rose from the dead with a little sugar water and a bit of patience, and the huffins were delicious. In my attempt to add to my antique stocks, I discovered that all retail shelves were empty. Loblaws, Walmart, even giant Amazon then seeders my wonderful small local grocery store, which is providing home delivery for us seniors, took my food order, including yeast, and turned up with a generous plastic container of the stuff which I shared with a neighbour and with which I will eagerly create a fragrant and soul satisfying tray of hot cross buns this Good Friday. Happy baking.

MG: I don't know anything about Kentish hopkins, but I shall investigate. Thank you for that. We also got a lot of feedback about another issue. Yesterday I spoke with two women, one of whom has cancer. The other of whom had a stroke. They have had treatments postponed so that hospitals can focus on COVID-19. That prompted Wilda Thum from Guelph, Ontario to write. I have multiple myeloma, which is bone cancer. I was scheduled to go into hospital for a stem cell transplant on Monday, the 30th of March. I got a phone call midday on Friday, March 27. Surgery cancelled. It feels like being pushed out of the lifeboat. Not good. And I frankly don't understand why cancer patients can not be treated. It's not like we are lined up for nose jobs, tummy tucks.

LARA O'BRIEN: Betty Goode wrote in from Maple Ridge, B.C. I had a C.T. scan scheduled for April 3rd. It was postponed. I have spots on my lung which were seen on an X-ray in January. The C.T. scan was further diagnosis. To me, this is an urgent procedure. If I have lung cancer, I need to get started with treatment as soon as possible.

MG: And this from Quebec. Ellen Veta Moncure writes, I am 70 years old. I had a massive stroke in 2018, which, among other things, severely damaged my optic nerve, causing me to see double. I'm basically almost blind not being able to get around by myself or read or write, which for me is quite dramatic, being an author and a researcher to correct the situation, three surgeries were scheduled. I've had one and I'm waiting for the subsequent ones. They are not considered urgent due to the COVID situation, but I don't know what to do.

LARA O'BRIEN: Now we also ask people what music they turned to for comfort in these times, and we had a few people write in suggesting Stan Rogers song.

MG: Love a bit of Stan Rogers. This letter stood out. Lorraine Koops writes from New Jersey, one of the hardest hit hotspots in the United States. I am sheltering in place. Comfort Food is listening to CBC Radio. It's so reassuring. I've had a playlist of anthems, songs for life in the time of crisis, times when I feel lost, isolated, disconnected. Times when the crisis is within me or in my life. And now when the crisis is living in this time of this virus, Stan Rogers, the Mary-Ellen Carter is one of those essential songs. These verses resonate echoes of hope and resilience.

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MG: Stan Rogers rise again. Coming up on The Current, a philosopher tells us why that tyred feeling that you might be experiencing right now could be something called moral fatigue. What is that? How do we address it in the midst of this pandemic? We'll find out coming up in about six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. This is the current on CBC Radio One. Stan Rogers takes us to the news.

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Feeling exhausted during the pandemic? This philosopher says you could have moral fatigue, Quarantine Book Club

Guests: Michael Baur, Mike Monteiro, Arjun Basu

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

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MG: Still to come, the rise of the virtual book club, they've never been more popular than now, and even authors who have cancelled book tours taking part speak about the virtual book club. Coming up in a few moments time. But first, are you suffering from existential exhaustion? Think about this for a moment. Are you asking yourself constant, nagging internal questions all day? Should I make that trip to the grocery store? Am I far enough away from that person? Can I scratch my face? Only a few weeks ago. These are things that you would do. You just do them. They wouldn't merit a second thought. Today, these otherwise mundane thoughts have become complex dilemmas, something that philosophers call moral fatigue. Michael Baur teaches philosophy and law at Fordham University. He is in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Michael, good morning.

MICHAEL BAUR: Good morning to you.

MG: What is moral fatigue?

MICHAEL BAUR: Well, it's not a very developed concept in the philosophical literature, but it emerged within the context of medical treatment, nursing, emergency room, bioethics, triage, where individuals are faced with a particular moral imperatives, things that they ought to do. But those moral imperatives become problem times when the framework for pursuing those imperatives itself gets thrown into disarray. So imagine a nurse whose imperative is to save life, but something makes it difficult or impossible because let's say there's a hospital policy or a financial limitation that makes that possible. So you have moral imperatives that are in conflict or a context that makes it impossible to do the right thing without in some ways also failing to do the right thing.

MG: So that's in the context of a nurse. In the introduction, I said, you know, otherwise mundane thoughts become complex dilemmas. How would this manifest itself in the average person's life? Who's not working on the frontlines of this crisis?

MICHAEL BAUR: So let's do the translation from a nursing context to an ordinary real life context. The nurse learns certain treatments, patterns of behaviour, certain kind of operations that the nurse follows systematically, habitually, because that's the training. And when something happens to upset that framework, things have to be rethought. Well, we do the same thing. We live within certain kinds of patterns of behaviour and systems of interaction where things are just natural, habitual, normal. But now we're facing something where the whole framework is under pressure. We don't yet know how it's going to work out. We're you know, we interact with people normally. But the sorts of things that we regard as normal and natural can no longer be treated that way, and so the framework is now in need of being rethought, revised, reworked. The problem is there's no pre given rule for how to do that because it's the framework that gives us usually the rules or the directives.

MG: That can lead to a dilemma. When you call it moral fatigue, is that why people are so tired right now? It's because making these decisions is can be overwhelming to them.

MICHAEL BAUR: Well, that moral fatigue is sometimes labelled moral distress or compassion fatigue. And the problem, at least as I see it, is that it's no longer a question of what's the right thing to do. That's no longer obvious. It's now the question is, am I in a position to know what's the right thing to do? So my moral agency itself falls into question. It's no longer a matter of taking a principle or a preordained rule or policy and applying it. That's relatively easy when within a context that's settled. It's now am I able to do this or am I ill fitted for the new situation? Philosopher sometimes use the image of of living and surviving on a raft while at the same time trying to rebuild the raft. It's not easy to do because the way in which you rebuild the raft, the kinds of things that you take for granted and rely on as you're building the raft are themselves under your feet, so to speak. And you also need to question whether you should be relying on those frameworks or those foundations.

MG: How does the velocity of change that we are experiencing, the fact that, as I say, what you now have to consider, you would not have even given a second thought to a month ago. How does that influence what we're experiencing?

MICHAEL BAUR: I think that's a crucial issue. The speed at which change is being demanded of us makes it especially difficult. Part of the reason is that we, by virtue of living in certain kinds of patterns of interaction and systems, frameworks, institutions, we become creatures of habit. And that's a good thing in itself, or at least it's a good thing to a certain extent, because to the extent that I don't have to think about walking down the street or finding the keys on my keyboard, I'm able to think about other things. So if I couldn't write a document, if I had to think twice every time I needed to find the key to good thing to be able to rely on habits. On the other hand, when the keyboard, so to speak, has its letters jumbled around, I can no longer type so easily. I have to think twice about what I'm doing. And what we're seeing now is usually systems evolve gradually, institutions change gradually, but we are seeing a set of systems and institutions that have to change right away. And because of that, we can't rely on the habits. Habits work well within a settled context. We don't have that luxury anymore. That's what makes it all the more difficult that the velocity at which everything is changing.

MG: That can be incredibly disruptive and maybe seeing people's lives turned inside out, whether it's through their own health or their employment. The fact that, you know, not just their job at the entire industry that they worked in has just kind of disappeared in the space of a couple of days. Is there anything, I don't want to use the word good because we're in the midst of a health crisis that is leaving a lot of people, you know, harmed in in in a very direct way. But is there anything that could come out of this that might help shape us in future that could be beneficial?

MICHAEL BAUR: Well, that that points to sort of the double edged character of living in accordance with habits which which map themselves onto a status quo, which is relatively stable and fixed. Habits are a good thing in one respect. We don't like giving them up because we count on getting things done on the basis of what is expected and habitual and seemingly natural. On the other hand, we're now being forced to act very quickly and to think differently very quickly. And it is possible to take this situation as an occasion to not be so mindless and habituated and to think twice about what really was necessary, what really was natural, or maybe some of the things that we thought were obvious or, you know, you must do this. Some of those things might now be thrown into question.

MG: What do you mean by that?

MICHAEL BAUR: Well, Heidegger says somewhere that that the vitality of a science is shown in the ability of the science or the way of thinking to endure a crisis in its fundamental concepts. Now, he's an existential philosopher coming from the early part of the 20th century. What he wants to say is that the framework itself now is in question. And that in some ways is a good thing because we no longer, we don't have the luxury anymore being fixated or attached to the things that we thought were absolutely necessary. A kind of ability to detach, to reflect, to step back could be a good thing, because it is-- the example I often uses this look, you know, all those committee meetings that everybody thought were absolutely necessary turns out that they're not so necessary. There's different ways of approaching the same end. And so we're thrown back on ourselves. It is disorienting in some cases. It's absolutely awful. People are threatened in terms of their livelihood, their health, their very lives. But there is something positively or potentially positive in the sense that we no longer can move so quickly and unthinkingly. And it's potentially a good thing to rework, reflect and rebuild or revise, so to speak, the framework within which we're operating. So I do think this will make people realise that some of the things that are seemingly natural and obvious are not so anymore. And we will find ways of making do under the new situation and will, I think in discovering new things about how to operate, we'll discover new things about ourselves that we really can do this in ways that we didn't think we could.

MG: In the meantime, people are facing. I mean, whether, you know, they read philosophy or not, they're facing an existential crisis. They're wondering whether the things that they took for granted, the things that are around them are gone forever and how they operate in this new reality. What do you do to ease that burden that so many of us might be feeling right now?

MICHAEL BAUR: That's a great question. I would put it this way. It's not it's not possible anymore to point to some sort of rule or some sort of policy or some sort of motto that we can follow and just go on. We no longer have that luxury. The rules and mottos that we normally followed habitually just aren't available to us.

MG: Is that what you mean by existential flexibility?

MICHAEL BAUR: It certainly is an existential problem because it's no longer a question about what is to be done as much as it's a question of who am I? And am I able to do whatever is required. But we're thrown back on ourselves. So I'm in question and no longer the thing I need to do is in question. But one can sort of think through this. And recognise that mistakes will be made. I know in terms of, you know, moving forward, don't look for a rule, don't look for a policy just to follow. Be aware that it's the same way for everybody. Mistakes will be made. We need to slow down. Patience is required, I think. You know, without giving a rule, I think one might say that one of the one of the worst things we can do is be impatient, that the idea of just let's get out of this, let's move on. Let's go back to the way things used to be.

MG: There's a really meditative kind of quality to that.

MICHAEL BAUR: Yes. The problem is the way things used to be is the way things that got us into this fix to begin with. So people who have the urge to try and move on and get back to the way things used to be, that kind of impatient, that kind of desire, which is understandable to get back to normal, would return us to the same normal that was part of the problem, because we were too habituated to unthinking in what we did. So, yes, I don't want to be entirely stoic or existential about it, but there is an occasion here now for us to, as I say, slow down. Don't be so impatient. Be prepared to make mistakes and be prepared to allow others to make mistakes without too much shaming and blaming, because that, again, the shaming and blaming that we're tempted to engage in maps itself onto the past, which no longer is normative for us. We have to rethink that. And that means be ready to make mistakes and to forgive oneself and others for making mistakes.

MG: Michael, good to speak with you. Thank you.

MICHAEL BAUR: Thank you.

MG: Michael Bower is a philosopher and a professor at Fordham University. He this morning was in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.

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MG: You're listening to an extended edition of The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway.

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MIKE: Welcome to Quarantine Book Club. This is your afternoon session. I am your host for this session, Mike. With us today, we have Dr. Marcia Chatelain and Marcia, if I may call you, Marcia wrote a book called Franchise and it's about McDonald's generating black wealth. How are you today?

MARCIA: I'm great. Thank you so much for organising this opportunity. And it's wonderful to see so many folks in the phone call and some old friends.

MIKE: We want to we want to hear your questions from our show. So please put them in the chat room. And when I see it, I'll call on you, unmute yourself and then ask your question and have a fantastic discussion.

MG: Unmute yourself. That's not something you're likely to hear in your typical living room book club. This is not your typical living room book club. This is the quarantine book club, a virtual solution for readers who are stuck at home with time on their hands and a desire to connect with other readers. Mike Monteiro is an author and founder of the Quarantine Book Club. He's in San Francisco. Arjun Basu was the first author to take part. He's a Canadian novelist and author of Waiting for the Man. He is in Montreal. Good morning to you both.

MIKE MONTEIRO: Good morning.

ARJUN BASU: Morning, Matt.

MG: Arjun, you were the guinea pig for this experiment, willing or volant told, I'm not entirely sure, but what did you think when you were asked to headline the Quarantine Book Club?

ARJUN BASU: Well, a few things, I mean, one, it made sense on so many levels. Two, it made sense that it was coming from Mike and, three, I knew that it would work despite me being the first one, but it just made all sorts of sense and I was thinking not about me. I mean, my book came out of years ago, but about the new writers out there who are. You have books coming out that's fine when no one can know they can't really promote them in any other way. And so this I just saw as a vehicle. I mean, you talked about the readers wanting to create make contact with others, which is absolutely true. But for writers of all sorts, this is these kinds of initiatives are a godsend.

MG: Mike, how did the idea for all of this come about? Arjun says that you're the obvious person to create something like this.

MIKE MONTEIRO: Well, I'm not sure. What do you mean? Yes, I think it is an optimist. Well, it came about for a couple of reasons. One, we might. My wife and I run a design shop. And most of our sources of revenue come through doing workshops and conferences and things like that. And that all dried up as many people's revenue did. So we were looking for new ways to get some money coming in to pay some rent. And I decided to do a video chat to talk about my latest book. And that went so well that I thought, wait a minute, there might be a bigger idea here. And a couple hours later, Quarantine Book Club was born.

MG: And so how does this work? How do people participate? Do they have to pay? Walk us through how it operates.

MIKE MONTEIRO: We it's all done over Zoom, which is, you know, pretty easy to use. And you pay five bucks to get in. Although every event has a free code, you just punch in all our welcome. You get it for free. So if five bucks is a burden to anybody, we're not going to keep anybody out. And, you know, people come on and either my wife, Erica Hall, or I will do the moderating. And we talk to the author for a little bit and then start taking questions from the audience.

MG: How do you go about deciding which author you want to be part of your virtual quarantine book club?

MIKE MONTEIRO: We know a bunch of authors. We started there. And, you know, our Arjun was a fantastic first choice. And yes, we thought we'd all be into that. But we've also had people reach out to us now, which is incredible and very humbling. So it's a mix of people we know and people who we've always wanted to know. We've reached out to people who, you know, whose books I've read. And it's kind of amazing to get a chance to talk to them, which, you know, we wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

MG: How many people do you end up having often on these chats?

MIKE MONTEIRO: Oh, it varies wildly since most of my we do most of the promotion through Twitter and most of my Twitter audience is designed, focussed. The design talks still get a lot more people, but we're encouraging people to show up, to tell stuff about, you know, things that you may just be curious about. So at the most, we've had about 300 people in there. But that's you know, that I'd say that's an outlier.

MG: Arjun, what was the experience like for you, Arjan, with people from all over the place that you can't meet face to face but are interested in, in a book that you wrote a couple of years ago and have questions for you.

ARJUN BASU: Well, I think, you know, Mikey is there were humbling was a good word. It was, you know, writers. I said it when my book came out. You know, writers work by themselves and, you know, they're kind of loners at the best of times. And so connecting with people is fraught for most writers, but also very rewarding. And it felt it was rewarding just to talk to people who, you know, you haven't met and who are invested in in your work for whatever reason. And, you know, it replaces so much that we're missing right now to, you know, the sense of community that you alluded to earlier. Just, you know, it was like walking into a room or into a bar or almost in the same thing. No one, you know. And then, you know, after a few drinks, you start talking to them.

MG: What kind of questions did you get from the book club members?

ARJUN BASU: I think a lot of it because he was the first one, I think a lot of it, and it was early in the-- Mike, how long ago was it? Two, two and half ago?

MIKE MONTEIRO: Oh, my God. It was almost a month ago.

MG: Time flattens out in the quarantine.

MIKE MONTEIRO: Yes.

ARJUN BASU: What is time?

MIKE MONTEIRO: Yes, what is time? It was that long ago. So, yes, it was very early on in the quarantine. So a lot of the questions were, were virus or, you know, how were you spending your time related. You know, someone at the time asked me if I was if I could right, which I thought was a very relevant question. It probably still is a very relevant question. So it would there was a lot of feeling out, I think, from both Mike's point of view. You know, it was the first one he'd done. He didn't know how it's going to go. And from the audience's point of view, because everyone in that was in the same boat, no matter where they were calling from. And we had a few international people on that show. We were all in the same boat. We were all sort of at home and thinking, now what?

MIKE MONTEIRO: This idea of community, Mike, is something that Arjun mentioned, I mean, it's a big part of a book club. You get together in a book club and you talk about books, sure. But you don't have a glass of wine or a few glasses of wine with a few friends. And you talk about all sorts of things and the book is part of it. But it's really an opportunity just to connect with people in these times where we can't get together in someone's living room or dining room or what have you. What is the role that the quarantine book club is filling?

MIKE MONTEIRO: Oh, I think it's the same. And even more so. I think you put it very well, the book is kind of the excuse that gets people together. I think there's a great therapeutic effect of just seeing other human beings right now and seeing people who are very good at the stuff that they're talking about, who are experts. I mean, especially- I mean, if you just, you know, got off on watching a Donald Trump presser and all of a sudden you could talk to somebody who actually knows what they're talking about. That's a big deal.

MG: For writers, Arjun, the assumption might be, well, you have all of this time you could spend it writing. Are you able to do any writing in the midst of this pandemic?

ARJUN BASU: If that were true, we would have so many more books in the world. And we already have a lot you know. Writers have a very interesting relationship with time for sure. Because you need a lot of it just to start writing, what I call them buffers. You know, you need buffers to sort of get going and then you need buffers after you've written. And that's why for so many writers, it really is a slow process. So when the quarantine book club happened, the fun of writing was really, really difficult. I couldn't even read. Which is ironic, I guess. I couldn't read. I couldn't write. I was like everyone else. I was bingeing Tiger King and, you know, and cooking. I had been cooking a lot. And now I've been, you know, and I'm not even in the process of writing something. I'm editing something. Me, you know, my agent has a book that's done. So he's trying to sell that. And I have been working on a second on a sequel to that one. And then in the editing, I mean, the second or third draught. I don't even remember anymore. So that's going okay. I can't, I still find myself distracted quite a bit. But the thing about this whole thing, we're at home, we're not doing anything, but it's mentally exhausting. And the brain, even if, maybe it's because we're not using it. But I just feel tired because of this. And then, of course, you can't sleep. So it's all. You know, I went to the liquor store yesterday and bought like. 14, 12. cans of white wine. I've been going through that and my friends, but I never thought the white collar person. Well, I'm not. But now I have.

MG: Quarantine makes you make interesting choices.

ARJUN BASU: Exactly.

MG: We will send people to the feed and they can log in the next time there's a Wednesday, when is the next book club, Mike?

MIKE MONTEIRO: The next one is in just a few hours.

MG: Excellent. If people have time on their hands.

MIKE MONTEIRO: We've got to a day to a day.

MG: All right. Well, if people have time on their hands, please tell them to log in. Good to speak with you, Mike and Arjun, good luck.

ARJUN BASU: Thank you.

MIKE MONTEIRO: Thanks a lot. Good to talk to you.

MG: Mike Monteiro is an author, founder of the Quarantine Book Club. He's in San Francisco. And in Montreal, Arjun Basu, novelist and author of Waiting for the Man.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Unfortunately, we're on time. Mike, could you tell us what else is coming up on Quarantine Book Club?

MIKE: I would absolutely love to do that. I'm just going to skip around on Thursday at 11:00, if you like, science fiction. We've got Tim Moran, who wrote Infinite Detail, a book about, among other things, when the Internet goes down. Those and other tugs are available at QuarantineBookClub.com.

VOICE: Now is the moment when it be great if everybody would just like you.

[Chatter]

MG: Great unmuting. It's time to say goodbye to our listeners in Newfoundland and Labrador for everyone else. The Current is back. Coming up in about 90 seconds' time with the latest on advances in covered 19 vaccines, but also treatments and the great work happening here in Canada. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

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Full Transcript for April 8, 2020

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