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The Current Transcript for June 25, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

Many of you have worried that Canada has lost its compassionate and constructive voice in the world. Well, I have a simple message for you; we're back.

MATT GALLOWAY: With two Canadians held in China, Canada caught in a squeeze between that country and the United States and losing out on a coveted seat at the UN. What exactly is Canada back to do in 30 minutes? What is this country's foreign policy in 2020 and what should it be? A national affairs panel, including two former Canadian ambassadors will discuss. Also this morning.

SOUNDCLIP

Oh. It's nice to see some people change their mind. Get it in avail. Said, yeah, maybe we was wrong. Well, don't apologise. Give Colin Kaepernick a job back.

MG: Do you miss sports? The crack of the bat. The swish of the nets. Many people do in sports leagues are trying to figure out how to comeback in the midst of a pandemic and a reckoning on anti black racism in an hour: what is the place, if any, of sports in the world we're in now? We start, though, with a call in the midst of a crisis and hard questions about the role police play in moments of mental distress. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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Mental health and police wellness checks

Guests: Anna Mehler Paperny, Dr. Kwame McKenzie, Jennifer Lavoie

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MG: Who would you call right now if someone you loved was in the midst of a mental health emergency for Ejaz Choudry's family the answer was a non-emergency line. They wanted help to get him to take his medication. But eventually, uniformed police officers showed up to the 62 year old's apartment.

SOUNDCLIP

How would you cheque on someone's well-being? Would you bust down their back door and put seven shots in them? That's not checking on someone's well-being. Checking on someone's well-being is being there to make them comfortable.

That was Hassan Choudhary, the nephew of Ejaz Choudry, speaking with us on Tuesday. His uncle's death is one of many in recent weeks that have reignited debate about how to care for people in crisis. Anna Mehler Paperny is the author of Hello, I Want to Die. Please Fix Me. It's a memoir about her life with depression. Anna. Good morning.

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY: Good morning.

MG: You tweeted on Monday that you were still reeling over the shooting death of Ejaz Choudry. How are you feeling today?

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY: Still reeling absolutely. It quite a shocking death. I can imagine what it's like for his family, for those who love him, who are still trying to come to terms with what happened.

MG: He died in the midst of what's known as a wellness cheque. You have been on the receiving end of these sorts of wellness checks. Why did police come to your door?

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY: In my case, it was because I was suicidal and the people who are closest to me were frightened for my well-being. And they called 911.That was what they thought was the best way to get someone to come and check up on me. And it was scary being on the receiving end of that wellness cheque.

MG: Tell me what that was like. Were you by yourself to do if anyone else in the home with you?

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY: I was on my own. I was frightened to have these people come to my daughters, strangers in police uniform. I was at the time, I wanted to be by myself. I wanted to commit suicide. I was in a very serious mental and emotional state. And it was very frightening having these strangers come to my door to effectively tell me what to do.

MG: What happens? I got a rap on the door and then you open it up and you have to let them in. Or how does that work?

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY: Yes, that there's a knock on the door and there are these people that you've never met before coming in, telling you what to do, telling you to effectively behave yourself. It's very frightening. And I was lucky in the end how it turned out. It shouldn't have to be luck that keeps you safe in that kind of situation.

MG: How did it turn out? What happened after they arrived?

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY: They arrived. They told me to actually behave myself. They took me to hospital. And I was waiting in an emergency room for someone to assess me, for someone to look after me. It was very frightening.

MG: You say that you were lucky that it turned out that way. What do you mean by that?

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY: I mean, I was lucky that I didn't turn out hurt, were dead, that somebody put a gun on me. That should never be like that that happened.

MG: In that moment of crisis, who would you have preferred to see at the door?

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY: I think I would have preferred to see somebody who was equipped to deal with somebody who was in mental crisis. Somebody like a doctor or an emergency worker. Somebody who had a better idea of how to deal with somebody who is in a state of mental crisis.

MG: It must be incredibly difficult for a family member or a friend to call police in a moment like that. Do you understand why that call would have been made?

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY: Absolutely. I definitely understand that. I understand that they would have been frightened. I understand they would have been scared for my well-being. They would have wanted somebody to come in and help me in an urgent way. I can definitely understand that. I understand the sense of urgency. But what it seems is that all you see from what's happened in the past few days is that police aren't the best people to have come to your door in a moment like this.

MG: You've done and the book talks about this. There's a lot of research that you've done as a journalist and as somebody with lived experience into this. What would be the better way if police aren't the right people to show up at a moment like that? Who would be better?

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY: You need somebody who has training, who has skills in de-escalation. I think that's the most urgently needed ability in that kind of situation. And you need somebody who can de-escalate the situation and talk you down, who can make the situation okay and make you okay in that kind of. And that in that kind of situation. And what it seems what you've seen for the past few days is that the police are not. Are not skilled enough in de-escalation to be the ones to come to your door. We need somebody else.

MG: You're very transparent and you're writing and posting that you do on social media about the treatment that you're in and where you are at in this journey. If I can put it that way, do you worry about another knock at the door from police?

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY: A little bit, a little bit, I worry that the people who I love most would be worried about my well-being would make that home. I've actually had a discussion with some of the people I love most of what they would do with that kind of situation. I'd given them a number of my doctor they could call instead of 911. In that kind of situation. But I think that the there needs to be somebody else who can make that knock at the door, who can be there in that degree of urgency. I think that we need to have those other people there who can make that call when you need to most take care of yourself.

MG: Anna, I really appreciate you talking to us this morning.

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY: Thank you so much for having me.

MG: Anna Mehler Paperny is the author of the memoir Hello, I Want to Die. Please Fix Me. We reached her in Toronto. After several high profile deaths involving wellness cheques in recent weeks, many people are questioning whether police should be first responders to these calls. And that includes Canada's largest mental health hospital, a centre for addiction and mental health in Toronto. Dr. Kwame McKenzie is a psychiatrist at CAMH and the CEO of the Wellesley Institute. It's a think tank aimed at improving health equity in the greater Toronto area. Jennifer Lavoie is an associate professor of criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University, who's studying ways to improve how police respond to mental health calls. And they both join us now. Good morning.

DR. KWAME MCKENZIE: Good morning.

MG: Dr. McKenzie. What do you make of what Anna just said? In some ways she's concerned and worried about police coming back to her door and about family calling police if they believe that she is in a moments of crisis. What do you what do you make of that?

DR. KWAME MCKENZIE: Well, I would support most of what she says, Matt. I've been in Canada for 13 years before that worked in England from 2000 to 2004. But I worked in a community mental health services, part of the National Health Service, and we did almost exactly what she said. We were the first responders. We were the people who family and friends called if people were in crisis. And we went to people's homes and we went to people to de-escalate and either treat them at home or if they needed to come into hospital, get them into a hospital. And I found that it was a better way forward than what I've seen in Canada so far.

MG: And I want to talk more about that in a moment. Jen Lavoie, from you, do you understand the concern that Anna has that that's, you know, one of those wellness checks could happen again and she might not be, in her words, as lucky as she was before?

JENNIFER LAVOIE: Well, I can absolutely understand what she's saying and family members have described the fear, you know, calling the police and identifying that there's really no one else to call. The police are a 24 hour, seven day a week service. And so they're often the service that are getting calls like that. And families don't know where to turn to. There is fear for sure that something tragic may occur when they call the police. And we hear about it in the media. And I absolutely understand how she's feeling.

MG: Yesterday, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health came out with a statement saying that police should not be first responders when people are in a mental health crisis in the Community. Kwame McKenzie, you've tweeted we need change here. Why do you think police are the wrong way to respond in these situations?

DR. KWAME MCKENZIE: Well, I think we've got a health problem that it's we should be building a health service that isn't nine to five. It is 24/7, seven days a week. And we see people who need health problems with a health response. At the moment we haven't got that. And I completely understand why the police are called on to do this. But the question is whether that's what we want in the long term and whether we want a better way. And I think the outpouring from the public has been that they wanted a better way. And there are better ways around the world that people are using, and that's a healthy response for a health emergency.

MG: Just briefly, some of the work that you do is involved in helping create better access to care across the spectrum. How does race intersect with this conversation, Kwame, if you're talking about black, brown and indigenous people in this country?

DR. KWAME MCKENZIE: Well, some of the fear that Anna talked about is seen certainly in Toronto, in the Caribbean community. So we did a study a few years ago where we're looking at ways to care. And we found that if you had a serious mental health problem and the delay between your first symptoms and getting into services was about twice as long before the Caribbean origin community. And that was mainly because people didn't come forward for care. And when we started speaking to people, it's because they feared the care. They thought this care wasn't culturally safe. They thought that they may get a knock on the door from a police officer. They thought they may be in into a psychiatric hospital for a long period of time and given treatment that they didn't want. And so people were fearful of of services and so they wouldn't come forward. And they're fearful of the police because you're 20 times more likely to be shot by the police if you're black in Toronto than if you're white.

MG: And so given that, Jen Lavoie, what do you make of the idea of having police step back from mental health causes? Damage has suggested.

JENNIFER LAVOIE: I agree with it. In part, certainly for many mental health calls, it makes sense to be able to divert those calls to two units, mental health units that specialise in in providing that kind of care. But this isn't always just a health problem. It's a health and safety problem. And to that extent, when we're dealing with a person who is a mental health crisis and has a pair of scissors or has a knife. It would seem to me that a hybrid approach would be more prudent. I don't know that it would be enough to send in simply a mental health professional to manage a person who is in heightened crisis, who has a weapon. It makes sense to me to send in a team of people that have training and tactics who are able to coordinate, to be able to help safely contain that person. For example, if they're on a bridge to close down a street. But that team has to have de-escalation training. And at the moment, training is very far from de-escalation amongst police officers and they receive almost no mental health training. I would agree that we don't really have a service at the moment that can deal with health and safety problems.

MG: It's something, as I was about to say, that the commissioner of the RCMP herself has raised. Listen to Brenda Lucki. She's the RCMP commissioner.

SOUNDCLIP

Having policed in the north myself in many communities, there is no addictions counselling. There is no mental health crisis centres. So in those times of crisis, we are the first response. At three o'clock in the morning, when somebody is wielding a knife and they're suffering from a mental health crisis, that is not the time to bring in mental health practitioners. It's time for the RCMP to go in, get that person calm, get them to a place of safety and get them the help they need.

MG: Dr. Kwame Mackenzie, does she have a point that if somebody has a knife, this isn't the time to bring in mental health practitioners?

DR. KWAME MCKENZIE: Well, I think part of the problem is if you don't have a coherent mental health crisis response, then people come forward with their crises in more acute. You know, that the crisis is worse. If you have a good mental health service, you get there a long time before the person is holding their life and sitting on a bridge. And that's what you get out of having a proper community mental health response. You get that earlier in the course of people's breakdown. And so you get fewer of these situations where, you know, somebody is unknown on a bridge with a knife or whatever. And that's why you need a health response. And if you have a police response, you end up with these many more of these sorts of incidents. And, you know, one of the problems we have is we also is everybody also has this stigma around mental health. And, you know, it's dangerous in these crises are dangerous. Well, okay, let's go upstream. Let's make sure we have fewer of these situations and let's see if we can improve things. And I think the CAMH position is let's start the conversation about what we need to have a great service and keep people safe. And I think a lot of people are jumping to conclusions without seeing the international evidence and without having the conversation with community.

MG: How did that work in the UK? Just briefly explain what you were able to do with this group Antenna?

DR. KWAME MCKENZIE: Well, with Antenna people, everybody who is part of the service, you know, they got our number. We saw them weekly. We saw them in their homes. And [unintelligible] you know, we if they were in a crisis, they had a number. They could call 24/7. And we went out to see them. It didn't matter when it was. I think probably I remember one time in four years where we thought it was so dangerous. We want to tap the police. And we didn't have the police in the house. We had the police in the background. Apart from that, the de-escalation was partly, as Anna said, these people were made to we're seeing people who knew them or people from the community who they knew had their best interests in heart. And we managed to get people treated without any of our staff being hurt or any of our clients being hurt. And in the NHS at that time, it was mainly a health response rather than a police response. And I think we should be thinking about whether we can get into that situation.

MG: Jen Lavoie, you've been studying ways to improve training. You raise the issue of de-escalation. What could what could help in these situations?

JENNIFER LAVOIE: So I think what would help for sure is offering de-escalation training to police officers and I agree with Dr. McKenzie, if we have more community support services and treatments for people, that early intervention certainly should reduce the number of crises that occur. The crises will still occur and they can occur in ways that are unexpected. And it could be a police stop. It could be some other kind of situation that police are going to or they absolutely need to have skill sets around de-escalation and how to communicate with the person who is in mental health crisis.

MG: And is that training not being offered now?

JENNIFER LAVOIE: It's not being it's not being offered in any meaningful way. There's no provincial standards on on training, particularly around how police respond to people who are in mental health crisis. And what we really, really need now is much more leadership at the top levels of the Ministry of Police Services that have to come from the top down to prioritise mental health training amongst police officers, because this is honestly a 50 year old problem that we've had in this nation. And it's just not getting better. We're seeing more and more and more of these cases. And to the exclusion of having these provincial standards and absolutely prioritising training, we're just not going to see any changes.

MG: Kwame McKenzie, in the last minute that we have. Go ahead.

DR. KWAME MCKENZIE: So that the Toronto Police Service has been working with people with mental health problems and also the centres for mental health to get training. The problem, one of the problems, is that it doesn't work that well if it's not something you're doing every day. And so it's really difficult for the police to have sort of good skills in de-escalation. And this is part of the problem that we've got at the moment.

MG: Do you see just in the last few seconds that we have, Kwame, do you see a real opportunity to make this change to Jen's point? People have known about this for a while. People have been doing this this thinking for a while, but we haven't seen the meaningful change. Are we going to see it now?

DR. KWAME MCKENZIE: Well, I'm an optimist, and I think that there's a great push at the moment for a different discussion about how we offer community mental health and how we deal with people in crisis. So I'm optimistic that there will be some change this time. I think it will take a long time to get to where we want to get to. But I believe that change is going to come.

MG: Jen, in a couple of seconds. Are you as optimistic as Kwame?

JENNIFER LAVOIE: I am absolutely optimistic. I like to see more partnerships between police and mental health organisation. And I hope reform is coming.

MG: More on this as this develops. In the meantime, it's great to have you both here this morning. Thank you.

JENNIFER LAVOIE: Thank you very much.

MG: Dr. Kwame McKenzie, psychiatrist at CAMH and the CEO of the Wellesley Institute. Jen Lavoie is an associate professor of criminology, Wilfrid Laurier University. Your thoughts on this. Welcome. You can reach us through the website. Go to cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. The news is next. And then our national affairs panellists here. What is Canada's foreign policy in the year 2020? We'll find out. I Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

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National Affairs Panel on Canada’s foreign policy

Guests: Ben Rowswell, Robert Fowler, Lynette Ong

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

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MG: Still to come, what can and will. Professional sports look like after COVID-19? And in the wake of a long neglected conversation about race. We'll discuss in 30 minutes. But first, Canada's foreign policy in a turbulent world.

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SOUNDCLIP

Our return to the U.N. Security Council is a recognition of our work on the world stage over many decades. I will use our presence to advance the cause we've championed. Peace and security. Conflict resolution. Reconciliation. Climate action. [Unintelligible] development and gender equality.

MG: You can imagine the Justin Trudeau dreamed of giving that kind of speech that Ireland's Leo Varadkar gave. Canada's prime minister campaigned hard on getting back to the U.N. Security Council for Canada. But in the end, this country lost to Ireland and Norway. And so where exactly does this leave Canada on the world stage? We're going to look at that with a special edition of our national affairs panel. Robert Fowler was Canada's longest serving ambassador to the United Nations and U.N. special envoy to Niger. And Ben Rowswell is president of the Canadian International Council, an independent non-profit organisation focussed on engaging citizens in Canada's role in the world. He's also a former Canadian ambassador to Venezuela. Good morning to you both.

ROBERT FOWLER: Thank you.

BEN ROWSWELL: Good morning, Matt.

MG: I want to talk about some of the specific challenges that this country faces in this world in a moment. But first, what is one word that you would use to describe Canada's foreign policy at this time? Ben Rowswell.

BEN ROWSWELL: I would say outdated.

MG: Robert Fowler.

ROBERT FOWLER: Two words. Matt, what foreign policy?

MG: Well, those are three. But we'll give you that on unpack those a little bit. And you can start with what foreign policy, Robert? Do we really not have a foreign policy in this country?

ROBERT FOWLER: Well, other than desperately trying to made make happy that mendacious miscreants in the White House, no.

MG: And, Ben, when you say that our foreign policy is outdated, why would you say that?

BEN ROWSWELL: Well. I'd argue that the foundations on which it built the system of rules and institutions that we call the rules based international order may no longer be there. And so there's this edifice that we've been relying on to give us shelter. But the foundations that rest on have totally given way. And that means that all of the assumptions we have for how we're going to keep ourselves safe, how we're going to keep ourselves prosperous, you need to be rethought.

MG: How did we get to the point where we have an outdated foreign policy, Ben?

BEN ROWSWELL: Well, the world has changed quite quickly and quite rapidly, so it's not necessarily a criticism of the government to say our foreign policy is outdated. In 2015, when Justin Trudeau came to power, there were still was a rules based international order, and it made sense to double down on multilateralism and the U.N. and this and to continue to build the norms and institutions because we've benefited so much for it for three generations. But since then, you've got the two most powerful countries in the world, backing away from those roles in those institutions and indicating that they're no longer going to be constrained by them. And that that's gotten us into a new era of power politics that has resulted in some pretty hostile things being done by the two most powerful countries in the world to us. And I think we deal with these sort of one offs and find them surprising and shocking and frustrating. But perhaps don't look at the larger pattern that reveals that the two most powerful countries in the world are no longer paying attention to the rules. That will send a signal to all the other powers that it's every country for itself. And we'll find ourselves back with the underlying anarchy that has always underpinned the international system. Before we came up with this really kind of remarkable series of rules and institutions after the last great period of disorder in the 1940s.

MG: Robert Fowler, is this a matter of the world changing or has candidate dropped the ball? Has the prime minister and his government dropped the ball?

ROBERT FOWLER: Matt and I haven't even had a chance to say hi Ben, but I agree with Ben. The rules have changed and China and the United States simply refuse to abide by the rules. And if they're not abiding by the rules, nobody else feels so constrained. But foreign policy is more than that. Foreign policy is also about interpersonal relations, about relations between nations founded on knowledge and respect and trust. And those are fields that have to be constantly tilled. And frankly, we have failed to do that. We hav failed to maintain those relationships, relying instead on the brave pontifications about right and justice with very, very little follow through. And I think that was what caused our come up. And last week in the General Assembly and the vote for the Security Council. I'm told I'm told that our opponents, two excellent candidates, Norway and Ireland, were circulating that video clips of the prime minister's 21 second pause when asked to comment on Trump's suggestion that he would send the military in to crush protesters. That pause for most every other country in the world was extremely elegant, eloquent. What it said was that if you elect Canada, you're electing a second Trump vote of the Security Council.

MG: That extreme, you're electing a second Trump vote to the Security Council now, because a lot of people took that as the prime minister didn't know what to say. The prime minister needed be very careful with his words. The prime minister was telegraphing something by saying nothing. You're saying that in that 21 seconds, the prime minister aligned himself somehow with the United States and refusing to criticize Trump?

ROBERT FOWLER: The prime minister, Matt, what I'm saying is that the prime minister refused over all those long seconds to offer any criticism at all of the appalling things the prime minister, the president of the United States was saying to and about his own citizens and other countries in the world were saying, my heavens, if you can't even criticize Trump for that, you must be in his pocket. You must be a vassal state.

MG: I want to talk about those two superpowers in China and the United States? But if we're talking about the United Nations, why did it matter that Canada get a seat on the Security Council? I can ask you, Robert Fowler, there are a lot of people who say that the U.N. is a diminished institution. And why do we want to be part of something that perhaps has its glory days in the rear-view mirror?

ROBERT FOWLER: Well, look, first of all, you guys are too young to remember a cartoon called Pogo, but there is a wonderful cartoon moment in Pogo and riffing off Admiral Farragut, he looks up and says, I had seen the enemy and they is us. The U.N. is us. The U.N. hasn't failed. The U.N. didn't fail in Rwanda. The members of the Security Council, principally the Americans, failed to agree to act to stop the genocide in Rwanda. And I could give you many, many examples of the same thing based on what Ben told us. I agree that if the two principal powers, two permanent members of the Security Council and please, let's add Moscow to be a third, if they clearly are saying they don't care about the rules anymore than their rules based system isn't worth very much. And a system built on such rules, like of international order, like the U.N. won't be worth very much either. But it has maintained the peace for an awfully long time. If it is flawed, it is because we have made and make it flawed and in some ways it's designed to be flawed. Thus, the veto of the five permanent members.

MG: Ben Rowswell, what would a seat on the U.N. Security Council have given us?

BEN ROWSWELL: Well, I was really struck by the threat, the breadth of the opposition to candidates from within Canada. I mean, 20 years ago, this would've been such a no brainer. It was such a no brainer.

ROBERT FOWLER: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It wasn't such a no brainer, Ben, that I won that election. And it was tough as hell.

[Laughter]

BEN ROWSWELL: A no brainer that Canadians would support it, though. So that's what I'm referring to, is the opposition within Canada to us pursuing a seat. The discussed, you know, the description of it being a vanity project and who cares what the and all that. That was what surprised me. Yeah, I know. I know. We find it hard that in the 90s and that and pulled that off with quite an impressive result. But the lack of interest that Canadian citizens had in a seat on the Security Council in the body that sets the rules that govern the rules based international system, I think points to the fact that there is no longer performing that function in setting rules. Our campaign was predicated on how we would be using our moral leadership to advance more in order to create new rules and new norms. And I think that's why that less that less sort of an empty taste in the mouths of many Canadians, but--

ROBERT FOWLER: Other countries don't like to be told that we are moral leaders, particularly when they look hard at our record in terms of things like aid and generosity per capita, in terms of security and peacekeeping and willingness to take risk and spend money to defend others. They looked at our record and found that all those all those fine words about moral leadership rang pretty hollow.

MG: You both have mentioned the two superpowers. Let's talk about China and Canada's relationship with China. There are two, there are a number of Canadian citizens, a two in Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor or find themselves in a Chinese prison now facing espionage charges. No one is entirely sure where this is going to go. Robert Fowler, what can or should Canada do to get these two Canadians home?

ROBERT FOWLER: Well, have met. It is five hundred and sixty three days that those two Micheals have been staring at cement walls in a 10 foot square cell. What Michael Kovrig calls his cement desert. I believe the first obligation of a government is to look after defend the health and safety of their citizens. And we have not done that. These [unintelligible], those two fellows in China.

MG: And is that why you signed this letter with 18 other diplomats and foreign former parliamentarians saying that the justice minister should end the extradition case against Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei?

ROBERT FOWLER: Yes, but we don't only say he should do it. We say he can do it. It is entirely within his remit to do it. You know, our government keeps saying that, well, we must allow the legal process to proceed. And of course, it's really an administrative process more than the legal process for extradition. Remember what Edmund Burke said. It's not what a lawyer tells me I must do. But what humanity, reason and justice tell me I must do.

MG: What do you what do you think the message I want to bring, Ben, and listen to this in a moment. What do you think the message would be if Canada were to send Meng Wanzhou back to China and hope that these two men would ultimately be freed? What is the message--

ROBERT FOWLER: Look, let's be clear that we're not going to send her back until we have a deal. A firm, absolute clear. I'm a mess up, a bull deal that our guys come home and she goes there, wherever there might be. But we're not going to. We're not going to send her back in the hope that they'll be nice and send our guys back.

MG: Do you worry that it sends a message that this is appeasement, that you do this now? And so who knows what will happen down the road?

ROBERT FOWLER: Matt, every single country says brave things about not negotiating for hostages or not making significant concessions to terrorists. And every single one of them blinks, every single one of them does it. Just recently, President Trump has made very clear that he will negotiate anytime, anywhere with anybody to bring Americans home. His national security adviser claims that his administration has already brought 38 Americans held captive home. They admit that they're engaging in prisoner exchanges with insurgents and terrorists. O'Brien says when we have opportunities to get someone home, we do that. And Secretary Pompeo has said very clearly just some weeks ago, we will not rest until we bring every American detained in Iran and around the world back home to their loved ones.

MG: Ben Rowswell, is this the way forward to get these two men home?

BEN ROWSWELL: I feel terribly for Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor, because they're suffering on behalf of all of us. And they are hostages to pressure Canada into giving way. If my contention is correct that there was based in national order, has gone by the wayside and that we're dealing in a world of power politics. I think a way to answer questions like this really difficult one is will it add to Canada's power or will it detract? That we need to get used to the language of power politics and to be asking ourselves those questions? I certainly take Robert's point about the absolute imperative of taking care of our own. Wherever they happen to be to be taken hostage as they've been taken hostage. Now, I certainly defer to Bob's experience as a former hostage. But I am worried that a concession on such a blatantly aggressive move by a superpower that has signalled no end of its willingness to engage in greater hostility by itself would be an invitation for others to be taken hostage or for some other retaliatory some other act of hostility by China against us. So I don't think we can actually deal with the detainee issue on its own. I think we need to couple it with a new strategy for us to show that we're willing to stand up to China and possibly by joining forces with other countries that have also been the victim of Chinese bullying. There's any number of countries around the world that are getting stronger by China in this new what they call wolf warrior diplomacy. And I think there is some merit to looking at how there may be some safety in numbers in dealing with a superpower that has essentially laid down the gauntlet to the rest of the world to say it's my way or the highway.

MG: On that point, let me bring in Lynette Ong. We have another voice who is waiting to come in. We had difficulty in connecting with her earlier. But Lynette Ong is an associate professor of political science. She's a China expert at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Lynette, good morning to you.

LYNETTE ONG: Hi, Matt.

MG: If you listen to what's Robert Fowler is saying that Canada has a responsibility to bring its own home and that this happens on a regular basis around the world. What do you make of the idea that Canada should free Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei and that extradition process in the hopes that that would bring Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig back to Canada?

LYNETTE ONG: You know, sort of all my heart goes out to the two Michaels. I think this is a very difficult situation. And from a personal perspective, I totally understand the plea that the Kovrig family has put out to all the Canadians. I totally sympathise with that. But I think there is a difference between doing things for short term expediency reasons and also some long term solution to what I think our greatest policy challenge for a long, long time. I think this is a time - as I've argued in my piece Globe and Mail about a month ago - this is a time for us to rethink our biggest foreign policy challenge out of our entire foreign policy orientation. And listen, you know, I think the pandemic, coupled with the detention of the two Michaels really presents us with an opportunity. So I think the biggest challenge now, right now, presented by the to Michael's case, is how do you deal with big two superpowers. The rise of China as increasingly political power as well as the United States, which actually put us in this position in the first place. And if not, lending as much weight in helping us to get out of this dilemma. You know, I think the way forward is really for Canada to lead and initiate the conversation with our allies. And the way that we should be broaching and framing the conversation is, you know, a lot of us have actually suffered individually about with economic cooperation with China. And dependently has shows that, you know, there's typically a collective action problem in bringing people together. But everyone has actually suffered in the pandemic because of China's authoritarian nature of its system, which means precious times have had been lost. So really, we have every interest to work together, to come up with some sort of solution, some broad based alliance to push against China.

MG: Let's talk about the United States. Robert Fowler, I can hear you in the background there.

ROBERT FOWLER: Yes, sorry. One of the thing, the main points we made in the letter to the prime minister a couple of days ago was that we need to clear our decks of this two Michael's Meng issue in order to do what both Lynette and Ben are saying, and that is step back and seriously rethink our relationship with China.

MG: What about the United States? What about resetting that relationship with the United States?

ROBERT FOWLER: Listen, we're not going to reset any relationship with the United States until November the 4th. But let me just go back to China. The fact of our two Micheal's in captivity and the continuing, endlessly drawn out saga of Meng's extradition is poisoning whatever relationship we have with China and indeed our ability to change that relationship. We've got to clear our decks of this issue. And I have the greatest respect. And I think it's hubris to suggest that whatever we do in this matter is suddenly going to impact upon China's future behaviour. It's not. China will do what China does. And China has made very, very clear repeatedly that China is the only influence on China.

MG: Ben Rowswell, again, the United States in part, I raised the United States, yes, because it's a superpower, but also because in this situation, Canada squeezed between China and the United States. So what should Canada do perhaps before the election or after this election in November when it comes to the relationship with the U.S.?

BEN ROWSWELL: Well, let me just say that when it comes to hostile foreign powers, Canada does have a track record of standing up to hostile superpowers. We don't do it alone. We do it collectively. I mean, we did stand up to the Soviet Union. We did so with the United States. That's not likely to be the way that things will go in this case. But we are a master at banding together with other countries in order to [unintelligible] some degree of rule based behaviour in the international system. In the short term, yes, China's not going to be influenced. But if they face an increasingly organised group of nations willing to stand up to them systematically, that will ultimately shape their behaviour. I think they're still in this stage of flexing their muscles and seeing how much they can get away with. That will continue until they're constrained. And they won't be constrained by one country alone. They won't even be constrained by the United States alone. But they will be constrained by a group of countries that collectively have more power than China. And that's it, the terms that we need to start thinking. It's unfamiliar for us and Canadian foreign policy to think in those terms. If you look back at the long sweep of Canadian international history, that is that Canada has played power politics over the course of its history and by banding together with the right countries on the right issues and on the right basis, we have actually been able to prevail against countries that are every bit as nasty as China is showing now.

MG: It seems as though there's an opportunity to reshape the foreign policy. So just in the last couple of seconds that we have, Lynette, what do you see as that opportunity? Very briefly.

LYNETTE ONG: You know, we definitely need to reorient ourselves away from the United States, not entirely, but to some extent, I mean, two Michaels to them [unintelligible] suggest there's something very wrong with our foreign policy or [unintelligible]. And it is not just bending with the best in the line. It's how we approach the conversation that the conversation is about is every interest for us to for them to work with us. Even the two Michael are Canadians, because this is a problem that is common to everybody, not just Canadians. So the two Michaels' case will become a precedent, whether we like it or not.

MG: Robert Fowler. What do you see just in a couple of seconds, what do you see as the opportunity in this moment to rethink who we are in the world?

ROBERT FOWLER: Well, like Ben, I'm a multilateralists and I think there is still room for effective consultation amongst nations. And I never answered your question, Matt. But in '99 and 2000, we did a hell of a lot on the Security Council. We ended a 27 year long war in Angola and we established new norms for peacekeeping and the protection of civilians in armed conflict into the most vulnerable children and women. And those actions are very much evident today. We can do things, but let's not get too sanctimonious about a broad legal principles. And let's think rather about the health and safety of these two Canadians and bring them home and then reset the whole thing. We set our relations with China. We set, yes, eventually our relations with the United States.

MG: It's good to speak with you all about this more certainly in the days ahead. In the meantime, thank you. Thank you, sir. Ben Rowswell, president of the Canadian International Council, former ambassador to Venezuela. Lynette Ong, China expert at the Munk School of Global Affairs. And Robert Fowler was the longest serving ambassador to the United Nations for Canada. This is the current. We're back in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

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The return of sports during a pandemic, Andre Picard

Guests: Nicholas Mew, Kavitha Davidson, Andre Picard

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

SOUNDCLIP

Smith tackles the Melbournes. Smith, the monster and his [unintelligible] and that's what Melbourne can do. I have [unintelligible] and it back with interest.

MG: Oh, my goodness. Remember that. That's the sound of live sports. And that specifically is the Australian National League rugby, the Melbourne Storm versus the Penrith Panthers with the NBA, the NHL and Major League Baseball finalising their plans for a return to play. Australian rugby is one of the few leagues already up and running. In a few minutes, we'll hear what North American sports are doing in the midst of a pandemic and heightened awareness around the issues of racism. But first, Canadian Nicholas Mew was at that Melbourne match. Sort of. Nicholas, good morning.

NICHOLAS MEW: Hi there.

MG: You did not fly to Australia, but you were in the stands at that match. Can you explain what that means?

NICHOLAS MEW: Well, what happened was I'm a follower of rugby league, which is a different sport to just straight rugby union. But the National Rugby League in Australia, they couldn't have fans in the stands due to, you know, the coronavirus and the various lockdown provisions. And so they came up with the idea to have cardboard fans in the stands. So you had to have this created and some of the proceeds would go to charity and then your fan would be put in the stand of the team you selected. So you'd go to website, you'd upload a photo, and then they would place it there to try to create a little bit more atmosphere. And then, you know, for the televised games, there would be a piped in fan sounds in the hall.

MG: And so what happens? The camera pans across the stands of these cardboard cut-outs. You go, hey, look, there's me.

NICHOLAS MEW: Essentially, yeah. So when I was watching some of the games, it became almost a separate sport, not just watch the rugby league, but also find yourself or potentially find some of your friends as well.

MG: How badly, I mean, having done this, it says something I think about how much you miss sports. How badly do you miss sports?

NICHOLAS MEW: Very, very much so. And it's not just because of the sport itself. It's because of this, the social aspect of it. So, for example, I'm a I'm a supporter of the Toronto Wolfpack who play in the British League and around that sport. I've met an incredible group of people. I've even started playing the sport myself and on men's over 35 team. And so to have that taken away from us, you know, obviously, and voluntarily is jarring. And so without the sport, it takes away the social aspect and it takes away the ability to meet up with people and to enjoy that. And as well as, you know, take part in sport physically yourself.

MG: Is it really the same thing, though, or even close to the same thing when, as you say, there's no fans in the stands? So the cheers and the roars and whatever else is piped in and there are cardboard cut-outs of people like yourself in the stands rather than real fans?

NICHOLAS MEW: Well, it's not the same, obviously, so that the sounds that are piped in are generic. And that's, you know, it doesn't react necessarily to the play. They do their best. So they've got, you know, the ups and downs of the crowd to try to match with the play. It doesn't quite match it. It's a little cleaner. You're not necessarily going to hear any verbal abuse from the crowd and they keep it G rated the whole time. There was a incident in one of the games which was quite funny. One of the National Rugby League players in Australia kick the ball and it just bounced off the pitch and into the stands and bounce hit a couple of these cardboard cut-outs and he actually went over and apologised on TV. That was pretty funny.

MG: How much did you pay to get your cardboard cut it into the stands?

NICHOLAS MEW: They were after taxes and all, and the conversion fees, it was just slightly under 25 bucks Canadian. And so I actually put too.

MG: Money well spent?

NICHOLAS MEW: I think so, yeah. You know, and there were other Toronto Wolfpack fans who were other Canadians there. I made sure I had a little maple leaf so that I was doing it not just to support what was going on, but also as a kind of an outreach, as a way to say to people in Australia and people watching, hey, there's Canadians who love this sport as well. And there's a there's a Canadian fan in the stands there.

MG: There's an opportunity perhaps for the NBA or the NHL or Major League Baseball to open up the stands to cardboard cut-outs.

NICHOLAS MEW: I think it is a far better look than empty seats. So that if you're looking at it, you know, if you're looking at the empty seats or panning into the crowd and there's nothing there, it doesn't look good on any sport to see empty sways. And, you know, no matter what the circumstances are, it just doesn't look good. However, you see that there are other people who are watching this sport. There are other people who are following the sport as well as you are, so that, yes, you can't be there. But you can see they're probably watching someplace else because they went to the effort to put one of those fans in the stands.

MG: Nicholas, it's great to talk to you. Thank you.

NICHOLAS MEW: You're very welcome.

MG: Nicholas Mew isn't. Elementary school teacher and a rugby fan in Barrie, Ontario. There has been a sports shaped hole in many of our hearts for months now. Major League Baseball, the NHL and the NBA have announced plans to return alongside other leagues. Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 is not playing along. Several members of the Toronto Blue Jays have reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 and training camp. Other notable COVID cases include tennis star Novak Djokovic. [Unintelligible] Austin Matthews. Members of the Orlando Pride Women's Soccer Club. The pandemic isn't the only change happening in sports. After decades of neglect, professional athletes seem to be having important conversations around race, not just the athletes, but the entire leagues that they play in. For more on this, I am joined by Kavitha Davidson. She's a sportswriter with the Athletic and the host of their daily podcast, The Lead. And Bruce Arthur, long time sports columnist with the Toronto Star. Good morning to you both.

BRUCE ARTHUR: Hi.

KAVITHA DAVIDSON: Hi, thank you for having me.

MG: What do you make of the idea, Bruce, of cardboard cut-outs in the stands? Could this come to basketball games or baseball games?

BRUCE ARTHUR: Bargaining takes many forms, Matt. And in this case, I would say it's possible. I mean, Korea put, I believe, mannequins in the stands for baseball games. I mean, it all just underscores that you're not going to get fans in the stands, not now, and maybe not for a really long time.

MG: When this pandemic started, it seemed as though people who love sports were looking for any form of distraction. You'd see in marble races being streamed on YouTube, etc. Kavitha, how much do you miss sports?

KAVITHA DAVIDSON: I was definitely one of those people. I miss sports kind of more than that I can replay rationally. Explain. You know, I love sports so much. I've made this my career. I'm sure Bruce has a similar experience. I was watching, like you said, marble racing and, you know, soccer announcers talking about their dogs feeding pattern. And at the same time, I'm afraid for what comes in the next couple of weeks. So it's this double edged sword. I really I'm really torn about it.

MG: What did you miss the most about sports?

KAVITHA DAVIDSON: I think what Nicholas just said really resonated the communal aspect of it. I mean, so much of the difficulty of shut down and quarantine has been, you know, being shut off from your loved ones and your community and attending a baseball game. You know, I always describe what my first game at Yankee Stadium was ever like attending a baseball game as being surrounded by five thousand friends. Right. Fifty five thousand strangers who still love the same thing that you love. And I think that that's you know, that's the thing that I've probably missed the most. And frankly, just having something live that I haven't watched on television already, you know, there's only so much that Netflix and HBO Max, you can go through. So, yes, I mean, I think it's understandable how people are just craving live competition and something new and something to distract themselves from what they're seeing on the news every day.

MG: Bruce, you were pulled off the sports beat at the Toronto Star to cover the pandemic, which perhaps is for the best, given that there's not a lot of sports to write about. Are you looking forward to seeing sports, professional sports, come back?

BRUCE ARTHUR: I am but that there's a very specific caveat, which is that I think the form that sports is going to attempt to come back under this summer is not sports, right? It's not sports as we know it. It's not what is to be talked about, which is that sense of communal togetherness of 20000 people and building a 50000 people and building 70000. We can't do that. And for me, the last sports column I wrote that didn't involve COVID, it was two days after Rudy Kote Go Bear tested positive for the Utah Jazz and sports shut down. I said, you're not going to miss sports pretty soon. It's not going to feel like it matters. And I stand by that. I don't feel like it matters very much right now. I look forward to sports coming back if it is part of a triumph of public health. Which means we've beaten the virus, which means we can get people in the stands, which means we can line up together. Which means that sport's coming back is not some kind of some fetishisation of normal normality where we pretend that things are what even though they're clearly not. Because that's what sports is right now. As much as I'm fascinated to see what would happen in the playoffs under these extremely strange and onerous conditions from professional athletes. But it's not sports as we know them. That's what I meant.

MG: Let's talk about the conditions that these athletes are going to be playing under the NBA, Kavitha, seems to be the furthest along. What's the plan for basketball?

KAVITHA DAVIDSON: Right. So the NBA is playing within this bubble. It's you know, we're calling it the NBA bubble in in Disney World. Players, these initially will not be allowed to have any of their family members in there. They're going to be limited to travel within the three stadia and three team hotels in the Disney bubble. Disney employees will not all be relegated to the bubble. So that is a major marker of concern, especially with the cases in Florida spiking right now. And, you know, there's a lot of questions about how social distancing will be properly enforced and how these players can cope with the added stressors on their bodies and their mental health of being even further quarantined than the rest of us have been in the last few months.

MG: Bruce, good idea for the NBA to end up in Florida, of all places, at this time?

BRUCE ARTHUR: It was a bad idea when it happened. It's a worse idea. Now, Florida is one of the world's leading outbreaks, like on Earth. Disney World was supposed to reopen, I believe, July 11th. Disney employees petitioned the park to not reopen at that time. That's right around the time where NBA personnel will be on site, although it's a separate part of the Disney resort. If a player gets hurt badly enough that they need to go to the hospital, where they're going to go? They're going to go to a local Orlando hospital. Orlando hospitalisations are at an all-time high now and they're going up. If it is in terms of the people coming on and off campus, every bubble is porous. That's what epidemiologists will tell you. It's not just Disney employees who go in and out. It's also executives, its owners and sponsors. There's a lot of people who aren't staying on campus. Every bubble is porous, and that's why you don't put it in a cesspool, and that's what Florida is. In terms of the NBA, the best case scenario is that the bubble doesn't get pierced and that the NBA plays their very strange basketball inside what I suspect will be an abandoned amusement park or one that is a vector or mass transmission of a pandemic virus. The best case scenario, if Florida goes as badly as we think and remember, this probably doesn't just have to hold for a week. In theory, the last days of the NBA playoffs would be October 13th, it has to last that long. How bad does Florida get between now and then? Think about the scenes we saw out of New York. Think about the fact that there were there were- and this gets macabre because this is a pandemic. There were unrefrigerated trucks of bodies in them in the streets of New York City because they couldn't find places to put the bodies. What happens if that's outside the amusement park? And that's the backdrop for the NBA successful return to Boston.

MG: Well, and the other part of the backdrop is what's going on in and around sports more broadly. And that is this larger conversation, an overdue conversation and a really vigorous conversation around race and antiblack racism. Protests around the killing of George Floyd, growing support for Black Lives Matter. Kavitha, what does that mean for sports?

KAVITHA DAVIDSON: You know, it really depends on who you ask. There have been a number of NBA players, for example, who has seriously been considering opting out of playing the rest of the season, both out of safety concerns, but also out of concern for the distraction that playing in whatever a muted postseason is going to look like for their overall message about social justice. A number of WNBA players have already said that they're opting out for that reason, for example, you know, it's it really it depends on your perspective and what you think you can make of your platform. So the thinking you know, we haven't heard from LeBron James specifically on this yet, but, you know, the thinking coming from inside his camp is that playing in this postseason and the Lakers winning a title would give LeBron even more of a platform to use to speak about social justice. And on the other hand, we're seeing things like what we've been seeing in NASCAR, which took incredible strides the last couple of weeks toward addressing what has been a long history of racism by banning the Confederate flag. And then we see the immediate pushback against that from NASCAR fans who are flying the flag outside of races. And, you know, somebody at Talladega here paid for a plane overhead to fly a sign that said define NASCAR on it. I think there's a lot of concern that what we are seeing in this moment is not just national moment in America, but this global moment for social justice, it's partly because of not having the distractions of sports from these larger issues. And I think there's concern that that might go away.

MG: Is there the chance, Bruce, that sports could play a leading role in this? People have talked about the NFL and the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, says he supports this movement. Well, then give Colin Kaepernick a job. Is that what it's going to take to show that sports is actually playing a leading role in this moment?

BRUCE ARTHUR: Sports could. I do believe the NBA. I've been told the NBA is putting together plans to really put a lot of money towards identifiable causes, and that'll be part of what they do. The NFL is a really interesting one because that is where Colin Kaepernick's career was ended over peaceful protest against systemic racism, like, let's say it was blackballing, plain and simple. I don't know that giving Colin Kaepernick a job back fixes it, but to me, it's more there's going to be one time gestures and there's going to be stuff that lasts, because right now a lot of people are saying and doing stuff because it is a moment. How long does it last or how long does the status quo take before it comes rushing back? The NFL is NASCAR is the most extreme example. That's a great example because that is a place where Confederate flags were everywhere. That was overt. The NFL isn't quite overt, but it's it's the weathervane of American sports when it comes to in between right and left. If it takes it makes a choice- it has made a choice before in terms of getting players stop kneeling and lining up essentially with what Donald Trump wanted. If it takes a step the other way, it pushes the window. That pushes the window looks acceptable. That's what always is. That's where when NHL players are speaking out about race and then saying, I have white privilege and I don't understand this and I'm going to try to do better. And here's how, that's a fundamental shifting of the window of what is acceptable and what is expected. And sports as such, it's an endemic appeal, right? It is the things that when sports ended, it was the first thing on a national basis in North America that made everyone realise this isn't normal because until then it was a regional pandemic. Sports can touch so many people. And when it comes to race, I think you are going to see real change in how people act and you'll see superficial change in all of it will serve to push what is expected of people in the right direction.

MG: I would say when it comes back. Will you be watching, Bruce?

BRUCE ARTHUR: I will. The question is, will I be writing or still undecided? Because to be honest, when we come back, I'll right a little bit about sports and I'll watch it. But writing about the coronavirus and COVID in this pandemic, it just kind of matters more right now. And so if I get my choice in the newspaper, I think it's going to give me a choice, I think I'm going to I'm not going to go rushing right back to sports because I worry a little bit about the implications of it coming back both for the athletes and the participants and for what it means societal.

MG: Kavitha, what about for you? Are you going to rush back to sports?

KAVITHA DAVIDSON: I will and like, you know, like I said earlier, I say that begrudgingly, I always think back to a poll that I did at another job in 2014 that basically said the majority of people of privilege didn't want their kids playing football, but they wanted to watch other kids playing football, you know. So many of us still don't feel safe walking to the grocery store. But we will watch a bunch of athletes take the field or take the court to play sports for entertainment. And I will watch them and I will enjoy it. And it will be my job. But I still have all of these concerns front and centre in my mind.

MG: It's great to speak with you both about this. Thank you.

BRUCE ARTHUR: Thank you.

KAVITHA DAVIDSON: Thank you.

MG: Bruce Arthur is a columnist with the Toronto Star. Kavitha Davidson is a sportswriter for The Athletic and the host of its daily podcast, The Lead. She was in Los Angeles. Are you rushing back to sports? You desperately missing sports? Would you pay to have your face or likeness in the stands as a cardboard cut-out? You can let us know through the Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. This is The Current. I Matt Galloway. Sports isn't the only thing that's changed since this pandemic. The days of doing anything without worrying about social distancing are wearing masks. For some people seem like distant memories. A lot of people are still following the guidelines. A lot of people have loosened the guidelines somewhat. Andre Picard is the Global Mail's health columnist. He's back to talk about COVID related news and those guidelines. Andre, good morning to you.

ANDRE PICARD: Good morning.

MG: We've been living by this two metre rule, it seems like, for months and months and months now. There are places, though, like the UK that are revisiting this. And as of the Fourth of July, it's going down to one metre. Is this a good idea?

ANDRE PICARD: I don't think it's a good idea. It's just confusing. I think if you look around when we go around towns, I don't think people are exactly two metres apart where we had to give ourselves some levity there. So I think we should just try and keep the rules as simple as possible. People more or less respect them, and I think that's easier. You know, the UK is doing this at an odd time. They're one of the hardest hit countries in the world. Kobach has actually had has this weird thing now where it's two metres for adults and one metre for children. I don't think these little changes are useful.

MG: People talk about what the simplest way to stop the spread of the virus and one is distance. The other is wearing a mask. We were speaking on Monday with family physician Dr. Jennifer Quan. She's part of a growing chorus calling for mandatory masks in many public places. Is that the right approach if we're going to look at loosening some of the rules? Do we need to impose other ones when it comes to how we get around in public and what we wear in public static, whether it's mandatory or not?

ANDRE PICARD: That's we can have that as a societal debate. But I think what's really important is to make the rules clear. And that's what's wrong with masks. Now, should we wear them in stores? Well, sometimes. Sometimes not outside. Sometimes. Sometimes. So I think we just need some really clear guidance from public health officials. I'm not a big fan of making things mandatory. I think public health is all about convincing people to do the right thing. Problem with making it mandatory is who's going to enforce it. It's going to fall under the push more. Who's at the door of the grocery store. Right. Who is going to get yelled at and abused as we see in YouTube videos from the US so that there's problematic issues with making it mandatory. But we should there should be a societal you know, this should be good civic behaviours to wear your mask, especially indoors.

MG: Everyone's part of this. It seems like it's because we're now in summer. It was easier when it was cold and miserable in in March and maybe in April. Now it's summer and people are trying to figure out what they're going to do, how they're going to get out, whether they can go on holiday and vacations. You're hearing groups like tourism promotion groups, the CEO of Air Canada and others saying we should loosen restrictions, maybe cut down on things like quarantine to help boost tourism and save these industries. When you hear those calls in the midst of what we're still in right now, what goes through your mind?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I understand this balance between we want the economy going. You know, we want people to have jobs that's important to our health as well. And we want to protect their safety from this virus. So there is a trade off there. There is a balancing. But I think one of the last things we should be doing is opening up the U.S. border or international borders. That's just one of the fastest ways to allow the virus to spread again, especially with what we see in the U.S.. So I think this calls by the tourism industry are largely misplaced and a little self-centred. I think what they're right about is I think we should be easing the domestic restrictions. We shouldn't feel people need to get out. Being outdoors, we know, is much, much safer than being indoors. So let's have people travel around our beautiful country and see places that sometimes we we can't see is where so many tourists hold the vamps and the gross morons, beautiful parts of Canada. So let's encourage that kind of travel if we're going to loosen up. But I think the international travel that's going to have to wait qiute a time.

MG: Part of the reason why people are concerned, as you're hinting at, around loosening those restrictions is we're seeing a rise in infection rates, particularly amongst young people. We were talking about that earlier in the programmes week. People under the age of 20 accounting for something like 14 percent of all new COVID cases in Canada in the last week. How concerned are you about that?

ANDRE PICARD: I', not overly concerned. That's sort of a mixed blessing. Part of it is because the rates are following falling in older people. You know, we had this devastation in people over 80 in long term care, and we're getting some control over that. So that means the proportion of other people is going to go up. It also means we're doing broader testing. So there's some good news in there. But I think there the bad side of that equation is it means that it seems to suggest young people are taking this not as seriously. They're going out more. But on the other hand, they're also getting tested more. So there's these data always have sort of a mixed message.

MG: You're in Montreal, in Quebec. The province has said that it will stop providing daily COVID-19 updates and do so only once a week. Is that a good sign?

ANDRE PICARD: I think it's puzzling above all. And I think it's a very bad politics and I think it's just a bad, bad approach. You know, this we've understood in this pandemic many things. And one of them is the importance of data. The data is going to be collected. There's no reason it can't be posted every single day. If the premier doesn't want to do a press conference every day after 100 days, that's understandable. We don't necessarily need to hear all of that blah, blah, blah from the politicians. But there's no reason to not publish the numbers. I think it's really an ill thought out decision, and I think it's going to backfire on Quebec. You know, it's happening at a time when things are actually going really well in the province. The numbers are really low everyday. And what we're going to have instead, instead of 40-50 case today, we're going to have an announcement at 350 or 400 cases in a week. And people are going to want you to give the impression things are getting much worse. So it's just bad across the board.

MG: What do you think we've learnt. We're six months into a long haul of this and, what, a hundred some days since a pandemic was officially declared. What have we learnt about ourself in this country, do you think, in that time?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think we've learnt a lot. I think we've learnt about how we need to fix something is pretty fundamentally in our society, the way we treat our elders, the way our cities are constructed. So I think we've learnt some really important societal things. I think we've learnt about that all of us have very different risk perceptions, you know, from our this is nothing new through to I'm never going to leave my home again. I think it's taught us a lot about how we look at the world and how we interact with each other. And there's a lot of good in that. But there's a lot that's it's difficult. We're learning to behave differently with each other, especially in public.

MG: What are you going to be watching for as we head into summer?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think I want to watch how governments react. I think there's really a different approach that's shaping up. And we can learn from European countries, Asian countries that got a jump start on us. And what we're looking for now is we know there's going to be outbreaks. People, the economy is opening up. People are getting out. So is going to be outbreaks. And the issue to me is how are we going to control them quickly. And I think that's the real future of this pandemic, is to figure out how to snuff out fires that that come up rather than just keeping people all locked up. I think they probably see this every week when we talk and we have to learn to live with it instead of living in fear of the virus. And I think we're getting better.

MG: You have been a voice of reason and very thoughtful and generous in your analysis of this. Our season ends on Friday. And I'm going to be off for a couple of weeks. I just wanted to say thank you for what you've offered us and me as we have made our way through this. Thank you, Andre.

ANDRE PICARD: Well, thank you. And enjoy your well-earned holiday.

MG: I don't know if that it's well earned, but I'll take it anyway. Thank you. Be well. Andre Picard is the Global Mail's health columnist. He's a regular part of our ongoing COVID-19 coverage here at The Current. That is The Current four today. Coming up next on your CBC Radio One, it's Q Tom Power is the host. Hello, Tom.

TOM POWER: Hey, Matt. How are you?

MG: Everything's all right yourself.

TOM POWER: Good. A guy walks into a bar and the bartender goes into the back row. He's there by himself and all of a sudden he hears, hey, nice tie. And looks around, doesn't see anybody. Next thing you hear is, hey, nice shirt. He doesn't see anybody. Nice shoes. Turns around. Doesn't see anybody. Bartender comes out and he says, Bartender, what's going on? Someone saying all these nice things to me. But no one here. And bartender says, don't worry about it. The peanuts are complimentary.

MG: Write a book. That's what we've needed it. And you've provided it so you can provide it in written form.

TOM POWER: I know that the promos are about to air, but I'm pretty excited about this John Legend interview that's about to come up.

MG: He got winner does wonders for your self-esteem when you talk to someone with an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. We'll hear him coming up.

TOM POWER: Good to see you, Matt.

MG: Tom Power, the host of Q, right up after the CBC News. I'm Matt Galloway. That's The Current. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Thursday June 25, 2020 Full Transcript

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