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The Current Transcript for April 23, 2020

Host: Matt Gallaway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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It is unconscionable that we now have a situation where hundreds of people have contracted a deadly virus.

MATT GALLOWAY: In Alberta, a spike of COVID-19 cases has been linked to a massive slaughterhouse in High River. It's a plant that processes more than a third of all the beef in Canada. Employees asked for the plant to be closed as the pandemic took hold. An inspection was done via face time. In half an hour, we'll hear from workers and from Calgary's medical officer of health about the balance of keeping workers safe and ensuring Canada's food supply. Also this morning.

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Most systems and emergency response plans do not contemplate our communities. And this, of course, is layered on an already inaccessible health care system.

MG: In a moment of social isolation, how this pandemic is affecting people with disabilities. And later, these are unprecedented times. Your routines are being remade and you're now trying to juggle home schooling with working from home and walking the dog. Why academics want you to document these strange and unusual times for future reference. Maybe you'll use some of the language of these times in your journaling. Coming up, your submissions for the new words we're using in this pandemic from basement casual to quarry annotation. We start, though, with the new reality of mourning and a virtual memorial for those lost in Nova Scotia. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is an extended edition of The Current.

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'This is not our identity': Nova Scotians won't let violence of shooting rampage define them, researcher says

Guests: Tiffany Ward, Michael Ungar

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MG: The strains of Amazing Grace ringing out in Calgary, a bagpiper with the Saddledome in the distance, remembering the 22 people killed in a massacre in Nova Scotia over the weekend. Owen Bonnar may be playing alone there, but his song is part of a chorus of mourning that's been playing out across this country.

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MG: And from Chicago. Bill Buchholts posted this.

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MG: Nowhere, though, is the pain felt more than in Nova Scotia itself. Here are our sisters, Lily and Rebecca. Age nine and 11 from Halifax, paying tribute to lives lost.

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MG: Tiffany Ward lives down the road from Portapique, Nova Scotia. She's one of the organizers of the virtual vigil planned for tomorrow night called Nova Scotia remembers Tiffany. Good morning.

TIFFANY WARD: Good morning, Matt. Thank you for having me.

MG: Thanks for joining us. How you doing this morning?

TIFFANY WARD: It's another day and another morning that we wake up to the same, same story.

MG: Tell me a bit in this long week that we've all been through about what you have planned for Friday.

TIFFANY WARD: Well, in light of COVID-19, we can't be together and grieve this tragedy in the way that we think we otherwise would. We've not been through this before. I can't say it's, you know, how we've done it before or anything like that. Normally, in these circumstances that you see only in these kind of tragedies occur that everyone, you know, gets together at the, perhaps at the arena or at the hall or at the church, and everyone comes together to it to hold one another in person. And we can't do that. So what we've done is we've put together an online an online vigil program that will take place on a Friday at seven Atlantic and 6:00 Eastern. And it will be carried- it was originally intended to be carried on Facebook and YouTube, but now it's something picked up by radio and TV as well. So it's going to be a one and a half to two hours of messages of support for our community and the families. It'll include messages from community leaders, whether they be political or spiritual business. Also musicians, very local as well as others in Nova Scotia, and some recognisable faces offering messages of support to our community and the families affected your own economy.

MG: Nova Scotia just down the road, as I mentioned from Portapique.

TIFFANY WARD: Yes.

MG: Why did you want to pull this together?

TIFFANY WARD: Well, there was nothing else we could do. It was all we could do this all I could do in the moments after when this occurred and then when it was over, you feel so hollow and helpless and knowing that we couldn't do you know, we couldn't be together. I couldn't go to a friend's house and cry and get a hug. You can't do that. And, you know, so the idea was just to demonstrate that, you know, we can be together, even in these unprecedented times in the face of this horrible tragedy, that we can come together as a community and we can wrap our arms around those who are hurting the most and begin to, you know, to share and to commence the grieving and possibly the healing process.

MG: One of the things we've learned over the last couple of days and speaking with so many people from the community is that these are small communities. And in many ways, it's not six degrees of separation. It's two or three degrees of separation. You knew one of the victims.

TIFFANY WARD: I knew several.

MG: Several victims.

TIFFANY WARD: Throughout, you know, living here. I've lived here other than the time spent in school. Most of my life. And, you know, I've come into contact with some of these people, whether they be through work, through my families being, you know, going to school, high school. There's been many connections. And, we say two or three, that even a stretch. So it affects everyone. We are very close that we are very small and so many small communities, but all one within under this thing called Chester and also to include Wentworth and [unintelligible] and feel like we're all very close together. And, you know, we were very just, like we have distinct communities, but we overall are one large community. And it's tragic that what has happened. And I hope that we're able to bring a little light into the most darkest time.

MG: People, not just in your community, but right across the country, and I know from friends and family elsewhere around the world have been sending notes of condolences and doing really creative things to mourn right now, in this time, as you mentioned, where you can't get together, you can't go to somebody's house and give somebody a hug. Have a listen to Dimitri Neonakis. He's a pilot that flew on Sunday night, a plane over Portapique tracing the shape of a heart in the air. Have a listen to him.

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I felt peaceful out there drawing the heart. I don't know why, but after I landed and I talked to the air traffic controller and she said what a beautiful pattern that was. I realised that it wasn't only me who felt the comfort and hope. That's why I say I felt I got thousands of people in the cockpit with me.

MG: What do you make of how people have reached out to your communities?

TIFFANY WARD: First off, that was amazing. And as someone who's part of this community on Sunday when I saw that post, after it happened, I believe it was Sunday night, you know, that's exactly what we hoped to do with this is to circle this community with loves and that's really, really touching to see. And it's you know, that's the sentiment from everywhere that there's still good in this world. There's still love in this world. And to be able to feel that across, like across the country and the province in the world, like we are so very lucky. And I feel very lucky to be a part of it.

MG: I'm so sorry for what you've gone through and what your community has gone through. That idea that there's still good and love in the world, I think is something to hang onto in this moment. And thanks to you for pulling together what we will see on Friday in this virtual vigil. Tiffany, thanks.

MG: An amazing team, an amazing, good friend to have grown to include some very amazing friends. And I'm hoping it's going to be just wonderful.

MG: I think it will be. Thanks again.

TIFFANY WARD: Thanks so much for having me, Matt.

MG: Take care. Tiffany Ward is one of the co-organizers of a virtual vigil. It's happening Friday night to commemorate those lost in Nova Scotia. Tiffany was in Economy Nova Scotia. You can watch that broadcast on Facebook and YouTube, as well as on CBC News Network, CBC GEM, CBC Television and in Atlantic, Canada. It will be broadcast on CBC Radio. Check out our Twitter page for more details @TheCurrentCBC. My next guest studies how communities can heal after tragedy. Michael Ungar is a Canada research chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience at Dalhousie University. Michael, good morning to you.

MICHAEL UNGAR: Good morning, Matt.

MG: You heard what you heard a Tiffany Ward is doing and what people in her community are doing to pull together in what is a really difficult time, amplified by the fact that we're in this global pandemic. What has struck you the most about the way that people are grieving at this time?

MICHAEL UNGAR: Well, first, I never thought of some of her research as resilience in communities all over the world that I'd actually be sort of bringing this research rate back into my backyard. But it's quite remarkable the way we're adapting. And what Tiffanie said is just beautiful with how we're trying to find alternative ways during the pandemic to wrap our arms around our communities. When you look at communities that are resilient, you often see a couple of things. One is they're looking for resources that will actually sustain them during a crisis. But those resources have to be given to them or they have to find them in ways that are meaningful or that they can negotiate so that they can get them in ways that that that makes sense to them. And that is actually what's so innovative perhaps about this, is that we're thinking about how we can have virtual vigils where we're literally doing whatever we can to, well, reclaim public space, which is actually a big part of what communities do to be resilient, which is why you see them always being people standing shoulder to shoulder with the candles. We do these things to assert ourselves back into those public spaces as a way of reclaiming our sense of safety as well.

MG: You've seen people who are painting their windows who. And we've been hearing the singing songs. They're tying tartans around the front porch. How did those sorts of gestures help with that healing?

MICHAEL UNGAR: Well, I think what they they're doing is they're establishing the sense of cohesion.

We know from lots of other communities that have been under stress of all sorts, including violence related to mass shootings or loss of industries, closing down violence, whatever that. What you'll see over and over is these patterns of people signalling to each other that we are connected and in a sense, Matt, rejecting that identity being thrust on us by the violence. And the people here in Nova Scotia, I don't think we- I know we don't see ourselves as how this makes the community look, in a sense. This is not our identity and this is not the way the world perceives Nova Scotia. So, you know, when I'm walking down, doing my daily walk and I'm seeing tartans flying out at the front of people's driveways and this type of thing. What it signalling to me is this kind of assertion that, this is who we are, we are better than this and we are not going to let this define us as a province or as a community. And it's quite powerful to watch.

MG: You study resilience and resilience in children as well. And when the prime minister spoke earlier this week, he spoke directly to children. We know that kids are affected in this in ways that perhaps we may not see initially, but that they're still feeling, you know, the anxiety that we're all kind of manifesting right now. How do you comfort children in the midst of something like this?

MICHAEL UNGAR: Well, what we're seeing from, again, other kinds of tragedies is we want to make sure that children get the information they need to process this. And in age appropriate ways. But hiding children from this is probably not the solution. You know, I in later times, I might have reminded people that fairytales used to be full of blood and gore. And, you know, Cinderella sisters had their toes chopped off to fit into the slipper. And I mean, children think the most horrific things. They know something is happening there. They're going to be picking it up just in the in the air, if you will. They're going to sense that things are going wrong. And the more we can sort of share with children that something bad has happened, but then reassure them that they are safe, that the police did what they needed to do, and then to take the children back out into any kind of public space that you can. And, of course, that's going to just be your driveway, the front of your house, you know, walk around the block. But bringing children back into those spaces is going to show them more than your words that things have stabilized. And children, by the way, and we adults too, respond to getting back into routines. I love the fact that Tiffany said just at the beginning of her interview, you know, how today, well, today is just going to be a bit like yesterday. We're going to get on. We're going to fall back into those structures and those patterns. And those four children, especially, they signal, hey, yesterday was okay, today we'll be okay. And the more we can make the world predictable for our kid, the more likely that child is to sort of move through this and feel like the future is still there for them and maybe, maybe fight back depression and anxiety a little bit.

MG: Just in the last minute or so, what is it that gives you hope when it comes to resiliency in your province? This has been a really hard week for people in Nova Scotia.

MICHAEL UNGAR: Well, what gives me hope and what I've learned from other places around the world, too, is that resilience doesn't begin now. It began years and years ago in these communities as they you know, as they swapped casseroles down the street, as people, you know, needed help, as they got to know each other. These are the foundation stones for resilience. And because a lot of these small communities, they have that social cohesion, they have a sense of belonging to have a sense of place. They can come back much stronger because we know that. I imagine what's going to happen is people going to revisit the very values that have always been strong there. Maybe not this week. This week is for grieving and probably a lot of very dark feelings. But over time, very shortly, those values will reawaken and hopefully people will anchor back to those and those will be what is being celebrated.

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

MICHAEL UNGAR: Take care.

MG: Michael Ungar is the candidate research chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience at Dalhousie University. We reached him in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Kitchen Party on Facebook started as a way to lift spirits during the pandemic. People pulled up a chair. They would grab a fiddle, drink their guitar, they would sing and they would chat. And it would be shared virtually throughout the province and right around the world. Now, it's also become a place where Nova Scotians and others are coming together to grieve, but still to sing. And the singing is a huge issue. Michael was talking about that's a huge part of trying to get back to normal, but also connecting with people in whatever way you can in these difficult times. This next song has been shared many, many times on the Nova Scotia Kitchen Party in the past few days. This is Nova Scotia's rank and family and fare thee well, love. Music from the Rankin family. CBC News is next. And then what happened at Cargill inside an Alberta meat processing plant where hundreds of employees have been diagnosed with COVID-19. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in six minutes.

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[Fare Thee Well Love by Nova Scotia Rankin Family]

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COVID-19 at Alberta meat processing plant

Guests: Cargill Employee, Thomas Hesse, Jia Hu

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

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MG: Still to come, dealing with social distancing and the cold pandemic comes with added layers of difficulties for people living with disabilities. Coming up, we'll find out how navigating spaces has changed under COVID. But first, to Alberta and a meat packing plant coping with an outbreak.

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MG: It was one of the busiest meat processing plants in this entire country, but the machines have gone quiet at the Cargill Foods plant in High River, Alberta, after a massive outbreak of COVID-19, 440 workers have tested positive and the outbreak has been linked to 580 confirmed infections altogether. One worker from Cargill Foods has died. Her spouse is in hospital. Another employee from that cargo plant is on the line with us now. We're not using his name because he's worried about how this could affect his future employment. Sir, good morning.

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: Good morning, sir.

MG: When did you start to hear about COVID-19 cases at the facility that you work in?

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: Well, it all started like a couple of weeks ago. In the first week of April, people got the rumours that one employee has been contracted by the virus, but the company keep us blinded and they didn't even inform our union. And from one, it's getting worse to five. And before the end of the week, it's getting like 38.

MG: He said it was rumours. How were people feeling as these rumours were being passed around the plant?

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: It's really scary because nobody really knows how and who and how many. So because of it is like we are blinded. So rumours it turns burns. It was. It turns out that it is true. And we just recently found out before the end of April that it already had 38 person has been contracted by the virus.

MG: And you said that you felt blinded, that that's the employers, the people who run the plants weren't letting you know all the details yet.

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: They didn't let us know or even the union. They didn't even know about it to tell them the truth. Then from 38, it blimps lay up and turns up that it's burning 300, like that.

MG: And I know you have to be cautious because we we don't want to identify you. But for people who may not know what the setup is like inside this plant. Describe what do you do?

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: Well, plant is huge. But workers are as made as many as a thousand people working around. And let's say that in a shift, in one shift like a day shift, it could be like around a thousand workers doing the job. And imagine the plant is not designed, it wasn't designed for social distancing. For inside it, Especially if you are inside there - what do you call this, a publication, florr - It was like shoulder to shoulder. You're doing with your buddy, like your co-worker is just beside you. It wasn't designed for any distances. And the thing is, like, really bothered because there is a rumour and there's one even when they found out, even with when we found out that there is a lot of people that's been infected, they didn't even bother to slow down the line. And when the union is asking to shut it down, they didn't even apply to them.

MG: So like you're still working shoulder to shoulder even after some of these cases start to appear.

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: Yes. We're still working shoulder to shoulder.

MG: Cargill has said that it brought in new safety protocols, including temperature testing. There is more cleaning. There was more sanitizing. There was a use of face covering and and screens between employee stations. Did you see any of those steps being taken?

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: Yeah, it was taken, but it was a little bit too late. A lot of people, has already been affected with it. And besides, even if they do the temperature testing, it won't work when some people are asymptomatic person doing it, the job. And besides us, some people are asking like the union is trying to ask for a face shield. It's a kind of plastic face shield that covers your fase. Cargill doesn't have any. But you also just said that we don't have a sufficient amount to give every employees on the plant. Imagine you'll see your boss having that. But those employees working shoulder to shoulder, doens't have it like that.

MG: And so the bosses were wearing the face shields, but the people who are working on the floor don't.

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: Kind of like that.

MG: There are real concerns because of the scale of this plant and the amount of beef that goes through it, that this could affect the supply chain for the entire country. This is an essential service packaging meat for consumers. How do you balance the need for that food to be processed, but also for your safety and for you to get back to work in a safe way?

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: Well, in my opinion, if they just gave us the tools to temporarily shut down early, it wouldn't be affected in the process of giving essential to the people. Because what I know we always have to stock. We have always had the stock inside our plant. So two weeks wont bother all of us if we just temporarily shut down as much as earlier, because if they do that, people will get isolated and the spreading of COVID virus would not spread.

MG: You've tested negative for the virus?

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: Yes?

MG: Do you know people who've tested positive?

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: Yeah, a lot.

MG: A lot.

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: Yeah.

MG: Are you worried about going back to work?

CARGILL EMPLOYEE: Right now, yeah, but hopefully when the shutdown's [unintelliglbe] up, hopefully that everybody's going to come back to it. If that's [unintelligible]. So that's like crossing your fingers.

MG: I appreciate you talking to us this morning. Take good care of yourself. Thank you. That's not about.

MG: That's an employee of the Cargill meat plant near High River, Alberta. We granted him anonymity because of his fears for his employment status at that facility. Most of the workers at the High River Cargo Foods plant are members of the same union, the United Food and Commercial Workers. Thomas Hesse is president of that Unions Local Forum. One also represents employees at JBS Food Canada, another plant in southern Alberta. Thomas, good morning to you.

THOMAS HESSE: Good morning.

MG: As of yesterday, there was at least five hundred eighty colvard cases linked to that one Cargill plant. It's the largest outbreak linked to a single location in this entire country. When you hear those numbers, what goes through your mind?

THOMAS HESSE: Well, I'm shocked and angry. Very, very frustrated indeed. The week before Easter, you saw that Cargill had closed the plants in the United States, in fact a number of plants have closed the United States. And all we know that large pork processing plants had been closed, in fact, for two weeks. We became aware of a growing number of infections. We wanted to really save people from this terrible disease save people's lives. So on Easter Sunday, we said shut the place down, send the workers home for a couple of weeks for a real cleaning and an opportunity for them to self isolate. We said, let's put together a committee, study the plant, try to discover the origin of this, how we might ensure that food continues to get to the tables of Albertans and Canadians, smoothly. And they said no and the government wouldn't intervene. And now we have, I think, pushing 500 cases, I hear. It's hard to keep track and we have deaths. It's not good.

MG: We asked Cargill management to do an interview about this. They declined. But they have told CBC earlier this week that they've been proactive about employee safety and that they encourage workers not to come to work if they're feeling sick. They offered paid sick leave. How would you assess the company's response?

THOMAS HESSE: Well, there's there's a contrast between what they say on paper and what happens in the real culture of a workplace. I'm pretty sick of seeing press releases that talk about how we instructed our employees to wash their hands in the wake of the fact of the matter is, is that a plant like this, plants like JBS have hundreds, literally thousands of workers squeezed into into small spaces, killing four to five thousand animals a day. And so they're designed all around efficiency at social proximity. The week before Easter, we heard about plants closing in the US. We saw the Alberta modelling numbers where one in six Albertans are being told that they're going to carry this virus, that 17 out of every hundred, 170 out of every every thousands were listening to what workers have to say. There wasn't proper personal protection equipment. And, you know, we made the decision to make the ask to have the plant closed. We didn't we didn't do that because we wanted to shut down the beef industry. In fact, we act hand-in-hand with the beef industry. These members want to come to work. Noble people. They're proud people. They want to bring food to the tables of Albertans, certainly. It's counter-intuitive to not want to come to work. Now they're scared and they don't want to.

MG: The province did inspections since this pandemic began. Right?

THOMAS HESSE: Mm hmm, there is certainly, you know, a lot of talk around one inspection that was done by the Department of Occupational Health and Safety the Friday before the closure. What I understand occurred is that an inspector did a Facetime inspection of a plant of thousands and thousands of square feet. Workers weren't interviewed. You know, it's very curious indeed that a health and safety officer relies on a Facetime inspection to conclude that the plant is safe when he himself wouldn't set foot in the plant.

MG: Well, we asked the Labour and immigration minister and the agriculture minister for interviews both declined. But the Labour minister's office said that there was a union rep at that video inspection done and it was done to your point, in order to minimise exposure to the virus that they didn't wanted to expose further people to the virus. So you do via Facetime. You're saying that that wasn't sufficient?

THOMAS HESSE: Well, you know, to suggest that there was a union representative there is not true. We have individuals in the plant who volunteer there. They are involved in the union, they're union supporters. They're called shop stewards. But these aren't individuals with health and safety or professional labour relations training. So they grabbed one of these people, perhaps another employee, and sort of took them along for the ride, as it were. The point that they did this to ensure that it wasn't spread of infection or that there was proper social distancing underscores our very point. No one should be in the plant. And that's an admission on their part that no one should be in the plant.

MG: There are questions as to whether the virus spread at the plant itself or whether it spread in the communities or the houses of those who work there. Have a listen to Craig Snodgrass. He is the mayor of High River, Alberta.

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If Cargill would have closed day one. I do not think our situation in Highrivers changed because primarily the spread is taking place at home. It's taken place and in these large groups that are congregating and living conditions, etc. So then it spreads outside and into our workers that are in our grocery stores and our health care facilities or long term care centres.

MG: Thomas Hesse, what do you make of that?

THOMAS HESSE: Well, you know, I would call that nonsense. A plant this size with this number of workers, you know, all roads lead back to that plant. So I've heard, for example, some officials say, well, people were carpooling, you know, three or four in a car. And that was, you know, those tight spaces led to this Cargill outbreak. But if it wasn't for the plant being open, they wouldn't have been carpooling and going to the plant. So all roads lead back to the plant. In terms of social proximity in living conditions, yes, there are at times four, six people living in the same place, but that's all tied up with employment at the plant. They came to work at that plant. And, you know, these people aren't well off with paycheque to paycheque. They're struggling to pay rent. So it's not surprising that they live together.

MG: Many of them are new immigrants and temporary foreign workers as well.

THOMAS HESSE: Yes, many. So the reason they're living together is because of employment at the plant. And it is the plant that is at the epicentre of this. There are no gatherings going on that large with that much proximity there. You know, it's a petri dish in the middle of town and all roads lead back to the plant.

MG: Thomas Hesse, good to speak with you about this. Thank you. My pleasure.

THOMAS HESSE: Thomas Hesse is the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 401. That union represents workers at the cargo plant in High River, also represents workers at another plant in southern Alberta. JBS is a plant in Brooks, Alberta, has 96 cases of colvard 19 linked to the facility, but the plant is still open. When asked about plans to close it, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney had this to say.

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I can say that Alberta Health Services, Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Alberta Agriculture, together with the plants, have all worked very closely on plans to deal with meat packing facilities. These constitute an essential part of the food security of Canadians. In fact, just one of those plants represents 40 percent of the beef consumption in all of western Canada. And so obviously food security constitutes an essential service. And so the direction has clearly been from the government to take every necessary health and safety precaution. And should there be advice where public health officials that there should be a suspension? We would we would obviously receive that. But there has been very strong inter-agency cooperation with the companies, the unions, to ensure as much as possible the safety people in those plants.

MG: That's Alberta Premier Jason Kenney. Dr. Jia Hu is one of Calgary's medical officers of health. Doctor, good morning to you.

JIA HU: Good morning.

MG: When did Alberta Health Services learn about the first case of COVID-19 at that Cargill plant in High River?

JIA HU: We learned in the first case on April the 3rd that when the first lab confirmed case on the fourth, we had a request for inspection by Cargill, which was conducted on the 7th.

MG: The employees of the plant and you just heard one say that there was no official announcement about an outbreak until there were 13 cases at the plant. Why was that?

JIA HU: Well, I think the official announcement was made on the 7th around the time that we heard about roughly 10 cases. Initially, it was hard to determine if they were all plants associated or, you know, part of a I guess within the town of High River and other facilities. I do think one of the things that we can do better in the future and you know, I do knowledge that I think, you know, some mistakes were made where we could have identified some of these interventions earlier, some stated cases earlier. And I think one thing that, you know, we're learning about it, Alberta Health Services, many people are around the world, is just know how quickly COVID can spread around [unintelligible] plant.

MG: One of the things we heard, though, from that employee is that the people who are working on the floors there are working shoulder to shoulder. There is not the opportunity for physical or social distancing in a plant like that where three to 4000 animals are being slaughtered a day. And as the union says, this is all about efficiency. Alberta has faced criticism for not closing the plants sooner. The union called for the j.b.'s plant to be closed as well. Why weren't these plants closed earlier?

JIA HU: Yes, so I mean, I think when we did the inspection on the 7th, you know, Alberta Health Services made a number of recommendations for control measures. And, you know, some of those control measures included physical separation when possible and were not physical barriers were actually erected between workers and workers were provided PPE, including masks and face shields. So at that point, you know, we did feel that the risk of transmission on the on the plant floor itself was quite low. And I think that is demonstrated by some of the epidemiologic numbers where we do see a reduction in the number of cases amongst plant workers, after the control measures were put in place. That being said, you know, I think some of the things that we didn't recognise the time, but now recognised was then, how many of these workers live in these large household settings. And truly the biggest risk of transmission now is the within household transmission piece. So, too. And that's where we'll see ongoing transmission. And that's why we're planning to do things like set up isolation hotels for people. So they don't, if they have COVID they don't give it to their families. That's why we're engaging newcomer organizations like Calgary Catholic and [unintelligible] Society to ensure that, you know, we can communicate with the workers and linguistically and culturally appropriate way. I think moving forward, there's a lot of things that we will be doing better and we know it is better for any future plants.

MG: I guess if you go back to the plant itself, though, we heard from that employee who said that there wasn't physical distancing, that he wasn't able to get a face shield. And you mentioned the inspection. Is a Face time inspection appropriate, video inspection appropriate when you're trying to learn what's actually happening on the ground in a massive plant like that?

JIA HU: Yes, well, the video inspection was done by, you know, OH [unintelliglbe] I can't comment on what they do or don't do. I will say that we didn't go there in person on the 7th. And then I went there again in person on the 17th. And at that point in time, I went to the plant floor and saw that there were barriers and people did have those things. I don't think that - I really thanked the workers for sharing his story. I don't think- I can say they were definitely there when he was there. But, you know, it does go to show that there's a lot for us to do still and a lot for us to learn.

MG: Is it possible to keep these plants open in an era of physical distancing?

JIA HU: I think, yes. Depends on the plant itself. I wouldn't say we should really shut down all meat plants everywhere. I think we have to be really vigilant about our case detection. I think we have to be really vigilant about maybe adopting some of those control measures proactively. And, you know, I think the biggest lesson from this plant was just around, you know, understanding, you know, not just the plant's operations, but the holistic picture, including the carpooling piece, which we tried to. We initially asked people not to carpool, not recognising that was a difficult thing to do for people, you know, given sort of their socio-economic situation. And so I think if we recognise that picture and we understand where the transmission is happening and we continue to support people both in the plant and outside of the plant, then I don't think they'll all have to close. But I think in Alberta, across North America, we are learning to be very, very cautious about these particular settings, given the risk of rapid transmission of COVID.

MG: Part of this is also about protecting the nation's food supply. Something like 95 percent of beef in Canada goes through three processing plants. Two of them now have COVID outbreaks. How do you strike that balance between ensuring that employees are protected, but also that the food supply is protected?

JIA HU: Well, I guess, fortunately for me is somebody who's a public health physician, my focus and my priority is on, you know, the health and well-being of the population, including the population of the workers. So, you know, I think if I do believe there is a threat to the health and safety of the workers, that cannot be ameliorated, then when we take action and the need to play, obviously is a very important thing, but it's not, you know, my primary consideration.

MG: I appreciate speaking with you about this. This is an important issue, not just in Alberta, but right across the country. Doctor, thank you.

JIA HU: Thank you.

MG: Dr. Jia Hu is one of Calgary's medical officers of health. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. Just enough time before we head to our 90 second break for your mail. Much of your mail is about Coronaspeak. Maybe you caught us talking about this on the program yesterday. Tony Thorne, linguist in London, is tracking all the new slang that is coming out of this pandemic. Things like the 'corona cuts', that's the haircut you gave yourself in quarantine. Maybe you're regretting doing that. 'Morona', which is somebody who's putting others at risk. 'Quarantinee'. Maybe the cocktail that you make at the end of a day of self-isolation and working from home, many of you wrote in with your own ideas for Coronaspeak. Mark Ferren of Ottawa has an idea on how to refer to our new daily routines called 'Covidien-Quotidien'. 'Covidien-Quotidien'. Not bad. You may have heard me use the phrase the before times to refer to life before the pandemic that comes from a Mad Max movie. Virginia Imlay of Charmain, US British Columbia has a similar strategy. She has been using BCV before coronavirus, and ACV, after coronavirus, which makes perfect sense. Mark Legault of Hamilton has come up with a word to describe disorientation of experiences and quarantine, specifically relating to the passage of time. He calls that 'Quariantation'. Finally, Kevin Branton of Peterborough, Ontario has been thinking about working from home and the trend in the way that this is affected, how we dress up or don't dress up for video calls. He calls that 'basement casual'. Working from pyjama, perhaps. Thanks for the e-mails. Keep them coming. If there is a word or phrase that you have been hearing or using in these pandemic times, let us know. Remember the old wanted words' segment on CBC Radio? This is kind of like that for these unusual times. You can send us your word through Twitter @TheCurrentCBC or send us an email thecurrent@cbc.ca. Coming up on the program in 90 seconds, they are disproportionately affected by this pandemic. We'll hear from Canadians with a range of disabilities on life in self isolation. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

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Facing the pandemic with a disability

Guests: Alex Bulmer, Trish Melanson, Nancy Hanser

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current. COVID-19 is making us all rethink how we operate in this world. Something which might have seemed like nothing before; getting groceries now comes with a whole new set of challenges, new rules, new steps you need to take if you're living with a disability. Though the world before COVID was already full of barriers and now many of these challenges are magnified. Kate McWilliams is a disability rights advocate in Vancouver. She has complex regional pain syndrome and uses a wheelchair.

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So my treatment consists of many things, a few things I can do from home and medications I can take from home. But a big part of it is procedures. There are procedures at the hospital that right now, because of a pandemic, I can't access. In that way, the pandemic has greatly changed my life because I physically getting weaker by the day. It's been seven weeks since my last procedure and normally I go every three weeks or so. So in that way, it's pretty scary because I'm not sure how long I'm going to have to go without the treatment.

MG: Kate isn't alone. Alex Bulmer is co-artistic director of Common Boots Theatre in Toronto. She's blind. Alex, good morning to you.

ALEX BULMER: Good morning, Matt.

MG: How are you doing?

ALEX BULMER: I'm well, thank you, how are you?

MG: I'm okay. I mean, that's a loaded question these days, it seems like. What was your daily routine like before this whole pandemic arrived?

ALEX BULMER: Well, I work all over the city in many different locations. So, you know, usually I was heading out the door. I've been using a cane for the last year and a half rather than a dog. So, you know, using public transportation, going to different locations. I also try to keep fit by going to a gym very regularly. And, you know, grocery stores, banking. Usual, really. What everybody does. People who have any kind of self-employed life would understand what I'm talking about, not going to the same office every day.

MG: And so how has COVID changed your day in these unusual times?

ALEX BULMER: Well, I don't go out of the house very much on my own. If I do, it's just to go around the block. So I've been having to find ways of, you know, getting groceries and getting exercise and keeping focussed to keep my creative work going.

MG: Can I ask you about groceries? I mean, it's an urgent need for many people and it's complicated now because you have to go. You have to wait in line. There is all of that physical distancing. If you. Once you get into the store, what's it like for you to get groceries?

ALEX BULMER: Well, I don't attempt to go into the stores the way that I used to do. It was just walk into the local no-frills and, you know, call for help. And so, you know, that's not going to work. I'm very lucky, I think, because of the work I do I have a huge community of of people in my life. And so my friends are doing the shopping for me now. The other way I used to get groceries was order them online, you know, and have them delivered. That process is proving to be just not- it's a two week, it's a two week wait. There's hardly any delivery slots open, even the pickup. A friend of mine was doing a pickup for me. And he said to me a few days ago, Alex, there's just no spots. So I've really had to rely on people actually going and getting groceries and then leaving them on my front balcony.

MG: What about the whole guidance of physical distancing? What is that like for you?

ALEX BULMER: Well, that's one of the reasons why I don't really want to go out on my own very much, because I can't, obviously, I can't gauge that. And, you know, I don't want to be a downer. But, you know, not everybody is is nice to a blind person. Some people, before, as I'm listening to your your segment on different words. Was it BC?

MG: In the Before time.

ALEX BULMER: BCV. I'm confronting strangers who are not always respectful of my space. And so that, you know, is an increased risk during these times. So what I do is I use a leather belt. And when my friends come, I take one end of the belt. They take the other end of the belt and. And then off we go. And I get exercise. And it's a pleasant walk.

MG: What is the what is the belt in that system, what does that give you?

ALEX BULMER: Well, it gives us the distancing that we need, but it also gives me- it's kind of a form of cited guide, you know, as opposed to taking someone's arm. So it it keeps me connected to that person at a safe distance. And also they can see who's coming. So they can ensure that I get out of the way. And also, we also use it as a little fitness technique. Sometimes we go down in the park and they stand in the centre and I run around in circles.

MG: Whatever works, right.

ALEX BULMER: Whatever works.

MG: Can I ask you about taking someone's arm? And I mean, we're talking a lot about touch and how- this has been a really hard week. And so people want to, but it's been a hard few weeks. You want to go and they want to give somebody a hug. They want to hold someone's hand. They want to be able to console somebody or they just that that sense of touch is something the people really miss because they can't do that. How important is touch for you?

ALEX BULMER: Oh, it's huge, Matt. I mean, it's, on a practical level, not just in terms of understanding what's out there. I have to say, I think more than anything I miss the physical contact with someone's arm. Because that closeness to a person's body, when I'm walking with them, I get all the information I need. I know what their hips are doing. I know what their arms are doing. I can even tell the way a person is moving their head. You know, their voice is not that far away from me. The distance thing, you know, the belt is a great technique. But what it's done is it's turned sort of the person I'm walking within to basically a sort of a mouth in space and he's sort of rogue footsteps. And so people sort of don't have anything between their mouth and their feet for me. And it's a strength. It's kind of like a weird alien cartoon. So I find that, yes, I find that difficult. And it's the way I understand my world. You know, I go out and I reach out and sort of figure out, oh, is this a pole? Is this the crossing? Is is a button? So I can certainly do all those things in my own home. But I do feel like I've almost lost another sense.

MG: We were hearing at the beginning of our conversation from Kate McWilliams. Have a little bit more of a listen to her. She's the disability advocate in Vancouver.

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So when I hear people complain that they have to stay at home, there's it's very complicated and usually frustrating to hear, as a disabled person, because you hear a lot of things like how we don't have a life now or, you know, it's so boring at home, they can't do anything. And there's a large part of the disabled population that's already mostly homebound. And we know that there's so much we can do and you can have a very fulfilling life at home.

MG: Alex, how does it feel for you to hear the wider Canadian population complain about being stuck inside?

ALEX BULMER: Oh, boy, I have mixed feelings about this because I think it's true that, you know, there are a lot of us who at various times throughout the year, for me it's mostly winter, we experience isolation. It's not a consequence of a pandemic. It's a consequence of living in a, you know, in a world that has not been designed for everybody. You know, we are not, we, those within the disability community, we often feel unimagined. Spaces aren't designed for us. So I do understand that. And I and I sort of I say to people, a reassuring thought for me is that in the future I won't have to explain to people what it's like to feel isolated.

MG: Well, could you just finally say a bit more about that? Do you think that this will help the wider Canadian population understand or have more understanding, I suppose, towards people with disabilities?

ALEX BULMER: Yes, well, I hope so. But, you know, we're creatures of habit. We may just slip back into the way we were, you know, as a larger society. But I just also wanted to say that I also think it's really- I think what has to be very, very careful about comparing circumstances. You know, my frame of reference is different than your frame of reference, is different than someone else's frame of reference. So I also think we have to be very careful not to expect each other to respond to a crisis, you know, I wouldn't expect you to respond to the crisis crisis with my frame of reference. And I think that's very, very important. Otherwise we get into what I sort of jokingly call the oppression Olympics, which I just think leads to negativity.

MG: Well said. Take care yourself.

ALEX BULMER: Yes, you too, Matt. Thanks so much.

MG: It's great to talk to you.

ALEX BULMER: Nice to talk to you, too.

MG: Alex Bulmer lives in Toronto. We have been hearing over the last several weeks harrowing stories inside Long-Term Care Homes. Not everyone who lives in these facilities are seniors. Trish Melanson's son, Nicholas, lives in a nursing home in Oshawa, Ontario. He has Down syndrome, is non-verbal, suffers from seizures and has many underlying factors that make him vulnerable to the coronavirus. Trish is at her home. Trish, good morning to you.

TRISH MELANSON: Good morning.

MG: Tell me a little bit about Nicholas.

TRISH MELANSON: Nicholas was born with Down syndrome and shortly afterwards started having seizures. As a result, he's severely delayed his nonverbal. He didn't walk until he was eight. But another underlying condition of his is that every year as a child, he would end up hospitalized with some kind of a lung disorder, whether it be pneumonia of asthma or croup. Every year he's just seemed to end up in isolation in the hospital. So this respiratory the whole respiratory situation is very concerning. The home that he is in is a sister home to one of the first Long-Term Care facilities here in Oshawa that had an outbreak. So it's very, very, very upsetting living in fear.

MG: This living in fear.

TRISH MELANSON: And I just you know, it's it's it's frightening. His home does not apparently have an outbreak at the moment, but the residents next door has had 11 deaths and many staff members and residents infected.

MG: Are you able to see him at all?

TRISH MELANSON: No. Visiting was shut down on March 17th to everyone but essential visitors. And a couple of weeks before that, I had come down with a bug. So I basically haven't seen him in two months.

MG: Oh, my goodness. How does communication work?

TRISH MELANSON: In terms of Nickless or the home?

MG: We'll talk about Nicholas first.

TRISH MELANSON: Okay. Communication with Nicholas. He's nonverbal. He does not speak. His understanding of language is limited. He has a limited vocabulary. So a lot of, you know, a lot of guidance, a lot of very routine. In our visits consisted mostly of just, you know, going to visit, like a little movie in and we'd just sit. So your last guest spoke about touch and how important touch is, 90 percent of our visits were, you know, just sitting and, you know, chatting and touching. But just that comforting thing of touch, the comfort of touch, it's just gone. The home has set up Zoom visits with residents weekly. So we get to do a Zoom visit. So he gets to see my face on an i-Pad and you know, so it's kind of a 15 minutes of talking to him because he can't talk back and he's looking into, you know, into the laptop and wondering why mom's at the other end.

MG: Do you know always doing?

TRISH MELANSON: I have called and he's apparently doing fine. The home has been sending out e-mails about know procedures and stuff, and last night they sent out a very comprehensive one yesterday about the different questions that people have been calling and asking and inviting families to call, up to once a day, to find out about how the resident is doing. I have called a few times to see how he's doing. We're worried.

MG: Well, you talked about living in fear. I mean, tell me about how that plays itself out, even in terms of the communication that you would have with those at the residence.

TRISH MELANSON: Well, as I said, you know, I've called and I've asked, are there any cases of COVID in the residents, that wing is shut down. They said, no, there's no cases. And but, you know, the staff is coming and going. I know they're- I have nothing against the staff to do. Amazing job. But, you know, this this virus is so, so virulent. It's so, it's just spreading so, so fast and so, so hard with everyone. People are, in long term care facilities, are dying. And as you know, his 30th birthday is coming up and, you know, you're sitting here thinking, is he going to last that long? Is he going to live that long?

MG: Oh gosh.

TRISH MELANSON: So, I mean, there's been changes, too. We got an e-mail last week about changes to the funeral director procedures and to make sure that we prepare ahead of time and that, you know, make sure you have a funeral home picked out and once something, the inevitable, the person should pass away that you have three hours to get the resident and their possessions out of the building. And that's, you know, the biggest fear is, I think the biggest fear with me is, am I making the right decision by leaving him there?

MG: Well, we've heard that. I mean, first, those e-mails. I can't. That must be incredibly difficult to get. I mean, you're talking about he's it's about to turn 30 and you're getting e-mails saying this is what you need to prepare for.

TRISH MELANSON: Yes, exactly. And I mean, you know, it's it's understandable given the situation. It's a pandemic. And, you know, he's in a long term care facility and people around him, well, in that particular residents but, you know, all over the world, people are dying at much higher rate in long term care facilities. But you have that weighing heavily on you. You know, your son, coming up is his 30th birthday and being advised to prepare for. His possible death. You know, it's it's very, very difficult, very, very difficult.

MG: The other part of it is what you're saying about him staying there. And we've heard this conversation in the last couple of weeks with a woman whose mother is a senior in a long term care facility, and she is weighing whether, how can she take her home. There's this suggestion that if you can, you know, bring your family member home and she can't do that because of all of the other complications of life. Is that something that you've considered?

TRISH MELANSON: Absolutely. I mean, you know, one of the reasons he was put in the home, put her in the long term care facility was because of the seizures and it was just becoming dangerous. His care is definitely better there. But I'm, you know, your self isolating but you still have to go and get groceries. You know, am I going to- I could I live with myself if I go out and I bring it home to him and he ends up passing away here, or is he safer there? You know, it's because they're at the nursing home that the, you know, the procedures are in place to try and prevent the spread of it. People wearing PPE and sanitising and between patients. Well, of course. But you know, is he safer there or is he safer here? That's a question you ask yourself everyday. Originally before the pandemic, you were able to take your resident out for up to - I can't remeber the exact number. I believe it was up to two weeks. You can take them out and then return them. But now it's been changed that if you take the resident out of the home, they cannot return till after the pandemic. They get put on a priority list. Priority list to get the room back. The room is gone until, but they can't return till after the pandemic. So it's an all or nothing. All or nothing decision you make.

MG: How are you coping with all of this?

TRISH MELANSON: It's tough. It's really tough. I miss him. Miss him like crazy. Torn with am I making the right decision? Wondering how he's doing. You know, it's you know, it's, the home has been very good. I know he's got excellent care in that home.

MG: But that doesn't make it any easier.

TRISH MELANSON: Exactly. Exactly. And I know we're invited to call. But you're always wondering, are they're busy, and I would hate to think, you know. You know, people just keep calling and, you know. It's just it's really difficult. It's really difficult and very emotional time.

MG: I feel for the situation that you find yourself in. And I'm sorry for everything that you're going through. Good luck.

TRISH MELANSON: Thanks. And I'd like to say that I really appreciate the work the staff is doing. Just very unusual times. Thank you.

MG: Thanks agian Trish. Take care.

TRISH MELANSON: You too. Bye-Bye.

MG: Trish Melanson's son, Nicholas has Down syndrome. He lives in a nursing home. Nancy Hanson is an associate professor of disability studies at the University of Manitoba. She's been listening into this Nancy. Good morning to you.

NANCY HANSEN: Good morning.

MG: What do you make of what you've heard from Alex and Trish?

NANCY HANSEN: Well, I've heard a lot of similar stories from across the country. And it just shows how tenuous disabled people's positioning is within society. And I find it interesting, again, the comments around social isolation, because disabled people spend a lot of time working from home and living at home because they are living in a society that hasn't been, hasn't taken the requirements of disabled people into consideration.

MG: Well, you've written about feeling expendable at this moment.

NANCY HANSEN: Yes, it was really interesting. Two weeks into the state of emergency, I started seeing headlines from around the world in Canada that disabled people may have to forego medical treatment in order to have treatment for non disabled people. It's really interesting that you go from a society that's inclusive and diverse and then you're seen as surplus to requirements. Two weeks into a pandemic. Just interesting to see how tenuous our social situation is when the majority feels threatened.

MG: What should the guidelines be like, these are in part around these these sort of ethical guidelines that provinces have in the event of shortages like health equipment, ventilators and for other parts of of of the medical system that are apparently in short supply. How should, what's the better way to go about thinking about that so that to your point, people don't feel expendable, they don't feel like they're in an inconvenience to, I'll use your word, the majority?

NANCY HANSEN: I think that people have to understand that there are different ways of different ways of living in the world, and they're just different that you shouldn't have to prove your worth in order to access medical care. I think that you have to develop a broader understanding of what human beings are really like and the different ways we move, think and see things in the world. But there's a lack of creativity around the way human beings are supposed to work all the time.

MG: Are we seeing a change in that at all? I mean, one of the things we've noticed across sectors is that there has been some sort of adaptability, that a crisis has been sprung upon us and suddenly people will have to work from home, that you can't go to the museum, you can't see a concert in person. Instead, that museum has brought to you virtually or the person plays a concert from their living room. Is there anything positive that can come out of that to to help people with disabilities and disabled?

NANCY HANSEN: People have been advocating for this type of thing for years. We've been on the forefront of being able to do things in a virtual universe. And when there are various access, for example, virtual access is a really positive thing working from home. Disabled people have been advocating doing that for years. So I think that people will understand, yes, there's more than one way of doing things and it's okay. And it can be positive for a lot of people, the majority and and people with disabilities.

MG: What better ways can be implemented or explored to help the situation with someone like Alex? This is described by somebody to me as a pandemic within a pandemic in many ways that you have a population that perhaps is hidden in some ways, but is experiencing another layer of that. And for her, she's stuck in her apartment. She can't go out even to buy groceries or to get the exercise that she wants because she's worried about her physical and mental health. What can be better done to help her in that situation, do you think?

NANCY HANSEN: I think people have to be able to reach out and understand that there are individuals living in these kind of situations and seeing how we can develop different ways of doing things just to like that, since the actual physical contact is done to see if we can work around doing things through electronic media, through telephones, just being aware that there are people out there that are experiencing extreme isolation at the moment. And just to reach out and recognise that people are experiencing this very differently and a lot of services and provision for disabled people is tenuous at the best of times. And this is making it more [unintelliglble].

MG: Like if you think of something like online grocery shopping, should - for people who are disabled or living with a disability - this isn't really just about convenience. It's about actually having access to food. Should that be taken into consideration in terms of who has the available slots there's so few of them, but there needs to be priority for certain people?

NANCY HANSEN: Yes, I think that would be an ideal way to go. As a matter of fact, I'm aware that some grocery chains have started doing that, but it's not something that's consistent. So I think people have to realise that it's not simply a convenience for disabled people. It's a necessity.

MG: How did we get to this point? I mean, do you see this in history where some people with disabilities become uniquely vulnerable or are seen in some ways, again, as being disposable because some sort of crisis erupts?

NANCY HANSEN: Well, I mean, just prior to the Break-Up of World War Two, for example, groups of people during the Nazi period were singled out as expendable and disabled people were in that group as well. So anytime we sort of reach a point of social difficulty, people who are labelled as less than or different from label, are singled out for exclusion from services and facilities. And even in Canada, up until the 1970s, there were laws on the books in western Canada that allowed for sterilization. And there were laws in North America up until the 1970s, that could keep disabled people who had facial disfigurement out of public space. They were called the ugly laws and those were only removed in the 1970s.

MG: A dear friend of mine used to say that at some point in time in our lives will all become disabled. That this is about us aging. This is about us having different abilities over the course of our life. Do you think that, to Alex's point, maybe what we're all going through right now will offer some greater insight and perhaps empathy?

NANCY HANSEN: I'm hoping. I'm really hoping that some of this will resonate with people and they will remember. But memories can be short. But I'm hopeful that that some of this will be retained.

MG: I hope you're right. Nancy, it's good to speak with you about this. Thank you.

NANCY HANSEN: Thank you very much.

MG: Nancy Hanson is an associate professor of disability studies at the University of Manitoba. Your reaction to what you've heard from Nancy, from Alex or from Trish, we'd love to hear from you. Maybe you have a story that squares with what Alex or Trish themselves are going through and some ideas, to Nancy's point, about how greater society might be able to react in a way that would create change in future. You can let us know through the Web site at cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. Email us thecurrent@cbc.ca Or on twitter @TheCurrentCBC. The CBC News is next. And then.

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MG: Brazilians are not happy, they are fed up, in fact, with how the pandemic is being handled by their government, recently showing their anger with a chorus of pots and pans from balconies across the country. We'll check in on Brazil and other countries now being hit hard by this pandemic. That's coming your way in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. This is an extended edition of The Current on CBC Radio One.

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COVID-19 in Brazil, Russia and Sweden

Guests: Anna Ionova, Alec Luhn, Richard Orange

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Are you keeping a journal right now? Future historians may want to read it. We'll talk about archiving this pandemic. Coming up soon. But first, we begin abroad inside countries where COVID is surging.

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Nothing in life has no price, but the economy has to go back to normal.

MG: His country has the highest infection rate in Latin America. But even in this pandemic, the president of Brazil is sticking to his brand. Jair Bolsonaro is, among other things, proudly pro-business and outspoken populist. And he says he's ready for Brazil's economy to open up again. Anna Ionova is a freelance reporter who is in Rio de Janeiro. Anna good morning.

ANNA IONOVA: Hi, good morning.

MG: What are the COVID infection rates like in Brazil right now?

ANNA IONOVA: So at the moment, we have about 46,000 cases and about 2900 deaths. But it's important to note that the numbers that we're seeing right now are not really reflective of the scope of the crisis here yet, because we've had fairly low levels of testing. There's also really significant delays in getting the results of tests back. So just to give you an idea, there's only been about 90,000 tests done in a country of 210 million. So at the moment, this is quite a delayed picture. And most experts agree that the real figures that we should be expecting are about ten to twelve times higher.

MG: 10 to 12 times higher than that.

ANNA IONOVA: Yes, it's really significant. And the context around this is that many in many parts of the country, the public health system is already kind of failing under the current rates. So in the Amazon city of Manaus, things have gotten really bad and their system, their public health system is overwhelmed. They're opening up mass graves. In some other states in the north of the country, which tends to be poor. There's no critical care beds left. Here in Rio as well, our public health system is expected to enter into collapse later this month.

MG: What is life like in real right now?

ANNA IONOVA: It's, there's significantly less activity on the streets, but there's been quite a shift that's very palpable since the beginning of the lockdown here. The state and the city have imposed their own measures trying to contain the spread of the pandemic. But while in the beginning, in the first few weeks, there was pretty high adherence to the measures and most people were staying at home. Over the last couple weeks, there's been kind of a noticeable shift where more and more people are on the streets. Frankly, quite alarming levels of people are kind of going about their lives. So while it is a lot quieter than the typical, we are seeing kind of maybe a relaxation around the social isolation measures.

MG: How would you characterize how the president terrible scenario has approached the coronavirus pandemic?

ANNA IONOVA: Well, I think it's pretty clear that he has minimised the threats of coronavirus since the beginning. He has very famously referred to the virus as a little flu and repeatedly highlighted that the impact of shutting the economy is actually greater than the threat of the virus itself. So he has repeatedly ruled against measures imposed by governors and mayors who have taken a different approach and they've tried to crack down quite early on. We saw this happening in Sao Paulo, which is the epicentre of the crisis here in Brazil. And the presidents, instead of kind of supporting those measures, he has sharply criticized any efforts to kind of lock down states and cities and has urged people to go back to work, to go back to normal. He has gone against the advice of frontline health care workers and health professionals and continue to attend rallies with his supporters, continue to shake hands and take selfies. Just recently. He addressed a crowd of his supporters while coughing into his hands. So he has been both in terms of rhetoric and actions, very much on the opposing camp of a lot of governors and mayors here.

MG: Why is he doing that and why is he pushing so hard to reopen the economy? If the rest of the world says that this is a global pandemic and you need to take strong measures to contain it? Why is he going against that?

ANNA IONOVA: I think it's important to note that this most experts agree that this is a part of this as a political strategy. He is trying to distance himself from the painful economic impacts that are surely going to accompany this crisis. And this is particularly important in a country like Brazil, where inequality is really high, where lots and lots of people work in the informal economy. So for them, staying at home is almost impossible. For others, it's being really painful. It has meant that they are not able to go out on the streets and to sell products, sell fruits and vegetables and earn money to feed their families. So he has, although most Brazilians do support measures that encourage social distancing and lockdowns, there's a significant number of people that are really eager to go back to work. That for them, the message that the president is putting forward has really resonated because they just want to go back to earning an income, earning a living.

MG: And that the sting of that economic hardship is really starting to be felt right now.

ANNA IONOVA: Yes. So the government has initiated some measures in terms of economic help for informal workers and people kind of, you know, earning very little. But this figure is really, really insignificant. It's less than the minimum of the minimum wage here in Brazil. So it really hasn't made a real difference. So there are painful economic impacts already for many Brazilians, especially in the lower end of kind of the economic spectrum. And it's only going to get worse for them. So I think he's appealing with his rhetoric to a lot of people who want to return to work. And there's also a lot of pressure on the part of the business community to reopen. And we're seeing some soft pressure getting to governors as well. Recently, we saw a reopening of commerce in a southern state and reopening of shopping malls and crowded shopping malls. So obviously, his rhetoric, although he has no direct authority to force the hand of governors and mayors. His rhetoric is creating pressure on them from both people eager to go back to work and businesses eager to reopen.

MG: We just have a few seconds left. If the situation is getting worse in terms of health care, you say that hospitals are teetering on the verge of collapse. You'd have no real idea how many cases there actually are. How do you see this playing out over the next couple of weeks?

ANNA IONOVA: I believe that things in Brazil will probably get a lot worse before they get better. I guess the critical test will come when the virus really hits the most vulnerable in communities, which are the informal settlements, the favelas here. And what will happen with the public health care system when that happens, when we see a really high number of cases in those communities, is really worrying. So we're just kind of bracing for kind of the peak which has yet to reach Brazil.

MG: Take care of yourself, Anna. And thank you for talking to us.

ANNA IONOVA: Thank you.

MG: Anna Ionova is a reporter shoes in Rio de Janeiro. From Brazil to Russia, that country sent aid to Italy when the pandemic first hit, they were noticeably quiet about their own COVID-19 outbreak, though that seems to be changing. Alec Luhn is a freelance reporter. We've reached him in Moscow. Alec, hello to you.

ALEC LUHN: Hello.

MG: How clear is the picture in terms of the extent of the outbreak in Russia right now?

ALEC LUHN: Well, there's a bit of a problem with the testing, the Russian tests have been known to not be very accurate. They say they've done more than a million tests, but people believe that a lot of cases were not caught, a lot of cases were not tested still. And a lot of cases have been diagnosed simply as pneumonia, when, in fact, they should have been linked to COVID-19. The current official picture is sixty two thousand cases in Russia officially and five hundred and fifty deaths. But like I said, experts believe the real numbers are much higher.

MG: And do people believe that this is happening, I mean, Russia's a big, big place. The outbreak seems to be, is centred in Moscow right now. But do people believe that this is happening across the country?

ALEC LUHN: I think they do, after a pretty slow start where we saw President Vladimir Putin playing down the threat of the coronavirus, saying that everything was under control. And then, of course, infections started to skyrocket. I think that now finally the official rhetoric has caught up to the seriousness of the situation. And now every day on Russian state television, which is still the main source of news for the majority of Russians, there are lots of stories about coronavirus. Of course, they usually tend to be about how well doctors and the government and officials are combating the crisis. But nonetheless, a lot of the coverage is devoted to coronavirus. And moreover, the Russian state television has actually started having its anchors broadcast from home, which is a very strong message, I think, that people should be staying home, that this is not business as usual. That's only happened in the past week or so. So it took a while for that to happen. But now I think the message is being put across and people are starting to realise other regions besides Moscow is starting to take stay at home measures.

MG: How is the government handling this? Moscow has some sort of QR scanning code system in place so you can track people's movements.

ALEC LUHN: Yes, the I mean, the lead voice in the government for reacting strongly, reacting quickly to this virus was the mayor of Moscow [unintelligible]who is on the national task force that's dealing with this crisis, which is led by the prime minister and then Vladimir Putin is kind of lurking in the background, not taking a direct hand in the response. So the Moscow mayor has been very, very proactive. First, he put kind of a, you know, honour system, stay at home order in place in Moscow earlier this month, where he asked everyone to stay home unless they had some sort of- unless they needed medicine or food or had to go to a kind of vital job. But then last week on Wednesday, started this- He started this new what's called the is self-isolation regime, which is enforced by QR codes. So essentially to to travel in any sort of vehicle or public transport, you need to get a QR. You need to inform the authorities of the reason of your trip and download a scannable QR code. And without that, you're not going anywhere.

MG: You said that Vladimir Putin is lurking in the background. That doesn't seem like what Vladimir Putin normally does when it comes to controlling things in Russia. Why is he not front and centre in this?

ALEC LUHN: Well, you know, this has been a kind of a nasty curveball for Vladimir Putin. He had very big plans this spring that did not include a pandemic. What Vladimir Putin was doing since January was pushing through these constitutional changes that will allow him to run for president in 2024 and again in 2030. Essentially, he's rammed through these constitutional changes that will allow him to stay in power until 2036. And, you know, that was a bitter pill for many people, especially in Moscow, where people are a little more educated, a little wealthier, a little more, you know, vacation in Europe and so on and so forth. And so the kind of the sweet and the bitter pill Putin had this program of kind of a national stimulus program, lots of spending on health care, education, small business, families with multiple children, so on and so forth. And he also had a national vote. It wasn't a referendum. It wasn't going to have any sort of legal bearing on the on the constitutional changes. But it was supposed to show that the people still support Putin and that the people are okay with him staying in power till 2036. He didn't want to postpone that at first. It took many weeks. But finally, I think two weeks ago, the Kremlin finally postpone that vote. And then also they postpone the the 75th anniversary over their victory over Nazi Germany, the famous Victory Day parade when you have the tanks and the nuclear missiles rolling down Red Square. That's been postponed as well. And of course, this was the 75th anniversary this year. That event has become kind of the founding, the basis of the Russian national ideology, that Russia is a strong country that defeated Nazi Germany and is still strong in the face of external pressure under Putin's leadership today. That was supposed to be kind of the final cherry on this cake of Putin cementing his grip on power until 2036. And all that's been thrown out the window by the coronavirus.

MG: And does he just not want to be associated with bad news? I mean, if this continues to grow and the death toll continues to rise, you put somebody else out in the fronts to deliver the bad news. And as you say, he is tucked away in the background somewhere.

ALEC LUHN: Yes. I mean, that's pretty classic Putin. And it's definitely been evident this crisis where, you know, when Putin finally was forced to address the nation as the number of infections continued to jump, he came on television and said, yeah, the situation is serious, but we have everything under control. And he announced a week off of work for all Russians so that they could stay home. But then he left the dirty work of actually enforcing that to the mayor of Moscow and the prime minister, who then shortly after his speech came out with decrees that stipulating that all restaurants and parks and entertainment venues had to close. So Putin announces a week off of work. Then his loyal lieutenants announced that, oh, yeah, by the way, everything's is going to be closed down during that week off work. And this was kind of before, I think, a lot of Russians that realise that the crisis was so serious. And so we're planning to have a bit of fun that that week off of work. And of course, they weren't able to do that. Now that we got to work and become a month off of work. And of course, we've seen the stay at home restrictions, very serious, very harsh in Moscow. And now 21 regions around Russia yesterday said that they were going to adopt similar QR code based digital permit systems.

MG: Alex, good to speak with you. Take care of yourself. Thank you.

ALEC LUHN: Thanks.

MG: Alex Luhn, is a reporter. He was in Moscow. Well, from Russia, we'll head to Sweden. That country has taken one of the most relaxed approaches in the world when it comes to lockdown measures in the face of a global pandemic. That policy, though, is being criticized by some as infection and death rates continue to outpace all of Sweden's Scandinavian neighbours. Richard Orange is a freelance reporter. He is in the city of Malmo. Richard, hello to you.

RICHARD ORANGE: Hello.

MG: What are the infection numbers like in Sweden right now?

RICHARD ORANGE: I mean, they are staying considerably higher than the other Nordic countries. So I think the latest death figure was, I think they passed 2000 people who've died of the virus in the country. And I think there has also been a sharp rise just today in the number of confirmed cases to 16755, which had stopped - the state public health authority - has now stopped saying that they've sort of hit a plateau and they've sort of said, well, actually, we can't say we're seeing a downturn now. So that's not great news for them.

MG: What is life like for you in Malmo?

RICHARD ORANGE: In Malmo. It still feels pretty much like normal. I take my children to school. You know that there's people out enjoying the sun. It's the spring. People playing football in the football, there's a football ground right by my house. It just it feels relatively normal in Malmo. But I'm told by people who live in Stockholm, in Stockholm, that it's more of a sense that things are different, that the streets are empty and the bars empty. But the restaurants and bars and cafes that they are still open even in Stockholm, which is the centre of the academic.

MG: We've talked about this idea of trust that the Swedish government trusts its citizens to stay home if they need to stay home, that they don't need to have severe lockdowns. Is that being reconsidered, given what you started out by saying that, you know, the country hasn't reached its peak and that the deaths are outpacing Scandinavian neighbours that have taken much more stringent measures?

RICHARD ORANGE: I mean, so far, I don't think that all science is being reconsidered. The Prime Minister recently gave a special press conference and people were expecting that this might come, finally, they'll say, actually, we're going to close restaurants and bars because there's been a lot of reports of bars and restaurants not operating under the restrictions as opposed to that's supposed to ensure that people keep a distance from each other. But he didn't, he just said, we can't relax now. You have to keep maintaining social distance. So all he did was reiterate the existing guidelines, perhaps a little more forcefully. So, some people interpret that as a sort of lost warning that, you know, if if restaurants and bars and cafes don't make more of an effort to make sure customers are being responsible, then we will shut them down. But so far, there's no sign that they're going to do that.

MG: What about the Swedish public? Does this approach of, you know, life is normal in some cities like Malmo? Does that have support from the public?

RICHARD ORANGE: I'd say overwhelmingly so, actually. I've written a lot of stories and there's been a lot of stories in the international press about how this strategy, the questions over the strategy. But if you look at the sort of opinions and statistics in Sweden, I think the faith in the way the public authorities are handling the crisis, I think it jumped something like 20 percentage points in the last fortnight. So the public is is supporting it even more. And the authorities themselves. I mean, when the state epidemiologist [unintelligible] told the press companies every day and he's never he still says that this is going well, that that the epidemic is under control, that our strategy is working. That there's no sense of panic from the authorities. And not from the population either. What that is, is that a small group of critics who quite high levels in academia and in research who are saying this isn't working, that we are seeing thousands of unnecessary deaths as a result of this policy. But it's not something which I think is, that's not an opinion which is supported by the population. In fact, when these researchers published a letter last week in a newspaper, I think they were roundly condemned for it. And a lot of commentators said at this point, we have the public health agency, which is responsible for looking after us. And you can have your academic debate later. Now, we've got to support the authorities and trust them, because as you say, there is this strong public trust in Sweden.

MG: What's the part of this is about protecting the economy and the health of the economy. But how much is that going to matter if other economies around the world are struggling?

RICHARD ORANGE: I think that's a very good question, and if you talk to a lot of analysts and if you look at the sort of the World Bank, the IMF projections as to how Sweden is going to be hit, they don't distinguish Sweden's economy.

They don't expect the economy to be hit less than its neighbours who've had much stronger restrictions. But if you look at the consumption figures. Consumption in Sweden is only down, I think about 30 percent, whereas in Denmark 70 percent. So in terms of public spending, that's still holding up much better, which has to have an impact on the economy.

MG: Just a few seconds left. Does it feel strange in the midst of a pandemic that you're still taking your kids to school and that life is normal when so much of life everywhere else in the world is not normal?

RICHARD ORANGE: It feels strange to me because I've got my family back in the UK who are, you know, absolutely stuck at home, can't even- yes. So that does feel strange. And you have to wonder what makes Sweden different. So, yes, it feels a little bit surreal.

MG: Enjoy the freedom such as it is. Richard, thank you for talking to us. Take her.

RICHARD ORANGE: Thank you so much.

MG: By Richard Orange is a reporter, we reached him this morning in Malmo, Sweden. Coming up on The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Captain's Log. Day 13. Still staying home. Staying home for self-quarantine. Got to be a responsible citizen and everything.

How does that sound familiar?

MG: Are you documenting your time in isolation? That diary may be useful to museums and archivists. We'll talk in about 90 seconds. Why people want you to write down what it is that you're doing, even if you are doing nothing at all. That's on its way. Maybe you're using some of the language of our times. We've been talking about the words that are being invented in the midst of this pandemic to describe life, which is not normal at all. One from Paul Kennedy is ‘covoidets’. It's could speak to perhaps physical distancing. Your thoughts on that would be welcome as well. You can reach us through the Web site. cbc.ca/thecurrent. This is an extended edition of The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. Back in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

Back To Top »

We want it all': Keeping a COVID-19 diary? It could help future historians — and your mental health, Alan Nakagawa

Guests: Catherine O’Donnell, Karen Blair, Helene Samson, Alan Nakagawa

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Erika Rosenbaum lives with her husband and their four children on a farm outside of Montreal, and she's been keeping a diary of her days in lockdown.

SOUNDCLIP

Day six. Time spent outdoors was a lovely remedy today. The forest was soothing and we participated in this beautiful tradition, collecting sap by hand and bringing it home to boil inot syrup. Day 14 The sun came out today and the mild weather soothed us all. Bee walked in the woods for the first time. She's always been carried, but today she took her first steps. Day 20, a nice, quiet day. We caught up on rest like it was a Sunday. We skip's quote unquote school played, read and baked bread.

MG: Simple stuff. Sounds familiar, perhaps to a lot of people. Erika is doing important work, according to my next guest. Catherine O'Donnell is one of the co-founders of a Journal of the Plague Year: A COVID-19 archive. Catherine, good morning.

CATHERINE O'DONNELL: Good morning.

MG: What is a Journal of the Plague year?

CATHERINE O'DONNELL: Well, it's a digital archive into which we welcome everyones submissions about what they're doing and what they're not doing during these really strange days.

MG: Tell me about the inspiration for this. If my university English literature mind is correct, there's like a Daniel Defoe novel.

CATHERINE O'DONNELL: Yes, novel. Daniel Defoe novel that pretends to be a memoir of someone's experience in London during the plague. And very early days sort of mid-March, friends and I were realising that this is an historic moment. And I thought of the Defoe novel and I thought of what skills we have as historians, which are not the skills of scientists and doctors, but those of observers and collectors. And we realise this is a moment in which we can ask people to participate in creating an archive that will be sprawling and messy and rich for future historians.

MG: How does the archive actually work?

CATHERINE O'DONNELL: So there's software, [unintelligible], it's a very simple Web site and there's a call to upload your image, your meme, your text, your video diary, and then you can put another sentence or two or more of explanation if you wish. It comes to us. There's a slew of - we call ourselves curators, which is a bit grand - of people around the US and the world really, who are there making sure there's nothing too personal in that information before we make it public on the Web. And there are some tags so you can look things up, but it's also eminently [unintelligible].

MG: That could be a lot of work in sifting through all of this. Are there large themes that you're looking to highlight?

CATHERINE O'DONNELL: When people ask us what we want, I say we want it all. So it can be sort of up to future historians or writers or even policymakers to impose themes. But there are themes that develop, right? At first it was the plague of things not there, so people taking pictures of empty shelves and of cancelled events, notices of cancelled events. And then there's some sorrows. There are people missing their family. There's a kind of a theme of developing new forms of community, in part through creating the archive, but through odd ways of communicating. And then there's a theme of kind of tensions over how to adapt. You know, there's one wonderful contribution, which is someone put in her family's sort of text stream of people gently telling each other, no, we really can't see the children now because this is dangerous. So there are themes that emerge, but an archive is meant to be kind of a non-judgemental open space, and then the meanings are made out of it later on.

MG: You think that text stream. I mean, six months ago would mean nothing at all. And now is a reflection of the moment that we're in.

CATHERINE O'DONNELL: Absolutely. I mean, it's a it's such a dreadful moment in some ways, because we're dangerous to each other when we need each other most. But it's exactly because of that, those two things happening at when people are finding sort of new ways to care for each other, new ways to connect. And also this certainly new forms of conflict or even the this wonderful diary you were playing at the beginning of the segment. You know, a lot of those things are mundane, but the fact that, you know, school is kind of in doubt quotes and even. That she's numbering the days. One, two, three, four. That's not something we do normally. We live in cycles and we live outside of time. But but those number days make clear she's aware of herself as living through an historic moment. You know, in a way that's just unusual for many of us.

MG: Let's have a listen to another submission. This comes from a man named Alex. He's in Australia. He's worried about his father.

SOUNDCLIP

My dad is in a nursing home. Can't go to other places. They won't let him. They say that he'll have been locked down for two weeks, if he did that, sir, he's very frustrated. He's had a long term Parkinson's. So he said that in a way, he's been in lockdown. He's been in a lockdown for many, many years. I feel really bad for him dealing with, trying to empty out his wife's unit. He's not sound of mind anymore, which is really sad. And he can't go to that unit anymore to sort through things. It's all really tricky.

MG: Why is it important to have stories like that in this archive, do you think?

CATHERINE O'DONNELL: I would answer first as an historian, but then also as a person. So as an historian, the fabric of life is often lost to us. That we're at the mercy of an archive that is hopelessly slanted toward the famous. And those sort of quiet moments that are almost all of history are often invisible. As just as a person, I would say that this is a time defined by isolation and, in many, cases by fear, and people don't always have a way to express that or a way to feel reassured in some sense that there's meaning in their resilience, in their caring. And so that when we see these items and hear these items come into the archive, it's just also a moment, I think, of being present to each other right now, regardless of what any historian in the future might do.

MG: Let me play just a little bit more of something else that somebody submitted. This is audio of a truck playing music in Spain.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music]

MG: Pure historian down the road in a decade. What do you think we'll learn from this?

CATHERINE O'DONNELL: I think that we will learn about the fabric of life, about some elements of black humour and dark humour that emerged that were really important. We'll learn about tensions within families that developed over a quarantine or over not quarantine, ways that people persisted. There's usually a tendency to romanticize a difficult event and laughter in some sense. And so this will capture also that sort of misery of it as well as the sort of brighter moments. And honestly, I would also say I don't know. I mean, as an historian, I do believe that things can be visible at a distance that are not visible close up. So patterns, absences, those will become more readily visible down the road, only because people are being so generous and taking a moment and uploading their stories, their images for the present, but also for the future. And we're just so grateful at the right spot. And we always want more.

MG: It's fascinating. And I hope people continue to submit things. Catherine, it's great to talk to you. Thank you.

CATHERINE O'DONNELL: Thank you so much.

MG: Catherine O'Donnell, one of the co-founders of a Journal of the Plague year. She was in Tempe, Arizona. The McChord Museum in Montreal is also asking people to share their experiences through pictures. Their project is called Framing Everyday Life in Confinement. Helene Samson is the curator of photography for the museum. Helene good morning to you.

HELENE SAMSON: Good morning.

MG: What are you asking people to share with you?

HELENE SAMSON: We asked them to share the everyday life. This is the title, but it's two photograph. We suggest them to send us two photographs, one from inside their home and another from outside, just close to their home, but simply as that.

MG: And what are you seeing so far?

HELENE SAMSON: Oh, everything. Everything. It's very fascinating to see these. The vast area of topics. It goes from very trivial subject, a very simple image like all the activities — word games, meals, books people are reading — to very more, I would say symbolic images. People have time to get out and look at the sky, the clouds, the trees, the first signs of the spring. And this is another kind of a of a vintage and a large, you know, altogether. It's really like a mood board.

MG: A mood board.

HELENE SAMSON: Yes. Yes. Of the this period. And there, interestingly, there is not too much photographs showing directly signs of the crisis. I mean, like inscription of the COVID-19 or this is not the main the main topic in this series that people are putting on the on the Web, on our side. Yes.

MG: As you start to sift through them, what are you learning about how people in your city are coping with the moment that we're in right now?

HELENE SAMSON: Oh, I think they are coping, as has I'm trying to do myself. It's they, they put attention to every detail of their lives. You know, and even they photograph themselves and outside they look at what is around them. And there's lots of photographs of the empty spaces and at people through windows. It's I think they're trying to cope with very, very simple gesture, very moment to moment I would say.

MG: What are you hoping to do finally with these photos?

HELENE SAMSON: For the moment. What is more important is that the sharing, the experience of sharing the photographs and the photos are not given to [unintelligible] they are people's own photograph. But eventually, if we want to produce an exhibition, it would be easy to ask them, you know, to and to lend our picture and to be the compliment of the series of photographs by Michel. You know, because, you know, we have another part of this project that is a photographic mission given to a documentary photographer to document the crisis. But really, you need to do something for the future. Yes, he can do whatever he wants. He's very experimented. He is very responsible. But the mandate is to think about what we would be looking for, we will be looking for in 50 years. Something like that. And so eventually it would be, I'm sure that the museum would it will open, reopen, we will want to and to come back to the district to take a step back. You know, when to look at the photographs of that, everyday lives by the people. But also with this document to [unintelligible] you know which document will be in our collection.

MG: Everybody has a camera in their pocket now, and I'm sure that people want to get involved in this. Helene, thank you.

HELENE SAMSON: Okay. Thank you very much.

MG: Helene Samson is the curator of photography for the McCord Museum. She was in Montreal. It's not only historians and gallerists that are interested in diaries right now. Karen Blair is an assistant psychology professor at Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. She's director of the CoOVID-19 Interpersonal Coping Diary Study. Karen, good morning to you.

KAREN BLAIR: Good morning. What is that? The Colvard 19 Interpersonal Coping Diary study.

KAREN BLAIR: So a diary study is a form of research in which instead of people doing a survey one time, we keep getting them to do a little shorter survey every single day for a period of time. So it it resembles a diary. And it allows us to track how people are coping and what their mental health outcomes might be throughout this period.

MG: You've been following research on how this has worked in crises past and particularly looking at the survivors of the Holocaust. Tell me a bit about that.

KAREN BLAIR: Yes. So there's a lot of research that shows us that writing about traumatic experiences is beneficial for us and that it helps us to process that stress while it's actually happening. But the researcher who really led the way on that area of research comes out of Texas. And a lot of his research actually began by talking to Holocaust survivors and he was just trying to record their stories and see how they were doing. But in particular, he spoke with Holocaust survivors who had never told their stories before. And what he found was after he interviewed them and they started sharing their stories: the survivors who shared more detail of their story, who didn't really hold back, they ended up showing positive health benefits in the following months and years, including greater longevity. And so that kind of got him going on what is the benefit of storytelling? What is the benefit of narrating our own lives versus keep it. You know, we kind of have that sense that if it's negative, maybe we shouldn't talk about it. And if you had a traumatic experience, keep it to yourself. And his research really blew that open and said, no, writing about these things in the moment. And after the fact actually is really beneficial to us. And so diaries themselves , they're excellent sources for historians. They're actually beneficial to the people who are keeping them.

MG: Are you thinking about the work that you're doing differently? You're in Nova Scotia right now. And it's been a really difficult week for people in your province. I'm just wondering how how what you have gone through as a communities is shaping how you're thinking about the work that you're doing right now.

KAREN BLAIR: Very much so. Our diary started began the study began on March 30th. So we have participants who have been in the study and we actually have because we're in Nova Scotia, about a quarter of our sample is from Nova Scotia right now. And so we have people who are writing their diaries days and weeks before this shooting. And then who continue to write it through the shooting and in the days following. I haven't had time to look, but I've glanced, and I do see that people are writing about that topic. And this it crosses over was another area of my research which looks at collective grief in the wake of mass shootings. And what's really striking me so far and what I'll be looking to read about more when I when I do get to look more at our data is all of the things that we normally do to cope with an event like this and to grieve and to come together as a community. That's all been disrupted by the pandemic. We're going to be seeing people you know, there's going to be unique ways that people try to cope with this, kind of like what you're your first guest was talking about, the new ways of connecting. And that's going to be particularly relevant in the wake of this shooting, as Nova Scotia and Canada figures out how to grieve this together, but yet apart.

MG: And writing it down and speaking about those difficult moments is helpful.

KAREN BLAIR: It is. It really can be. And I was looking at some of the entries today, and people really are treating it like a diary. Some people begin with 'Dear COVID-19 diary,' but we also ask a lot of more pointed questions. So what's really neat about our study is that in addition to those stories and narrative, we're also tracking people's actual well-being, their stress, their depression symptoms, anxiety. And that's going to give us immediate information that will be useful very soon in terms of understanding how people are coping, what methods of coping are most successful, and we're really hoping that we can, you know, pull some of this information out quickly so that we can help policy providers, health care professionals to understand what Canadians are needing right now and what they're going to need if we continue with, you know, additional waves of this in the future.

MG: This is important work. Karen, thanks for telling us about it.

KAREN BLAIR: Thank you so much.

MG: Karen Blair is director of the COVID-19 Interpersonal Coping Diary Study. We reached her in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

[Music]

MG: This is The Current on CBC One. I’m Matt Galloway Tom Power, the host of Q is here. Hello, Tom.

TOM POWER: Matt, are you much of a journal keeper yourself?

MG: No, but the thing with social media is you can kind of keep a journal through Instagram or Twitter in a way that perhaps you would have passed by just writing things down. So, I do it through photography.

TP: And it's the only way, the good things you save anyway. I find, you know, Instagram is like a highlight reel. It's great.

MG: Things you see are things you're listening to or what have you.

TP: I do it through music. And in fact, this whole kind of pandemic, I've been keeping a bit of a journal through a Spotify playlist. Like, you know, anything I listen to, anything that comes on the radio that catches my ear is something a friend recommends in a Zoom chat. Anything I play on my new found running regimen. It's pretty cool, actually.

MG: That's a neat idea. And you'll look back on that and say this is what was happening in that moment.

TP: Yes. I can't believe I was listening to that horrible song. So it reminds me a little bit of an artist. I recently spoke with his name is Alan Nakagawa. He makes these mesmerizing sound collages and he's asking people to write and record, write and record haikus about their fears around the pandemic.

MG: Could be a bit grim.

TP: It's not actually. It's pretty sweet and pretty beautiful. I mean, yes, it's a bit dark sometimes, but it's quite lovely. It's a way of documenting whether it's photography or a music playlist. It's a way of documenting the time around us. Take a listen.

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TP: Hi, Alan.

ALAN NAKAGAWA: Hello.

TP: Why haikus?

ALAN NAKAGAWA: In terms of accessibility, it's a very comfortable and forgiving art medium. It almost anybody could participate and that's what we were looking for, sort of a, you know, a welcoming kind of format.

TP: Tell me the why of this. Like, why did you want to do this in the first place?

ALAN NAKAGAWA: Well, I had worked with the haiku format before. You know, haikus are fairly minimal poetry formulas and that there are a five syllable, seven syllable and then five syllable. So it's three lines of poetry. They come out of a Zen practise in Japan. So it's as much about what they're saying in those three lines then what they're not saying if that makes sense.

TP: I think I know what you mean by that. Yes.

ALAN NAKAGAWA: Yes. And so people like myself, I'm sure you as well. I don't know about you, but this is my first pandemic first. I mean, you know, I don't, I'm not trying to make light of it.

TP: Oh, not at all. I understand what you mean. Yes. It's a new experience to all of us. Yes. I've gone through I haven't gone through a few these before.

ALAN NAKAGAWA: Right. And it's very multi emotional. Right. I mean part of it is is frightening and horrific. And then the other part of it is on a daily basis for me at least. There's so many amazing things that are happening. Even though we can't see each other, there seems to be more bonding with my friends. I don't know about you, but I don't. I'm so busy all the time. I don't get to spend that kind of time I want to spend with my friends. But now we spend more time than we usually spend. So that's been kind of interesting.

TP: Yes. That's the thing. I never I never expected to be spending so much time on Zoom calls in so much time in some ways connecting with one another. But when you were getting these haikus, when you were looking at them, were you noticing any, through lines, like any commonalities, stuff that they might have had in common besides their form?

ALAN NAKAGAWA: Well, first of all, let me say, I want to thank everybody who's donated a haiku. We ended up getting 550haikus from all over the world. They run the gamut. You know, 550 people have 550 different experiences.

TP: We actually have a clip of a few of the haikus from the sound collage. Take a listen to this.

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VOICE 1: Doctors are tweeting, about watches still ticking on dead patients risks.

VOICE 2: Done with the tik toks. Wait. I got to get on Zoom. Insta, is it boring?

VOICE 3: Family, all home laughter and games, but no space. Is this good or bad.

TP: I know what you mean there, Alan. Because those haiku run the gamut. There's everything from like a really devastating image of a hospital right now to sort of just being bored at home, all of the sort of emotions that we're all feeling at this moment. I know what you mean.

ALAN NAKAGAWA: Yes, it's definitely a kaleidoscopic experience. There's nine pieces, as you mentioned earlier. And so I tried to make each one slightly different from the other so that it doesn't get too monotonous. But after you listen to one, what's amazing to me is that, you know, I tried my best to compose this, but it sort of naturally creates this amazing narrative that is non-linear in a sense. You know, everyone's contributing three lines, but collectively, it's an amazing poem, each piece.

TP: What are you hoping people will take from these haiku? Because, you know, you made these for your charge online. A lot of people who are going to have a look at them. What what do you hope they're seeing?

ALAN NAKAGAWA: One of the things that I hope people are getting is sort of this cathartic collective experience that even if you're alone, if you feel like you're alone, for instance, that you're not alone, that we're, hopefully there's some sort of level of comfort knowing that, you know, we're all literally in this together, even though we're many of us are not seeing people on a daily basis. And that there are different experiences in a time where certainly politically we've become very walled off from each other that this pandemic has hardly put us all in the same boat.

TP: Are you feeling that personally?

ALAN NAKAGAWA: Yes, I think so. I mean, I have family members who are both conservatives and liberals. So but, you know, we try not to talk about politics, but we can talk about what we're experiencing on a daily basis with this pandemic. So that's been kind of kind of cool.

TP: Well, I think this is a pretty amazing project you've done here and I think coming on and talking to us about it.

ALAN NAKAGAWA: Well, thank you for your support. And I hope everyone gets a chance to listen to as many of these nine pieces as you as you'd like to.

ALAN NAKAGAWA: That's Tom Powers conversation with the sound artist, Alan Nakagawa would be interested to hear whether you're keeping a diary, whether parents are asking their kids to keep a diary or documentary, what they are in the midst of. This is unprecedented, as we keep saying to people, you'll remember this for the rest of your lives. And so how are you doing that and how are you documenting it? Let us know. I'm doing it through Instagram, but maybe you're doing it through social media. Maybe you're actually writing it down in a diary or taking photographs. Let us know on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC. You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca. A heads up special program tomorrow on The Current. It's been a really tough week across this country, obviously in Nova Scotia, but right across the country, people are feeling what's been happening in that province and feeling the weight of this pandemic. Given that we thought we would celebrate the joy in life, we have a special show tomorrow about little bits of goodness in the midst of a dark time. It will be a nice relief for people after a long week. We want you to stay tuned for that, coming up tomorrow on the program. Coming up in about six minutes, more than a dozen Canadian women have come forward with allegations of sexual assault and rape against the fashion executive, Peter Nygard. Their lawyer joins us after the break. I'm Matt Galloway. This is an extended edition of The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

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Accusations against Peter Nygard

Guests: Timothy Sawa, Greg Gutzler, Melissa Cronin

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come.

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I brought the flowers here for my niece, Jamie Blair, her husband Craig and their little boys, they survived it, the two boys.

MG: In a time when COVID-19, makes it impossible for us to come together and support each other in the ways we'd hope Nova Scotians are finding new ways to mourn and celebrate the lives lost in Sunday's tragedy. That's coming up later. But first, the allegations made by more than a dozen Canadian women of sexual assault by Peter Nygard.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Peter Nygard has been described as one of the richest people in Canada, a multi-millionaire clothing designer with stores around the world. He's also one of the most controversial. Earlier this year, the FBI raided two of his offices in the United States. And now he's facing a class action lawsuit by more than 40 women who allege he sexually assaulted them. The CBC's Fifth Estate has been following this story. Timothy Sawa is a producer on the program. Timothy, good morning.

TIMOTHY SAWA: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Who is Peter Nygard?

TIMOTHY SAWA: Well, his story really starts in Finland, but he immigrated to Canada as a young boy and then started to make his millions in the in the 70s and 80s. His his target was not the sort of target that most people were going after. At the time. But he was he was going after middle aged or older women making what he said was fashionable clothing that was that was comfortable to wear. And it turned out to be a good bet on his part because he made a lot of money. And, you know, he might not have been a household name necessarily around the world, but his clothes were sold in a lot of places, places like Costco, Wal-Mart, Sears, in a place called [unintelligible] in the US. So he had a big reach. He had 159 of his own stores. 1500 employees. And his net worth, they say, was around 700 and 900 million dollars at its peak.

MG: He is as well-known for his lifestyle as he is for his designs. Tell me about that.

TIMOTHY SAWA: Yes, that's true. I mean, I guess I think most of his lifestyle and most of the stories around his lifestyle come out of the Bahamas where he has a an estate like you've never seen. I've been there a couple of times, but it's like it's something like Disneyland for adults, I think is the way to describe it. There are statues and sculptures that are the size of three storey building. There are buildings made out of glass and stone that [unintelligible] over the ocean and beaches like you wouldn't believe. But what also this place is also famous for is the parties, the parties that had been both controversial, but also in more recent days becoming, where a lot of these sad stories are coming from, where the allegations are of a lot of rape and abuse is said to have taken place. Now, these are allegations that he denies, but this is where the really the beginning of the controversial story starts.

MG: I mentioned that earlier this year, the FBI raided a couple of his offices in the United States. Why did that happen?

TIMOTHY SAWA: Well, the FBI has not put out a lot of detail around that. What we know is that they say they were involved in a sex trafficking investigation involving Peter Nygard. That's all they've really said. But it was certainly after that, shortly before that, actually, that the lawsuit came out. So a lot of details that are in the lawsuit, the speculation, I guess, is that it's tied or related to these raids that the FBI has undertook.

MG: He's not facing any criminal charges, though.

TIMOTHY SAWA: No, no criminal charges yet. There were search warrants at two of his offices that the FBI says related to a sex trafficking investigation.

MG: Let's walk through this class action lawsuit. This was first launched, what, a couple of months ago?

TIMOTHY SAWA: Yes, it came out in February. And it it started with 10 women. And it really started. It started in the behind the Bahamas where I said he has this this home. And he had the parties and he was in the middle of a sort of environmental fight with the government and a bunch of local organizations there. And was all this environmental fight that these women, I'm told, started to come forward to say that some pretty serious things have happened. But it was more than just environmental problems that his house in the Bahamas. In the beginning, there were 10 women that signed on to the class action suit involving some pretty serious allegations involving children, as young as 15 years old actually. Nygard denied all the allegations. But they're out there now in the lawsuit and in the public.

MG: What is the lawsuit allege about Canadian executives of his business empire? Because that's part of this as well.

TIMOTHY SAWA: It is. That was a that's a new twist in the lawsuit that was there was an update earlier this week that actually names a number of his employees and senior employees and says that not only did they know about what was going on, what he's alleged to have done, but they actually helped perpetuated by paying off people, by helping this be hidden for all these years. And they say as a result, these high ranking employees profited from his brand and his company by actually helping to hide what happened.

MG: You went down to the Bahamas where he lives as part of this fifth estate investigation. What did you learn?

MG: Yes, we were there in February, actually, when all this was going on. Our investigation is still happening, is still underway. We haven't and published yet. But we met with some of the women firsthand who are making the accusations. And we met with people who were witnesses to some of this. And I can tell you that, you know, their stories are consistent with what's in the lawsuit. There was a woman we met who said she was in his store one day. In the Bahamas. And he came in. He came in himself and met her and said, I would like you to become a model. Would you come to my house in the Bahamas and meet with me to talk about it? So she came to his house, met with him where she said she was raped and she was 15 years old at the time. So these are the kinds of stories we were hearing in the Bahamas and that kind of stuff that's going to be in our reporting when that happened.

MG: The other part of this is this dispute with his neighbour, some other billionaire who lives next door to him. And that has been part of this story. What's going on there?

TIMOTHY SAWA: This is a missing a few that dates back a decade at least that started, I think, with these parties and the noise and the problems with the parties in the Bahamas. And his next door neighbour, a billionaire himself, named Louis Bacon, became frustrated by this. And and the feud started with like a noise complaint. And it escalated to dozens of lawsuits around the world with really serious allegations like a murder for hire plot and car bombing and on and on and on. It really, really has gotten twisted and dark. And it's this feud that Nygard has blamed these allegations on. He says that Louis Bacon, has paid these women to make up these stories and that none of them are true. So we'll have to see what the FBI comes up with, I think, to find out what where this all land.

MG: Where is Peter Nygard, now?

TIMOTHY SAWA: We're told he's in Winnipeg. He has a home outside of Winnipeg on a lake. And that's the last I heard where he where he's got himself.

MG: Timothy, thank you.

TIMOTHY SAWA: You're welcome.

MG: Timothy Sawa is a producer with the CBC Fifth Estate. He has been following the story of Peter Norgaard for much of the past decade. Over the years, that story has attracted attention in Canada, but got widespread attention in the United States when The New York Times published an investigative piece recently. Joining me now is Greg Gutzler. He is the lead attorney in the lawsuit against Peter Nygard. He is in New York. Greg, good morning to you.

GREG GUTZLER: Good morning. Thank you very much.

MG: Thanks for joining us, tell me just briefly about your clients.

GREG GUTZLER: Yes. So we have several dozen clients, as you know, at this point, we have 46 clients. I was actually contacted by a new client yesterday. I spoke to her for an hour and she was 14 when she was assaulted in Winnipeg. The clients spanned several decades. They spanned different nationalities. And that's why it's a difficult question because there are so many people spanning from 1977 all the way through just a few years ago.

MG: Why have your clients waited so long to bring these allegations forward?

GREG GUTZLER: It's a very good question. So they didn't necessarily wait. Some did go immediately to the police. Many told their therapists. And so the real what happened is that people were very afraid of Peter Nygard. Peter Nygard has paid people off. He intimidates people. He has his executive help him get NDA's and pay hush money. It has been a very elaborate, sophisticated, concerted scheme to suppress and quell any type of discussion. There were many complaints to police officers as well as night guard company people about misconduct, including rape. And nothing was ever done about it. So the reason is, is that women's rights were treated differently decades ago. They would be suppressed. They would not be believed. They would be intimidated. And unfortunately, what you see now in the press is that Peter Nygard guards team is doing the exact same thing, trying to silence them by marginalizing them and suggesting they are being untruthful about the most traumatic thing that happened in their lives. That's why it took so long.

MG: We should remind people again that these are allegations they haven't been proven in court,.

GREG GUTZLER: These allegations, that our complaint that we have corroborated, that everything I'm saying is from our complaint that we filed in New York.

MG: How many of the assaults are alleged to have happened here in Canada?

GREG GUTZLER: So I don't have my notes handy map, but I believe it's 17 or 18 occurred in in Canada, including Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver.

MG: The timing of this is interesting for a bunch of different reasons, one of the reasons is that these allegations are coming in the wake of decisions by people who had been assaulted by Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein, that they have come forward as well. And those allegations are the timing of that people say is significant. What was the impact of the decisions of your clients to come forward on, you know, based around those other large, high profile cases?

GREG GUTZLER: Right. So each of each of my clients has their own story and their own journey and their own thought process. I think, generally speaking, I could summarise it by saying that women were feeling more empowered as others stepped forward. I have heard repeatedly from my clients things of this nature - Not every single person, but of this nature - I thought I was the only one. And when I saw so many people coming forward, one, I thought, I am now brave enough to come forward and to. I wish I had said something earlier because so many people got hurt. And you see this similar refrain of these very compassionate, traumatized people who are very brave survivors. But yes. So part of it was other people having the courage to come forward. No one wants to be first. Right. And so that's why we started with 10. They were the 10 brave ones that we had, 36 more brave ones. And we have people calling us every day telling their stories. So we're here to help everybody.

MG: What are your clients looking for?

GREG GUTZLER: So I'll tell you what they're looking for. They're looking for accountability, awareness and justice. I have had I be very clear about this. I have many, many clients who have said I am not doing this for money. I want to be very clear about that. I'm doing this because I promised, for example, my mum or my daughter or my friends that I would someday have the courage to do this. I have a client who said to me, I've waited 42 years for this day. I'm not doing this at all for money. But this is my time. And I want people to know. This is important. It happened to me. It's true. And she said, I really resent that Peter Nygard and his PR team are trying to suggest that these these Bahamian women are lying. I am offended by that. I'm standing up for them. I had many people say that to me.

MG: But just to be clear, what does accountability and justice mean? What are your clients looking for?

GREG GUTZLER: Sure. Accountability and justice means that he is held responsible for what he has done, that the truth comes out. And this PR machine suggesting they are not telling the truth is something they want to show definitively. No, this is my truth. This happened and he should take accountability for it. So accountability and justice means he should take responsibility for it in every way. So part of it is the criminal courts, which I am not involved in, and that is the government. And it is also involving the fact that he should not be retaining money, that he has basically exploited people and used money to get there. So people like this can't do it if they don't have money to corrupt other people. So again, the very important thing.

MG: It doesn't diminish it, but that is looking for some sort of financial response as well.

GREG GUTZLER: Well, the American justice system, that is part of what we do. And it is meant to ensure that people don't do the wrong thing and they can't profit from doing the wrong thing. And they can no longer use money to continue doing things that are improper and illegal.

MG: Just a few seconds left. You continue to gather clients. As you mentioned, you spoke with somebody who's making allegations yesterday. What happens next in this case?

GREG GUTZLER: So what happens next, that's that's a very complicated question for many reasons. You do have the corporate the night guard corporate entities that are seeking some bankruptcy restructuring in the American court system. That does complicate things. But next is most likely some technical legal motions by the other side, which we have full confidence we will prevail on. And then we will begin what's called discovery. And discovery means we get documents from the other side and we start taking depositions and we'll be taking Peter Nygard's deposition in court to sit down and we'll depose him for several days and we'll show him documents and we'll see we'll see what the truth is.

MG: Greg Gutzler, good to speak with you. Thank you.

GREG GUTZLER: Thank you, Matt. Take care.

MG: Greg Gutzler represents women who allege they were sexually assaulted by Peter Norgaard. Greg Gutzler was in New York City. None of these allegations have been proven in court. Peter Nygard's lawyer, Jay Prober, was not available to speak with us this morning. But here's what he told us yesterday.

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The amended lawsuit, which now adds 36 different women is a work of fiction. The allegations are accusations that the women are a fiction. It's really quite farcical. Think about this. Almost 50 women, right? 36 plus then 46. Almost 50 women. You think that one of them, one of them would have made a complaint to the authorities and not one of them ever did. So, I mean, Peter Nygard denies these allegations. This lawsuit will not see the light of day in any courtroom. Well, if it goes to court, if it goes to trial, in my view, the trial, the accusations will be dismissed. My prediction is that it won't go to trial. Is that a motion to dismiss this claim will be successful.

MG: That's Jay Prober, the lawyer for Peter Nygard Guard. This is a story that's drawn attention by journalists around the world. Melissa Cronin has just published a book called Predator King Peter NIJ Guards Dark Life of Rape, Drugs and Blackmail. Melissa, good morning to you.

MELISSA CRONIN: Good morning. Thanks so much for having me.

MG: You interviewed some of the women who are making these allegations. What did they tell you?

MELISSA CRONIN: Yes. I was fortunate enough to do that when I also went down to the Bahamas in late February, and the main thing that I want people to know is that a complaint that Greg and his colleagues have put forward is stunning and is disturbing in the allegations that are made. But actually, two grown women recount these allegations in person and seeing the level of emotion and pain that still lives within them at the same age, it's a completely different experience. And that's what I really tried to convey in the book.

MG: What did they tell you about why they didn't feel comfortable in coming forward before? That's an issue that's being used, as you heard by Peter Nygard's lawyer, to dismiss their allegations. What did they tell you about the time?

MELISSA CRONIN: Yes, and you know, this is the same old story and the same old excuses that I and so many others have heard from attorneys for other sexual predators through the ages. And it's just not true. I mean, I'm sure everyone in Canada knows that Nygard was first accused of rape back, you know, several decades ago. That person went to the police. There was a court case. It was ultimately dismissed because she refused to testify in court. There were women that went to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission and the sexual harassment claims against hi, and actually receive financial rewards for that. So there is a history of women going to the authorities with claims of sexual harassment and sexual predation against Peter Nygard. And the women from this lawsuit also, like Greg said, have gone to the authorities. It's just that there is a culture through the United States, through the Bahamas, Canada as well, where women are not listened to and where people with power and money are able to silence them.

MG: And my conversation with Greg, I mentioned the stories of Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein. Those are stories that you followed for a while. How does this story change in light of the Weinstein and Epstein stories?

MELISSA CRONIN: Yes. So I've been reporting on Jeffrey Epstein for several years before it even came into the public consciousness and whether or not that story came forward. I was just stunned that nobody in the U.S. seems to have known that this was happening. I had never even heard of him despite having walked by his store in Times Square so many times. And I think, like Greg said, he knew really nice for our culture to listen to these stories as a women and to sexual predation victim has empowered some of these women to come forward. Well, let's not kid ourselves. That managed to transform society overnight. There still is obviously, as we heard in my last attorney, the level of attempts to discredit and attempts to silence women who have been victims, these kinds of things. So people like Greg, people like [unintelligible] and people like myself are continuing to try to fight on behalf of these women and women's voices above those of the people that are trying to silence.

MG: That's interesting, because, again, in the wake of, not just Me Too, but Weinstein going to prison and the Epstein story, there is a belief that the structures that were there to protect powerful men have been dismantled or at the very least have been diminished. And you're suggesting that perhaps is not entirely the case.

MELISSA CRONIN: No, I mean, I'm sure we would love to think that, you know, I've covered in probably 10 years of investigative journalism. I covered Weinstein, I covered Epstein, I covered Bill Cosby. And, you know, few decades long systems of suppression and oppression against women are not going to be dismantled overnight with every case that comes forward and with every woman that comes from where there's another no crack in the ceiling or a crack in the wall, as it were. But that's just an excuse for people that don't want to listen to these stories to think, you know, okay, we're done now. We don't have to listen to this painful material, but not listening to these women, it's disrespectful to the victims. And it also is going to prevent our ability to stop these things from happening in the future. We need to remain vigilant. Need to keep listening and keep fighting for justice against people that have put data against woman.

MG: Melissa, good to speak with you.

MELISSA CRONIN: Thank you.

MG: Melissa Cronin is the author of Predator King Peter NYgard's Life of Rape, Drugs and Blackmail. Melissa Cronin was in Palm Springs, California this morning. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. We've been asking for your music suggestions, trying to build a bit of a playlist, songs that perhaps would be soothing, ease some anxiety, bring some comfort in difficult tonight times at today's selection comes from Edward Harley. He wanted to hear a specific rendition of Mr. Blue Sky by ELO. He says this performance is, these are his words, a pinnacle of Western civilization and culture and says that anyone who watches the video will feel much better. That is high praise for ELO, Edward. No video here, but we can give you the audio. This is that specific performance from BBC Radio 2's live in Hyde Park in 2014. Jeff Lynne's Mighty Electric Light Orchestra in Mr. Blue Sky.

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[Song: Mr. Blue Sky]

MG: Now I want to see the video, if it's that great. That's the song Jeff Lynne and the Electric Light Orchestra, Mr. Blue Sky. If you have any soothing song requests, send us a note through the Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. For our friends in Newfoundland and Labrador, Cross Talk is up next for everyone else. We're back in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. This is Electric Light Orchestra on The Current.

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Bob the Drag Queen

Guests: Bob the Drag Queen

MG: My name's Matt Galloway. Hello, Tom Power.

TP: Matt Galloway. I just want to say thank you so much for doing this work on the east coast of Canada. You know, I'm listening to it and it's hard not to be sort of broken up here, listening to, you know, given that that's sort of my neck of the woods. I spent a lot of time in rural communities in Nova Scotia. And I can speak to your last guest said is that there this strength and resilience, you know, which is sort of a cliché of any kind of small town, especially in Canada. But is is so strong there and is so present there. And my thoughts are with them. And I think it's just so nice to hear their voices and nice to hear have communities like that that can come together.

MG: You're seeing the best in this country and in those communities when people come together.

TP: Yes. Absolutely right. And you know what? I think there's a lot of conversations around, you know, rural and urban divide here. And I don't mean to be make it an awkward Segway, but, you know, I was doing this work yesterday interviewing someone from RuPaul's Drag Race, you know, which is this, you know, huge show.

MG: It sure is.

TP: I was talking to Bob the Drag Queen, and we were talking about, you know, coming from coming from small towns, maybe feeling a bit isolated because of who you are and then going back to those small towns and trying to find acceptance. And we had a really interesting conversation because it's all about this HBO show called We're Here, which is all about talking about homophobia in small towns across United States and how present how present it actually is. So check out this conversation.

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TP: Tell me about the show. What do you think is at the heart of it?

BOB THE DRAG QUEEN: That's a good question. I feel like the show is not really complicated. It's a really easy answer. And at the heart of it, it's just like the human experience. It's just a show about people meeting people. Of course, we jazz it up with drag to make it really drag [unintelligible], but it doesn't change what the show is about, which is enough.

TP: I want to play a clip from the show. This is you performing in Twin Falls, Idaho.

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BOB THE DRAG QUEEN: So we showed up in town about a week ago. I did not know what to expect. I googled how many black people were into Twin Falls and they said, you.

TP: So that's you in the very white town of Twin Falls, Idaho, out of three of the queens on the show, you and Chancellor are black. The first thing that happens when you get to each town is that the three of you walk down the main street in full drag. And I'll be honest, I got kind of nervous for you watching it. You know, in one town, they call the cops on you.

BOB THE DRAG QUEEN: Yeah.

TP: How do you feel in these situations? Do you feel? Do you feel nervous as well?

BOB THE DRAG QUEEN: Well, I never actually felt unsafe or nervous. I mean, yes, what you see is me and Chancellor. and Rick every turn the camera over 20 people there. So me, Chancellor and Rick were never actually in any real danger. But I do love that we did the show that's been like a working vacation. In a way I feel like someone who doesn't have a camera crew following them around.

TP: I only want you to tell me as much as you feel comfortable telling me here, but on the show, you tell someone that drag saved your life. And I think these days we tend to use that phrase loosely, like, oh, my God, you know, learning how to cook rice saved my life. What did you mean when you said it would be when I said it?

BOB THE DRAG QUEEN: Well, I probably had a lot more tears in my eyes than someone to say when I learned to cook rice. But you know what I moved to your city I wanted to be an actor and a comedian. And I know it wasn't working out for me. And I was getting some I.T. jobs. Not the one that I wanted. But doing a drag gave me directions. Doing drag, I've met some of the most lovely and amazing people I've ever had the complete pleasure of meeting in my life. It also has helped me provide for my family. Like [unintelligible] a rich family, but doing this has been able to give me the to provide for my family, my mum, who's handicapped, who can only work from home and who also care for my uncle was also handicapped and worked from home. So it's not just my life, but the life people around me. And that's what I mean by drag saved my life.

TP: You know what really comes through on the show, and Bob, I hope you can forgive my ignorance here, is that performing in drag is a lot more than throwing on an outfit or some makeup. You know, there's a transformation that happens personally, emotionally, humanistically. How would you describe that transformation?

BOB THE DRAG QUEEN: Well, it is different for different people. I mean, it's like [unintelligible] character. I know that for me, when I put on drag. After around like a year into doing drag, do I go on drag, I got the train to head to a gig. And then I realised, oh, my God. Everyone's looking at me. Everyone on the train is looking at me. And then I got myself, wouldn't be great if they really important like that. So certainly seeing in Times Square [unintelligible] the equality really like Breslow Global Times [unintelligible]. And while I was there would tell the difference specs and [unintelligible] injustice to the queer community. And it was like a really big part of my drag in these early days. Like as many as once a week I was going through a demonstration.

TP: Yes. And I've seen, you know, you've gotten arrested in drag now. And I want to I want to talk a little bit about that side of your life and another project you put out recently. You interviewed your friend Matt, who's a nurse at a public hospital in New York City.

BOB THE DRAG QUEEN: Oh my God, you listened to that interview?

TP: Yeah, we have a clip from that conversation. Take a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

I've gotten lots of messages and I'm so thankful and appreciative. I take all of that positivity and use it to fuel myself to go back into a shift that I know is going to be extremely challenging. So don't think that even putting out the smallest my new show of support isn't doing something, does it? Is.

TP: I mean, I don't mean to be cynical here, but I think there is sometimes this feeling of like, oh, we're going out and we're banging on pots and pans and drums at our window and making signs that say thank you. Is it really making a difference? And I think it was it was powerful to hear that. What kind of feedback have you gotten from putting that interview out?

BOB THE DRAG QUEEN: So a lot of, you know, people who are fans or have reached out, I wanted to interview more people too, not only just know the workers, but also like, you know, cab drivers and a grocery store clerks. [Unintelligible] I didn't realize that when I was ignorant of [unintelligible], some nurses or some essential workers. And I remember my friend, Matt, is a nurse at probably the biggest public hospital in this city. And everyday the medical workers walk down the street and then everyone opens the windows and I look at them as they walk down. And we just cheered, applaud and play music. I came here to give an interview. He said, actually, it's easy to say. He goes to work in a day and he's heard all the cheering and applauding that he was ready to suit up. And he just cried because sometimes in the middle of shit, you, your after your, you know, this patient dies that day. You know, it's just hard. Looking at death is hard. No, they happen to see it in extreme numbers. They've never seen before. You've heard the interview. He said that he's had more deaths in the past month than he's had his entire 18 years as a nurse. And I can't imagine the emotional toll that [unintelligible]. So many times, just like you and me need a pat on the back, you know, citywide chant or cheer is just a huge pat on the back for all these workers who go on there and be on the front line, facing these horrible things these days.

TP: But the thing is, is this you know, I think that right now we're all trying to figure out how to use our voices and any kind of platform that we have for good right now. And I think, you know, in kind of both the examples we talked about today, both the television show and these interviews, you're definitely doing that. So thank you so much for your time.

BOB THE DRAG QUEEN: My pleasure. Thank you. You be well, okay.

TP: You, too.

MG: Tom Powers conversation with the artist known as Bob the Drag Queen, one of the stars of the new HBO show We're Here. That is it for this extended edition of The Current this morning. Reminder, tomorrow is a special show. It's about joy and light and some of the things that are bringing some goodness to our world and a time when we could really use that. It's been a long week, certainly. And we will look forward to celebrating some joy tomorrow on the program. In the meantime, this morning, we're going to leave you with a song from the Nova Scotia Kitchen Party on Facebook. Have you been watching this? This started out as a way to bring some of that joy to people's lives during the pandemic. People pull up a chair, you grab a guitar or a fiddle, you get a drink and you sing and you chat. And that's shared with people around the world. It's now also a place where Nova Scotians and others are coming together to grieve. They're still singing in that moment of grief, using music as a way to still bring people together. This song has been shared many times on that Facebook page in the past few days. This is the Rankin family from Nova Scotia, of course. And Fare Thee Well Love. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. Take care. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Thursday April 23, 2020 Full Transcript

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