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The Current Transcript for May 27, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: The idea that science is going to reach into its bag and pull out magically thecure is fanciful. That's not how we work. We work carefully, empirically. We look at the data and we go on to the next step.

MATT GALLOWAY: When do people want a vaccine for COVID-19? As soon as possible, please. That urgency has led to pharmaceutical companies working flat out into the U.S. president, launching something called Operation Warp Speed to compress long time lines. But with that accelerated timeframe, experts warn corners are being cut and we'll hear their concerns in 30 minutes. Also this morning.

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VOICE: You know our message to the RCMP, we're not getting in the way. You do your work. Law enforcement in this province whether it's the RCMP or municiapl forces is a close knit community.

MG: As Nova Scotia still copes with a mass shooting that left 22 dead, there are calls for a public inquiry into how the RCMP handled this incident and the wider issues, including domestic violence that surrounded it. In an hour, the premier of Nova Scotia explains why he thinks it's too soon to ask those questions. We begin though with the hard questions being asked right now about long term care after a disturbing report into the deplorable conditions in five homes in Ontario. After years of warning signs, is this finally the moment for change? Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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It’s too soon for soldiers to leave Ontario LTC homes in COVID crisis, says daughter of residents

Guests: Michelle van Beusekom, Candace Rennick, Jane Meadus

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VOICE: I think it's appalling. I think it's disgusting what has happened.

MG: Ontario Premier Doug Ford reacting to new revelations about what's been happening inside long-term Care Homes in his province. Canadian Forces members had been sent in to help at five Ontario homes struggling with the COVID pandemic and the report of what they saw there was made public yesterday.

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VOICE: The dignity of these patients in long-term care. Not being cleaned. These are just standard operating procedures to clean someone. When you feed them, you lift them up. I'm not an expert in health, but I know when you feed someone, you'll lift them up and feed them. That, it's so disturbing when I read this, it was hard to get through. It was the worst report, most heart wrenching report I have ever read in my entire life. Ever.

MG: The report also describes staff reusing syringes on patients, cockroaches in the facilities and residents left in soiled diapers or going without bathing for weeks. Now, Premier Ford is promising a full investigation into what happened and justice for the families involved. Both of Michelle van Beusekom's parents live in Grace Manor home in Brampton. It was one of the five Ontario homes with COVID-19 outbreaks named in that report. We've reached Michelle in Montreal. Michelle, good morning.

MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Good morning, Matt.

MG: This is hard reading for anybody in this report, given the fact that your parents are in one of these homes. What was it like for you to to hear some of the details?

MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Well, it's you know, it's heartbreaking, it's soul breaking to read these details with people left alone, crying, force feeding, bedsores, no showers. It's wrenching and at the same time, after home, we know since Bobcaygeon. When was that? Early April. Feels like a lifetime ago. Not a surprise.

MG: Some of the things happening at your parents home apparently include staff using hand sanitizer to clean gloves and reuse them from patient to patient. Workers were not bothering to help residents eat. Instead, they were saying that they refused to eat. Your parents are 91 and 89.

MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Correct.

MG: Tell me a bit about what they've been telling you about how things were going in that home.

MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Yeah, I mean, I'm fortunate that my father has a phone and I speak to him three times a day. And, you know, it's important to say that, you know, Grace Manor, it's a very good facility. And I'm so thankful that it's a not for profit, which in general has been faring better in this context because they have a different bottom line. Their bottom line is care and it's part of an integrated community for people mainly of Dutch descent. So it's strongly rooted in community. And there are problems there, like there are in every long term care. The report cited and grace manner inappropriate use of PPE, infection control standards, problems with agency staff, like the example you just cited, someone who was happy to write a report and say this person won't eat rather than help them eat. And that's deeply disturbing and deeply distressing. It's another level from what we see in some of the other four homes, and I think it's important to make that distinction. But the root cause, like for me, it comes back to the root cause, which is the systemic underfunding, the understaffing, the deregulation which has been going on for decades in long term care. Some people are trying to frame this as a management issue. That's certainly part of it in certain contexts. But this is about a failure or a systemic failure of public policy. And I hope we learn that from this. And what I hear from my parents, like my you know, I talked to my dad every day and having the military there was certainly very welcome. They needed those extra hands. And he tell me, you know, he enjoyed chatting with them. Dutch people loved the Canadian military because they they liberated Holland in the Second World War. So my dad has those memories. Right. And, you know, who would have thought that his life would be bookended by catastrophe like this? The Second World War, when he was a child and now in at the end of his his life being at the epicentre of some of coded deaths. And, you know, the military were disinfecting everything, told me they even disinfect my garbage pail. They were nice. He enjoyed chatting with them. They've left Grace Manor as of yesterday.

MG: Has he noticed any, you talked to him last night, right?

MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: I did. I talk to him everyday. Yeah.

MG: Has he noticed a difference since the soldiers left?

MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Well, even yesterday morning, I asked him, how's it going? And he said, you know, it was a little bit late in terms of his breakfast and he didn't get the help he normally gets in terms of getting dressed and washing up in the morning and I do worry that staff will get overwhelmed. Everything takes more time with PPE. Everyone's in their room. They don't and can't and shouldn't be eating communally in the dining room. I've spoken with someone high up in administration at Grace Manor who estimated for them to, you know, do things properly, they need three times the normal cohort of staff that they have to do it all with PPE. And I really doubt they're getting the funding they need to to be able to to staff at that level. So I am really worried about them getting overwhelmed without having that extra help from the military.

MG: This kind of care isn't cheap. Your parents pay for, they pay a lot for this sort of care. What is it like for you when you hear this, knowing that they're paying a lot of money and perhaps they're not getting what they're paying for? They're not getting the value that they're paying for in terms of being able to live with dignity.

MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Yeah, I mean, that's the very frustrating thing, like I said, in the long term care world now for two and a half years, my mum went into Long-Term Care because of Alzheimer's in January 2018. Both of them have very high needs. Both of them require a community of care because of their high needs, were not able to care for their them at home. And I naively assumed you go into long term care. That's why you have a whole team of nursing team and PSWs and activities team to make sure that they're getting everything that they need to live with dignity and respect and with a quality of life and there is a real quality to their lives. And I think it's important that people hear and understand that because there is so much stigma towards the frail, elderly and long term care. But, yeah, I mean, I started to see the cracks right away and that grace manner and you'll hear this from everyone. It's families and volunteers. They're the glue that hold it all together. And because that's a community like there's five towers where people live independently. My parents live there for 10 years and they had to move into the long term care. But it means they still have their community. Right. So they have friends who come to visit my 92 year old at comes to visit every year. There's eyes and ears on the ground. And that, you know, makes it work. And the families and the volunteers supplement. But right away, we were noticing when my mom started to become a fall risk, when she started to lose mobility, you know, we had a lot of conversations about why is it, you know, she's getting more supervision. And it became clear that they're underfunded. And then you get recommendations like, well, maybe you should, you know, hire a private caregiver to give supplementary care. And it's like that's your job as a home. That's why we're we're here. We shouldn't have to pay for supplementary care, you know, which we do because we can. And we're very present as a family, but not everyone is able to do that.

MG: Do you think, I mean just in the last few seconds that we have, I mean you hear these stories and people wonder whether their parents are in the right place. There are stories and questions as to, you know, family members taking their parents out of the home that they're in because they're worried about that place. Do you wrestle with that at all?

MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: No, because their needs are so high. And, you know, fortunately, Grace Manor, there there are problems for sure, but they are holding it together. They're officially out of outbreak as of yesterday and they need this level of care. Do I want it to be better? A hundred percent. And that lies with, you know, the politicians. I hear all of the you know, the hand-wringing. We need to make this better. This is not a surprise. We've been hearing these stories for weeks. It's like stop with the hand-wringing and do something, you know, fund this sector properly, pay people proper wages, give them full time jobs and benefits, respect the lives of the elderly and respect the workers. It's not rocket science. They're doing it in B.C. just, you know, shutup and do it. And that's what drives me crazy. You know It is not rocket science.

MG: Michelle, I really appreciate talking to you and I wish the best for you and also your parents. Thanks for joining us.

MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Thank you so much, Matt, for shining a light on this. Bye bye.

MG: Bye bye. Michelle van Beusekom's parents live in the Grace Manor home in Brampton. We reached her this morning in Montreal. This is by no means the first time that the alarm has been raised about conditions in long term care, not just in Ontario, but in other parts of the country as well. Candace Rennick is the secretary treasurer for CUPE Ontario. It's the Canadian Union for Public Employees. It represents long term care nurses, aides, cleaning and administrative staff. And she's also a former long term care worker. She's in Courtice, Ontario. Jane Meadus is a lawyer and institutional advocate with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, based in Toronto. Good morning to both of you.

JANE MEADUS: Good morning Matt.

CANDACE RENNICK: Good morning Matt.

MG: Jane, Michelle was saying that nothing here is a surprise. Is anything in this report surprising to you?

JANE MEADUS: No. Nothing in their support of the report is surprising. This is the type of things that we get across our desk every day. Obviously not in a big report like this, but these kind of issues come across our desk on a daily basis and have done so for the 25 years that I've been working at ACE. So, you know, none of this is surprising for the minister of long term care to see, you know, that they were surprised and, you know, this was a shock to the to the to the premier. I don't see how it could be because that, these are conditions that we've been seeing for years.

MG: What does that tell you? I want to get to Candace in a moment, but what does that tell you? Not only when the minister who's responsible for that file says that they're shocked to the premier. But when family members have been saying this for years, when reports have been saying this for years, if a minister says that she just learnt about this and the premier just learnt about the details of this in the report, what does that tell you?

JANE MEADUS: It tells me that they're not paying attention. Anybody can, you know, look at the public reports and see very similar kinds of complaints in long term care. I think we knew from the beginning that they weren't aware because some of the first things they did were, for example, pull, you know, the requirement for an amen. This is one of the first things they did during COVID. And you look at the report and it says, we don't have enough RNs here. So they really don't seem to understand how troubled and problematic the system was to begin with and it has to be from not paying attention.

MG: Candace Rennick, these observations are really difficult to to go through the soil, bedsheets, reused syringes, members, residents choking because they're being fed while they were in a prone position. How do things like this happen?

CANDACE RENNICK: Well, I mean, I think it speaks to a systemic issue where people's lives in Long-Term Care have been completely undervalued and devalued for quite some time. I think resit health care workers do the best they can in conditions that are completely untenable and facilities that are chronically underfunded and understaffed. And in many ways, they've been set up to fail. They don't have the resources needed to meet the basic needs of the residents.

MG: Would we have known about this if the military didn't come in and see what was going on and then speak out through this report?

CANDACE RENNICK: Yeah, we do know about this. Like Jane just said, like Michelle said, we've been ringing the alarm bells on this crisis for more than a decade. Many of the things that I read in the report last night are things that we have been talking about for years and frontline workers have been sharing their experiences. Those have fallen on deaf ears and there's been a complete and total inaction on the part of the government to correct this crisis.

MG: Jane, how has this been exacerbated by COVID? There have been statements put out by those who run these five homes saying that corvids exacerbated the situation.

JANE MEADUS: Well, I think what it did was it's done a number of things. It took people out of the homes who were helping. So family members, private caregivers. So people who were generally just really supporting the care that was in the home and with care that the home didn't have to pay for. I think that it took out the eyes and ears. So I think we weren't seeing what was going on. So families weren't able to complain about these issues and they may have been able to do so. And, of course, just staffing issues. We've known for a long time that there was a huge problem with staffing shortages and long term care. We know that from back. You know, we did that was a big part of the police enquiry into the web of fermenters. And so, you know, as soon as you start having staff get ill and if you look at some of the numbers of how many staff are ill in these homes, you know, it shows, you know, first of all, that, you know, a home, we should be a master of infection control because this is the population get gets infections. They get the influenza every year that they're not properly trained in infection control. And then there's when they get sick, there's no one to replace them. And they've known that for a long time. But when you get such a large number of people, that's why we ended up in this problem.

MG: The issue of eyes on the on the ground is an important one. We did ask to speak with the minister of long term care in the province of Ontario, Merrilee Fullerton. She declined to speak with us this morning. We asked to speak with the premier of Ontario. We didn't hear back. The minister said in her news conference yesterday that long term care homes are inspected yearly, that there are multiple layers of inspection. There are apparently a hundred and seventy five inspectors for six hundred and twenty six nursing homes. What are your concerns around those inspections, Jane?

JANE MEADUS: So, you know, when the minister says that, yes, the homes are inspected annually, she's not being really that truthful because, yes, they have an inspection. It used to be that they were required to have a full home inspection every year. And those catch things like infection control and some of the issues that we're seeing, the kinds of inspections that she's talking about. We only had nine of those last year are complaint inspections. So it means that a resident or a family member has to or somebody has to make a complaint or critical and some inspections where the home has to report something. So report relies on someone else to do something in order for the inspectors to come in. And if you look even at those reports, I mean, you know, they're not really following up. They're not really doing a lot. You know, there's reports that I look at and I just makes my blood boil and I contact the ministry, say, like, what are you doing about this? And they really aren't doing anything and these are things that I'm not involved in. I just happened to read a report.

MG: What do you mean they're not doing anything? That's been the question that has been asked over the course of the last twelve hours or so is what was actually done. If there are reports out, if you know CUPE and people like Candace, but also family members like Michelle are raising those issues, what has the government done, Jane?

JANE MEADUS: Well, you know, when they do these reports, they come out and have a written notice, tell the home not to do it again, tell them to have a plan, but they don't cheque up the plan and then they make it or they make an order. And, you know, the home may or may not comply or they may comply, but then they just do it again. There's no teeth to this legislation. And other than, you know, removing a licence or putting in a new management company and the management companies or the other companies that are having problems, there's no way to fix it. And the only reason we find out about this is the military had followed proper protocol, which is actually to report to the ministry. I don't think we would've heard that it was because they went through a different chain and it ended up in this report that we find out about it and it went to the prime minister. And that's why we found out about it. If these had been reported just to the long term care ministry, I don't think we would know about it.

MG: Speaking of the prime minister, Candace, CUPE has launched this campaign calling for more federal involvement in this issue. What do you want from the federal government?

CANDACE RENNICK: Well, I think we want the long term care homes across the country to be brought under the Canada Health Act, we want them to be made accessible, publicly funded and universal service like hospitals. We want increased transfer payments to the province so that we can put more dollars into long term care. And from the province, we want a guaranteed legislated care standard as a bill before the legislature right now, Bill-13, which would achieve that. And we want them to be bold and courageous and eliminate all for profit making in the industry in the province.

MG: You want no for-profit long term care homes?

CANDACE RENNICK: We want absolutely. We want the elimination of for profit nursing homes. We want them all under public, publicly funded and delivered care.

MG: These are five homes in Ontario. The federal minister of Public Safety Bill Blair, says there's going to be a similar report about what military members saw in Quebec coming out in the days ahead. There were 25 homes that the military's involved in there. Candace, what do you think we'll hear then?

CANDACE RENNICK: I think we'll hear many of the same issues that we saw in Ontario. I think you can see in the different reports and untrue. You could have copied and pasted from one home to the other. I think it shows that these issues are widespread and systemic. I think we're going to hear and see a lot of the things that we saw in Ontario repeated in Quebec.

MG: Just a couple of minutes left, Jane. If people have known about this, if this issue has been evident for years now, is this the moment when things start to change in terms of how society thinks of and treats its elders?

JANE MEADUS: Well, we're certainly hoping so. We know we have the premier saying that he is going to, you know, spare no expense in fixing the homes, you know, but, you know, the problem is that it is a long term fix and it is a complex fix and we need to know exactly how to fix it. So you can't just sort of bulldoze ahead. We certainly know certain things that we can do, such as the redevelopment of the 30000 beds that need to be redeveloped and get rid of those four bed rooms. And there's lots of material out there. But of course, if that doesn't happen overnight.

MG: Because it costs money.

JANE MEADUS: Pardon?

MG: Because it costs money.

JANE MEADUS: It costs money. And, you know, they've been trying to do this since 2009 and it just hasn't happened for a variety of different reasons. Is bad planning not getting the participation of some of the sector. But, you know, we really need that public enquiry because we need to do it right this time. I think we know right away we need more staffing in homes. That's very clear. I think these reports make that very clear as to the kind of staffing we're going to be going to need. But we really need to know how are we going to correct this and we need to do it properly. I'm hope that we've heard this before. We've heard it from the Liberal government. It's going to have a revolution in long term care. And we've really ended up battling to the to the sector. And, you know, not enforcing some of these rules in a way that are meaningful and we really need to change that.

MG: Let's see if now's the time. It's good to speak with you both about this. Thank you very much.

JANE MEADUS: Thank you Matt.

CANDACE RENNICK: Thanks Matt.

MG: Candace Rennick, secretary treasurer for CUPE Ontario, represents long term care nurses, aides, cleaning and administrative staff. Jane Meadus is a lawyer and institutional advocate with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly. Thoughts on this? You can reach us through the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. The CBC News is next. We're back in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Without data, press releases of COVID-19 vaccine findings create 'false impression' of progress: expert

Guests: William Haseltine, Francoise Baylis

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

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MG: Still to come, in Nova Scotia, the grief is still raw. It's been just over a month since the mass shooting there. Canada's worst ever. So what to think of growing calls for a public enquiry into what happened and the performance of the RCMP? We'll hear from the premier, Stephen McNeil, as well as a veteran of public enquiries, Wally Oppal. That's coming up in our next half hour. But first, the all important difference between peer review and press release.

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MG: You know, there could be no better news in this world right now than word of a breakthrough in the search for a COVID vaccine. And so no surprise when the American biotech company Moderna announced just that the company's stock price surged and it got people talking like here on NBC Today show.

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VOICE: This is very encouraging and a company called Moderna, in the sprint for the vaccine, they've taken a little bit of a lead here because in their phase one trial, they found out that for some of the participants, they don't have all the results yet, early results now, but in eight of the participants, they actually ended up zero converting, we call it. So they basically found out that because of the vaccine, they had antibodies. The good part is those antibodies are neutralizing. In other words, they'll take care of coronavirus and prevent it from taking hold, Safe and well tolerated. And they found out that they are getting levels equivalent to people who recover from coronavirus and now we think have some immunity to it.

MG: Now, not everyone found Moderna's announcement so encouraging. William Haseltine was amongst the first to raise concerns about what he was hearing, calling the drug companies claims, in his words, publication by press release. William Haseltine is a former Harvard Medical School professor and founder of the university's Cancer and HIV/AIDS research departments. William Haseltine, good morning.

WILLIAM HASELTINE: Good morning.

MG: What do you mean by that phrase publishing by press release?

WILLIAM HASELTINE: Publishing by press release is having either a corporation and research institute make an announcement about results for the rest of scientific community. Can judge the validity of those claims by reading a detailed account of what was done is very much the same as this. The CFO of a publicly traded company. Where they'd say something like I've had great results this year, but I'm not going to show you my books. It's not the norm. It's abnormal and it can create a false impression in the public's mind about progress that may or may not exist. It's a bad practice.

MG: So it take a look at the situation with Moderna in particular. We heard a little bit of the reporting there on what was going on. What concerns you the most about how that company rolled out its research for a vaccine for COVID-19?

WILLIAM HASELTINE: I would say there are three or four glaring errors in the reporter's description, prompting the importance of neutralizing antibody and the level of initialising antibodies. The fact is, people who recover from COVID, they have no neutralising antibody. Secondly, we don't know what neutralizing antibodies mean. Does it really mean because it stops the virus in a test tube? It will stop the virus in a human being? We don't know that. And there are a few other problems with not only the Moderna description, but the description of the description. And that's what I'm talking about. You don't have the facts about what actually happened. What is somebody who's not an expert in the field to do? And in fact, what is, in fact, an expert in the field of. Let me say, this is not an issue on Moderna alone. Moderna is an egregious example of this, but there are many more now that are following. And I think that's another problem, because now that they did it, everybody feels obliged to rush to make a press release before you can see the data. That's wrong. It's against scientific norms and it is dangerous to give a false impression of progress when it may not be good. For example, I'll give you another example. There was a part of a British study of another vaccine in which one of the scientists talked about some favourable experiments in non-human primates and it turned out when you actually saw the data, every one of those animals was infected. They gave partial protection, but not complete protection. Their lungs might be protected, but not their nasal passages. And this is a virus transmitted through sneezing. The nasal passage infection is very important. So those are the kind of issues that arise where you make a press release and you don't substantiate it with data that is visible.

MG: What's the motivating factor for these companies to make these announcements so early in the research? The Moderna research was done and the results that, such as they were, were on eight participants. What's the benefit in in getting that out there that quickly?

WILLIAM HASELTINE: I think it serves no public benefit. I'm not a mind reader. I can't tell you what was in their mind, but from my point of view, it does not serve the public interest.

MG: Is it about stock prices? I mean, we saw in the Moderna stock.

WILLIAM HASELTINE: As I said, I can't. I don't want to speculate and I don't think we should. That's up, you know, it's for others to speculate. I can just tell you it's not a good practice because you can't tell the data.

MG: I know that you want to speculate, but money has to be, these are companies that generate revenue. What role would money play in something like that?

WILLIAM HASELTINE: If you look at the press and what happened after that, what you will see is the stock price rose and I think I read that in executives, top executives of that company, including possibly board members, sold 50 million dollars worth of stock for their personal benefit. Whether that's a motive, I can't say. Maybe they were going to do that anyway, But that is actually, I think, what happened. And then that afternoon, they announce that they were going to raise a 1.7 billion dollars to further the research on these vaccines. So it is possible to assign various motives. But that's not my job. My job is to say from a scientific and technical perspective, it's not ideal. You can't judge what the results were. We have a special responsibility right now, the medical and scientific community and those developing vaccines to be transparent, transparent on everything we do because it's so important to the public. You know, we're making big decisions about our personal lives, our economic life, based on the hope that there'll be a vaccine. Well, if I look at all the data, the question in my mind isn't when there'll be a vaccine, it's if there'll be a vaccine.

MG: Tell me more about that and why you would lead, why that would lead you to that if rather than the when.

WILLIAM HASELTINE: Because the vaccines that I have seen and the actual data when published show that many of the vaccines that are being tried, even though they raise what are called neutralising antibodies in non-human primates. Don't protect the animals from actual infection, and that has been the case for corona viruses for a long time, going back 15 years, starting with Saar's and then BRZ, you're able to get neutralising antibodies. But they weren't protective of the animals when actually challenged. Maybe they protect some of the consequences from the disease, but maybe not all. That's the first question. Second question is somebody sort of like the elephant in the room? Who is the most vulnerable to this infection? Everybody knows. That's people over 60, 70, 80, even 90. They're the ones who are dying. They're the ones who need the vaccine. Well, any vaccinology will tell you it's a very difficult problem to develop a vaccine to protects an older person. As you age, your ability to respond positively to vaccines diminishes. So a vaccine is where you perfectly well in younger people. They also work in older people. The general observation is they don't. Well, that's the catch 22. If we make a vaccine that's partially effective and that's still spread of actually the virus around cause it's in their nose. Are we going to be infecting even more old people? Will this be a net positive or a net negative? And that's aside from the final question. When you're developing a vaccine, you have to realize it's for healthy people. It's very different from saying I'm going to take a flyer on this drug because this person is going to die. He's sick. No vaccines are for people who are entirely healthy. And when you're developing a vaccine for people who are healthy, maybe hundreds of millions, even billions of them, you've got to be really careful, there's no nasty side effect. And we know vaccines can have adverse side effects. It's a very well-established you've got to be very careful. They can be minimised. But we don't know what they're going to be. Then let me take a very specific case. These adeno virus vectors that a couple of groups are using that have made announcement. Well, adenoviruses, a common cold virus. And if you've already had one of those. The vaccine doesn't work and you very well. And in most populations, at least half the people have experienced infections with those adenoviruses and don't respond very well to the vaccine. So even if all the other questions are answered, half the people, young people may not respond and the older people certainly won't respond. So what do you have? That's a lot of ifs for people who are counting on when.

MG: You did an interview in the last couple of days with Anderson Cooper, which got a lot of attention in part because what you talked about when it came to a vaccine was different than what a lot of people were thinking. You said we don't need a vaccine to stop this virus,w We need behaviour to stop the virus. What did you mean by that?

WILLIAM HASELTINE: Well, if you look at where the virus has been effectively controlled, a number of Asian cities, Australia and New Zealand, they stopped the virus in its tracks even once it had been fairly rolling along, especially in cities like Wuhan. They stopped it in its tracks only by behaviour, without a drug and without a vaccine. It's within human capacity to do that. What do you do? Very straightforward. Insist on strict adherence to self isolation and then anybody who shows symptoms contact tracing.You know, everybody exposed and have mandatory controlled isolation in single rooms for all of those exposed for 14 days. That's the recipe. And if you do that, you can completely clear a city and a country without a drug and without a vaccine. Why are we waiting for somebody that may not materialise? We hope it will, but we're not certain by any means. No vaccinologist will tell you I'm certain we're going to be successful. Are we waiting for something in the future and holding onto that and meanwhile taking the risk that the vaccine, the virus will continue to spread? All you have to do is look at what's happening in America today. If you look at about five or six states, the infection rate has increased by three to four fold in the last over that what it was two months ago. So we're not out of the woods. And in North Carolina, where they're thinking about holding the Republican National Convention, it's increased eightfold in the last two months.

MG: Do you think that the reliance on the vaccine and the thoughts that that this will be ended by a vaccine have led people, you know, to what people call a period of magical thinking that we're not really focusing on on what is realistic, but we have this belief, perhaps out of desperation or frustration or fatigue, that it's the vaccine that will save us.

WILLIAM HASELTINE: Hope is a wonderful thing and a great evil. It can motivate us to do wonderful things and it can create false expectations which lead to disaster. And in this case, where we have the effective tools at hand. And we're pinning our future and our children's future and our economic future on a hope that might materialize. I believe there is a deeply harmful aspect to that hope in this case. I'm not saying we won't have a vaccine. We might, but we don't know that. What we do know is how to contain this infection through human behaviour. And it's a sad thing for me to witness that not all countries are doing that.

MG: Just finally, you have said and this goes back to the processes that are unfolding, that faith in medicine and science is based on trust. The rush to share scientific progress in combating COVID-19, is seeing that trust undermined. How concerned are you that what we started out and talking about the idea of publication by press release is undermining and will have long term effects and undermining faith and science?

WILLIAM HASELTINE: It's a real worry, but let me give you an even deeper worry. We have a programme in the U.S. which is called Vaccine at Warp Speed. There's a word in that sentence, warp, which means to distort. That's what warp really means. Everybody knows what a warp is, it's distorted. I worry that we're going to distort our regulatory process and allow things that are partially effective, perhaps unsafe, to be approved. We've already seen what's called emergency use approval for drugs written by the U.S. FDA, which are quite dodgy. Hydroxylchloroquine, for example. We know that it can be more harmful than useful. There are many studies that show that now. Yet it still has FDA emergency use approval. That's warping of the regulatory process. And is that going to continue for economic or political expediency? That's dangerous. That is deeply dangerous to every human being on the planet. We count on the regulatory agencies to protect us. It's one of the things the government is supposed to do to protect us, not to lead us down to greater danger and that more than corporate interest, is my fear.

MG: William Haseltine is great to speak with you. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

WILLIAM HASELTINE: You're welcome. Thank you.

MG: William Haseltine is a former professor at Harvard Medical School and at School of Public Health. We did ask Moderna to respond to criticism over their vaccine trial announcement, but we have not heard back. For a Canadian perspective on publishing research in this race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, I'm joined by Francoise Baylis. She is a university research professor at Dalhousie University and a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Committee on Developing Global Standards for Governance and Oversight of Human Genome Editing. She's in Halifax. Good morning.

FRANCOISE BAYLIS: Good morning.

MG: What did you make of what William Haseltine had to say, particularly around the issue of of a walk to the process? He's concerned that the velocity of information coming out right now is damaging not only to our trust in medicine, but could be damaging to our health.

FRANCOISE BAYLIS: Well, I think he raised a number of really important points. And one of the things that was said early on is that, you know, we've got this sprint, if you will, for the vaccine. And one of the things that I want to encourage people to think about is whether that's, in fact, the right. And why is it that we think about the sprint rather than say something that a team. So, you know, what about cycling and the peloton, for example. Or what about even a relay race where you have speed, but you don't have to think about it as a competitive endeavour. And I think that's really important here, because I think this commitment to the idea that competition is what leads to innovation has also introduced a number of problems. And I think he hinted at one, which is perhaps the risk that you would start trading off rigour for speed, and that would be a huge mistake. I think we want to have a commitment to speed, but we also want rigour. We want that in our oversight mechanisms. We want that in the quality of the science. That's why we want it to be peer reviewed, not a press release. And so I think it's really important to think about the broader context within which all of this is happening.

MG: In Canada do we have examples or experience with that publishing by press release as compared to what's happening in the United States?

FRANCOISE BAYLIS: Well, I actually think we've been having this for a lot longer than many people realixe. In the mid 2000s, I started noticing that there would be these outrageous claims being made in the media. This is a time and I think a lot of work around genetics. And you would constantly be reading these articles about the genes for this and that. There was a gene for homophobia. There was a gene for bad tempered women. There was a gene for being fat or fat free. There was a gene for depression. And I started looking at these stories and they were, from my point of view, crazy. And when you would criticise them, the researchers. I never made those outrageous claims. I published this great article and I would go back and look at the original article, but I would also look at the press release that came with the article. And honestly, if the media was guilty of anything, it was something close to plagiarism because they were starting to publish the content of the press release. In some sense, and I think what's happened over time is we've moved from that sort of a combined effort, a peer reviewed article and press release to where we are today, where we're seeing the press release. And there's no peer reviewed article to support any of the claims, and that is very dangerous.

MG: Do you expect more of that? I mean William was talking about some of the motivations that might be at play. One of them is, you know, humanity wants a vaccine for COVID-19. But there's a lot of money that's at play here as well. Will we see more of this as the race for a vaccine heats up?

FRANCOISE BAYLIS: I think it's quite possible that we will. And I am actually prepared to speculate where Dr. Haseltine wasn't as to why it is that, you know, there's people overselling the potential benefits and doing it in this way. And I would like to say, you know, not necessarily specific to this one press release, but just generally right now in the context of what's happening, that there's at the end of the day, almost no downside to doing this. So if you believe that all publicity is good publicity. Look at all the publicity Moderna has gotten. It issued a press release on Monday of last week about its messenger RNA vaccine. And everybody is talking about Moderna, a week at the end of that very same week on Friday, Cancyno issued a Lancet article and nobody's talking about them except for the fact that that's actually the vaccine that's going to be tested here in Halifax this summer, starting with a phase one and a phase two trial. And meanwhile, they've got a whole science article. They've got modest conclusions. They say things like our findings warrant further investigation and nobody's talking about that company. So the behaviour is rewarded. It's rewarded either through something like, you know, increased stock, easier access to grants, funding postdocs who are happy to come. Media coverage in all of this creates this great aura of success. And then there's other kinds of additional spill-over benefits. So, you know, why not do it? Ultimately, you can get away with it and use it if it doesn't work. You know, people are already conditioned to know this is a risky endeavour. People might fail. But kudos to you for trying.

MG: I was going to say, you can get away with it, but is there no standard that would prevent pharmaceutical companies or universities from releasing early research research that isn't really based on much of anything, but certainly gets a headline?

FRANCOISE BAYLIS: Well, what would be those standards? Right now, they're relatively informal. And what I mean by that is that, you know, you might be shunned by your academic peers. You've done something that they don't think meets the standards of the profession. If you were trying to publish in a peer reviewed context, well, then, you know, the fact that you haven't registered this, perhaps with an unofficial registry might count against you in terms of your ability to publish, etc.. But there's so many ways in which these days you can get your message out. And if all you want is to get your message out, because what you're trying to do is establish yourself as a front runner in the sprint. Well, I don't think there's a lot for you to lose right now. And I think what this also highlights is perhaps the divide between what happens in the context of industry versus what might happen in a more academic setting.

MG: William said that this rush is undermining trust in faith, in medicine and in science. Do you worry about that?

FRANCOISE BAYLIS: I think for some people, it's definitely undermining trust. I think that is where you will see a number of academic scientists being extremely concerned that they'll bear the consequences. You won't trust me when I come forward and tell you you know the truth. And I've got data that I've put out in the public domain that has been peer reviewed, etc. But I think beyond the issue of just undermining trust, I think there's also the issue of exploiting existing trust. And I think that that's equally challenging and at some level, deeply unethical.

MG: He's also pretty cautious about, you know, whether we'll get a vaccine. It's not to him when, but it's if. Do you share that assessment?

FRANCOISE BAYLIS: Well, I certainly had been very surprised about some of the early predictions that we might have a vaccine in 12 months, 18 months, etc. That those seem unrealistic dates to me. I'm not a scientist, I'm a philosopher, but based on what I know and have seen, there are many things for which we've never developed a vaccine. And most vaccines take three, four, five, 10 times that, depending on what the challenge is. I do think it's reasonable to try. I do think that, yes, governments should be invested in all of the public health measures that we do know work. So it's important to invest in the physical distancing and education around that, to hand hygiene, the coughing, hygiene, the contact tracing, etc. all of that we need governments to be deeply invested in. But I do want them to also be invested in vaccine research. And I do want them to also be invested in treatments, even if it's just for some of the symptoms of this illness. I think we want to have a multifaceted response. But I think what you don't want is to be trading on things like, you know, rigour. I certainly agree with Dr. Haseltine on that point. You absolutely want to know that your regulatory mechanisms that are in place are being respected and we are starting to see some pushing against that. Some people advocating we should do the research without having to go through animal models because that's just wasting animals, we should just speed onto the human trials. There have been proposals to move directly to a challenged trial instead of a traditional Phase three trial.

MG: And that's where you introduce the vaccine or the diseases somebody and they have to kind of figure out whether the vaccine works or not.

FRANCOISE BAYLIS: Exactly. It is quite controversial.

MG: Francoise Baylis, it's good to speak with you about this. This is something that so many people are trying to wrap their heads around. Thank you very much.

FRANCOISE BAYLIS: Well, thank you for having me on the show.

MG: Françoise Baylis is a university research professor at Dalhousie University. Her most recent book is Altered Inheritance: CRISPR and the Ethics of Human Genome Editing. Coming up in 90 seconds, how soon is too soon for a public inquiry? This is an urgent question right now in Nova Scotia. I'll be joined by guests, including the premier of that province, Stephen McNeil. It's coming up after a short break. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

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McNeil rejects 'offensive' idea he's avoiding shooting inquiry for political reasons, urges feds to take lead

Guests: Richard Devlin, Wally Oppal, Stephen McNeil

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. It's been more than a month now since the deadliest mass shooting in Canada's history in and around Portapique, Nova Scotia. And while the shock and grief may still be palpable, there's something new emerging in that province, Calls for a public inquiry into the RCMP handling of the tragic events. More than 30 faculty members from Dalhousie University's law school have signed a letter urging Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil to call an independent public inquiry. At this point, neither the federal nor provincial governments have committed to an enquiry, and the premier has said that since the RCMP is a national police first, this should be the responsibility of the federal government. Richard Devlin is a professor of law at Dalhousie University's Schulich School of Law. Also a signatory to that letter. Richard Devlin. Good morning.

RICHARD DEVLIN: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What do you make of the premier saying the federal government should be the ones leading this inquiry?

RICHARD DEVLIN: Well, with respect, we think that the premier has got this message wrong in our opinion. This is a challenge that has surfaced in Nova Scotia. But now the sentiment of the premier seems to be that this is not our primary responsibility. It's the responsibility of the federal government and we think that's a mistake and a mistake in law and it's also a moral mistake.

MG: A mistake in law. Why?

RICHARD DEVLIN: Yes. So my colleague, Professor Leanne Craig, has conducted the constitutional analysis and she has persuasively concluded that the province of juries of Nova Scotia had jurisdiction on this matter. The premier, at times he did indicate otherwise, that this falls in the jurisdiction of the federal government. We think that this is not rather a legal analysis, but rather a potential political calculation on the part of the premier. And that this is ultimately a moral and in fact, legal abdication of the responsibilities of the problem.

MG: I want to get to the moral piece in a moment, but when you say a political calculation, what do you mean by that?

RICHARD DEVLIN: Right. So obviously can't speak for the premier, his office. But it seems to us that if you're going to call it public enquiry, it generates a whole series of concerns for a government. First of all, there's a simple expense of having the enquiry. Secondly, if enquiry comes up with a series of recommendations that need to be addressed. And so that's something that we fear a government may not want to have to deal with.

MG: You say it's also a moral mistake. What do you mean by that?

RICHARD DEVLIN: If a society wants to be strong, it wants be proud of its institutions. It has to actually show leadership on our response to a situation in which 22 people are murdered. And so what we need here is firm leadership from a government that says clearly there's a problem here. Clearly, we as leaders need to move things forward. And clearly, we should show the lead in this surprise, kicking the can down the road to the federal government and trying to narrow it just to a question of what the RCMP know or do? They're avoiding the larger and more challenging structural questions around violence against women and that on a culture of silence in Nova Scotia, more generally.

MG: What is that culture of silence?

RICHARD DEVLIN: Yeah. So and there's there's often when it comes to violence against women and violence more generally, a sort of a sentiment that it's not my business and it's better to say nothing. And I shouldn't address that. So I'll give you a very simple example. I was discussing this with the friend the other day and she recounted the story of several years ago. They were camping beside and there was a group of people and four or five different tents in the middle of the night. The spies, the husbands started beating up on the wife and the next morning ever heard it over night. Next morning, everybody got up and all the friends, all the all the other folks are with these campers just went on as if nothing had happened over the course of the evening. So this is an example of where people know stuff is going on, but they did not call people out on it. They do not address it. They go on as if they're ignoring it. So this is a culture of silence. It's not my business. Better to say nothing. Let's not address these issues.

MG: And do you believe, again, as we're just learning more details about this shooting, about the shooter. Do you believe that that culture of silence was at play in this?

RICHARD DEVLIN: Well, we don't know. That's exactly the reason why we need to have a public inquiry. Clearly someone like myself does not have all the facts. Nobody has all the facts at this moment. This is the very reason why we need a public inquiry. The function of public enquiry is twofold. First of all, it's retrospective. Find out what actually happened. What are some of the. What are some of the uncomfortable truths that may not portray us in the light that we often portray ourselves? And secondly, it's also prospective that is, can we learn from our mistakes? What do we need to do moving forward, not just on a detailed level, but also at a larger social level to try to move forward, to reduce the culture of violence and the culture of silence around these issues in Nova Scotian society.

MG: We do know, though, that two neighbours, a husband and wife, both told the RCMP about the gunman physically assaulting his partner that he had a large cache of weapons. This goes back as far as 2013.

RICHARD DEVLIN: Right.

MG: What do you think the RCMP could have done with that information?

RICHARD DEVLIN: Right. So, again, I mean, this is not for me to determine what the RCMP could have done with that information. I mean, these allegations have been made. And again, this is why we need a public enquiry. These are clearances to be made. There've been other witnesses come forward. So what we do need is a real thorough investigation. An investigation that's independent and investigation that's impartial and an investigation that is transparent. We can only enhance public confidence not only in the administration of justice in Nova Scotia, but in ourselves as a community if we have such an independent, impartial inquiry.

MG: As you say, these these can be uncomfortable truths. Is that part of what the reluctance might be, that that when you shine that sunlight, as you say, on to what might have been unfolded, that that can make people, it's difficult to have that gut check. It's difficult to look inside yourself.

RICHARD DEVLIN: That's right and I mean, this is true of every community in Canada. It's also particularly true of smaller communities in Canada. That we're very close to each other. We're often connected to each other. We have a sense of community and a sense community is a wonderful thing. It can also have this other underside, which is less than attractive. So it is uncomfortable. And this takes me back to our concern about a political calculation that we don't want to necessarily have to take responsibilities for the way we organize our community and the values we aspire as a community.

MG: Just finally, there are people who have been saying that now is not the time to push for this. Now is not the time for a public inquiry. This is an ongoing case. What would you say to them?

RICHARD DEVLIN: So when these events initially transpired in the first 24 hours, some people were immediately calling for a public inquiry. And certainly my view and the view of some of my colleagues is this is not the time to call for a public inquiry because that would distract the RCMP from their investigations. However, the RCMP have not conducted and concluded the first round of their investigations. There's still work ongoing. There's evidence coming out and through media requests to the courts on what's going on. We think this is actually the perfect time to call a public inquiry. We're no longer distracting the RCMP from the very important work, but the problem is that the premier seems to be stalling or resisting making these moves. So we think this is actually exactly the right moment to call a public enquiry. We know that there's a real problem on many levels here and that we should start moving forward. So what we would think is important is that the premier call in call in principle for a public enquiry. And then at a later point, once you know it's happening, we can then determine what are the terms of reference for that enquiry, who might lead that enquiry. But this is exactly the time to send the right message that if we're going to promote the confidence in the administration of justice, then we're going to have an independent, impartial and transparent enquiry.

MG: Richard Devlin, good to speak with you. Thank you.

RICHARD DEVLIN: Thank you very much, Matt.

MG: Bye now.

RICHARD DEVLIN: Bye bye.

MG: Richard Devlin is a professor of law at Dalhousie University's Schulich School of Law. Wally Oppal has been listening in. He's a former British Columbia judge and attorney general with experience in overseeing the type of independent inquiry that we're hearing calls for. He served as commissioner of the enquiry into serial killer Robert Pickton and the police handling of that investigation, as well as cases involving missing women from Vancouver's downtown east side. Wally Oppal, good morning to you.

WALLY OPPAL: Good morning Matt.

MG: What do you make of those calls for Nova Scotia to call for a public inquiry into this mass shooting?

WALLY OPPAL: With all due respect, it might be premature to call for an enquiry at this stage. I think the police should be allowed to conduct their investigations. In due course, you can always come before a commissioner of inquiry and give evidence as to what happened. I can see right now that if you call an inquiry and you subpoena witnesses from the RCMP, their investigation is still ongoing. So they may not be of much help or assistance at this stage. And that's the only difficulty that I would have of calling an inquiry at this stage. Keep in mind that inquiries are essentially investigations or reviews of matters of public interest, controversial matters at times. So if you're going to have witnesses who come before you, we want to make sure that they have valid and salient evidence. You know, we did the inquiry in Pickton in 2010, and by that time, Pickton had gone through the courts. The Supreme Court of Canada had dismissed his appeal and the public was in overwhelming numbers calling for inquiry. That was an ideal time to call for it. So we had many members of the police force, both the RCMP and the Vancouver police and members of the public who came forward and testified. So it became a very useful inquiry and it resulted in a lot of positive change.

MG: Well, Richard Devlin was suggesting that you could signal that you're going to have a public inquiry and then hold one down the road. Is that useful? At the very least for the people in Nova Scotia?

WALLY OPPAL: I don't know what it means signal. With all due respect, I admire his enthusiasm and his public interest in this matter. But the thing is, why don't we just wait to see what the results are going to be in the investigation and see from there whether or not it's worthwhile calling one? I have no doubt probably there will be calls for an inquiry and probably it may well be worth having an inquiry. But people in Canada called for enquiries for sometimes in the least controversial issue. That's not the case here. This is an horrendous tragedy that's taken place and the public does deserve to have answers as to what happened and how could it have been averted.

MG: Having conducted a number of them, what is it that you can learn from a public inquiry that you can't from other forms of attention, from other forms of scrutiny?

WALLY OPPAL: Well, if you have an independent inquiry presided over by independent commissioner or commissioners, then you have people who are underoath come and testify and they'll tell you about what they did. Tell you about the mistakes they made. For instance, in Pickton, we know that many women came before us to Aboriginal women who came before us and told us that when they went to the police and complained about their missing daughters, they were told, well, we don't have time to look for hookers. We don't have you know, we don't have time to look for people who want to go missing and nothing much was done. And then what happened was the women were going missing in the Downtown Eastside and they're being murdered over in Port Coquitlam. So you have two different police forces involved. So you've got a question of regional policing, the sharing of information. So those are some of the matters of the methods of policing, the communications between police officers. All of those matters came to light. We were able to write a report, and I'm pleased to say that the police all cooperated. And I know your previous guest was talking about a culture of silence. But I can say that when matters of this important come to light and there is an inquiry, it's been my experience that there is no shortage of people who want to come forward and testify.

MG: Let me ask you about that culture of silence, because he has said, Richard Devlin and others have said that the inquiry should be into the police response, but also around that culture of silence, around the larger issue of gender based violence and violence against women. What do you think of that?

WALLY OPPAL: Violence against women. That's always an important issue in these matters. In Pickton, it was an important issue here apparently, the starting point of this incident was the apparent assault on demands spouse. And if that's the case and it may well be worthwhile examining the violence against women in these issues are is something that needs to be looked at.

MG: Well, and that's to your point in in Pickton, you looked at that and that's kind of more broader response and you said that society at large bore some responsibility for the deaths of women. Why was it important for you to look at the wider social context in addition to that police response?

WALLY OPPAL: Because in Pickton, the women were marginalized women. There were drug addicted, homeless, poor. I have no doubt that the one reason their stories were not taken seriously is because of their background, their vulnerability. If any of these women had come from the west side of Vancouver, the indifference would not have been there and that's what happened because they were not paid attention to.

MG: These inquiries can often reveal sort of uncomfortable truths and I wonder how society should take those uncomfortable truth. It's difficult to have that look inside, as we were saying with Richard Devlin, but they're important as well.

WALLY OPPAL: We need to come come to grips with this poverty, marginalization of women, marginalization of Aboriginal people. Those are matters that we as Canadians have to look at. If those truths are uncomfortable, so be it. It's our obligation as Canadians to examine those issues and we have to correct those things that are afflicting Canadian society.

MG: In the wake of these shootings, the federal government banned so-called military style assault weapons and said the two types of firearms used by the gunman are now illegal under that law. You're involved currently with Public Safety Minister Bill Blair's Advisory Committee on firearms. Do you think that the gun laws of this country should be part of any inquiry into what took place in Nova Scotia?

WALLY OPPAL: I fully support what the federal government did in the banning of the guns that they banned. And I don't think there's any need at all in Canada to have a AR15s and other assault weapons. They're certainly not useful for killing deer or wildlife or any of the other things that hunters want to use them for. I fully support Bill Blair's initiatives on the gun laws.

MG: And in doing that, should should those gun laws be part of the public inquiry? There've been questions as to whether the laws would have prevented these guns from being used because the guns apparently came or some of them they believe came from from the United States.

WALLY OPPAL: I can't say that's something for the drafters of the terms of reference to decide. Governments need to tell the commissioner or commissioners what questions that they need to go into. That's why we have terms of reference and public input from members of the legislature of. From governments and members of parliament as to what should the commissioner look into, what are these valid questions that we need answers for. Those are the things that attorneys general and MLAs and MPS, whoever responsible for the drafting of terms of reference, ought to look into. It's in the public interest.

MG: Just finally, that question of public interest is fascinating. Richard Devlin talked about a moral responsibility. What is that moral responsibility of governments to try to seek as many answers as possible in the wake of something awful like this.

WALLY OPPAL: I think governments and members of parliament and MLAs are cognisant of moral responsibility. And that's why we elect them. And we have to rely on them to do the right thing. They're there to serve the public and I have confidence in MLAs and MPs who are there doing the public's interest.

MG: You just want the timing to be right. As you say, you can't have something like this before the investigation is done?

WALLY OPPAL: That's my view.

MG: Wally Oppal, it's good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

WALLY OPPAL: OK. Nice to talk to you. Bye.

MG: Bye bye. Wally Oppal is a former British Columbia judge and attorney general. Stephen McNeil is the premier of Nova Scotia. He's been listening in and he joins me now. Premier, good morning to you.

STEPHEN MCNEIL: Good morning, Matt. How are you?

MG: I'm well, thanks. I appreciate your time this morning. More than 30 faculty members from Dalhousie University's law school have signed this letter urging you to call an independent public inquiry into the way the RCMP handled this shooting rampage that killed 22 people. Will you do that?

STEPHEN MCNEIL: The attorney general in our province have been working with BIll Blair to look at what is the appropriate mechanism to review what happened. We, like all Nova Scotians in government, have questions and looking for answers for. But we believe that the RCMP, which is a federal agency, you alluded to gun issues, potential coming across the border, all of which fall under the federal government's ability to change and impact gun laws themselves, fall under the federal government's purview to change. We, it's why believe they should lead it. We've never said we wouldn't participate, nor have we ever said that we don't have questions. We want to look but frankly, at the issue of domestic violence and violence involved in this particular case. We want to know how is it that someone could dress up as a police officer, travel across our province, kill 22 people in the span of less than a day and go undetected for such a long period of time? Those are the kinds of things that we want to continue, but as your previous guest said, there is an ongoing investigation. Let's let that go forward. But I do believe the federal government should be sending a signal to Canadians that there will be some form of an investigation into what took place on that horrific day and that horrific event that took place in our province.

MG: Richard Devlin, then law professor from Dalhousie, says that not calling an inquiry on your behalf may be a political calculation. What's your response to that?

STEPHEN MCNEIL: Well, it's very unfortunate that someone who is teaching law and is trained legally would make such an accusation with no fact.

MG: He said that there would be concerns around the expense, but also that recommendations would come out of this that would have to be implemented or at the very least addressed.

STEPHEN MCNEIL: Again, it's unfortunate that he would make such a statement. That's exactly why we're asking the federal government to lead this investigation. They will, some of these recommendations pertain to the RCMP, which is a federal force gun laws. Potentially how did they get across the border? We've called an inquiry in our province under our government around the haul for colour children, which caused our province to look at systemic racism, an institutional systemic racism in the way we treated African Nova Scotians. Other recommendations that we bore responsibility for, we as a government settled the lawsuit based because it was the right thing for us as a province to do, and we had full jurisdiction around it. So the recommendations that came from it, we as a government could act upon. What we're trying to ensure is that when we build whatever the inquiry looks like that we can act upon those recommendations and it requires a national government who will have to implement some of those changes. When you think about guns, the gun laws, the bringing guns into our country, the issues around the RCMP, all of those things. How does an RCMP car get decaled and moved across our province? Those things would fall under the national government. The issue around domestic violence has been an important one to our province and to our government. And, you know, there's no question that is an issue that has been on the forefront of our government.

MG: Do you believe there's a culture of silence when it comes to domestic violence?

STEPHEN MCNEIL: I believe there are too many in this province, including men, who don't stand up, who haven't said it enough. There has been every opportunity that I have had. I have said we cannot in this country, and it's not just Nova Scotia, in this country, deny the fact that domestic violence is taking place in communities. Too many women and children are afraid in their own homes. And it's not just a mad gunman who is going across our province who's committing domestic violence. Let's be clear, there are people who are functioning everyday within our communities. Professionals through every socioeconomic circumstances who are having a position where women are living in fear. Through our department, we continue to invest in strategy and how to support that. This would certainly be part of that. How do we make sure?

MG: I was going to say, do you think a public inquiry could help, I guess, address some of the systematic issues that you're talking about there around stopping domestic violence?

STEPHEN MCNEIL: It would certainly be, as the national government brought in this, it would certainly be one of the things we as a government would want looked at and be working to look at. We have never said we don't want an inquiry. That's the irony here. We've never once said we don't. What we said is the national government needs to lead, so when the recommendations that come out can be enforced. And the ones that come that reflect on what's happening in Nova Scotia, then we will implement them. And it's unfortunate, you know, the you know, the suggestion that we would somehow not want to do this for political reasons or we're somehow immoral as a government, is offensive to so many people. This province has gone through in the last period of time dealing with the issue of COVID, what all Canadians are dealing with, this horrific event of 22 deaths, six of our military people crashed off the coast of Greece, one of Nova Scotians killed in the snowbirda and we're dealing with that grief across the province as we, as same time the RCMP are making doing their work in the investigation. And we continue to work with the national government to ensure that that was that they take the leadership in this inquiry with the support of our government, our justice and status of women. All facets of our government will participate and work with them. But I think ultimately what we need to stay focused on here Matt, is the implementation of the recommendations. We need the national governments at the table to implement what we'll require. How is it possible that you can dress up as an RCMP officer and drive across our province for almost 24 hours, hit 22 people.

MG: And if the federal government didn't do that because the prime minister hasn't committed to a federal inquiry, so if at the end of the RCMP investigation, the issues are revealed that need to be addressed and the federal government doesn't move on that, just finally, I guess on this, would the province pursue that of its own accord?

STEPHEN MCNEIL: Well, we can't force the federal government to make the recommendations related to gun violence. We as a province will continue and definitely be dealing with the issue of domestic violence. But you know i, but I want to I want to be clear about something with this issue, which which all Canadians have to come to terms with. Too many women and children are living in fear in their own homes. Think about it is the one sanctuary where all of us should be able to go and feel the comfort and support and love. To many Canadians and women and children are living in fear in their own homes. And it's not just a mad gunman. It's happening every day. Part of the communities across this country. We as a society need to take this on it. And then, quite frankly, men need to step up. Men need to step up on how we educate our sons. Men need to identify when they see the issue of violence and see the joke that's being said. Men need to stand up and say, no longer is it acceptable. That can continue to happen, but within this process, around the enquiry, we need to understand how this individual was able to garner this, the weapons that's being reported. We need the national government to do that. We need to work with them. We want to be part of this. But I don't want another Canadian province or community to go through this. I don't want to I. This is something that we, as Canadians say would never happen in our country. Well guess what? It happened in a rural part of Nova Scotia, but it is a national issue, one that we need to take up and, you know. And for someone to suggest that any, any elected official in this country, would put a political calculation about the lives of 22 people and getting to the bottom of that really is a sad statement on that institution and that individual who made those accusations about any political involvement. What I really want at the end of the day is to have a structure that forces governments at all levels to implement the independent recommendations that would come forward.

MG: Can I just ask, we just have a minute or so left. You talked about COVID and this is a situation that that is concerning people right across this country focused in many ways on long term care homes. And you will have I'm sure seen this report that came out about five long term care homes in the province of Ontario. The Canadian forces revealed these disturbing details of neglect going on. Nova Scotia has been struggling with outbreaks in long-term care homes as well. What guarantees can you give just briefly that that what's happening in those homes in Ontario and perhaps in Quebec isn't happening in homes in Nova Scotia?

STEPHEN MCNEIL: So we have over a hundred long term care homes in our province and Northwood, which is our largest one. It's the largest long term care facility east of Montreal is where the majority of the outbreak and deaths happened in our province. The 59, over 50 of them were in Northwood. There's no question there needs to be a discussion across Canada about the size of the facilities, the double rooms, how were those looked at? We're working with that.

MG: Do you want the federal government to take a lead on that?

STEPHEN MCNEIL: We're doing that as provincially. We'll certainly welcome the federal government's support when it comes to how do we deal with that. But we as a province are beginning that process. We have there's through successive governments, I don't want to say just our governments, in all three political parties in Nova Scotia, long term care, the way it's being delivered has changed. No longer are those large facilities or shared rooms. We've seen many run by the private sector as well. There's quads and independent rooms, single washrooms in those facilities. Smaller kitchens. But I will tell you this, you know, we're certainly going to be looking at how do we deliver long term care and that mechanism and we have some models at work and we'll learn from what's taken place here. But I will tell you this and I want to put this in, I want to thank.

MG: Just briefly, we're just about out of time.

STEPHEN MCNEIL: And all of the families who lost loved ones at Northwood talked about the professional care that they received from people who work at Northwood.

MG: We'll have to leave it there. This is such a big issue. I appreciate your time this morning.

STEPHEN MCNEIL: All the best.

MG: Stephen McNeil, the premier of Nova Scotia. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

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May 27, 2020 episode transcript

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