Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2020

The Current Transcript for May 1, 2020

Host: Matt Gallaway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

They say it only takes about 15 minutes to do. I put online that if I have anybody with a really sharp knife, the bottle of whisky and the bullets that I can buy on knock my door.

MATT GALLOWAY: You get the feeling that if Mary Swark Hougaard could do it herself, she would. The Ontario woman was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Her surgery has been complicated by COVID-19, one of many procedures delayed by this pandemic in 30 minutes. The stories of those stuck waiting in line. Also this morning. I don't mean to pry, but how's everything going? The advice columnist Amy Dickinson wants to know. She's here to tackle the tricky questions of these new times. And later.

[sc

And liftoff the place over Discovery with the Hubble Space Telescope window on the universe.

MG: The Hubble has just celebrated 30 years in space. A look at what this telescope has seen coming up. Plus, it's been a long week. It's been a long month, or a long few months. You deserve something special. And so from the archives, a classic story from our friend Stuart McLean. We begin, though, with the fight for gun control in the wake of a mass shooting and the expectations and concerns on all sides of this debate. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is an extended edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

Ban on assault weapons

Guests: Mark Kelley, Tracey Wilson, Nathalie Provost

MG: That another mass shooting could occur in Canada is provoking the Liberal government to ban a host of assault weapons. Reports are that the government will make this announcement shortly. Public Safety Minister Bill Blair has made recommendations singling out semi-automatic rifles, weapons used in massacres in this country at Ecole Polytechnique in Moncton, the mosque shooting in Quebec City and then the horrific killings south of the border in Sandy Hook and Orlando. This move will undoubtedly deepen the longstanding divisions in this country around gun control, a debate that Mark Kelley, co-host of the CBC's Fifth Estate, knows well. Last year, he reported extensively from inside the gun lobby and he joins us now. Mark, good morning.

MARK KELLEY: Good morning, Matt.

MG: In the last election, the Liberals promised to ban what they called military style assault weapons. What do you make of the timing of this announcement? It is expected, as I mentioned, shortly.

MARK KELLEY: Well, I think you framed it in the introduction there, that there's no two ways about it, that this is connected to the terrible mass shooting in Nova Scotia. Yes. It's true that they had promised some ban on these so-called military style assault weapons. And yesterday, Prime Minister Trudeau said that they were set to introduce something in parliament when the pandemic struck. And therefore, they had to wait. But I think they do want to take advantage in some ways, politically, of the shock and horror that people felt across Canada after this mass shootings and say that they were going to follow through on their promise. But, you know, by doing that, you are linking these two incidents. You are linking the fact that there was someone who was able to obtain these weapons, use them to kill 22 people and by banning assault weapons, as he calls them, that's going to help prevent this in the in the future. And there's a whole lot of debate about whether there's any truth to that.

MG: This ban is being done as an order in council as opposed to legislation. Just quickly, what does that mean?

MARK KELLEY: Well, that's in essence, it's a cabinet decree. So the cabinet decides on this settlement and then it's passed and that becomes law. So unlike typical legislation that would be introduced in the first reading or second reading, we could have a debate in parliament. This one will take effect. It could be as early as 30 days. It will be listed. There will be some time for people to comment on it, but it won't be the typical debate. And that's angered a lot of opponents to just feel that this is undemocratic. It's being slipped in during a pandemic when people are have their thoughts and concerns perhaps elsewhere. And that shouldn't be done this way. But alas, we're told it will.

MG: Let's talk about the guns that could be part of this ban. Walk us through some of them.

MARK KELLEY: I think I mean, the big one is the AR-15. I mean, this is the gun that people love to hate. It's revered. It's reviled. As you mentioned, it's been used, that firearm has been used, in many mass shootings in the United States it makes headlines. In Canada, though, we've got reportedly around 84,000, AR-15s to this country, used primarily and only for sport shooters on target ranges, which have got other firearms as well, like the mini 14 that was used in Polytechnique. That's also- and this is what I'm told is a very common firearm used in indigenous communities for hunting. The other one, too, that you mentioned, which was used in the shooting at Polytechnique sorry, the shooting at the at the mosque in Quebec City should be noted that when the gun actually jammed and Alexandre Bissonnette ended up using a handgun to kill the six people that he did. However, some of those weapons that do have these connections to these mass shootings. And that's what makes them, I think, politically palatable for the liberals to be able to ban.

MG: This ban will not include handguns, though.

MARK KELLEY: No, it will not. And you know and opponents will say to you, that's the key issue, that if you want to talk to Canadians who really care about, you know, cracking down on on gun violence, it all stems back or most of it stems back, this gun violence, to handguns which are being smuggled across the border. And that's not being addressed in this ban.

MG: We know that in the United States, efforts to impose stricter regulations around firearms face fierce pushback from a very vocal and active gun lobby. How active is that gun lobby here in Canada?

MARK KELLEY: Well, it is very active. And I was following them last year during the election campaign. I mean, it's clear that they have align themselves with the conservatives. They've always been working lockstep. And the conservatives have been very supportive of Canada's gun lobby and gun owners. And it should be mentioned there's 2.2 million Canadian men and women have firearms licences in this country. So that's not insignificant. You've got a lot of Canadians who do care deeply about this debate, and they feel that they have been singled out. They're law abiding people who feel they have no connection to gun crime in this country. And yet they're the ones who are asked to pay the price over and over again. So, you know, the gun lobby's left the situation right now where they've got two options in terms of this ban. You've got a political option which is to align themselves with the conservatives in the next election. And clearly they will plan to do that or you've got legal options. And I know speaking to some people yesterday, they're going to investigate those to see what they can do to either somehow delay the implementation of this ban or see what they can do to outright stop it. But I think that's pretty difficult in the short term.

MG: Just finally and broadly, how much support is there in Canada for a ban like this?

MARK KELLEY: You know, I think it's tricky because there have been polls. But think about this. And then for your listeners to think about this, if you ask somebody, do you want to a ban on a military style assault weapon? I mean, that pun intended. This is a loaded question when you ask something like that. I think a lot of Canadians when answer: absolutely. But if you were asked a question that said, do you want to take firearms out of the hands of moms and dads who use them on the weekend to go sport shooting at a gun range? What would your answer be to that one? So I think it's being framed in a certain way that's been very advantageous for the government to be able to push through this ban. But I think a debate, I think a healthy debate should be had to see the final question and the most important question, will this ban make our streets safer? That's the question we need to be debating. That's the question we need to be focussing on.

MG: Mark, thank you.

MARK KELLEY: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Mark Kelley, co-host of the Fifth Estate on CBC Television. The government's plan is expected, as you heard, to be a sweeping one. There's a lot of reaction coming in already. Tracey Wilson is vice president of public relations with the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights. Tracey, good morning to you.

TRACEY WILSON: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What do you make of the timing of this announcement expected to come in short order? And it comes, as Mark said, in the wake of an horrific mass shooting in Nova Scotia.

TRACEY WILSON: Well, I think it's a bit shameless to leverage the horrific incident that happened in Nova Scotia in order to try and garner support for your bad policy. So I think it's terribly timed and I think it does no justice to the victims or their families.

MG: How is it shameless? I mean, if not after the largest mass shooting in this country, when are you supposed to talk about the possibility of greater restrictions on firearms?

TRACEY WILSON: Well, if we want to talk about further restricting or confiscating, forcibly confiscating guns from gun owners, we shouldn't be doing it after a horrific incident by a madman who had no licence, they were illegal, smuggled firearms, like there's no relation between this madman and the firearms community. So when you draw one. It sort of implies that there's a collective guilt that should be placed on an entire group of people who had nothing to do with this horrific crime.

MG: What sort of support do you think there is across the country? Angus Reid did a poll in twenty nineteen and found that 75 percent of Canadians support banning assault weapons. What do you see as how Canadians feel about this issue?

TRACEY WILSON: Well, I mean it is Mark's right. It is a total loaded question. If I held up a picture right now of gang bangers in a car doing a drive by and asked you if you wanted handguns banned, you would say yes. However, if I showed you a picture of me at the range with my two daughters and my grandson, you know, out enjoying a sunny day and some friendly competition and said, should that stop, you would say no. So, you know, the way we frame these questions, when you when you talk about modern sporting rifles and you're calling them semiautomatic assault style military rifles, I mean, it's of course, it conjures up terrible images. And that is intentional to keep Canadians terrified so that they support these bad policy.

MG: Is that not what the AR-15 is, though, a semiautomatic military style assault rifle?

TRACEY WILSON: No, there's no military that you've just about rifle I. And here's the other thing, too, is all of our sporting rifles, regardless of what they look like, they operate the exact same as our hunting rifles. I've got a Browning 270 deer rifle here that looks like something grandpa owned. And it's got wood on it, but it's semi automatic and it's limited to five rounds. So is my AR-15. There's no difference. In fact, the AR-15 is far less powerful than a deer rifle.

MG: You haven't you have any AR-15.

TRACEY WILSON: I do. Yes.

MG: So they're people. This is interesting. There are people who might wonder why does somebody need a gun like that in this country in 2020?

TRACEY WILSON: Well, that's a question that asked a lot. You know, the majority of these rifles that are on the list are non restricted. But just as importantly, their own for recreational and sport shooting like people need to realise that firearms are a central part of many people's lives. It's my non-work activity. It's what I do on the weekends. My personal relationships are connected with firearms. People build shooting clubs and league sports. We go to family events. And now you're telling them that they should be blamed for the acts of a madman or a gangster shooting each other in Toronto. And this is not benefiting public safety. This is wrong and it's incredibly divisive.

MG: A.J. Summerset is a writer who has covered gun culture extensively as a gun enthusiast himself. Have a listen to what he thinks when it comes to regulating guns like they AR-15.

SOUNDCLIP

Although people in the gun lobby will say that they AR-15 is great for hunting, I would say there a solution in search of a problem. The AR-15 could be used for hunting, but they don't do anything that ballpark's and rifle doesn't do. It's been legitimate to kind of look at them and say, well, what value do these have? And we're balancing, really, we're balancing somebody's hobby against public safety.

MG: Tracey Wilson, A.J. Says that we are balancing someone's hobby against public safety. Does he have a point there?

TRACEY WILSON: No. I mean, hundreds of thousands of Canadians use semiautomatic rifles for hunting safely and without issue every single hunting season. I only own semi-automatic hunting rifles. So to assume that this is somehow more dangerous, it's only as dangerous as the operator. So, no, A.J., he I mean, if you would like a single action or a lever action, that's entirely up to you. It shouldn't be a personal choice. But we can see from the list that they are planning to ban. They're just picking and choosing symbolic guns to form a cosmetic policy. You know, it looks good. It sounds good, but it's going to solve nothing.

MG: I've heard from doctors extensively who are emergency room physicians. They're the people who treat those who are the victims of gun crime. And they will say that fewer guns on the streets or in the gun lockers of Canadians means that there are fewer victims. Do they have a point?

TRACEY WILSON: No, they don't. So these are a small group of activist doctors.

MG: Their emergency room physicians, they're the ones who are they're treating people who come in having been shot.

TRACEY WILSON: That's right. So they are experts in the treatment of gunshot wounds and medicine. That's what they're experts in. And I we have a we have an entirely different group of doctors over here that are gun owners. There's dozens of them in this other group. And they say the exact opposite. I mean, is if you are in a plane crash, does that make you an expert on avionics? I think if you look at the policies that Canada has in place for the storage of our firearms and it cuts down on accidents, you know, like this is just a white coat syndrome where you've got doctors talking about policy in which they are not experts in. And I don't speak about medicine. And that's because I'm not a doctor.

MG: We don't have in this country a Second Amendment. There is no constitutional right to own a firearm. Doesn't the government have the right to do this, to ban certain weapons if it sees fit in, in the kind of overall conversation around public safety in this country?

TRACEY WILSON: Well, they have the ability to do it. Yes. But I mean, forcibly confiscating legally acquired property from people have done nothing but comply with every regulation and every rule, no matter how ridiculous they are. Doesn't help address the problems that we have in our society with violence. It doesn't help anybody. And it further divides the entire country at a time when we don't need that. We need to come together more.

MG: Tracey, I appreciate your time, it's really good to speak with you about this. Thank you.

TRACEY WILSON: Thank you.

MG: Tracey Wilson is vice president of public relations with the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights. Nathalie Provost has been fighting for gun control for decades. She is a survivor of the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989 as a spokesperson as well for the organisation PolySeSouvient. Nathalie. Good morning to you.

NATHALIE PROVOST: Good morning.

MG: What do you make of what you've heard from Tracey Wilson, that a move like what the government is expected to announce doesn't do anything to help make people safer in this country?

NATHALIE PROVOST: Oh, it's been documented all over the world that the countries where there's a good gun control, where there is good control laws, there is less dead in those countries caused by by guns. So I think that we should have laws to improve our controls on guns. I don't think we need to ban all guns, but we must, we must, we must control guns. I know there are some crazy madmen, mad people or will do things that will always happen. And it happens everywhere in the world. And it's very, very sad. And I don't think that we can stop all these kind of evil of event. But if we can decrease the risk for all Canadians, I think we have to think about that. We have to do this. And I'm a bit shock when we say that guns are an essential part of life. I'm sorry, but it's lust. It's not food. It's not our cars that we need to go to work and to do what we have to do. They are used for a lot a hobby. So it's not essential.

MG: Tracey wilson says that this will take away the freedoms of gun owners. There are, as we heard, millions of people who own guns across this country who don't. They follow the laws. They are going to hurt anybody. Do you worry about that?

NATHALIE PROVOST: I don't think they lose their freedom. They still be able to have many kind of gun. It's just some military assault style weapon that will be banned. And maybe those who already have those kind of weapons, they will be able to keep them because they would be grandfather clothes and things like that. So, no, I don't think the government is removing freedom. So they use very, very strong sentences to express something that it's not so dramatic. They would be able to hunt. They'll be able to sport shoot. They will be able to still have this lobby, but with some other tools, some other toy.

MG: You have pushed for this for decades. And as I mentioned, this is personal for you. And in being a survivor of the massacre at Ecole Polytechnique in 1989, last year, you quit your position as a member of the Federal Firearms Advisory Committee. Why did you do that?

NATHALIE PROVOST: I did it to be able to speak to you today, to express my opinions and to be free to say that the government didn't do enough in this first mandate. So if I would have stayed in the committee, I would have agreed with the committee and with the government position. And I didn't. I felt uncomfortable to share that position. So I think that the only honest thing I can do, honest on myself and on the other members of the committee is say this I quit because I think that the Liberal government didn't did enough.

MG: The parliament reports this morning that the government is going to break its promise to buy back some of those so-called military style assault weapons. When you hear that, I can hear the sigh in your voice. What do you what do you think?

NATHALIE PROVOST: You know, in 2012, the conservative government destroy the long gun registry and there's a lot of people who uploaded that destruction, but we lost the capacity to track guns in Canada. When we lose that, so that I understand why. Because they don't know where those guns that they will ban are. So it's very, very hard to efficiently organise a buyback. But I know that they will do what they can, but without information. What can you do?

MG: Just finally, we'll have about a minute or so left. We are 30 years after Ecole Polytechnique or just a week or so after this awful event in Nova Scotia. Are you confident that the action that you want will eventually be taken?

NATHALIE PROVOST: It's opposed today that we will have official news about that. I'm very happy that there's something that will happen, but I think that I will always be sad that it's been so long to do something and that we are just in some kind of bends where we do two steps in front and one step back. But I think that's what we're talking about.

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

NATHALIE PROVOST: Goodbye.

MG: Nathalie Provost is a survivor of the École Polytechnique massacre. She's also a spokesperson for the organisation PolySeSouvient. We feel this is a divisive issue in this country. Your thoughts would be welcome on it. You can reach us through the Web site at cbc.ca.thecurrent and click on the contact link. The CBC News is next. And then we talk about a backlog in this country when it comes to surgeries. Close to one hundred thousand procedures may have been delayed by COVID-19. How did doctors plan to catch up? What does it mean for the patients who are waiting for those surgeries? We'll find out. Coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

Back To Top »

Surgeries delayed due to COVID-19

Guests: Wilda Thumm, Andrea Seale, Dr.Shaf Kheshavjee

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Coming up, when it was first launched, its problems were out of this world. 30 years later, the Hubble telescope is altering how we see our universe. We'll talk more about that. But first, put off by a pandemic.

[Music: Theme]

MG: It was one of the first signs that this country was taking the threat of COVID-19, seriously, cancelling elective surgeries in province after province to make room for a potential surge of patients. The backlog of procedures, though, keeps growing and growing, and it's hard to know when hospitals will actually be able to catch up. CBC News estimates that nearly 100,000 Canadians have had surgeries delayed across this country, and that includes Wilda Thumm. She is in Guelph, Ontario. Wilda, good morning.

WILDA THUMM: Good morning, Matt.

MG: You were kind enough to get in touch with us earlier in this pandemic after a segment we did when surgeries first started to be cancelled and you got in touch because of what you're going through. Just briefly recap your situation for us.

WILDA THUMM: Yes. Last fall, I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and I was scheduled to go into your events in Hamilton on Monday, March the 30th. On Friday, the 27th, I was called and told that my procedure was cancelled and the situation would be re-evaluated monthly.

MG: And that was a stem cell transplant surgery that was scheduled.

WILDA THUMM: Yes.

MG: How are you feeling? I mean, multiple myeloma, bone cancer. That's a serious diagnosis.

WILDA THUMM: It's a big deal, that's for sure. I was devastated when they called me, I cried. What else can you do?

MG: If you wrote in this letter that it felt like you'd been pushed out of the lifeboat.

WILDA THUMM: That's exactly what it feels like. That was my first thought. And I have visions of the Titanic where some people get in lifeboat and other people don't. And I feel like all of us who are waiting for procedures and there's a lot of people out there who are in a much more critical and time sensitive position than I am, that's for sure. I'm back on chemo, so I'm treading water. But there's lots of people out there who are sinking. And one thing that came to my mind the other day, I was listening to us, congratulating ourselves that we did not get in the position of Italy where you have to decide who lives and die by deciding who gets a ventilator and who doesn't. But we kind of made that decision right up front. We said there's a group of people there that is expendable. And I don't know if you heard, the minister of Health, Christine Elliott, the other day, she used the word collateral damage. That hurt.

MG: That's really difficult for you to hear. I mean, she was talking about the fact that, what, 35 people at least are believed to have died in Ontario due to delayed cardiac surgeries through this pandemic.

WILDA THUMM: Yes. I mean, there are over 300 hospitals in Ontario. We couldn't take 20 of them and isolate them for COVID and keep chipping away at the most urgent people who have been delayed.

MG: Is that how you feel like collateral damage?

WILDA THUMM: I didn't feel that way. I felt like I'd been pushed out of the lifeboat. I felt like I was expendable. And then when she said collateral damage, she said it right out loud. I sent I sent the honourable minister of health for Ontario an e-mail, a copy to our premier and my MPP. And I said, we need an apology. That hurt.

MG: This isn't elective surgery. I mean, you need this this surgery. What was the explanation that they gave you about why your stem cell transplant would be delayed?

WILDA THUMM: They said they need the resources for COVID and then they come around and say, and we don't think you should be in the hospital with COVID patients. Make separate hospitals. What are the cardiac surgeons doing today? I don't know if they even know how to fit a ventilator. Right.

MG: Do they give you a sense as to what the delay could mean for your health?

WILDA THUMM: I think I'm in pretty good shape. And a lot of people who are diagnosed with multiple myeloma are diagnosed when the disease is very far gone. I have an absolute angel for a family physician. I had a little abnormal test result by my annual physical. I was diagnosed very early. I'm being treated very early. I am probably going to come out of this, okay. It's stressful and the uncertainty is not fun and all of that kind of thing. I'm probably going to be okay because I was diagnosed early. There are people out there, including the 35 who've already died, who are not going to be okay. And I'm not pounding on the door at [unintelligible] saying let me in and pounding on the door of the health system, saying let us in get started on this backlog. Look at these people who are going to die in the next few weeks and do something. Is this really who we are that we just take a whole group of people and say they're expendable?

MG: Do you understand that - it's really difficult to. I can't imagine the position that you're in. And obviously those 35 and the family members of those individuals as well - do you understand that to some degree what the government was up against? That there were all these concerns you mentioned Italy, that our health care system could be swamped and that we needed the province and the entire country needed to figure out how to make sure that space was available.

WILDA THUMM: I do understand that we got a big, big enemy there in COVID-19. COVID-19 is not the only life threatening thing that's happening in in any country, in any society, in any city today. And I understand that we need to pour resources into this pandemic. I do not understand why a little corner of those resources cannot be allocated for the people who are going to die in the next few weeks if they don't get their surgery. And that's not me. But that is real people out there who are going to die in the next few weeks if they are not looked after. There is in one little corner where those people could be looked after. I think it's rage.

MG: We're now hearing of a lot of empty hospital beds. A report this week from Ontario found that there's something like 9000 unoccupied acute care hospital beds in your province.

WILDA THUMM: More than enough resources to look after those 35 people who've already died.

MG: In the meantime, how are you doing? You mean you mentioned you're back on chemo?

WILDA THUMM: Yes, I'm back on chemo. And I believe that I will be okay because I said I was diagnosed very early. I feel very hurt that I'm considered expendable, but I feel absolutely outraged that this whole group of people is expendable, that we decided right up front knowing full well that some of these people are going to die. There has to be some corner of the of the system where you can take this look after the most urgent people on this list, and this list is growing every day and it's outrageous.

MG: Well, to take care of yourself.

WILDA THUMM: I will do my best.

MG: I hope you the optimism that you have is really powerful and and you will get through this. I really appreciate you getting in touch with us, and I appreciate you speaking with us this morning. Be well.

WILDA THUMM: Thank you, I appreciate the interest in this topic.

MG: Thanks so much, Wilda Thumm is in Guelph, Ontario. Andrew Seale is the CEO of the Canadian Cancer Society. She's been listening in from Vancouver Andrea. Good morning to you.

ANDREA SEALE: Good morning. What do you make of what Wilda just talked about? How many stories like this are you hearing?

ANDREA SEALE: Yes, well, this situation is so tough and she's so eloquent. We are hearing from people like Wilda every day. And when the pandemic started, what we were hearing from patients and caregivers was really about just about COVID and how to protect yourself from COVID and how do I avoid exposure to the virus? But over time, as time has passed and people have now been waiting there, they're experiencing much more anxiety, much more isolation from their friends and family who are the support system that usually helps you through a cancer journey. And now what we're hearing most about is the impact to treatment, the delays and the anxiety that comes with not really being able to get answers from their health care team about when. When are we going to get back into our care. And it's a little difficult to say how on a wide scale how this is affecting cancer patients, because there's no real central data collection to describe what's happening. But we know that, for example, from a survey done in Quebec by the Cancer Coalition, that 61 percent of patients have reported that their access to treatment has been interrupted by COVID. So it's certainly an experience that a lot of people are having and creating a great deal of anxiety.

MG: As you understand it, I mean, how was the line drawn in terms of who needed surgery and that surgery would continue and who could see that surgery postponed or delayed?

ANDREA SEALE: Well, it's really not as simple as a line, unfortunately. You know, the health care system has been in an impossible situation, as you know, as you discussed with Wilda, people have been preparing for the worst, seeing what's happened in other places around the world. And hopefully that isn't going to happen here. It hasn't happened here. And we're actually at a point where we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel now. So hospitals and cancer centres, they prioritise based on urgency, based on stage of cancer. There's prioritisation models that are provided, for example, from the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer on the Surgical Oncology Societies of Canada to help help institutions make those decisions. And physicians obviously are heavily involved. We know that many of the most urgent surgeries have happened. But things like cancer care goes beyond surgery. There's clinical trials that have been stopped. There's radiation and chemotherapy that have been interrupted and diagnostic procedures, too. So almost a quarter million people are diagnosed with cancer each year in Canada. But we know that referrals to cancer clinics are way down right now. People are just staying away from not going to their doctors. And we want people to, you know, cancer to be detected early and get into treatment as quickly as possible.

MG: There was a study that came into the U.K. predicting that over the next, what, 12 months there could be 20 percent more cancer deaths than normal because people aren't getting referred and treated quickly enough.

ANDREA SEALE: Yes, yes, I saw that. Yes. So we know that we know that hospitals and clinicians, they're there right now working through how they're going to deal with the surge and also the backlog that they are working to reopen treatment but we think it will be months before if our care is back to normal levels.

MG: In the meantime, and that to hear Wilda describe it, she feels as though she's expendable. When you hear that, in a system where we cherish and celebrate the universal health care that we have, that you don't need to worry about the bill at the end of the day, that this is treatment because it's part of who we are as Canadians that everyone can get it. She feels as though she's been pushed to the side, I mean, and understands intellectually the crisis that the country in the world is facing. But in the midst of that, feels as though her own situation and the situations of others, including those 35 people at least who died in Ontario because they didn't get the surgeries they need, that they aren't being considered in a reasonable way. What do you say back to her?

ANDREA SEALE: I completely understand. Yeah, I. We have to. And we have to do better. We have to put the resources in place to care for everybody who needs it. And I totally understand her her feelings and other people are feeling the same way.

MG: When you say that it's going to be months before that backlog of cases is cleared. Tell me a bit more about how difficult it will be if there are a hundred thousand surgeries that have been delayed. How difficult it will be to start moving through those.

ANDREA SEALE: Yes, I think it means that people are going to continue to need some support as we see that backlog work through and cancer centres, hospitals are going to have to make sure they have the staffing, the PPE in order to take people on, we have to find ways to do these surgeries and to resume care even in the midst of COVID, because we know that it's going to continue to be with us for some time. And that Canadian Cancer Society, we really want people to know that they're not alone, but they can reach out for help. So we've got resources to help people cope and we can help people in 200 different languages at Cancer.ca. And we have a really wonderful community. One of the places where we've really seen people helping each other is in our online community for patients and caregivers. And actually anyone whose life is affected by cancer can join us. And this is this is a place where people help each other, where people share experiences and resources to cope. But yes, we really want people to know they're not alone. And the basic reach out and for people who've been holding back because they've seen that the health care system is under strain, we want to make sure people are reaching out to their physician and getting the answers they need about when their care is going to resume.

MG: Andrea, it's good to speak with you about this. What a difficult situation. Thank you.

ANDREA SEALE: Thank you.

MG: Andrea Seale is the CEO of the Canadian Cancer Society. She is in Vancouver. Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, she is the surgeon in chief at the Department of Surgery for the University Health Network in Toronto. He's been listening in. Doctor, good morning to you.

DR. SHAF KESHAVJEE: Good morning.

MG: You were listening to my conversation with Wilda. She's had surgery postponed, hasn't heard anything about her rescheduling. How common is a situation like hers?

DR. SHAF KESHAVJEE: Matt, I think one of the things that really came out in her story was the fear and uncertainty that patients are feeling. And we've been doing our best to stay in touch with the patients and continue to update them and reassure them about their care. I think what really is a misconception or a challenge is that when the pandemic was on the rise, we did have to really prepare for it. And much of the deaths and problems and other health care systems around the world occurred because of an unprepared system. So it was absolutely the right thing to decrease scheduled surgery at the time of the upswing of the pandemic, where we could not be sure of how badly it was going to hit us. But the really important thing is we continued to do urgent and emergent surgery. So the paper that was quoted there were not 35 deaths from cardiac surgery that was done. There were no deaths at UHN from cardiac surgery. That was not done because we continued to do urgent and emergent surgery. We've been running at about 25 or 30 percent of our regular rate. We do 25000 operations a year. And the problem with the paper is it's a modelling paper. The paper says 35 patients of this kind of disease would likely die if the system was shut down completely by May 3rd. We're already on May first and 0 have died. The second thing is it assumes that no one's watching the patient. Every doctor at UHN knows the patient and is in touch with them and said, okay, I think these patients endanger and I should operate and those ones got to the operating room. So I think that the difference is it's not just an on off switch done by a computer. It's physicians making important, difficult decisions to say, you know what, I think you're going to be okay and you can wait a couple more weeks and but you're not going to be okay. You've got to come into hospital.

MG: Well, and that clarification is important in part because the health minister in Ontario, Christine Elliott, was speaking about those numbers, the phrase that she used and that's something that will be picked up on is the idea of collateral damage. When Wilda feels as though she's been collateral damage, that she's expendable because her surgery, her procedure has been postponed. What do you say back to her?

DR. SHAF KESHAVJEE: No, no patient is collateral damage and no one is expendable. We're facing something unprecedented in all of our life and how are we going to manage it. And I think, you know, a calculated assessment of the situation and say who can wait and who will be harmed if we wait. Now, we have slowed down quite a bit to address this, and there is capacity in the system, as you've indicated. So now the issue is how can we start up to address this backlog of patients that have had to wait in the face of the fact that the pandemic and COVID isn't going to disappear right away. It is going to linger on for a while. So we have to work in the context. The other part of your patient's story with hers is a complex type of care. With a stem cell transplant, you need very potent immunosuppression. And being bad immunosuppressed in the middle of a COVID environment could end up being a death sentence in itself. So it's the balance of is it okay to wait for a bit with a diagnosis of myeloma versus go ahead with a stem cell transplant in the middle of all this? You know, that's a medical judgement that was made.

MG: How do you explain that to patients? I mean, as a surgeon, you have to talk to those patients on a regular basis. How do you explain that to them? Because intellectually, they may understand what's going on, but they see their life and they worry about your phrase, a death sentence in front of you.

DR. SHAF KESHAVJEE: And I do worry, too, because, you know, we had to do the best we can in the heat of the problem, but it can't go on forever. So I think it's really important to understand that the un-COVID patients are equally important and also how that what we have to do is use our available resources to care for those patients without harming our COVID readiness and our COVID readiness, or the need for COVID readiness is becoming more clear and we can manage it, you know. So I think that's going to be the provincial strategy is now get the care of everybody non-COVID done while you can still understand where COVID is and the various pockets in the province and have enough capacity to deal with if there's any surges or aftershocks like we've seen in the long term care situation and others.

MG: How will you begin, I mean, in a long list of difficult choices, how will you begin to decide which cases get to go first? As, two-point, the situation starts to change and there appears to be a bit more flex within the system.

DR. SHAF KESHAVJEE: So what we've done in this broad department of surgery is we have everybody who is had their surgery put on hold is kept in the data system. We know it and we update the patients regularly. And then what we're doing is first we were operating on only patients that must be operated on within 14 days or they would receive [unintelligible]. We've been doing that all along. We've extended it up to the people that we feel should be operated within the month and the usual standard circumstances of best practise that we lived in before COVID It and then we'll open up a little bit more, you know, and just keep going so that we can again preserve a stream of care and get it going. The other thing we're going to try and do is look, can we do some of the surgeries that don't need a hospital bed? The outpatient surgery. So at least those people get taken care of. The problem that was alluded to is there's the backlog that just continues to build up every day. There's new patients coming in. There's going to be the surge of patients that avoided going to a doctor and therefore aren't referred to the specialist yet. And so what we're doing is looking at every operating room, how can we run it? Can we run it longer hours? Can we run evening ORs? Can we run weekend ORs? And secondly, will we have our staff if the staff from the operating rooms or did redeployed to other places in the system then we don't have them to run the ORs. But yet we want to help other parts of the system.

MG: And you don't want to burn your staff out either.

DR. SHAF KESHAVJEE: Exactly. And that's going to be the second wave of problems, is our staff. I mean, after all of this, we can say, do you mind not taking your summer holiday? Can you work an extra weekend? Can you work an extra evening? And you know what? I think our staff will step up to that. We get it. We're all really uncomfortable sitting here and watching this happen. But we've it's been a very challenging thing to deal with. Like, what are we going to do.

MG: Just in that in the last few seconds that we have? Could you have ever imagined having to make these choices and having to deal with the ethical and very personal issues that this pandemic has forced upon us?

DR. SHAF KESHAVJEE: You know, never in my lifetime or in our career have we had this. We've got a little bit of an introduction to this concept in SARS, but it was very short lived and different. But two things. One is having to choose what patients to deal with and so on in their excellent health care system. You know, we don't usually have those issues. And secondly, the fact that coming to work can be a risk to your own life and your family's life. Those are two very sobering concepts that we've never had to face.

MG: I wish you the best of luck. And it's always a pleasure to talk to your, doctor. Thank you.

DR. SHAF KESHAVJEE: Thank you.

MG: Dr. Shaf Kheshavjee, surgeon in chief at the Department of Surgery and the University Health Network in Toronto. Have you had your procedure delayed? Find yourself in the situation that Wilda Tomb was talking about. We'd be interested in hearing your story and how you've been navigating and negotiating all of the things that have been coming your way. You can reach us through our Web site, go to cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. Coming up, 30 years of the Hubble telescope went from a punch line to our eyes on the universe. We'll talk about what it has seen in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current CBC Radio One.

Back To Top »

How well the media is covering pandemic, 30 years of Hubble

Guests: Al Tompkins, Allan Thompson, Patricia Elliott, Ken Sembach

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to the current. It is hard to fathom the magnitude of a story like COVID-19. It's a health story. It's an economic one. It's about human rights. It's about essential workers. It's about how we treat the elderly. It's about, as we just heard, the ethical concerns around health care and who gets care and who doesn't. It has shuttered huge swaths of the globe as well. And so to cover this story journalists have had to change the way they work. Many have lost their jobs in the process with the loss of advertising money. Already, cash strapped media outlets are folding to talk about how the industry is covering this crisis. I'm joined by Allan Thompson, teaches at Carleton University School of Journalism and Communications. Patricia Elliott teaches journalism at the University of Regina. And First Nations University of Canada. And Al Tompkins is with the Poynter Institute. It's a journalism school and research organisation in St. Petersburg, Florida. Good morning to you all morning.

ALLAN THOMPSON: Good morning.

PATRICIA ELLIOTT: Morning.

MG: Allan Thompson, is this safe to say the biggest story that most journalists will cover in their lives?

ALLAN THOMPSON: Well, I don't think there's been anything as singular since the Second World War for journalism. And you don't remember we're talking about a profession that was already in crisis that now finds itself at the forefront of a crisis. Journalists are essential workers. And I think in addition to just looking at how we're doing that job, at some point we're going to be talking about the day after, you know, what did we learn from this intersection between journalism and the pandemic? What's going to stay with us and make a difference?

MG: How do you think and I'll start with you, Allan. We can work our way through this, but how do you think journalists are doing?

ALLAN THOMPSON: Well, we're essential workers. I think journalism has come to the fore. Maybe after a few years of being ground down by the likes of Donald Trump, I think it's really significant. The restoration of public trust in journalism. People are watching, absorbing news like they have not done in years and years and years. Some aspects of journalism have really shown. I think data journalism, the way we visualise, you know, new ways of telling stories. I do think we still struggle with finding the focus, what really matters in such an all encompassing story that's just enveloped everybody's life. What's the most important thing that we should be covering. And, you know, you compare this to war correspondents. You know, where is the frontline in this story? And are we sometimes too preoccupied by the battles and haven't figured out what the war is? And I'm not sure the answer to that, but maybe it's testing. You know, maybe it's one aspect of this. How are we going to conquer this virus and how can journalism get us help us to get there?

MG: Patricia, I think I heard you in the background agreeing with what Alan was saying just in terms of trying to figure out what that story is.

PATRICIA ELLIOTT: Yes. And just I mean, it is such critical reporting as needed right now. And there are a lot of barriers in Canada. You know, you've mentioned the newsroom cut to reporters. Newsrooms are just like right down to the bone. And for us, since recently, it's becoming a bit of a northern story. And that's an area of the country that's very underserved, already enormously served by volunteers at community radio stations who aren't getting enough support. And we've seen a decrease in transparency at the same time. And we need transparency the most from government.

MG: What happens when, I mean, they're, what, 48 community papers in Canada that have at least temporarily or permanently closed because of the crisis? There are 20 papers have cancelled some or all of their print editions. What happens, Patricia, when those local outlets aren't able to report on what's happening locally in a global pandemic?

PATRICIA ELLIOTT: Well, yes. I mean, this is a global story, but it's the local story that people are really hungry for. They want to know what's happening in their communities. They want that information. They don't have access to press conferences. They're not going to bump into the premier on the street. You basically need journalists playing that role. And that is really been degraded in Canada. I mean, there's been over 200 closures in the last 10 years. And now this rush of 50 papers closing. And they're just shuttering. They're not being put up for sale. And it's a terrible loss.

MG: Al Tompkins, what do you see as the biggest challenges that journalists are facing as they cover this massive story?

AL TOMPKINS: Well, there are some internal and some external. Let's start with the external, because that's the one that affects your listeners more. The biggest problem we've got is we just can't get to the stories. We can't see them with our own eyes. And so we end up doing basically what we're doing here, talking on the telephone with the people who are there at the scene of whatever it is. And that's no way to report. So comparing this, for example, to war reporting, you know, we you wouldn't just read people's e-mails or talk to them by phone from the battle zone and say, well, that's good enough because it's just not. And there's been so precious little eyes on the story inside hospitals, for example, that I think that that's slowed our understanding of how bad, how big. Particularly in New York. So that's one in. But a part of that is tied up in privacy laws. And obviously the safety issues and so on. But I think a lot of the issues with ventilators and so on might have been addressed much more seriously, much faster, had there been eyes on the story, the thing that worries me more is the routine stuff that we're missing because we're so focussed on this. So, you know, you're not going to city hall meetings. Why? Because there aren't any city hall meetings. Right? They're happening on call in.

MG: On Zoom, yes..

AL TOMPKINS: And what you miss there is you miss all the stuff that you would hear before and after meeting or in the hallways or from somebody making comments from the audience that you just don't get in a virtual meeting. My my concern is so many, so many dimensions on this. And that is my hope is that at the end of this, we don't go well. We got used to do that. We didn't have to go to the meeting before. Why are we going now? I mean, we can do it from home. And I don't want to devolve ourselves into not witnessing things with our own eyes.

MG: What do you see as the role of journalism now in this story? And I ask that because when it comes out of the issue that you mentioned, Allan, which is trust. There was a poll that was done in the U.K. and it said the lack of trust in TV and newspaper journalism. Is it 64 and 72 percent, respectively? That's not trust. That's the lack of trust. And people are concerned that there aren't enough good news stories, for example, that there is an attempt to try and hold politicians to account in the middle of something. And people, if you believe this poll, don't seem to want that right now. Allan Thompson, what's the role of the media in in a crisis like this?

ALLAN THOMPSON: Well, I mean, we're going to a conference at Carlton, hopefully near the end of this in October to look at exactly this type of issue. And one of the panels is called Watchdog versus Blowhard. You know, what is our job in a crisis like this? Are we there to be the watchdog to hold our political leaders and public health officials to account? Or do we also have a role? Is that equally important or more important to amplify the public health directives help to combat the virus? And this is where it comes back a little bit to comparisons with wartime. In wartime reporting, there are those who say, how dare you help the enemy by reporting on what we are doing wrong, our failings. And, you know, in this case, the enemy is the virus. And we are there to scrutinize what are our forces doing in our effort to conquer this enemy. And there are gaps and there are failings. And that's one of the challenges. I mean, there's just issue after issue. I'm hoping that we reach a point where it's the day after and we can start to take stock and to look back.

MG: How is that complicated when, you know, media outlets will carry, for example, the prime minister's press briefings daily as we do here at CBC?

ALLAN THOMPSON: Yes, I mean, it's wall-to-wall and not to mention Donald Trump. Patricia made a really good point about what does this mean for local news. And the CBC is even guilty of this making cuts. You know, local news has been withering on the line. And yet here we are. Most of us haven't been out of our basements or our backyards in weeks. Our world is now almost what we can see out of our window. And hopefully people might come to realise, where did those news outlets go to that used to tell me what mattered down the street and in my community? Where can I get tested? Where are the hot spots? Where can I shop? Where can I go? What's happening around the corner? And I think people do now feel that need. Are they going to realise that the end of this? You know, we should get together and support a local independent news outlet. We should pay for quality local news because we need it to live our lives.

MG: Al Tompkins did believe that it should be, for example, broadcasting the U.S. president's media briefings, the daily brief which he says all sorts of things that end up having to be debunked, like maybe you should look at the possibility of injecting bleach to deal with the coronavirus and then public health officials say do not inject bleach. Is that something that the media outlet should be even covering?

AL TOMPKINS: Of course, because it's president. And because what the president says matters now, there are pieces of that, right? CBC doesn't carry every single thing that Trudeau says live.

MG: We carry a lot of it though.

AL TOMPKINS: Yes. But sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. And that's the point. The point is, is that you can dive in and out of things. And if something newsworthy get said that, you can turn it around pretty quick. I mean, if he were to say something pretty newsworthy the next five minutes, you'd be able to flip it around. Interrupts this conversation and put it on. So it's not a binary yes or no kind of decision that you cover it, or don't you. It's how do you cover it. Why is it newsworthy and how do you explain your decisions to the listeners. And all of those things come into play here. So when the president has an update that they promise and you listen, they say, well, okay, now are they in the update? Let's go. But there's no obligation to hand the keys over to say, look, you run the radio station now, Mr. President, [unintelligible] you get done and then that'll be good enough. State run radio does that in other countries. But we don't have to do that here. We are still the licence holder and we'll still make decisions about what's news and what's not news.

MG: Patricia, you said that this is in some ways in this country becoming a northern story and you're part of this initiative to get better data and information related to the pandemic in indigenous and remote communities, communities that are often underserved and underreported in the best of times.

PATRICIA ELLIOTT: Yes.

MG: Tell me a bit more about that work and how you are able to do that.

PATRICIA ELLIOTT: Well, we started Project Pandemic out of the Institute for Investigative Journalism, and it's a basically in a news collective where you can get data tools and reporting and people can share what's happening in the communities. We're mapping it. We're going into outreach to northern radio broadcasters mostly and some northern publications. Radio is really kind of the medium of the north. We do have some, a few newspapers as well and some TV presence, but not quite as much. And it's basically a solution to this decreased capacity of the local newsrooms. And, you know, the lack of northern desks that we see and it's going to hopefully provide some real hyper local news that is needed, because health officials are only on the prairies, like giving out very broad information, like there's a case in the north. They'll say, well, that's huge in Saskatchewan. So it's very- we need that hyper local information so people can make good decisions. And to me, I really like that rule that the media starting to play the collaboration and the collecting of objective data for the public. I think that's really important.

MG: Is there are more - and this is a complicated and controversial issue - but is there more that government could do to support news outlets partition in smaller rural communities?

PATRICIA ELLIOTT: Absolutely. And I mean, I'm very heartened that community television is going to be included in the government ad buy that's coming up. I'm not sure about radio. But we have local and community stations that I mean, they run on [unintelligible] and volunteers. They're not included in the bailout packages generally. And, you know, I think [unintelligible] Broadcasting has one journalists that they got under the local journalism initiative funding. And I do think governments have a role to play. They have since before confederation had media development funding, you know, to promote media development in a country that is next to the U.S. where, you know, our media is a very endangered ecology anyways in the best of times. And I think that is a good role. And they need to be supporting more and providing advertising. I mean, there's been a big pullback on federal advertising in our local media, which has hurt the bottom line. And, you know, they need to be taxing the Twitters and the Facebooks to help finance this.

MG: Al Tompkins the danger in having a conversation like this is it can be a bit inward looking. And you talk, journalists talking about journalism and the importance of journalism for people who consume the news, the people who are on the other side of the microphone who are listening, why? Why does this in the midst of a pandemic matter to them?

AL TOMPKINS: Well, in the same way that other businesses are going to shake out, this is what's happening now with media is it is shaking out. And at the end of it, you're going to be wondering who's going to cover your city hall. You're going to be wondering who's covering your planning and zoning board and one by one by one across the U.S., Canada and worldwide news organizations are closing their furloughing, they're laying off. And you're going to wonder at the end of all of this, well, who do I turn to to find out what it is that's actually going on in my community. This is a big shakeout and it's been a long time coming. It's just accelerated the slide. What we know and this is a really interesting one, you ask a little while ago, should we be doing more, you know, uplifting story again. I understand that. Everybody understand. We've heard that I've been a journalist for almost 50 years. I've heard that every year I've ever been a journalist. People want good news and they should get it because there's a lot of good news. But that's not what they're coming to when they come to CBS Web site. That's not where they're coming. Do they come to any news Web site? If you look at the metrics on your Web site, what you're going to find is they want to know who's dying, where are they dying, where the infections, what's going on with the trends. They want to know the 'what' of the story first. And when they get done with the 'what' of the story, then they'll turn to 'so what' or 'why' or 'what's next'. At the end of this, I suspect there's going to be a criticism that we didn't pound on this story early enough. I mean, it's going to come that we're going to look back at our archives. We're going to say, how come we were pounding on this story in January when we saw this coming in in China that we didn't say does Canada have enough ventilators? Does Canada have enough testing? And so on and so on. It's coming. And I guarantee it because the president is already trying to blame this on China. Eventually it's going to be our fault. I guarantee it.

MG: Allan Thompson, why does it matter for people who are consuming the news that there is robust coverage of this thing that we're in right now?

ALLAN THOMPSON: Well, I think, you know, journalism is one of our essential industries. It's at the core of our democracy. And it's tested in wartime. It's tested now. And, you know, Alan, Patricia are pointing to the failings, some of the things that have worked. Some areas where now we can learn lessons. And I think that's why I mean, Carlton traded his journalism school in 1945 at the end of the Second World War. So we're going to marker seventy fifth anniversary with this online conference. Let me stress. But an online event to look at all these questions and ask them over and over and try and figure out what we can learn. What do we learn for the next generation? You know, what do we learn? How do we change journalism education because of this critical experience of the pandemic? Al made a good point that it's just we don't teach that it's not good journalism just to do all your work on the phone and by e-mail. But we've been doing that. Is that good? How's that going to change the media in a profession where there have always been these real challenges to the work life balance? Now we've got people doing their work with their kids and their dogs in their lap and from home. Are we going to allow more people to work from home in future? Will it change the industry? It's just an endless list of things that we can talk about. And I think we need to talk about it, write it down, document it, analyse it. And hopefully when we're coming out the other side of this, really be able to learn what

ALLAN THOMPSON: Patricia, are you optimistic about. We talked a lot about foreclosures and the bad news that's coming. And it's but are you optimistic that there will be something that comes out of this experience that strengthens journalism?

PATRICIA ELLIOTT: I'm really heartened by the level of collaboration. As I said, seeing news organizations come together in collaborative projects is amazing and it's amazing how quickly it's happened in Canada. And I find that really heartening and important for the future of journalism here and around the world.

MG: It's great to speak with you all. Thank you. And be well. Thanks very much.

PATRICIA ELLIOTT: Thank you,

Alan Thompson, professor at Carleton University School of Journalism and Communications. Patricia Elliot teaches journalism at the University of Regina. And First Nations, University of Canada. And Al Tompkins. Instructor at the Poynter Institute, a journalism school and research organisation in St. Petersburg, Florida.

[Music]

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

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We'll we've been reading about the problems of the Hubble telescope.

VOICE 2: The Hubble Space Telescope.

VOICE 3: He Hubble telescope.

VOICE 1: The Hubble telescope is a Hubble telescope.

VOICE 3: I see. [Unintelligible] is no longer a Soviet threat. A lot of people feel we don't need the Star Wars defence system anymore. Hey, I think we should keep it if only to shoot down that Hubble spacecraft, put this thing out of its misery.

[Laughter]

MG: Way back when Jay Leno and Johnny Carson were the kings of late night TV, the Hubble Space Telescope was a punch line. Launching in April of 1990, NASA's telescope started taking images of deep space. The expectations, like the cost, were very high and then the pictures came back blurry and it looked like a failure. From those inauspicious beginnings, though, thanks to a daring fix in space, the Hubble soon became the source of some of the most amazing discoveries in the history of astronomy. And last weekend, it celebrated 30 years in space. Ken Sembach is the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute. It operates the Hubble. Ken, good morning.

KEN SEMBACH: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Given those early difficulties, could you have imagined that's the telescope would be as important as it is to us today?

KEN SEMBACH: I think everybody realised that this telescope was always going to be transformative, but I think it's probably surpassed just about everybody's expectations.

MG: Did you worry about whether it would be fixed in that moment?

KEN SEMBACH: Of course. Yeah. At that time, everyone was really worried. The future of the field of astronomy depended on that because at some level, if the telescope hadn't been able to been repaired, we might never have done really ambitious space missions again.

MG: And it was incredibly daring. And just very briefly, how did it get fixed?

KEN SEMBACH: The telescope had to fly its primary Mir shape. And obviously we couldn't go up and replace two and a half metre Mir. So what was done was the astronauts who serviced the observatory inserted a couple of new instruments that had corrective optics within them that accounted for that circle collaboration the optical distortion was occurring. And as a result of the prescription that was incorrectly ground in to the primary Mir was reversed through those corrective optics and behold, the universe popped into view.

MG: And so when the universe pops into view, what would you say are some of the most important discoveries that Hubble has made since then?

KEN SEMBACH: Hubbele's told us a lot about the universe. We certainly know the age of the universe and the expansion rate of the universe. In fact, the way we think about the universe expanding and slowing down in time before Hubble's is wrong. In fact, the universe is accelerating its expansion right now. And that led to the Nobel prise being awarded in 2011, in part based on Hubble observations. We also know now that it's possible to study the atmospheres of planets around other stars, something that we could never have dreamed of when Hubble was being built and time the Hubble was launched. We didn't even know there were planets around other stars. We suspected there were, but there was only one or maybe two cases where we suspected that might be verified.

MG: You have a whole universe out there. How do you decide where you're going to point this telescope?

KEN SEMBACH: Well, each year, the institute where I work issues a call for proposals from the worldwide astronomical community and we get about twelve hundred thousand four hundred proposals a year from astronomers all over the world, we then do a peer review like we're going to do next week, actually, in this year and we select the very best science from those sorts of proposals and the peer review that makes that recommendation to me, I then review with my team for technical feasibility as well as the scientific viability. And we schedule those out in the observatory over the course of the year.

MG: That's a big decision to make.

KEN SEMBACH: It is. A lot of fun, though.

MG: Fun is interesting because we'll see the images. And it's amazing. We will, that's normal people who aren't deep into this, will be stunned by what it is. Do you still have that sense of wonder in terms of what it what the telescope picks up?

KEN SEMBACH: Yes. Yes, absolutely. That sense of wonder still exists in just about every image that comes back from this observatory. I mean, if you take the kids some of the deep field images, the images that allow us to look back almost to the very beginning of the age of the universe, and you realise that in one image you've got a 13 billion year history in front of you to read if you know how to read that. And have the ability to actually discern the detail in that image which Hubble gets us.

MG: What do we at an elemental level? What is it that we learn through those images?

KEN SEMBACH: Through those images, we learned a little bit about ourselves, but we learn how the universe assembled, how it came together, how it's changing with time. We've learned that the universe is a much more dynamic and colourful place than we had thought before Hubble was launched. It's not a static universe that people thought it might be. We learn that things change with time. That seems to say why would you thought that was the case? There was time before Hubble was launched and we didn't think galaxies changed all that much in collections of big collections of stars. They do. They changed dramatically. And that tells us something about the way the galaxies formed and the way that stars formed, perhaps even something about the way their own planet forms. And that tells us something about our place in the universe, which is kind of a big puzzle to put together. But I think at our core psychologic being we always want to wander and know more about ourselves, and so we dig a little deeper each time we look at this observatory.

MG: What a great job you have. And it has provided us with so much information and that sense of wonder as well. It's great to hear that. You still feel that, Ken. Thank you.

KEN SEMBACH: You're welcome and a pleasure to be here.

MG: Great to talk to you. Ken Sembach is the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute. That is the organisation that operates. And as you heard, figures out where to point the Hubble Space Telescope can was in Baltimore, Maryland, where the CBC News is next. And then it's the end of a week. Did you know that it's Friday? Did you know that it's the 1st of May? Time kind of flattens itself out in the midst of a pandemic. So we thought you deserve something a little special. Back by popular demand, we are going to bring you a story from the Vinyl Cafe, the late great Stuart McLean back on CBC Radio. And you will hear his voice coming up in about six minutes time. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to the current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

Back To Top »

Vinyl Cafe story: Fish Head

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, a crisis made worse by this pandemic. How COVID-19 is amplifying food shortages around the world. But first, a story about the little things in life.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Well, because it's Friday and because you've survived another pandemic week. We have a treat for you a few weeks back, we aired some episodes of the Vinyl Cafe. And afterwards we received many, many, many requests for more. It would be clear that a lot of you missed the comforting voice of the late Stuart McLean, myself included. You also miss the familiar antics of David and Morley. Well, really, just the antics of Dave. Poor Morley. It was ever thus. Here again, by popular request, the Vinyl Cafe. This episode is called Fish Head.

SOUNDCLIP

Dave, his son Sam, were having lunch at the Maple Leaf Cafe in Big Narrows, Dave's hometown. It was a Saturday early May. Dave and Sam were in town for the weekend to help Margaret with things. Their spring ritual, take down the windows, turn the garden. Saturday lunch at the Maple Leaf was part of a club, sandwiches and fries, vanilla milkshakes. Last time, said Sam, we had grilled cheese. We did, said Dave. I remember that. Barbara brought them there, shakes, two tall glasses, an aluminium container with the overflow, she set the overflow down in front of Sam. A real shake, said Dave. To made with real ice cream. Sam rolled his eyes and bent his straw down. It's good, he said. And then he said, tell me another story about him. Dave said, I don't know. He was a good guy. It's a hard question. You live your life in minutes and hours, you move along beside the people you love. And in the midst of all of the moments in the middle of all the movement, you don't often stop to commit things to memory. You never imagined there is anything about anything that's going to be of any historical importance that someone's going to come along one day and quiz you about things. But he was my grandfather, said Sam, and I don't know anything about him. I know, said Dave. I know. He put his sandwich down, he liked to play the bass, he said he his friends would come over to the house on Sunday nights and they'd play music. I know that stuff said Sam, it was slow. It wasn't slow, said David, it fall behind the beat. Dave was twisting around in the booth. A lady behind the counter, Barbara held up a bottle of ketchup. Dave nodded. Thanks, he said, and then he turned back to Sam. Did they ever tell you the one where we jumped off the bridge into the river on our way home from church? I was afraid to jump at all, the other kids jumped all the time and my dad wanted to show me I shouldn't be afraid, so he jumped with me. In your clothes, said Sam. Holding hands, said Dave, and our Sunday best. He got in trouble for that. Dave glanced at his son. You knew that one? Yup, said Sam. And he dipped one of his fries into the ramekin of ketchup the lady had brought, and he ate it and picked up another, and hesitated. And then he looked at his father and said, how did he die? Heart, said Dave, he smoked. Did it hurt? I don't know, Sir Dave. I hope not. Sam said, did I ever meet him? Dave said he died just before you were born. He would have liked you a lot. They finished lunch and they walked along to the end of River Street. And then they took the shortcut along the old railroad tracks up to the High Street. They just passed that little creek that runs beside the tracks there when Dave said, Did I ever tell you the story about the fish head? That's a good story. Sam shook his head. Okay, said Dave, this is a good one. I'd forgotten all about this one. And they still had a long way to go. So Dave told it slow, like a movie. It began like a movie anyway, like a movie about spies at night and it rain so misty, it was as much fog as rain. It was around midnight in this sneaky month of April, two shadowy figures scrambling along a riverbank with miner's lamp strapped to their forehands. The light from the lamps bouncing off the river and the balsam trees and the wet rocks along the river's edge. Here and there, they step over patches of granular corn like snow. But mostly the snow is gone from the path, though there's still plenty in the woods under the trees where the land is low and bedded soft with pine needles. The person in front, the one with the peak hat and the oiled canvas jacket, is carrying two nets. The nets are on long poles like butterfly nets, but more substantial, made for sturdier things than butterflies. The second person, the one following, is a boy. He's carrying a rucksack on his back and in the rucksack he has a cheese sandwich, two pieces of black liquorice and a homemade slingshot. That's me, said Dave The man stops and reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of export A. He shakes a cigarette loose and light it. When the match is out, he puts it in his pocket beside a mickey of whisky. That's my dad. Your grandfather. We're going smelting. It was the April a Dave was eleven years old. The smelt were running and everyone knows that the best time to net smelt is in the middle of the night when the water is ice cold and you can use a flashlight to spot the fish in their silvery clouds. That was a great winter, said Dave. And it was the first spring he went smelting like that in the middle of the night with his dad. The perfect end to a perfect winter. The night they caught the famous king cod. Sam said, how did you catch it? Dave reached out and picked up a pebble and threw it into the woods, I'm not sure he's had. Sam picked up a pebble and threw it too. Dave said we were never able to explain how we got it, it really didn't make any sense at all. Neither of them were sure, except to say that they had parked the truck at Carradine's about 11:30 that night and walked down the river past big falls and they'd stopped and talked to Mr. McCauley, who was fishing at the band near where the logging road crossed. And they'd gone maybe a quarter a mile further to where the river narrows by the big rocks. And they'd netted up a good feed of smelt. And just before they left, Charlie somehow ended up with that big green land cod in his net. You see them from time to time in the lake, but no one had heard about one in the river before. But that's where they got it. It wasn't until the next morning that we saw the skull was deformed, said Dave. He and Charlie were in the shed cleaning the smelt when they spotted it. The dog watching them, hopefully from the corner, fish guts all over the table. Charlie ran his knife over the bump on the fish's head. He said, looks like a crown. See, that's why they call him a king cod. Happens from time to time. Dave said, what are you going to do with it? Charlie said, we're going to eat it. Dave meant the head. Charlie said, Well, we'll give the head to the dog. The word dog, Dave's dog scope looked up and cocked his head hopefully. When they finished, Charlie gave Dave the gut bucket and told him to empty it behind the shed, but once he got back there, back where no one could see him, Dave took the King card head and fetched an old newspaper and wrapped it up. Before he went in for dinner, he took it to the old ice house, unwrapped it and buried it in a barrel of pickling salt. You still had an ice house, said Sam. For sentimental reasons, said Dave. We had a fridge, too. Why did you keep it? Said Sam. The ice house, said Dave. The fish head, said Sam. I don't know, said Dave. It's hard to remember things like that. He probably didn't even know back then. Dave shrugged. I guess I figured having a fish head could come in handy. Whatever the reason, it was important at the time and he would check on that fish head every couple of days. He'd shimmy over the cool damp sawdust and reach down into the salt barrel and pull out the gut stains newspaper, the cloudy black eyes, the silver skin, the head which was drying out in the salt and becoming mummified. He couldn't stop looking at it was there for a month before he told any. Who did you tell? Billy Mitchell. Do I know him? No, You don't know. It was a Saturday morning. Billy and David pooled their money and gone to Mac to Nel's and got a line Ricky out of the cooler and a box of Dutch s potato chips. They took the pop and the box of chips to the park by the library and they were sitting on the bench. Billy's bike leaning against one of the big ball sums. Dave's lying on the ground. Billy telling Dave how he was going to see his grandfather in Glace Bay, how he was taking the bus by himself and how his grandfather always took him to the movies. He gets me popcorn, said Billy, and liquorice. They've said what colour? Billy said black. And that's when Dave said, I have a fish head. Billy said, so what. Dave said, it's mummified and deformed. Billy said, Where is it? They park their bikes behind the ice shed. Dave said, you wait here. And he ducked alone into the damp sawdust world of ice and he closed the icehouse door behind him because he didn't want Billy to know exactly where he kept the fish head. And he took in a deep lung full of the cool, damp air, and he fetched the head from the salt barrel. But he didn't go right out. He kneeled by the door for a minute, made himself count it out slowly. One cod head, two cod heads. He wanted Billy to think getting the head was more complicated than it was. There were wet stains on both his knees when he came out, and little flecks of saw dust. They set the head on the Iceland, which was lying in the tall grass behind the shed. Sam said, why didn't you want Billy to know where it was? Dave said, because I didn't want him to be able to come and get it. It was Billy's idea to boil the meat off. Billy said if we boiled the meat off it, we could see the skull. So they went into the house together, Billy talked to Dave's mother while Dave scooped a handful of wooden matches from over the stove. They got an old apple juice can and they rolled out to the quarry. On the way, they gathered twigs and branches and a handful of birch bark so they could build a fire. But when they got to the quarry, Dave decided he didn't want to boil the meat off. I like the way it looked, said Dave. And the way it smelled. The fish had it started to get leathery and turn a golden colour. They built the fire anyway, and they poked at it with sticks for a while and then they threw all the wood on it to see if they could get the flames as high as their waists. Did you, said Sam. I don't remember, said Dave. Whatever happened, they let it burn down, and when it did, they melted stuff in it. An old sneaker, a plastic gun, some webbing from a lawn chair. You'd never let me do that, said Sam. And then their work was done. And they let the fire burn down and they peed on it to make sure. You peed on it? Yes, said Dave, haven't you ever peed on a fire? Sam said, we don't even have a quarry. Dave said, well, you should try it sometime. Anyway. Billy came back from Glace Bay and said, My grandfather has a fish head just like yours. He has it hanging in his boathouse. It predicts the weather. My grandfather says it talks to him, said Billy. Dave hung his fish head from a nail at the back of his bedroom closet. He stared at it for days, but it didn't move and it certainly didn't say anything. Sam said didn't it smell? Dave said maybe a bit, but not like fish, like the sea. And then one day he came home from school and it had shifted. It wasn't looking the same way. And that night he was woken by the sound of rain on the tin roof. He got his flash later of his bedside table and he got out of bed and went to the cupboard and shone a light on the fish head. He saw the head had spun completely around. Seemed like magic today. It was, in fact, the change in humidity working on the yard. He went downstairs, the flashlight bouncing off the walls. He opened the side door and stood on the stoop. He held his hand out into the rain, to be sure. When he woke up, the sun was shining and the fish head was back to normal. He told Billy on the way home from school. It works, he said. Billy said that's what my grandfather says. Anyway, he said day that none of that's the important part. The part I wanted to tell you about, the important part, is the day I wore it to school. But wait a minute, wait a minute, said Sam. Did it ever work again with the rain? Dave said over and over. It was, if it was going to rain, it would shift. Always like 12 hours before. All the time, said Sam. All the times, said Dave. What about snow? Not just rain. Sam said I can't believe you never told me about this before. Dave said I'd forgotten all about it. Samson, that how could you forget about this? This is amazing. And he shook his head. And then he said, okay, okay. Tell me about wearing it to school. And Dave said, you're full of questions, ask me questions. And Sam said, okay, how do you where a fish had. On your belt, said Dave. On your belt, said Sam. Well, said Dave, on your belt loop. Nice question. Why would you do that? That's a good question, said Dave. I'm not sure that was a long time ago. You have to remember, I was nine years old. You were 11, said Sam. You said you were 11. You have those who are like different times 11 then was like nine today. He tied the fish head to his belt loop in the morning before school. Like right in front, said Sam. More to the side, said Dave. Front side. You are so weird, said Sam. Thank you, sir, Dave. Shall I keep going? Yes, said Sam, tell me. So the fish head was tied to my belt loop with a piece of the yard. Dave was in Miss Nicholson's class that year and his desk was near the door, and that morning he sat at his desk with a fish head tied to his belt, just praying Miss Nicholson would ask him a question, any question, so you could stand up and answer. And eventually she did of course. What happened? Said Sam. Well, when she noticed the fish head, she sent me to the office, and the principal phoned my dad, said Dave, your grandfather. I Know, said Sam, just what happened. It took Charlie 20 minutes to get there to the school. When he arrived, he walked into the principal's office. He said, hello, Ned, what seems to be the problem here? Dave was sitting on the chair in the corner of the office where you sat when you're in trouble and when his father walked in, the first thing he saw was that Charley, had a fish head tied to his belt loop. Did your father really do that, said Sam, yup, said Dave, he really did. Then what happened? I don't know, said David. He took me home I think, for fishing. He might have taken me fishing. You don't remember? I do remember that he put his hand on my shoulder as we walked out to the principal's office. That made me feel good. Dave and Sam, were coming up on the corner of the last big hill, almost home. Neither of them said anything for a while. And then as they turned into Margaret's yard, Sam said that was a cool thing for him to do. It sounds like he was a good dad. Dave said that's what I said. And then Dave said, I think I still have the fish head. Sam shook his head. Sam said, so weird. They found the fish head before they went to bed in a box at the back of Dave's old cupboard with a bunch of stuff like a little cast iron cannon, a set of hockey card, some marbles. It was leathery and golden, as if it had been smoked, a piece of green yarn still tied through the top. Sam was sitting on the bed holding it. He said It doesn't smell. I thought it would smell. They were both sleeping in Dave's old bedroom and Sam was already in his pyjamas. Dave was getting ready. Sam said, can I have it? He was sitting on the bed nearest the window, turning the fish head around in his hands, Dave said. I always kind of liked that it was here. If I give it to you, would you leave it here or take it home? Sam said I'd take it home. Dave said. What would you do with it? Sam said I'd wear it to school on my belt like you. Dave said, why. Sam said, because when I have a kid, I'd give it to him and tell him the story and he'll wear to school and then it'll be a family tradition. I think Grandpa would like that. Dave laughed. Yes, he said. I think he would like that very much. And then he turned and stared out the bedroom window. His breath fogging the glass. With the trees still not in Bud, he could see right over the house where his uncle used to live and all the way down to the rooves of the store fronts on Railroad Street. Far away, the steeple of the United Church at one end and the tallest building in town, the clock tower on the town hall at the other. All these little moments, he thought. Who knows which ones are going to count and which ones will be forgotten. It's never the things you think. It isn't a fishing trip or even the fish. It's the fish head. It's the smoke, never the fire. And the smoke is wily and wispy. And the smell of it gets in your hair and your clothes. And no matter how much you try to duck around the flames, the wind always changes. It always gets in your eyes. What's the matter, said Sam. Are you crying? Just a little, said Dave, but it's okay, it's not unhappy cry. It happens when I come here. Sometimes it's like there's a big fire here for me. And sometimes when I get close to it, the smoke gets in my eyes. He turned away from the window and sat down on his old bed beside his son. Tomorrow, he said we'll help grandma with the garden and then before supper we'll go to the graveyard and I'll show you your grandfather's grave. Can I bring this, said Sam. He was holding the fish head.

[Applause]

MG: What joy to hear him again on CBC Radio, the late Stuart McLean and Fish Head from the Vinyl Cafe. Maybe - I have no power over anything - maybe we'll play similar vinyl cafe in the weeks to come. Who knows how long this will go on, but we'll see. It's always nice to hear comforting voice. And that voice of Stuart McLean is one of those voices. Coming up on the program I'm going to speak with the advice columnist Amy Dickinson. You may know her by her pen name. Ask Amy.

SOUNDCLIP

The beauty of the advice column - and of course, it's an incredibly old genre. It goes back to like the campfire and the elder dispensing advice. But it's also a really old printed, you know, genre. The agony aunt goes way, way back. What's beautiful about it, especially in the old days, I guess it was a one way street. You know, people write in and, you know, they bury the lead. They leave out a lot of details. But it's totally their point of view about what's going on with them. And I made a really crucial decision at the outset when I decided not to rewrite the letters. And I will shorten and truncate the letters a little bit. But I never, ever, ever rewrite anything. The richness of the voices and the stories and whether it's somebody who is like totally kidding himself, like my son won't stop being gay, really. You know, that guy actually wrote that to me and he teed it up, ma'am, you know. So there isn't a lot of- it's really not a two way street. And that's the beauty of it.

MG: That's the advice columnist Amy Dickinson. She misses getting questions that have nothing to do with COVID-19. So we'll ask Amy a few questions. That's coming up in about half an hour. Also on the way, a love story, one that spans borders, which is pretty complicated in this era of physical distancing. Hear about a couple that was trying to make it work across a line. That's coming up. I'm Matt Galloway. This is an extended edition of The Current on CBC Radio One. We're back in 90 seconds. Don't go anywhere.

Back To Top »

Facing COVID-19, crumbling economies and locusts, expert warns of another crisis: famine, Tanya Taylor

Guests: Abdinoor Ole Hissein, David Beasley, Tanya Taylor

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. It is an ominous sound.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Buzz]

That is the buzzing of millions of locusts, the swarming insects are devouring crops in Africa for the second time in recent months. In February, we spoke with Abdinoor owner, Hassan. He is Kenya's director for special programs in Garissa County, and he was explaining how people deal with locust invasions.

SOUNDCLIP

The only true method in dealing with a locust, one is the Melbourne method, where people use aeroplanes and what you do is you use spray. And the second one is the normal traditional conventional method where you use anything that can produce sound ranging from drumbeating to horn blowing for whistling, hitting anything that releases any sound.

MG: That was before the pandemic. Now it's a perfect storm, a global crisis and a second wave of locusts. In fact, some people are calling this Locust-19. Abdinoor Ole Hussein joins us once again from Garissa, Kenya. Abdinoor, hello.

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: Hello.

MG: How bad are the locusts now?

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: We have locusts now in Garissa, and in Kenya. The first one that [unintelligible] explained in February, the foreign locusts, because they are coming from Somalia countries. But the ones that now we're dealing with first Kenyan generation locusts, which means these locusts are born and brought up in Kenya. These are Kenyan locusts now.

MG: I'd heard that the scale of this is much larger, that this is something like 20 times larger than the first wave. Is that correct?

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: Well, this time round, another time it was like they were coming in a wave. But now we are having them being born in Kenya. Now what we are dealing with are the nymphs. The nymphs are now the wingless young ones of the locusts and they are more ferocious, they eat more food, then their parents. And they are a bit also difficult. They are more ferocious, meaning they are more greedy. They eat more food, more, more, more greens. I mean.

MG: So what sort of damage are they doing?

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: They're actually causing damage in terms of farms and also the natural vegetation that would have been suitable, of course, for livestock.

MG: We heard a bit of what they sounded like before. What are the nymphs sound like this time around? It sounded awful before.

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: For the nymphs, actually, they are all on the ground. They don't fly so virtually the sound they produce is the sound of, you know, like thousands of troops walking in a forest. The sound they can just produce like that. Without talking,.

MG: Wow.

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: Which means they produce sound as a result of, you know, their numbers.

MG: The last time we talked to you were what? Banging pots and pans and blowing on horns and burning tyres to try and get rid of them. What are you doing now?

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: Well, for the nymphs, blowing horns, beating on drums, cannot work. What do we do here is we are having what is known as motorized spraying. And we are having vehicles. The Kenyan government, supported by FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization, donated some vehicles here. They are mobilizing the vehicle. So we are having sprayers mounted on the vehicles and we do spray. When you're doing the praying it's going to spray up to 500 meters radius and so, because they can not fly, we are killing them on the ground.

MG: Do you think you're winning the battle?

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: I feel we are going to win, at the long last, but I know it is going to be a challenge considering they the current COVID-19 that is already in place, and which has also curtailed our movement and also our general mixing. You know, before we could travel in one vehicle, five, six, seven of us. Now, because of the COVID restrictions, we are not able to go many of us in the same vehicle. And then number two, we are also put on masks 24/7 as we are doing the spraying. Or, we're not even not doing the spraying right now, because the challenge here is it's extremely hot. So putting on the masks for eight to nine hours. That's actually cumbersome. It's really a challenge.

MG: This is also planting season right now.

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: Yes, it's the breeding season, because we are also witnessing their mum rains — the March, April and May rains in Kenya. And so the soil is suitable, equitable for breeding.

MG: What else is there that you can do and what else are you worried about for the future?

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: Well, what I'm saying is that in order to deal with the locusts, so that does not go to many parts of the country, it is supposed to be dealt with where it is right now. Now that it is in the nymph stage, it cannot fly. It is for us now to put a lot of energy, we kill them on the spot so that they don't grow wings and move to other areas, which will eventually also lead to breeding and migrant of more.

MG: The World Food Program is really concerned about famine. And we're really concerned that this will exacerbate issues of hunger. What are you seeing on the ground in terms of- are people able to get enough food now?

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: Well, I did that right to me with a prediction that we are forcing also food shortages in the future, considering, one, the locusts, which is also multiplying in numbers, which is now given a lot of attention, considering the new coronavirus, which is also in place because it's like most of their funding and their support and energy is now geared towards the coronavirus, unlike before, where we are putting a lot of energy in the, I should say, dealing with locust. Number two. We are also in a rainy period under a lot of flood. This flood is also meaning it is also going to destroy a lot of crops.

MG: I'm sorry for what you're up against. I hope that you win this fight against these locusts and that the food and the hunger does not spread. Abdinoor, thank you.

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: Thank you. Thank you for calling.

MG: Take care.

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: We will win.

MG: Abdinoor Ole Hussein is the country director for special programs. He was in Garissa, Kenya. This latest plague of locusts is making an already dire situation in parts of Africa worse. Have a listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

[Noise]

MG: People pushing and shoving, trying to grab food being handed out at a slum in Kenya. In Cape Town, South Africa, there is also panic.

SOUNDCLIP

VOCIE 1: This is not animals. This is hungry people. This people are looking just for food. Please I don't think I'm [unintelligible] to win something. Then we can rather die of coronavirus.

VOICE 2: Yes.

VOCIE 1: Than to die in our [unintelligible] of hunger.

MG: Plea for food from a woman surrounded by people, echoing her frustration in many parts of Africa, from Garissa County to South Africa and beyond. Tens of millions face the prospect of starvation because of this pandemic. The World Food Program warns there could be famines of, quote, biblical proportions. The executive director of the World Food Program is David Beasley. David, good morning.

DAVID BEASLEY: Good morning.

MG: Biblical proportions. What are you most concerned about?

DAVID BEASLEY: Well, I think you just heard right there, women and men in places all over the world, particularly in very depressed areas, are worried about starving to death. I've had Zimbabweans and South Africans and, as you just said, Kenyans saying, we can't get food. They're not worried about COVID. Of course, we're worried about both. We're worried about the impact of COVID. And so, as I mentioned last week to the United Nations Security Council, we are literally facing the potential of famines in multiple countries if the supply chain breaks down, or if our money evaporates because of economic deterioration. So we really are in a bad situation.

MG: You said the number of people who won't get enough food could double to 265 million people.

DAVID BEASLEY: Yes, there's 821 million people on earth [who] go to bed hungry. We're not talking about going to bed hungry. We're talking about on the brink of starvation. So last week we announced — this is pre-COVID — 135 million people around the world go to bed on the brink of starvation. And so we feed assist about 100 million people any given day, week or month. And in 30 million of those we keep alive. They only get food from us. Now with COVID, we anticipate an additional 130 million, which brings about a quarter of a billion people that will be literally marching toward starvation if we don't do something.

MG: How has this global pandemic amplified all of the problems that you face on a regular basis?

DAVID BEASLEY: Well, before COVID hit the scene, I had been telling leaders — and particularly in Europe — that we were facing the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II for the year 2020. And then you had the desert locust hit, which is you're seeing the impact. This is consuming millions of acres of land in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia, South Sudan. And many of these nations and areas were already facing a very bleak circumstances. And so now on top of this comes COVID, which is creating pandemic number two, so to speak, around the world. And it is devastating the supply chain, and what we're trying to help leaders understand is that you must not destroy or break down the supply chain. In other words, how do you get the food from the farmers in the field to the market, to the consumer? Trucks must continue to roll. Aeroplanes and ships that supply food around the world, we must keep those rolling. Otherwise, you will have millions of people die more than than you would have from COVID. So we've got to balance this out with supply chain. So we're working with leaders, particularly in African nations, like border restrictions or import-export bans or shutting down a port or distribution point. They have to understand that people can't go several weeks without food. They'll die.

MG: How do you do- how do you convince those leaders if people are so concerned about the spread of this virus? And that's why I mean, you know, air travel is dropped dramatically. We know that other forms of transportation have shrunk as well. And the people are just worried about the spread. So the lockdown is imposed.

DAVID BEASLEY: Well, once we explained to leaders the reality, what we're looking at, they began to say, oh, my goodness, I haven't thought about the consequences of this. The ripple effect of that. And so the response had been very, very good so far. Everyone was so consumed at first about, you know, we've got to have the lockdown, shut down, keep people safe. And then we said, look, we got to keep supply chain rolling. Otherwise, you will have millions die from starvation. And so leaders, they get it. But you got to get the facts in front of them. And so far, the leaders around the world have responded extremely well. But the worst is yet to come. We have it, in my opinion, we haven't seen near the devastation that's about to take place in Africa. It's going to be catastrophic.

ABDINOOR OLE HUSSEIN: We just heard from Abdinoor. He's talking about what's going on in East Africa, where you also have not just the concerns around the pandemic, but then there's flooding. These locusts have arrived again. Parts are off of the continent, are also facing drought as well. Pre-COVID, how dire were the situations just when it came to the infrastructure that was there?

DAVID BEASLEY: Well, whether East Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa, Northern Africa, I just was on the phone with some people in Zimbabwe where flooding and drought have impacted an economy that is already in shambles. And they're saying, look, COVID, we're not worried about COVID, were about eating tomorrow. We don't have food. And so we've got to address both these needs. And we can. If we have the money and the supply chain, we can save lives. But we have to be smart. We've got to work quickly. We can't play around with this thing. We've got to move forward. And that's why we asked, for example, last week at the United Nations Security Council, I was very clear saying four things needs to happen with regards to what we're facing immediately. One, in wars. We must end the wars in Syria and Yemen, for example, just to name two. Number two, we need to pre-advance nations that have already pledged moneys to us. We need to for them to advance 1.9 billion so that we can move food into pre-positioning, such that when the supply chain does begin to break down, we've got the food already out in these very vulnerable areas. Number three, is, as you were mentioning, there's a supply chain in many other ways is breaking down. Airline industry, aeroplanes aren't flying primarily, we're in Africa. And so you see what's happened in North America, I imagine in Africa where you're flying food and cargo, medical supplies and people. That shut down. So we need 350 million dollars to continue to supply the medical professionals, the doctors, the nurses, the food, the mass testing kids, the gloves. In fact, in the last month, we've already dispersed to about 86 countries around the world and particularly in the Middle East and Africa. So we need $350 million for the next six months to keep that flow and otherwise it will be catastrophic. So not many people realise that the World Food Program, we don't transport just food. We are the logistic hub for emergency operations, whether it's WHO or UNICEF or whatever it may be. And the fourth thing that we need is the supply chain can't break down. We've got to move food to the consumers so that people won't starve to death. And if we can keep those, have those four things in place, we can avert famine like we've done in the past few years in countries like Yemen and Syria and Somalia, Nigeria and South Sudan.

MG: That's a lot to juggle in the midst of a global pandemic. I wish you the best of luck. David, it's good to speak with you again. Thank you.

DAVID BEASLEY: Well, thank you.

MG: David Beasley, he's executive director of the World Food Program.

[Music]

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

[Music]

TOM POWER: Oh my God.

MG: I spent all night working on this last night.

TP: Sounds great, Matt.

MG: Happy birthday, Tom Power.

TP: Thank you so much, Matt. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. I love the banjo version of Happy birthday.

MG: Yes, it was stewed just for you.

TP: It is a very strange thing to be spending your birthday inside, you know, as someone who's not like a big birthday celebrator party guy, not too bad. I got to say pretty good.

MG: Good. Because you have no other option.

TP: No. I'd better I'd better be okay with it. Thank you, Matt. I'm happy to be spending it with you.

MG: Well, that's nice of you. It's great to have you, of course. And you're here to talk about something, you know well, and that's the world of fashion.

TP: As I'm standing here in a bluegrass T-shirt and a pair of Adidas track pants. Of course, I'm here to talk to you about fashion, man. I'm here to talk to you about Tonya Taylor. She's a New York based fashion designer. She's originally from Canada. Here's the thing, man. She came to Canada for the weekend to see your family a couple of months ago. She hasn't left.

MG: No?

TP: She's been here ever since. She's been trying to run her company from Canada.

MG: Well, I mean, there are worse places you could be. She's based in New York, so maybe this is a safer place for her.

TP: I think she'll say just that in the interview we're about to have. And she talks a lot about how her clothes are optimistic, like her designs are optimistic and she's trying to stay optimistic through all this. Here's Tanya Taylor.

SOUNDCLIP

TP: How are you?

TANYA TAYLOR: Hi, Tom. Good, how are you?

TP: I'm good, thanks for asking. You're normally in New York, but you're in Toronto right now.

TANYA TAYLOR: I am. I thought I'd be coming for a weekend. I've been here for 40 days. So welcome home, I guess. I'm here for a while.

TP: God. Yes. You bring a duffel bag with you on the plane and all of a sudden you're here for, you know, a year.

TANYA TAYLOR: I think I might be here till August. I'm also seven months pregnant. So I'm planning on staying, having the baby. You know, just moving to Canada for a bit, unexpectedly.

TP: This is God's way of forcing you to move back to Canada, Tanya, that's what this is.

TANYA TAYLOR: My parents are happy.

TP: Maybe it's your parents way of getting you to move back to Canada.

TANYA TAYLOR: Yes, probably.

TP: How have you found working from home?

TANYA TAYLOR: It comes with its challenges. I think I have a team of 26 people in New York usually, and we have all been working from home since March 12th. And with that, it's difficult as a fashion company because you're used to physically working together, touching fabrics, building collections, and that is part of my everyday life. So we've had to pivot and I've been amazed at how much we've been able to accomplish and kind of critically look at our business and think of how maybe using this opportunity of working from home can allow us to have more focus and change the way we do things.

TP: But not to be reductive here. Fashion designing clothing is it is a tactile job, right?

TANYA TAYLOR: Yes.

TP: How are you able to do that from home?

TANYA TAYLOR: So we you know, the week that we started working from home, all the stores that we sell to closed. So we really had this pause on knowing that at this time we're not trying to sell clothing for the next couple months, but we are still building collections for the future. And that building of collections is what's really hard to do from home. So we have relied on sending samples to our set models who we've worked with for years. And it's kind of amazing. Like their boyfriends, husbands, partners are all taking pictures. We're on face time. We're giving them guidance of what to do, how to pin garments, how to fit them. And everyone is just learning how to adapt and work with each other remotely. And it comes with its, you know, hiccups. But generally, I think we've tried to figure out how to use, you know, Zoom as our best friend and stay really connected. I think staying connected on a small team is the key to getting through this.

TP: The New York Times reported that last month the United States experienced the largest drop in retail sales on record. How is your brand experiencing this drop?

TANYA TAYLOR: Yeah, it's been greatly affected. Our revenues down 40 percent for the year. And when we look at the uncertainty of when stores are reopening, it's really hard to plan for the rest of 2020. But I think it's allowed us to say that right now it's not the right time to get someone to come to your Web site and try to buy a 500 dollar printed floral dress like they may have because there's nowhere to go to wear it. So what can we be creating in terms of content that still stays, you know, uplifts our customer, creates optimistic content for them that keeps them happy and keeps them connected to our journey through this time.

TP: I was going to say, like you seemed to be somewhat sunny and optimistic about this. I'm not surprised, but it's a pretty sunny and optimistic person.

TANYA TAYLOR: Trying, I think. That's my job, too, is like I definitely I thrive in chaos. I really like chaotic environments. This has been an interesting exercise of how to bring as much strength as possible and be a leader. But my motto has just been kind of just do and don't think. And in the past, I had the luxury of thinking through ideas and planning for them and having a year to, you know, launch a new category. And we don't have that luxury anymore. Like, we have to really quickly react. And there's challenges that come at us every week. And I think I've really just focussed on protecting our people, keeping them connected, cutting our costs, which has been the number one thing that we can do right now to really save the business. And then pivot and support our community and inspire our customer along the way. So those four pillars is where my mind is at each week.

TP: Well, let's talk about the inspiring and supporting your community, because I have to say, like one of my favourite stories out of this whole thing, which I didn't know and I wouldn't have known - I wasn't hosting Q And like, you know, folks who work on the show pitch these really great kind of fashion stories - is how much the fashion industry has stepped up. You know, like how much they've made PPE. They've, you know, diverted from making gowns to making stuff for hospital workers. And you guys are making masks for frontline workers.

TANYA TAYLOR: Yes. So we were right at the beginning. I felt a responsibility knowing that we had access to manufacturing and fabric suppliers and a team that could make this happen. We actually started a fundraising campaign on Instagram. And over four days raised 30,000 dollars to make 10,000 masks for New York City health care workers. And that was, you know, just an amazing opportunity to see that customers want to support you during this time. They want to support small businesses. They want to have an impact and how to help health care workers. A lot of times people just don't know how. And so that was great. And then in Canada, being here and kind of seeing that Toronto was, you know, a couple weeks behind New York in terms of their access to PPE, we approached some foundations and we were able to raise enough money to make 17,000 masks manufactured in Toronto. And not only is that great for health care workers, it's also amazing for some of these small factories that that will help their business through these months.

TP: Tanya, I hate to go back to this, but I am curious. I mean, what do you think the overall impact of this is going to be on the fashion industry?

TANYA TAYLOR: I think, unfortunately, some brands will not make it through this financial crisis. And that's really sad because there's incredible talent in the American fashion industry that's just budding right now. And I don't think there's the right support to really keep those businesses going. I think also there's just going to be a fear in consumers and a fear in what shopping and what consumption is going to look like to me, fashion in celebration. And I think we're all questioning what is celebrating going to look like in life. The benefit of this, and I feel this, is it has brought the industry closer. I sent an email out a couple of Fridays ago, just like here's some of my opinions or things I've written, like reach out if you want to talk. And I sent them to 60 people and I'd say 40 of those people usually would never respond. And they were really like, you know, mentors are like inspiring individuals to me. And a lot of people responded. And I've just been able to find a lot of support from conversations throughout the industry that usually wouldn't be there. And then I think just for brands, there's been more focus. And people are going to make less. There's going to be fewer deliveries and less waste. And I think that's a really good outcome from this.

TP: Well, Tanya, thanks for your time. And what a story you're going to be able to tell to this little baby when they come out.

TANYA TAYLOR: They it'll be it'll be an interesting image. We're having a family portrait on the steps tomorrow. So we can explain that to them.

TP: I just love that. I love that this is this baby will grow up knowing that, you know, hey, you were born not where your parents normally live during a pandemic, you know, but there's some love to that. You know?

TANYA TAYLOR: Yes, well, it will be born with courage.

TP: It certainly will. Listen. Tanya, thanks so much for your time.

TANYA TAYLOR: Thanks, Tom. Have a great day.

MG: It's birthday boy Tom Power in conversation with the Canadian fashion designer Tanya Taylor. It's the first of May. And so March seemed like the longest month in recorded history. April sort of zoomed by. Are you becoming accustomed to the fact that - you're a big social guy, you go out and do things on your birthday - that you are going to be confined, you said, to your home.

TP: Yes. By the way, I'm glad you used my official CBC title, which is Birthday Boy. I appreciate that.

MG: Says that on the business card.

TP: That's certainly, I'll introduce myself, no matter the time of year. Hi, I'm birthday boy Tom Power. It's my wrestling name. I'm pretty okay with it, you know. And I'm I would say this to someone the other day. I love that we have kind of refused to allow ourselves to be too hardened by this. And, you know, I think I think more people have reached out today on my birthday than most other birthdays. I think people just kind of want some connection. They want to feel something, you know. And we have a big, you know, zoom call plan tonight with a couple of friends. And, you know, I have no idea what else is in store with the folks in my life. But I don't know. I'm kind of grateful to be able to connect the way I have.

MG: The New York Times has a great photo essay today on Saturday night. When Saturday night used to be the big thing. And you go out on a Saturday night, it would be like the, you know, the big moment of your week where you could go out and do things. And now it's kind of the new Saturday night where people are at home making pizza or doing, having Zoom parties and playing Scrabble and things like that. You become accustomed in some way to the new reality that you're in.

TP: I just don't think you can keep connection with the people you love away. You know, you can try to keep us apart from one another and we were able to do that. And we're we're lucky to be able to do that. And I'm happy to be able to do that. But you can't stop it. We're gonna find ways to connect with one another. We're going to find ways to reach out to one another. And if that's not the most beautiful thing on earth, I don't know what is.

MG: We'll talk again. In the meantime, thank you, Tom.

TP: Thank you, Matt. I really appreciate the banjo birthday.

MG: Tom Power. It's his birthday today. So you can send him a note on social media if you'd like, and wish him happy birthday. Coming up on The Current Saturday night, might have been date night for some people. We're going to speak about an unusual way that a couple is trying to stay together, even though they're being kept apart by coronavirus. She's in Canada. He's in the United States. Unusual date nights, that's on its way. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to an extended edition of The Current. We're back in about six minutes.

Back To Top »

Advice columnist Amy Dickinson, Date night at a border ditch? How this pandemic-divided couple goes on dates at a U.S.-Canada crossing

Guests: Amy Dickenson, Savannah Koop, Ryan Hamilton

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to an extended edition of The Current. Coming up, they spend date nights in a ditch. I'll talk with a cross-border couple that's trying very hard to meet up in this pandemic, in the midst of social and physical distancing. But first, a word of advice with Amy Dickinson.

[Music: Theme]

MG: She is known as Ask Amy, the syndicated advice columnist and fans who write to Amy Dickinson ask all sorts of problems. Right now, though, there is one topic that Amy does not want to hear about. In a recent tweet, she wrote, If anyone out there is maladjusted in a non-COVID way or has non-COVID relationship questions, I am here. She is here. Amy Dickinson, good morning.

AMY DICKENSON: Hi, Matt.

MG: What was it that prompted that tweet?

AMY DICKENSON: Well, what prompted that tweet was a month of all COVID all the time. And actually the response to that tweet was a few people got in touch and said, oh, I have one. And then they proceeded to lay out their relationship issue, which really pivoted straight, straight to pandemic. So, I gave up. I mean, I get it. This is where we live now.

MG: But it would speak to just how much this thing has permeated our lives.

AMY DICKENSON: Of course and actually a friend of mine does. I sort of put a call out like, how has this changed you and how has it changed other people? And a friend of mine answered and said, it's made all of us more so. If you were anxious, fearful, unsure beforehand, now you are more so. If you were confident, you know, generous, all that, you're more so. And I really like that. It's really amplified a lot of our qualities better for better and worse.

MG: How do you think it's changed you?

AMY DICKENSON: That's actually- wow, that's such a good question. I have, I went through a period of, for me, anxiety. Like I don't have anxiety. I'm very, very confident. And I was having dreams, nightmares. I really entered a period of- I mean, I was still doing my work and going through my days, but I definitely felt honestly, Matt, a new sense of grief over my mother's death and the death of other family members. Also, relief that my mother was not alive to witness this. You know, like all of us. I've been through all of that.

MG: I'm going to come back to that, not to put you on the couch here. What sort of questions are you getting from people?

AMY DICKENSON: All of the questions that seem to be really burning are about boundaries and boundaries are incredibly challenging in any relationship. So, for instance, I actually have two adults at home, adult children living with us right now, and we're dealing with all the typical stuff. At one point I had to remind these two daughters, this isn't spring break. This isn't Christmas vacation. You're living here. And so actually, this was a game changer. One night I said we are going to each choose one night where we will prepare dinner for the family. That was great. Everybody picked today and we're doing a really good job. We're doing a very good job with the chores. But I had to really sit everybody down and sort of speak my own truth about that.

MG: In the questions that you're getting around boundaries, what are people most concerned about? Because I think we're all in this right. And I think we're probably the reason you're getting these questions is because we're all experiencing these same things in one degree or another.

AMY DICKENSON: Right. So the questions are all about, they're very fear based and they're all about somebody is doing something and I might catch the virus because of their behaviour. And honestly, Matt, some of these are not rational scenarios. You know, I saw a group of children walking past my house, Amy, and they were walking close together and they weren't wearing masks. I said maybe they're siblings. Like they have parents. Like, don't worry about that, you know. I often find myself thinking like, please don't borrow issues to worry about. Like you be you. Keep yourself safe. You know, don't worry too much about other people.

MG: You're not a doctor. I mean, yet, so part of this is a medical thing as well that you have to try to figure it out.

AMY DICKENSON: And that's true. And it's really been it's an issue because although a lot of the questions are really more like if you are aware of what the CDC is recommending, then do that. You know, we all have access to this basic information. But I think for a lot of people, their anxiety and their fear is really distorted, it's distorted what I would see as common sense. For instance, so I got a letter from a woman who said that she was really upset. And everybody says, I'm so upset, I'm losing sleep. You know, how should I handle the fact that my neighbour has an Easter party at their home?

MG: This is the letter from Quarantine Nagging Nellie.

AMY DICKENSON: Yes.

MG: That's what she signed.

AMY DICKENSON: Yes.

MG: Not me saying that she's not nagging. That's what she signed.

AMY DICKENSON: She says from my backyard, my husband and I could clearly tell that they had multiple people over. She then e-mailed the neighbour and she was very, very upset. Do I need to be uncomfortable every time I'm in my backyard now. I'm so stressed and upset, I have to live with adjacent to these people.

MG: And so what do you write back?

AMY DICKENSON: So I say you don't describe your property and how it relates to their property, but, based on my own unofficial knowledge of how the virus spreads, the risk to you through sharing an outdoor space from a normal neighbourly distance would be minimal if not nonexistent. Unless you're walking, running, biking, you know too closely to somebody who is infected and also exercising. You know, I mean, I felt the need to reassure her that there is-- you're not-- there's no way you're not catching this virus from 30 feet away from a group of people who are facing each other and talking and mingling.

MG: Do you think that would satisfy her?

AMY DICKENSON: Well, I don't know. I don't know about her, but it didn't satisfy a lot of other people because here's the thing that I have a theory. I think that a lot of us want- we're anxious. And now that's how we feel. And that's where we live. You know, that's sort of where our comfort is. Like we're comfortable feeling anxious. Like that's our identity now. And I find this is weird, but I don't think people want to be reassured. I don't think people want to be told, hey, you're going to be okay. You're okay. Like, you know, normal guidelines. Follow the guidelines. Wear your mask and, you know, protect yourself and you'll be okay. In my own household, honestly, these two daughters have grown more anxious as time has gone on. And we actually are very fortunate to live in a rural area that hasn't been hit too hardly. But we are in New York state, which is, you know, just it's unbelievable. Unbelievable. But here's the thing. They have been quarantining, well, and they have been quarantining even though they don't need to. And the longer they are isolated. The more anxious they become. And so while they were willing to say, go to a store, wear masks, which in our area we are permitted to do. Now they are not willing to basically leave our property. Even though all of the numbers demonstrate that where we are, given following all of the guidelines, it's quite safe.

AMY DICKENSON: Are you seeing positives? I mean, it's easy to to to talk about some of the negative bits of human behaviour in moments like this. People peering over the fence and wondering why their neighbours are gathering together, looking at the window and seeing family walk down the street. Maybe they're not a family and what are they doing? But you wrote a column about silver linings. Are there some positives in terms of human behaviour?

AMY DICKENSON: Well, I think so, definitely. In fact, I you know, there's a reason why the rules of two generation looked back on that experience as a time of growth. One of my favourite books is the Victor Frankl book about his surviving the Holocaust. And he was interred in Ashwood. He points to I mean, it's that saying we grow stronger in the broken places. I honestly think that, especially from millennials, which I think they're really struggling. We had one daughter. She had just started her first professional job. Within one month, she'd been furloughed. So their lives, I think, have been so interrupted. And for them, this is, I think, truly traumatic. Honestly I've been writing a lot of letters. A colleague of mine at the Chicago Tribune gave me names and addresses of some people who are in nursing homes and I'm sending them cards. And I think that, you know, it's all the expected things in general. Spring is about to come up north here where we are. And, you know, one really treasures the role of nature in providing a re-blooming every year no matter what. You know, it's the sense of valuing these things that we all- like, valuing our family.

MG: The idea of human connection. We're just talking about this earlier, that even if you can't meet people now, people are calling each other, calling each other, using the phone to call somebody or using Zoom or Skype or whatever like that. And that human connection is being thought of in a different way.

AMY DICKENSON: Totally. I think we're becoming much more stripped down, grateful for these. I mean, I'm sure my experience is like a lot of people's. I have been connecting- last Sunday, I had a Zoom call with a group of people I did sort of a comedy troupe with 25 years ago. And this was the first time we had connected in 25 years. It was wonderful. And we're doing it every Sunday.

MG: Can I ask for some advice?

AMY DICKENSON: Oh, sure.

MG: Okay. So I've been thinking, and a lot of people who are probably in this situation, but I've been thinking about the pace of life that we're in right now, where there are a lot of us who are working really hard. But in the midst of that, things are also slowed down and you're forced to slow down because of the circumstances that you're in. How do we ensure that we can hold on to this slower pace of life and not just go back to the old habits in the after time when we get out of this?

AMY DICKENSON: Well, I mean, Matt, that's the blessing, isn't it? The all of us cooking together. I mean, my family, we're playing games. We do puzzles. Unfortunately, I think for a lot of us, our work lives will change in very dramatic ways. So a lot of people aren't going to have the option of speeding up again after this is over because they will be looking for work. I think that we all of us need to remember, just as our my parents generation did. They held on to some of these values of, you know, family, friends, community, because going through a war had really sharpened their awareness. You know, about a month ago, I had already had it with like, oh, it's all we talk about this pandemic. Like, we have to talk about something else. And then I remember. I lived in England for a while. World War II lasted for six years. And what else did they talk about during the Blitz? And it becomes your life. It becomes your life. It's the most compelling thing. It's the most distracting thing. And it becomes that's where you are at. And that's what you talk about.

MG: You just wonder whether there is something that we can glean from that. Everyone's trying to figure out who we're going to be and how we'll be changed when we come out of this.

AMY DICKENSON: I hope that we will emerge from this not more anxious, not policing our neighbours, but of course, more generous, loving, compassionate and giving ourselves time. You know, I actually this whole thing descended so quickly. I think that a lot of people, there was a real learning curve in terms of adjusting to the amount of time we have and how long the days can seem. You know, it's interesting, Matt? I have not received one. Let I answer a lot of parenting questions, my column. I have not received one question about parenting. And my theory is that parents are actually really connecting with their children and they're really figuring things out. When you're out of the house eight to 10 hours a day and you're emerging at the end of the day and you're tired and cranky. And your kids are tired and cranky. That's a whole different life than when you're home all day. You fall into a rhythm, you start to communicate differently. And I think this could have a very lasting impact on a lot of families.

MG: Or they're too busy trying to teach their kids at home and do Zoom calls at work and as you said, get the other kids to cook dinner so that they're not just cooking dinner and they realise it's not a hotel that you're staying in. It's a great pleasure to talk to you. And thanks for the advice.

AMY DICKENSON: Oh, thank you, Matt. I'm a big fan of the show.

MG: Oh, it's great to have you here. Thank you, Amy.

AMY DICKENSON: Okay.

MG: Amy Dickinson is a syndicated advice columnist, Ask Amy, also a panellist on NPR's. Wait Wait. Don't Tell Me. And an author most recently of Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things. Amy Dickinson was at home in Freeville, New York. This is the current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. It's the first of May and the beginning of May is usually considered to be the start of wedding season. Except, of course, this year when nonessential travel is banned, venues are closed, gatherings are forbidden. You know the rest. Savannah Koop and Ryan Hamilton were supposed to get married this month. Instead, they find themselves stuck in different countries, often meeting in a ditch on the U.S. Canada border. Savannah is on the phone from Abbotsford, British Columbia. Ryan is at his home in Bellingham, Washington. Good morning to you both.

RYAN HAMILTON: Good morning.

SAVANNAH KOOP: Hi. Hi. Good morning.

MG: Ryan, tell us quickly the story of how you two met.

RYAN HAMILTON: Yes. So we actually met on a dating app called Hinge, which I never thought that I would meet the love of my life on a dating app. But here we are. And that was in July of last year. So it's been a short amount of time. But things just seem to work out.

MG: Savannah, when you saw Ryan's profile on Hinge, what was your first impression?

SAVANNAH KOOP: Oh, I thought he was very attractive. I mean, there's not a whole lot you could go off of other dating profile. But he looks like fun and outdoorsy. But as we started talking, I was like, Huh? This guy is interesting.

MG: Interesting.

SAVANNAH KOOP: Oh, yes. I thought he was a little bit, a little bit odd. His profile was so cool then I talked to him, I was like he's nerdy, I think.

MG: Ryan, what did you make of Savannah's profile?

RYAN HAMILTON: I didn't think she had a super great profile. But on the app, it's a little different than some of the other ones. And there's a little more questions than answers. So she seems like an interesting person. But she didn't have quite as great of photos as I expected.

MG: And yet, you agree to go out on a date. What was that first date like? Ryan?

RYAN HAMILTON: Yes. So I knew she was in Canada. And where we are, it's really common to match with people across the border on these dating apps. And so she came down to Bellingham and we went for coffee, which is obviously huge in this area. And we went for a walk and then ended up watching a sunset over the San Juan Islands.

MG: And it all works out, Savannah.

SAVANNAH KOOP: Oh, my goodness. Somewhat, at first. The day he planned was like the best day I've ever been on. And we, like, effortlessly talked for hours. But I really it was like he's not very funny and he's kind of odd. My sister makes fun of me now because she says I came home and I was like, he's not funny at all. I can't even fake laughs at his jokes. It's just not funny. So we actually went out on dates for about a month before I realised how great of a guy he was and agreed to officially date him.

MG: I'm glad you stuck with it. You're now engaged. You're going to be married this month. Savannah, what were the plans that were in place for the wedding before everything changed?

SAVANNAH KOOP: Yes. So we actually were supposed get married a week today. So May 8th was our wedding date. We were going to have quite a bit of a short engagement. My parents live in Europe and my sister was expecting in April, she just had the baby. And so my parents are going to come home for the arrival of their first grandchild. And so we figured, hey, why don't we just get married while they're here? They only have to come across the world once this year. So we got engaged on March 1st, and we are going to have quite a short engagement. But, you know, all the plans are falling together. We had a friend offer their property, too. I have another friend who going to do the photos and the decoration, like everything was just kind of falling into place. We're going to have a wedding with about 150 people. Ryan and I are both like people, people. So it was very important for us to have our family, but also a lot of our friends there. And so we were having friends come from all over really. Ryan and I have both travelled a lot. So we have friends all over the world that were planning on coming.

MG: And then things end up being thrown into the air because of COVID-19. And now you're stuck in separate countries.

SAVANNAH KOOP: Yes. So two weeks after we got engaged, we are separated. And I had just been in Washington visiting Ryan. We had literally just been doing our wedding registry at Target. And I got back to Canada and found out that they had made their recommendation if you had been outside the country to quarantine for 14 days.

MG: And so where do you meet now? Because it's not as though you're not seeing each other. You're sort of seeing each other, but not really. Ryan, where are you meeting now?

RYAN HAMILTON: Yes. So it's funny because people always say, oh, you haven't seen her? I guess, yes, I have seen her, but it is different than normal. So we meet on these two roads that run parallel to each other between the Seumas border crossing and the Older Grove border crossing. And so these these roads on the Canadian side pretty much run straight across. And on the American side, there's some points where they come up to the border and run parallel. So depending on how busy it is at different spots, there's a lot of families that meet there. We'll meet there and go for walks. We just met last night for the first date this week.

MG: Do you have to stand six feet apart from each other?

RYAN HAMILTON: Yes. I mean, I think a lot of people don't realise what six feet actually is. I think a lot of people think six feet is about 26 feet. So there are quite a few places in the border where we can get close. You know, as close as six feet. But a lot of times there, there is a real ditch that, you know, quite a bit further than that. We can usually see each other fine and we can hear each other.

MG: You can usually, you can usually see each other fine?

RYAN HAMILTON: Well, preventative[crosstalk].

MG: It doesn't sound Savannah like a pretty particularly ideal date.

SAVANNAH KOOP: You know what? I would saying to Ryan last night. It's been tough. Obviously, Matt, like anyone. I mean this is a tough season for everyone and it's tough to not be together. It's tough to, you know, go through something like this and kind of cancel all the plans that we had and grieve the losses of that and not be able to hug or, you know, be physically near each other. But it's also, you know what, we try and make the best of it. And I was saying to Ryan last night, like, you know, as hard as this is, and I don't love it, I'm also grateful for it because we just had to get creative and try and have fun with it. And obviously, it's pushed our relationship in ways that we wouldn't haven't have pushed if this wouldn't have happened.

MG: You will never forget this. And when the wedding actually happens, it will be even more special. And when you're actually not separated by a ditch and you don't have you yell back and forth at each other.

RYAN HAMILTON: Absolutely.

MG: It will be a great moment. It's great to talk to you both. Good luck.

RYAN HAMILTON: Thank you so much.

SAVANNAH KOOP: Thank you so much, Matt.

MG: Savannah Koop lives in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Ryan Hamilton lives in Bellingham, Washington. And they are a couple, but they are apart and trying to figure out how to stay together. Long undefended border, as they say, between Canada and the United States. Maybe you're in this similar situation. This is not, it's unusual, but it's not entirely unprecedented. Maybe you have a similar story. Maybe you're just not even separated from each other by a country, but it could be in the same city, house to house. Let us know if there is a long distance relationship that perhaps you did not expect to be in because of this pandemic. You can let us know through the Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. It is time to say goodbye to our listeners in Newfoundland and Labrador. Cross-talk is next for you. We'll talk to you on Monday for everyone else. Stick around. We're back in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

Back To Top »

July Talk

Guests: Peter and Leah

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One, my name's Matt Galloway, Tom Power is the host of Q on CBC Radio One. It's a program that airs in the morning and in the evening and he's back with us now. Hello.

TP: Hello, Matt. How are you? I got one for you. Ready for this?

MG: Yes.

TP: Why can't you tell a pun to a kleptomaniac?

MG: I have no idea.

TP: Because they always take things literally.

MG: There you...

TP: Get out of here. Come on.

MG: We'll give you a special pass on that because it a special day.

TP: Awe. Thank you, Matt. 33 and stuck inside it.

MG: Just like in a record.

TP: Could be worse. I feel you. I feel like a record spinning around the circle today, Matt.

MG: What do you have- speaking of music, what do you have for us?

TP: Speaking of records.

MG: See how that works.

TP: Beautiful. July Talk, incredible band. One of my favourite bands in this country right now, especially live bands, are getting ready to release their third album, Pray for It, later this spring. This is not exactly the new album Roll Out they were hoping for.

MG: I wouldn't think so, no.

TP: No. They're going to release new music, release music videos during isolation. And as much they can't tour, they found a way to still perform. Take a listen to me, Peter and Leah or Peter Leah and I, Peter and Leah from July Talk to me. Here they are.

SOUNDCLIP

PETER: I don't know. It's just nice that you can contribute something, you know? I feel a bit helpless, as I think a lot of people do. And we look at cities like New York and you're looking around and really seeing folks, you know, struggle. And it's really nice to be able to give some music to folks just as something to put forward, you know. And so I've been grateful for that.

TP: I know I wrote you guys sort of individually about this on Instagram the other day that like when I heard your first single off the record, like it was sort of like a blanket that that warmed me up. And I think like my ability to process music and art viscerally, like pretty intensely, is only been ramped up because of the situation that we're in.

PETER: Yes, I don't know. It was kind of like a- I don't know. I've been kind of, like I said, I think I've been really diving into records this last month or two, you know, and just listening to them and giving them a bit more of myself than I normally do. I think that strangely enough, when we made this record, there was sort of an unspoken statement that kind of felt like we were trying to make a record that we would put on our own turntables at home and just sit with, you know. And maybe a little bit less of a panicked approach than we have had in the past, which I really enjoyed. And great music comes out of panic. But I think we kind of wanted to approach it a bit differently.

LEAH: I think that the. When we put out our last album, it was like right before a series of crazy things happened in the world. Not that the world isn't always going through crazy things. But I feel happy that we had four years to process and write about our experiences, be they as huge and universal as paradigm shifts in politics and, you know, different things happening on a global scale. And as small and and insular as like parents going through health scares and stuff like that. We just had time to kind of like wade through all those feelings. And because of that, I think that the album that we made, like it feels okay to be putting it out now and to be talking about it and stuff, just because it's like really honest and I feel it's kind of exactly what we want to say.

TP: I feel like you guys are like those cats that like when they show up at your door, you know something, something wild is going to happen. You know, like the cat's back. That means the house is going to catch on fire. Oh, no. The cat's back. My aunt's going to win the lottery, you know? You guys, your records have that energy.

PETER: Oh, it's kind of you to say, I think. I feel pretty good about that. Yes, I mean, it's a weird thing. I think that this record with Touch, we wanted to come at it with something where it felt like we were examining a certain human connection, that we felt that was really at risk. It felt very quickly that that we weren't connecting to other human beings as we thought we could. And some of that was because of our touring. But a lot of that was because we were spending three more hours on our phones a day than we had been in the rest of our lives at the time. I think this time that we just really wanted to show our cards, you know, like where our hearts on our sleeves in the hopes of other people feeling the same way. I think that Pray for It's about kind of like it's not a God record. It's, you know, we're just trying to, like, dive into something where it's like we all show our vulnerability. We all ask for help. We all do this. It's like, can we just can we just do it together and try to like show that that everything's not, not really going great right now. And I think we need some help. So anyway, I'm really excited to put it out.

TP: I can tell that you are and I think it's like the perfect time for it. I think it's the perfect time to be having the conversations that will come out of listening to songs in this record. Guys, thank you so much for talking to us. Cheers.

MG: That's Thom Powers conversation with the Toronto band July Talk. And that will do it for The Current for today and for this week. July talk will take us out this morning. My name's Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. We'll talk to you on Monday. This is a tune called Governor's Shadow.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song: Governor's Shadow by July Talk]

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

Friday May 1, 2020 Full Transcript

More Stories Like This