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

The Current Transcript for September 11, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

"We're seeing countries experiencing resurgence, but — in Canada's case — it's not too late," Patty Hajdu

Guest: Patty Hajdu

SOUNDCLIP

Well, you know what Hoover thought about it. It was ten times bad as Hoover said

MATT GALLOWAY: J. Edgar Hoover was no fan of Martin Luther King Junior. While the iconic civil rights leader is revered now as a force for justice and equality, in the 1960s, the director of the FBI and many others thought King was one of the most dangerous men in America. In 30 minutes, the filmmaker Sam Pollard talks about his gripping new documentary, MLK FBI, how the State Tried to destroy King and how the actions of the 60s reverberate today. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

I looked outside and it looked like doomsday. I mean, you can tell something is horribly going wrong.

MG: Apocalyptic skies over California, how climate change is fuelling this wildfire season. And also this morning, as the U.S. president admits that he downplayed the severity of COVID- 19, the former head for the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention explains why the virus took hold in America and how wearing a mask became such a polarising issue. But with schools opening in case counts rising across this country, there are questions about the state of COVID-19, in Canada and whether we're ready for whatever's next. Canada's health minister Patty Hajdu joins me in just a moment. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: All week we've been talking about the return to school, even as the number of new covered 19 cases goes up in parts of this country. And as the weather gets colder and people are spending more time inside, there are worries about a resurgence of infections. Meanwhile, the B.C. Supreme Court issued a ruling yesterday that will have sweeping implications for Canadians health care. The federal health minister, Patty Hajdu, who joins me now. Minister, good morning.

PATTY HAJDU: Great to hear your voice, Matt.

MG: It's great to have you with us. Let me just briefly start with that B.C. Supreme Court ruling. It dismissed a constitutional challenge to public health care means patients do not have the right to pay for private care, even if they find that the public system is too slow. What does this mean for the future of public health care in this country?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, it's a large ruling, and I have not read all seven or eight hundred pages of the ruling. But in principle, essentially, it means that that public health care system in Canada is affirmed to be one based on need rather than the ability to pay. And that's a really, really important principle, because, of course, you know, the worry with kind of introducing private options for people who want to use alternative methods to get care is that it starts to fragment what is, I think, a fundamental principle of the health care system in Canada. That is whether you have money or you don't, you have access to health care in this country. So it's a ruling that I think as a government, we're very pleased about. And of course, I'll look at the details of the ruling, but very thrilled in general that patient charges undermine equity. And that is something that's more important than ever before, as we can see.

MG: Well, the last point on this is that the ruling also points out that there are very long waitlists and people are languishing on this waitlists. What about those people?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, it's really important that we all work to make improvements in our public health care system. And when I say public health, I mean our health care system that we that we access every day. And there's no question about that. And that's why we've been transferring, as you know, billions of dollars to provinces and territories since we've been elected to improve things like access to mental health care and efficiencies in the system. Through COVID-19, the safe restart [unintelligible], 19 billion dollars. Eleven of that is for health care related resources, including modernised and efficient data systems, which can help with efficiency. So we all have a lot of work to do to maintain and improve our public health care system. But what we want to do is protect its existence. And I think that's what for me is the most important part of this ruling is that, you know, there isn't a degradation where we have an ability to jump the queue if you have more money.

MG: The last time you and I spoke was in March, and it was I think it's fair to say, a pretty scary time. People's lives have been turned upside down really, really quickly. Six months later, we are beginning to see case costs rising in many parts of this country. Yesterday, 139 cases in B.C. That's a daily record for new cases. Is this the second wave?

PATTY HAJDU: It quite possibly could be a resurgence. Quite possibly. I mean, it's not too late to bring those numbers down. Listen. Part of it is government actions, and part of it is individual actions. And the reality with COVID-19 is it takes both working together. So governments are working really hard, as you know, and in many different ways. And individuals really need to maintain those measures that are so difficult, Matt, to maintain. I mean, who doesn't want to get together with their friends and family to have a big family reunion right now. Who doesn't want to take a trip to a familiar place to get away from it all. Who doesn't feel like getting away from this sort of ongoing grind of COVID_19? But the reality is we're not out of this yet. And in fact, around the world, we're seeing countries experienced resurgence. But in Canada's case, it's not too late. We can pull this back.

MG: Let's talk about public behaviour. The premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, criticized the federal government for not enforcing quarantine rules. He said the system is broken. How many people have been charged for breaking quarantine in this country?

PATTY HAJDU: You know, I think it's between 50 and 100 people that have received charges for violations of the quarantine act. I'll just say this. We have, by and large, found that the majority of people are adhering to the principles of the quarantine act, which basically says that anyone entering Canada, anyone, regardless if they're Canadians or not, unless they are obviously essential workers, they have to isolate to keep their families and communities safe. So what the system that we have set up is that the Public Health Agency of Canada works with the RCMP and regional law enforcement to ensure the compliance of these travellers. If we're not able to get in touch with travellers, have referred to local law enforcement. Local law enforcement then can go and cheque on folks, does go in cheque on folks. And in fact, can and has the full authority, even provincial and regional police enforcement have the full force authority to enforce the act.

MG: The local police have a thousand dollar fine at their discretion, the federal government through its means and can put people in jail for six months or up to 750,000 dollar fine. And the premier says that the local police don't have the time to be going around and chasing people to make sure that they're saying in quarantine, is the system broken here and are people actually being doing what they're being told to do?

PATTY HAJDU: The majority of people are doing what they're being told to do. And I think the premier's comments are reflection of the fact that, you know, he may be unaware that OPP can fully enforce the act. And in fact, I would say that it's also really important that we remember that the risk of the spread of cases due to importation is incredibly low. We've had very few cases that are related to importation from other countries. In fact, what we're seeing is community spread. And I think it's really important that we don't take our eye off the ball here, Matt. And where we are at is that we are in control of Canadians. We are in control now because, in fact, it's our gathering. It's us going to, you know, parties in the backyard and in people's houses, gathering with people that you don't know. It's taking those chances that you think, oh, you know what? There's probably no one with COVID there. And lo and behold, someone is COVID positive. That's what's driving the case growth in Ontario and in fact, in most parts of the country. And we have to keep our eye on the ball here, because if we start talking about importation of cases, you know, what that's implicitly saying is saying that, well, we can't control the situation and actually it's in all of our hands.

MG: One of the great things that people are worried about now when it comes to the increase in cases is that school is just starting to get back. Whether it's in class, whether it's at home or whether it's a mixture of the two. Your government gave provinces two billion dollars at the end of August to help with a safe school reopening. The one thing that's predictable in this pandemic is that school was going to start in September. Why did that money only come in August?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, it came in August because we could tell that provinces and territories needed the additional support for schools and safe restart of schools. In fact, we as you know, the federal government don't have any jurisdiction to deliver education, public education as the primary, junior, secondary level.

MG: No. But you did give two billion dollars. I guess the question is, again, knowing that this was going to be a real hurdle for people to get over, could that money have not come earlier to ensure that the things that the money could be spent on could actually be spent on it in a way that would allow schools to reopen in a safe and efficient way?

PATTY HAJDU: Now, I'll just remind you that we transferred 19 billion dollars to provinces territories just prior to the two billion for safe schools, when it became apparent that school boards were struggling across the country. That premiers were needing extra assistance financially to do the things that would protect students. In fact, we felt that we could we could assist. But it is really important to remember that we've been there all along. In fact, the majority of expenditure is around the protection of Canadians has been federal. And we continue to be there because we know that this is not the time to squabble about jurisdictional challenges, but to be there when provinces and territories say we need a hand. And that's exactly what we've done.

MG: We've been spending a lot of time this week and I was in Montreal talking with people last week about the reopening of school. People are really nervous about this. One of the people who is nervous is Dr. Michael Warner. He runs the ICU at Michael Garran Hospital in Toronto and he has school aged children. Have a listen to the doctor.

SOUNDCLIP

There could be increased absenteeism by health care workers, doctors, nurses, PSWs, even the custodians because of their children who may not have COVID but be sent home because of illness would have to isolate with them either to take care of them or because they're a household contact. Until we have accurate rapid point of care testing that can provide us with test results really immediately, health care worker absenteeism and in fact, essential worker absenteeism could be a big problem during the second wave, which could functionally limit our access to health care resources.

MG: Patty Hajdu, what happens if we get outbreaks at schools and then health care workers have to stay home because they need to take care of their kids because their kids can't go to school?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, listen, obviously, that's a really dark situation that the doctor is describing, and I think it's not just physicians and health care workers that lives are going to be disrupted when there's an outbreak at school. It will be other kinds of essential workers and other kinds of families. This has been an incredibly disruptive time for all families. And my heart goes out to families all across the country that are trying to juggle raising children with, you know, being at work or working from home. It really is a very tough time. He mentioned point of care. Of course, we're very excited as well to get a point of care testing that's effective. And that's validated. And I am certainly always interested to hear of new technology that's coming our way. Certainly, I think the world is scrambling for better point of care testing that will allow for that certainty that he's talking about.

MG: Can I ask why he mentioned that the saliva tests and other rapid tests that are being developed, Health Canada hasn't approved any of those yet. Why not?

PATTY HAJDU: We haven't improved any because they're not effective. I mean, until we have a certain degree of predictability that the results are effective and that are accurate, then they can actually be more dangerous than they're worth. I have stressed to the department that we need to ensure we have a blend of testing options available. And, of course, we can only move as quickly as technology is proceeding. But I won't put Canadian health at risk by putting out- by, you know, pushing regulators, first of all, which is a violation of my of my responsibilities. But secondly, you know, we really want to make sure that whatever the regulators are approving is, in fact, accurate. And so one of the pieces of work that I'm doing right now is putting together a very similar advisory committee that I, as I do have on vaccines and on immunology, on testing, because, in fact, this space is rapidly evolving. And some experts are saying perhaps it could be a blend of tests. So I'm going to be tapping into, yet again, the research community and the community of experts that will help guide us in terms of next steps on testing.

MG: One of the things, in addition to schools reopening, that people are worried about is that businesses could go in the opposite direction, that businesses could be forced to close back down after they've just started reopening because we see an increase in case counts. In Alberta, the premier, Jason Kenney, said that he's not going to micromanage businesses, that there is a need to protect both lives and also livelihoods. How do you strike that balance?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, I'll just point to the United States, where many states and in fact, cities have been shut down for a long time because, in fact, if you don't get the virus under control, you can't have an economy. And this is becoming clearer and clearer around the world, that it isn't an either or. You have to do both simultaneously. You have to work on ensuring that you're protecting the health of Canadians, that you're reducing the risk of COVID19, you're reducing the number of cases and you're putting everything into that and you also have to work on protecting the economy and providing supports for people and for businesses to continue in an incredibly difficult time. That's what our government's been doing since the outbreak. It's, obviously ,we're having some degree of success. The challenges exist and the challenges exist worldwide. But to imply that it's a choice between health and the economy, in my mind is completely false. And I think evidence is bearing that out around the world.

MG: So if businesses need to close down because case counts go up, is that a necessary step to take to get this virus under control?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, I think what we need to be thinking about now and for the next step, and I certainly am encouraging my colleagues across the country is health ministers - and I know that the government of Canada is working really closely with all the provinces and territories - is to have a very strategic surgical approach to the next stage. I actually believe that, you know, a country wide shutdown is a worst case scenario in terms of managing COVID19. And what we want to be doing is putting all our resources into putting out the outbreaks as they occur. Dealing with the hotspots in ways that are appropriate and putting all hands on deck into these outbreaks. So, for example, at the federal level, we have a rapid response team that includes- it's almost like an off the shelf number of tools that we can send into hot spot, so we can send in experts and people. We can send in contact with the Red Cross, for example, for isolation, housing. We can make sure that we augment the contact tracing and provide people to to do contact tracing in cases of large outbreaks. We can even provide resources financially for other kinds of aspects that might help control that outbreak. And this concept is that we're all there together so all of the health ministers know that this capacity exists at the federal level. And I work on a regular basis with health ministers on a variety of different challenges that pop up as they're dealing with this in their area.

MG: As this crisis has continued, we've also seen an increase in another epidemic, and that is opioid deaths and that's happening right across this country. Teresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, Dr Teresa Tam, wants you to consider decriminalising opioids and other hard drugs and ensuring a safe supply. You and I have spoken about this before. What's the resistance and the reluctance to do that?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, first of all, I'll just say that there is no still- I've worked in this area for a long time that and I know that, you know, some people see decriminalisation as the silver bullet. I will just say prior to that, people thought that safe consumption sites was a silver bullet. Harm reduction is one aspect. Enforcement is another aspect. There's prevention and there's treatment. And those four pillars are all critically important in reducing opiate overdoses and other problematic substances across the country. I'm going to continue to work with provinces and territories to make sure that I understand what tools they need and work diligently to ensure those tools available. But I will just say this. I know that this is a very live conversation. I've spoken with the chiefs of police of Canada. I respect the decision of the public prosecution service. We're certainly looking at all options to help people in communities that are struggling with substance use. And I would just say stay tuned to that conversation.

MG: This is a recommendation coming from Canada's top doctor, though. And I just wonder what the political resistance is to moving in that direction.

PATTY HAJDU: Well, you know, listen, there are practical considerations to every option in terms of dealing with substance use. And, you know, decriminalisation comes with a whole set of challenges that I think we, you know, we for sure would have to work there with provinces, territories and local government, just like all the harm reduction measures. We don't move forward with safe supply or safe consumption sites unless we have partnerships at the local and at the provincial level. And it's really, really important that those partnerships exist. So as I said, you know, this is a life conversation, having conversations with provinces, territories, municipalities about how best to support them to reduce the opiate overdose deaths in our country and other problematic substances that we know is on the rise of COVID-19.

MG: Just in the remaining couple of minutes that we have. I wanted to ask you about the independent review that you've ordered of Canada's Global Public Health Intelligence Network. This is kind of an early warning system for pandemics. And scientists said that their early warnings about COVID-19, were either ignored or inadequately addressed. What are the changes that you can make right now to ensure that that doesn't happen again?

MG: Well, we have made those changes right now. So those scientists are now empowered again and are providing alerts on a regular basis that I see. And that, in fact, the head of the agency and Dr. Tam sees. So those changes are in place. But the external review is to really understand what happens and how to strengthen what I would consider a huge asset for Canada.

MG: Was it a mistake for this global public health and intelligence network to switch its focus to more domestic issues in 2018?

PATTY HAJDU: I think that's what the review will uncover. I don't want to assume the outcomes of the review. I'm certainly open to hearing all perspectives from the eventual reviewer who will take a look at that history.

MG: That's what scientists seem to believe, though. Scientists seem to believe that it was a mistake and they were being, as I said, ignored when they were warning about a pandemic that we're actually in the midst of now.

PATTY HAJDU: I think it's always alarming when we have scientists in the government of Canada who say that their voices are being silenced. And that's what compelled me to order the review, because, in fact, as you know, our government strongly believes in science as evidence. And if scientists are saying in public health agency of Canada that their voices are not being heard, that is alarming and concerning, and that's exactly why I said we needed to review the decision. And what happens next.

MG: What is your biggest concern for fall, just in the last minute or so that we have. As the weather gets cooler and people start to spend more time indoors and that that fatigue of wearing a mask and distancing yourself from your friends and your family continues, what's your biggest concern for fall?

PATTY HAJDU: You just said all of the biggest concerns. My biggest concern is the mental well-being of Canadians. That makes it really difficult to adhere to public health measures. You know, I was at an opening of a health centre in First Nation in my writing. It was the first public event and they had a beautiful, socially distanced event to open this health centre in BNA Sandpoint, First Nation in my riding. And one of the elders I hadn't seen in a long time came up and hugged me before I could stop her. And I, I just, I just, my heart froze. And in my remarks, I said, you know, it's an act of love to not hug one another. I know it doesn't feel like that. It's an act of love to wear a mask and to say, no, I can't come over to visit you tonight. It's an act of love to postpone those events, to get together with your friends. It doesn't feel like it because it feels unnatural to stay apart, especially when we need each other so much. But that is exactly what we have to do. And those acts of love are going to save lives. That's what I'm worried about. That it's exhausting to be apart from the people that we love. It's exhausting to say no to people who are saying I'm lonely, I need you, I want to be with you. That's what I worry about them all.

MG: Patty Hajdu, it's good to speak with you again. And we will speak again in future. In the meantime, thank you.

PATTY HAJDU: Thank you very much, Matt.

MG: And you, Patty Hajdu is the federal health minister. Monday, I should mention, on this programme, we'll speak with Canada's chief public health officer, Dr Theresa Tam. The CBC News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

We want to be men. We want to be persons judged not on the basis of the colour of our skin, but on the basis of the content of our character.

MG: That's the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. speaking more than 50 years ago. But it could have been today. Dr. King is an icon now. Back in the 60s, not everyone saw it that way. Coming up, a new documentary on the FBI surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to the current. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

Back To Top »

Sam Pollard on his new film MLK/FBI

Guests: Sam Pollard, Piya Chattopadhyay

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, newly released recordings of Donald Trump's gamble with COVID-19. But first, the bureau's obsession with Dr. King.

SOUNDCLIP

MG: I have a dream. My four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.

MG: The soaring words from Martin Luther King Junior still echo today. And even if that dream has not been fulfilled, King remains a hero to many people around the world and a hallmark of non-violent activism. That said, it is easy to forget that in the 1960s in America, Dr. King was a deeply controversial figure to the FBI. He was not seen as an inspiration, but as a threat. The FBI surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King Jr. is the subject of a fascinating ne w documentary screening as part of the Toronto International Film Festival. It's called MLK FBI, and it's directed by Sam Pollard. You might recognise Sam Pollard's name from the PBS series Eyes on the Prise, or his many collaborations with the director, Spike Lee. Sam Pollard joins me from New York. Good morning.

SAM POLLARD: Nice being here.

MG: It's great to have you here. You begin this film with the March on Washington and the opening sequence ends just as Martin Luther King is about to open his mouth and deliver that speech. Tell me about that opening and what you were thinking about in opening the film that way?

SAM POLLARD: Well, we felt that it was important to sort of set the stage understanding this was one of the most pivotal moments in line with the king's life and the life and the trajectory of the country with the March on Washington in 1963. And with A.Philip Randolph introducing him, which was a great way to introduce him, we thought it was the perfect way to sort of get you right into the film and then sort of make the connection that he was also being surveilled by the FBI [unintelligible] and then go right into his speech after the title sequence.

MG: It is, as I said in the introduction, easy in some ways to forget how King was seen in that time in the 1960s, because The March on Washington emerges as this key moment in the struggle for civil rights. How did authorities see that march and see Martin Luther King?

SAM POLLARD: Well, the FBI and Edgar Hoover who were terrified. You know, they thought that he was the one that most dangerous Negroes in America at that time and that what he was doing was going to change the whole fabric of American democracy. And so J Edgar Hoover and the FBI really, really went to any means necessary to figure out how to destroy Dr. King's reputation first by connecting them to the ten, possibly being a communist with his relationship with Stanley Levinson had been a former communist. And then when that didn't take hold, they realised that when they were recording and bugging his hotel room, it is in the offices, in the houses of his governor's people who work with him, like Clarence Williams - didn't know that he did not have a monogamous relationship with his wife. And he had many affairs. So they thought they could use that to also destroy Dr. King.

MG: What were they most frightened about, as you say, that they thought he was the most dangerous Negro in America. What were they most concerned about?

SAM POLLARD: Well, they were they were afraid because he was basically he was saying, we want to change what America looks like and how America is. We no longer want to be in a Jim Crow nation. We want to be integrated. And that was frightening the people. They were afraid because he was asking for change and he was challenging the American status quo at the time of Americans of America's 19 Mom and American apple pie.

MG: J. Edgar Hoover, who's leading the FBI, is a towering figure in the United States at that moment, but certainly in the years that follow. And he, I mean, in some ways, it's a tale of two men. This film, he is kind of characterised as somebody who is trying to be a guardian of the American way of life. What was that?

SAM POLLARD: Well, that's because exactly what he was. You know, I was saying this when I grew up in the 60s, and J Edgar Hoover was a hero to me, even to me, I mean, here he was, you know, the director of the FBI. You know, he was taken down gangsters like John Dillinger. He was given the Rosenbergs who were in communist. He was the man who was going to keep America safe and secure. You know, so he was mythic in that time, you know, and he was really heroic. You know, it's not like how we see him today, you know, with the revision of history. But that man, he was he was he was a towering, towering hero. And imagine this from the 30s up to the late 60s, early 70s. He lived through many decades and through many presidents. And he had a lot of power, some in power that he sometimes abused. He was a large and very daunting figure at the time.

MG: What were the techniques that the FBI used to try to spy on Dr. King?

SAM POLLARD: They bugged the phones. They booked the hotel rooms that he stayed in with his compatriots. They bug the homes of people like Clarence Williams and Andrew Young. They had informants who they had working in the ACLC offices. Even one of the informants, James Harrison, was like one of Dr. King's Right-Hand men in the ACLC office. The photographer, Ernest Withers, very well known, respected photographer.

MG: One of the great photographers of the civil rights movement.

SAM POLLARD: He was an informant for the FBI for many, many years. You know, so, you know, there was all these ways they were trying to sort of destabilise and deep and destroy Dr. King, NSCLC.

MG: Part of this is about, as you say, the initial suspicion perhaps that Dr. King was a communist or had communist sympathies. What did that that suspicion do to fuel the concerns that the FBI but also, you know, the U.S. president and other people in the executive office had around King?

SAM POLLARD: Well, they were all concerned that if he had these connexions with the Communist Party and people like, you know, Stanley Levinson, that that would sort of, you know, tarnish the civil rights movement.

MG: Stanley Levinson. Just to be clear, he was somebody who was deeply involved in the civil rights movement and in with King early on.

SAM POLLARD: He became a real close associate with King after the Montgomery bus boycott. And King saw him as a confidant and a close, close friend. Now, he had been a communist, but, you know, there were people saying he was still a communist, but he had been a communist. And so when people like when Hoover had RFK, JFK, when he told them about this, their concern was that by King associating with communists, it would hurt the civil rights struggle, would hurt the march on Washington. So that when King went to the to the White House, one of the things they asked him to do was to disassociate himself from anybody who might be connected with the Communist Party, like Stanley Levison and some other members who had been part of the ACLC. Now, he never- he said he was going to do that, King, but he never really did disassociate himself from Levinson, because he is such, Levinson, is a very trusted lieutenant, someone he could he could he could speak to. He could help with him, help him with his speeches. He could give advice. So he never really broke off with Levinson.

MG: The FBI was not able to prove that Martin Luther King was a communist. But it did end up learning, as you say, about his private life. What did the FBI learn?

SAM POLLARD: They learnt that this was not a man who was a man of a cloth. That this was not a man who was monogamous. This is not a man who just had a relationship with his wife, but had relationships with many women. And they were hoping to use those tapes they recorded to be able to sort of destroy him. And they went so far as to create a letter, basically, supposedly someone from the African-American community telling Dr. King that he had to stop this or possibly he should kill himself. And then they sent that letter and they sent a tape of King's of recording, supposedly a king involved with some other woman to his wife could [unintelligible]. I mean, they were going out at him in any way they could.

MG: What was it that was so offensive to the leadership of the FBI about King's infidelity? You say and in the film that comes up that people thought that perhaps he was morally unfit to be a leader of black America because of his private life.

SAM POLLARD: Well, you know, this is that this is sort of a kind of complicated thing about this world. I mean, a minister is supposed to be upright and in good standing in his community and supposed to be a man of the principles, supposed to have nothing that he does that's going to tarnish his ministry and who he is. Now here is King, who basically is a minister, he has a church in Atlanta with his dad. But here's a man who is not monogamous. So for a good upright Christian like Hoover, this was horrific. This was horrible. How can he proselytize and say, you know, I'm a good person, I'm one is helped the country. He's here having affairs with other women that it's not his wife. How dare he do that? I mean, this was that sort of Judeo Christian sort of concept of morality that still exists in America.

MG: It also it's pointed out in the film, plays into a narrative about black men and sexuality and black men as a sexual threat. Tell me more about that.

SAM POLLARD: Yes. Because it proved for Hoover that here he was, King was a [unintelligible] as he was he was zero. He was sexually addicted to having affairs with other women. This is how you see black men. This is was always the fear that black men were going to attack women and rape white women. You know, as has been seen time and time again throughout history with films like Birth of a Nation, you know, and the fact that that was a way for white people, particularly members of the Klan, to basically say, see, you can't trust black men. So they have to be you have to make sure that they are destroyed by any means necessary. That's why we had so many lynchings.

MG: And the belief was that if the FBI could get those allegations and they tried, they sent them to journalists and tried to seed them into the public mind. But if they could get those allegations out, that that would somehow weaken Martin Luther King's influence over...

SAM POLLARD: Weaken his influence over the communities and black communities who are saying America needs to change. It would weaken his agenda as a civil rights leader and that was the goal. Now, fortunately, we live at that time. The press didn't take that kind of day that we live in a different world today where they tried to take all the everything that was revealed about Dr. King. Well, back then, they didn't go that far.

MG: As you mentioned, at one point, the recordings and a letter were sent to the office of his Southern Christian Leadership Conference. And one of the people that you speak with for this film is the former head of the FBI, James Comey. Have a listen to what he said about what was in that package.

SOUNDCLIP

INTERVIEWER: Have you read that letter?

JAMES COMEY: Yes, I have. I'm sick to my stomach, actually. I didn't throw up, but I felt ill reading it. And that's what I mean when I say I think this entire episode represents the darkest part of the bureau's history.

MG: Sam Pollard, what was actually in that letter?

SAM POLLARD: Basically, a letter was saying to Dr. King, we know who you are. We know that you are a guy who has a relationship to the affairs of other women. We know that you you know, you are despicable, dishonourable man. We know that you should probably- you know, it's [unintelligible] maybe in his life, you know, it goes that far.

MG: And the suggestion was that he should kill himself.

SAM POLLARD: Suggestion was that he should kill himself. Yes. Imagine this this is this is the FBI sending this letter. This is the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

MG: It goes to Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King's wife. It goes to his compatriots and his colleagues in the ACLC. What do we know about how that package and those tapes and those allegations affected Martin Luther King?

SAM POLLARD: Well, obviously, this put him under a lot of pressure. I mean, here he is, you know, he's at the front and centre of the civil rights struggle. And now he's got to deal with all these personal accusations. This idea that he's committed to commit suicide, the fact that they sent this material to his wife and to members of the ACLC, it has had to really keep King sort of on tenterhooks because, you know, he's a human being. So he's dealing with being a leader, being a man, being a father, being a husband. I mean, this was obviously a very complicated time for Dr. Martin Luther King, which most people never knew about.

MG: There is another more alarming allegation in the FBI dossier on King, and the allegation is that he looked on and laughed while a parishioner was being raped. And this was drawn first from files that the FBI had that were uncovered by the historian David Garrow, published to great controversy. When you interview David Garrow in the film, I mean, he addresses this. But what did you initially personally make of that claim?

SAM POLLARD: Well, here's my take. The FBI are basically saying this is what they heard. They were not in the room. I mean, it's so upsetting to know that if somebody was supposedly being raped, they didn't go in there and try to stop it. That's number one. Number two, when they write down what supposedly happened, they're creating it in their own language. So who knows exactly what was said in that room, what was exactly going on? We have to hear the actual tapes now. My issue with David Garrow is that he saw this seemed to take it home. He took it in, believed it completely without even any questioning that there is some reservations about how the FBI documented it, really wrote it down. And what were their responsibility as law enforcement officials, if something like that was happening even back in the 1960s. It's I think it's a very complicated thing. You know, I don't know what really happened in that room. And I would have to hear the tapes. I don't think David Garrow knows. It's all about what was written in that document, which the FBI, obviously, the way if you read the excerpts in the cell, they're basically putting their own subjective, you know, spin on what was happening in that room.

MG: Did you hesitate to repeat those claims, considering that many historians consider them a smear? I mean, when David Garrow publishes allegations, he faced a firestorm of criticism?

SAM POLLARD: No, because this is the one thing that I think that's the responsibility of a documentary filmmaker. If I'm doing a film about Dr. King and the FBI and how they surveilled him and tried to destroy his career, destroy his legacy, I thought that was a responsibility, along with the producer of the film Better Dean, that we touch on this, too. If we if we had avoided this, one of the biggest questions would be how could he then deal with the rape allegations? And we didn't want that to happen. We just wanted to make sure we did in a way that wasn't sensationalistic, you know, and editing the segment together. I think we did a good job at doing it.

MG: These FBI files and the tapes of Martin Luther King are scheduled to come out perhaps around 2027. Do you think they should be made public?

SAM POLLARD: They should be. I think we should hear and maybe some things in there that I may find this takes or painful, but I think they should be released.

MG: That this film is coming out now in the moment that we are in, given the summer that we've gone through in terms of a reckoning around antiblack racism and people protesting in the streets in ways that perhaps people hadn't seen since the height of the movement in the 1960s. What do you make of the parallels between the time that you document in this film and the time that we're living in now?

SAM POLLARD: I find it frightening. I find it frightening that here we are living in 2020 and the world in some ways, America in some ways hasn't changed at all. You know, the systemic racism still has a stranglehold on this country. And what's happening here with black men being shot, black women being shot in the streets by the police is horrible. The attitudes of the federal government to a peaceful protest is horrible. The idea that they think that this is anarchy and that the country is going to be destroyed is horrible. It's the same sort of the dog whistle that Jaga Hoover, the FBI, was saying about Dr. King and other civil rights activism, black power activists in the 60s and early 70s. It's just frightening how the same thing continues to happen in this country.

MG: Did your impression of Martin Luther King Junior change having done this film?

SAM POLLARD: No, not at all. I grew up with Dr. King as a young man, 13. I was 13 in '63, The March on Washington. And in my house, like in a lot of black houses, there was a picture of Dr. King on our wall. And I think he was a great man. Now that I know how complicated his life was then. No. But as I've learnt about how complicated his life was. It hasn't deterred from me the fact that he is a great man, because it just makes me understand it's all human being. He was a man of complexity.

MG: Sam Pollard, it's a real pleasure to talk to you. It's a really powerful film. Thank you.

SAM POLLARD: Thank you very much. Have a good day.

MG: And you. Sam Pollard is the director of MLK FBI. It's screening as part of the Toronto International Film Festival.

[Music]

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

SOUNDCLIP

I think it's newly visible how a small choice in your own daily life might affect potentially hundreds of other people. How and where you travel. Where you go. Who you mix with. We're now understanding that every time we make what we would consider a personal choice, we're also making a choice for other people. And that's actually for me in my own way of thinking. That's the most compelling argument for vaccination.

MG: That's just one of the people you will be hearing from on CBC Radio One's new Sunday morning programme. It's called the Sunday Magazine. The host of the Sunday magazine is a familiar voice to CBC Radio and listeners, Piya Chattopadhyay. Good morning.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Good morning. It feels nice to be back in the home away from home, by which I mean the studios.

MG: Nice to see people face to face.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Yes. Hi.

MG: Tell me a little bit about who we just heard.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: So that's an acclaimed American author and essayist named Eula Biss and Eula Biss back in 2014, wrote this book called On Immunity. It was during the Palast global pandemic and she had a newborn and she, like many parents of newborns, was trying to figure out everything. But really she was really focussed on whether or not she should get her son vaccinated, in which vaccines. And I think Eula went on this journey to dig into the science, but also the philosophies behind vaccination. And she came to a point where she did vaccinate her son. But I think, Matt, what is so interesting about this book is that it's almost prescient now. It's talking about the same kinds of things that many of us are facing right now as the world marches toward a COVID 19 vaccine. And I think what you heard there from Eula is her making the argument, what she does throughout this interview about how we convince people who are anti vaccination to get their children vaccinated for the public good.

MG: How is that conversation indicative of what we're going to hear every Sunday morning?

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: You know, Sunday mornings for a lot of people is a time to really savour the morning. Think about the world we live in. Think about your place in it. And so this conversation with Eula is very similar to a lot of conversations that we're going to have on the Sunday magazine. We're going to take time. We're going to give people space. We are going to go deep. That is not to say that we won't hold power to account. But this is really a time for people to sit back and think about what they think about thing. We're going to be responsive to things that are happening, the world we're going to talk about, yes, the things that are happening in the world, but not in a newsy way. And we're also going to delight audiences that love fiction with fiction interviews and other things that are playful and joyful.

MG: Anybody who follows you on social media knows that you are somebody who consumes a lot of information, brings in a lot of stories, shares a lot of stories. We are drowning in some ways in information and in journalism. What's the space that that the Sunday magazine is going to be able to carve out in that? What's going to be special about what we'll hear?

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: You know, we use this word in journalism a lot: context. And if you pass that word a little bit more, it really means pulling through all the tendrils and tangents and really giving a more full picture. We have such a luxury on Sunday mornings to have long form journalism playing out. You do a show that is, you know, every day that you're on top of what's going on in the news. I have the space to sit back, kick back and really sit down with listeners and think through things with them.

MG: But also respond to what's maybe happened on an on Saturday night that you're there Sunday morning and you can just say this is what we're all thinking.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Absolutely. You know, in this day and age, radio has many things going for it. But one of it is that it is in the moment. If something happens on a Sunday morning or a Saturday night that is meaningful to Canadians, we will be on it. That doesn't mean that every tweet the U.S. president sends out, we will be on it on Sunday morning.

MG: That would be exhausting.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: That would be exhausting. And how are we going to choose, people ask how are you going to decide? What we're going to use? Judgement, editorial judgement. We always do this as journalists, but we really want Canadians to hear a show that is thoughtful, that is deep and that is responsive.

MG: Tell me about you. I know you, but I don't know. I mean, there's other layers and layers and layers. What do you want people to know about you?

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: You know, I guess the main thing for me is that, I'm not unlike most people, I know sometimes we put people that they hear on the air up on some kind of weird pedestal. I'm just kind of a normal good. Born resident of Saskatoon, moved to Toronto, have a family, have a bunch of kids. Three. I am balancing everything just like everyone else. I'm a pretty outgoing person, but introverted at my core. So I always say, if you find me at a party, no one's going to a party right now.

MG: No.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: If I were to party, you would find me huddled in a corner with someone just having a long, deep conversation. So I'm pretty positive. I can hear my friends and family laughing at that. But I think I look at the world in a way that I think 99 percent of humans are good and one percent are bad. And we just all need to pull together for the greater good and just keep going.

MG: And you are relentlessly curious.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: I am. You know, people always say, what are you interested in? I always I have this kind of silly line that I say I'm as interested in ISIS as I am in Taylor Swift, both those things are true. I would describe myself as a generalist. You know, I find lots of things interesting. I think that's what drew me to journalism. You know, I think same with you. You have said similar things before. And I think as broadcasters, broadcasters, we have to be engaged and interested in a whole bunch of things.

MG: What are you most excited about for Sunday.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: This Sunday? I'm just excited to get out the gates. This is a pretty big deal. To me and I'm pretty proud. And I don't mean sound smug, but, yes, I'm just trying to live in the moment and absorb it all. And I'm just excited to talk with Canadians and about Canadians and other things beyond Canada as well. But yes, just to share that space and a cup of coffee.

MG: You'll be great. We'll be listening.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Thank you very much. Go Raps.

MG: Piya Chattopadhyay is the host of CBC Radio One's new Sunday morning programme. The Sunday magazine debuts this Sunday, 9:00 a.m. 9:30 in parts of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Current is back in 90 seconds. We'll talk about how Donald Trump has handled the coronavirus pandemic from the perspective of the former director of the Centres for Disease Control. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

Back To Top »

Dr. Tom Frieden on U.S. response to COVID-19, California wildfires

Guests: Dr. Tom Frieden, Peter Gleick

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

SOUNDCLIP

WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we're deeply concerned by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction. We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterised as a pandemic.

MG: Today marks six months since a WHO made that declaration about COVID-19 and around the world. More than 900,000 lives have been lost to the virus. Almost 200,000 of those in the United States, where there have been six million cases. Now newly released audio from journalist Bob Woodward gives some insight into how President Donald Trump saw the virus in early February.

SOUNDCLIP

It goes through here. That's always tougher than a touch. Another touch. You don't have to touch things right. Except for the air. You just breathe the air that's so it's passed. It's also more deadly than, you know, your even your strenuous flus. You know, this is five percent versus one percent and less than one percent. This is deadly stuff.

MG: President Trump also told Bob Woodward in March that he wanted to downplay the seriousness of the virus so as to not create panic. Dr. Tom Frieden is the former director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the agencies on the frontlines of this pandemic. He's now the president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives. It's a global initiative to prevent epidemics and cardiovascular disease. Doctor, good morning.

DR. TOM FRIEDON: Good morning, Matt.

MG: When you hear your president say those words in February of this year, what is your reaction?

DR. TOM FRIEDON: What's really striking is that at the CDC, a doctor named Nancy Messonier got this exactly right. Really pitch perfect right. Even in retrospect. She was saying in late January, we have to behave as if this is a pandemic. Through the month of February, she was saying that we have to be humble because there's a lot we don't know about the virus. And then on February 26, she said that disruption to everyday life may be severe and described having that conversation with her children over the dinner table. If we had that kind of honesty with the American people, the last six months would have been very, very different. We would have had more of a concerted effort to work together to stop the virus. And what we see here is the complete failure of the federal response to follow the well-established principles of how to organise in an emergency and how to communicate about an emergency.

MG: How many lives do you think would have been saved if the president told Americans what he knew?

DR. TOM FRIEDON: Well, there's no way to know for sure. But we know that countries which consistently used masks or had much better responses have had death rates that are a small fraction of the death rate in the U.S. And masks are one example of really failed communication. The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has what are called risk communication principles, and they're very straightforward. Be first. Be right. Be credible. Be empathetic. Give people practical, useful, proven things to do. Those are five really fairly simple things. And the White House did none of those five things. In fact, if you tried to do the opposite of each of those five things, you would be hard pressed to do that more effectively than this White House.

MG: The question ultimately is how much of this is really at the feet of the president?

DR. TOM FRIEDON: Well, I think it's clear that, you know, as Harry Truman said, the buck stops here and when Ebola hit. I worked very closely with President Obama. There were tough decisions to be made. But the president and his staff never second guess the scientific technical decision. And there were clear things that the CDC had to do and there were clear things that the White House had to do. We couldn't get other countries involved to the extent that they could. We couldn't get legislation passed in Congress to fund the response, but they couldn't determine the best strategy to keep Americans safe and stop the epidemic. And that's the way a coordinated, effective government response works.

MG: Let's talk about who's making those decisions. Dr. Scott Atlas is a radiologist. He was recently appointed by the president as a coronavirus advisor. Listen to a comment he made a little over a week ago about the issue of testing.

SOUNDCLIP

And so when you start introducing closure of schools because people are positive, based on thematic tests, that's sort of not the purpose of testing. The purpose of testing, like everything else we're doing here, is to stop people from dying, stop people from getting a serious illness from this disease and allowing other people who are very low risk to function. And that's what the CDC guidelines came out this week of testing very much for that, as was every single doctor on the task force, the slightly man [unintelligible] is that we do testing it very smartly.

MG: Can you explain what he's talking about when it comes to these new guidelines from the CDC on testing?

DR. TOM FRIEDON: Now, this is a sad moment, frankly, in CDC history. The White House and Department of Health and Human Services dictated to the CDC that they changed their guidelines on who should be tested and say that if you've been exposed to someone with COVID but you don't have any symptoms, you don't necessarily need to get tested. That is simply wrong. The reason we test is not merely to take care of individual patients. It's not like neuroradiology, Dr. Atlas's field, where you do an MRI of the brain to find something that you do something about. In public health, we find infections in order to stop the spread of infections. And if we don't test, we can't stop the spread. Dr. Atlas has said in other interviews that low risk people becoming infected is, quote, a positive thing because that would mean, to paraphrase, that essentially more people would get infected and the disease would spread less. This is a very risky and very mistaken concept because any spread anywhere is potentially a risk to very vulnerable people. People do not live in bubbles and people who are essential workers or health care workers or working at nursing homes or have relatives who are elderly or relatives who are on treatment for cancer or kidney disease or diabetes. These people are all at great risk from that kind of scientific error.

MG: And so based on that, how independently do you think the CDC is able to operate right now in the Trump administration?

DR. TOM FRIEDON: Well, I think they're trying hard. And if you look at the CDC Web site, there've been 1.6 billion clicks on the CDC Web site, and the overwhelming majority of materials on the Web site are quite good. They're accurate. They're useful. They're practical. But there are a handful of occasions where it's very clear that those materials are not being written by the scientists at the CDC. And that's unprecedented. Until recently, the CDC was one of the most trusted of all institutions in this country and also globally. And there is now great harm being done to its reputation. And as we get toward implementing a vaccine, we know that for a vaccine to be effective, it needs not only to be proven safe and effective, not only to be accessible, but also to be trusted. And whatever undermines trust in our institutions risks allowing the virus to spread more.

MG: How quickly do you think there will be a vaccine available in the United States?

DR. TOM FRIEDON: Well, I'm guardedly optimistic that we will have a vaccine sometime in the next few months, or at least proof that a vaccine works. But it's too soon to say we need to see: does it work? Is it safe? What is The Science Show has both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Advisory Committee and the CDC advisory committee gone through all the evidence? And have they not taken any shortcuts? I would not want to see them stop any of the trials before they enrol and give all of the doses of vaccine that are planned, even if they have preliminary evidence that the vaccine is protective. That'll just be for a month. We won't know to what extent it took texts and for how long. So I think the key is not to cut corners. Rolling out the vaccine isn't going to be quick. It's not going to be simple. We need people to understand and trust and we need to recognise that even with a vaccine, we're going to be living with COVID for a while. We're still going to need to take steps to protect ourselves. We're still going to need to have a very good test, trace, isolate and quarantine strategy.

MG: And so when the president says that there could be a vaccine by November, perhaps even before the U.S. presidential election. What's your reaction to that? Is that at all realistic?

DR. TOM FRIEDON: We'll have to see what the science shows. This is an emergency. People are dying at terrifically high rates still in the United States. But we need to make sure that we don't cut any corners on safety, that we go through all of the procedures and that we share all of the data openly. Otherwise, even if there's vaccine, a lot of people aren't going to take it. So far, we have a rational approach being taken and we have pharmaceutical companies generally behaving ethically as far as we know. But it's not crunch time yet. We don't have the data coming out of these trials. We haven't seen them. We haven't seen the safety data. We haven't seen the efficacy data. We don't know if they've finished enrolling all of the people who are supposed to get the vaccine and given them the one or two doses, depending on the vaccine that they're supposed to get. So I would say too soon to say.

MG: Generally behaving ethically as far as we know, when billions of dollars are at stake and public health is hanging in the balance, is that something that should reassure people?

DR. TOM FRIEDON: Well, perhaps it's a low bar. One of the things that we have to look at very closely is that many of these vaccines build on government research. And I don't really agree with the concept that a private company should make as much money as it can and force the taxpayers to pay once when they fund the research. And a second time when they pay their insurance premium to their company because the company has to pay the vaccine company to get the vaccine. So I think there are some very important ethical decisions. I am troubled also by the behaviour of AstraZeneca. I don't think they should provide investors any different information than they provide the general public.

MG: And it goes back to that issue that you raised of public trust. How important is that and what concerns you the most when it comes to the vaccine issue around public trust? Because you can develop a vaccine, but you need people to take it.

DR. TOM FRIEDON: Absolutely. And we already have too much concern about vaccine. We already have people who have fixed beliefs that vaccines are unsafe. We have a decreasing vaccine acceptance. And as we see the killer diseases less common in many countries, people are less willing to take the vaccines that assure that those diseases will stay uncommon. And anything that undermines confidence in a vaccine isn't only dangerous because of the harm it might do to COVID control, but also the harm it might do to vaccination and public health more generally.

MG: It's not just vaccines that are polarising. It's also. And you raise the issue of wearing a mask. You wrote an op ed for Fox News encouraging people to wear a mask when they're indoors and close to others. How was that received by the Fox News audience?

DR. TOM FRIEDON: Well, I don't know what people think about it. I see the polling data that shows a pretty big partisan gap in mask wearing. And I see there are some nuances. There may be people who are pushing for wearing a mask outdoors when you're not near others and criticizing people who haven't done that. But I think we do have to focus and get used to the fact that masks are really important. They protect other people. They will certainly protect yourself. And if we all wear masks, we can all get back to our activities were nearer to them sooner, whether that's schooling or in-person work. So there are ways to get more of our usual activities back, but only by adapting to the virus. If we can get it down to manageable levels, we can drastically reduce the number of deaths and also increase the speed of our economic recovery.

MG: Some of the comments under your, people, you know, often say don't read the comments. But some of the comments under this Fox News article that you wrote directed you to go back to China, said that America is not afraid. How is it that wearing a mask became such a political issue in the United States? Can you help us explain that?

MG: I think this is one of the cardinal failures of this White House. The very day the CDC recommended masks, the president said, I'm not going to wear one. He repeatedly made fun of or criticized or undermined mask wearing. He made it a big deal. He somehow made it seem like if people wore a mask, that was somehow against him. And although he has said other things that are more positive since that set the tone and it's more than that, it's that the CDC was silenced and was unable to speak with the American people and explain our reasoning. It wasn't intuitively obvious that masks would be as important as they are. COVID, it turns out, behaves very differently from other infectious diseases. If you got SARS or MERS or tuberculosis, the sicker you get, the more infectious you are. To just about every infectious disease specialists surprise, including mine. COVID is the opposite. You're most infectious before you feel sick. And for those first couple of days when you feel sick and by the time you're really six, seven, 10, 14 days later, you're not nearly as infectious. You have way less virus in you. In fact your virus test might even be negative. What I was trying to emphasise in that piece was this is not about restricting your freedom. This is about getting you more freedom to get more of your life back.

MG: What do you think the long term impacts of this pandemic will be on public trust in public health, for example, or in science?

DR. TOM FRIEDON: Well, I am by nature an optimist, and I think in the end we will recognise the. Places that were guided by public health and supported public health did better. And when we recognise that we're all in this together, we can then begin building our health defences both within individual countries and globally, because we should never again be this underprepared for a health emergency. Nature will throw curve balls at us and it will be important that we're able to find them quickly, stopped them soon and prevent them wherever possible.

MG: Last question. And this is just I mean, we're all in this together. We're your neighbours to the north. Our border between our two countries remains largely closed. Is that something that we should consider continuing in the longer term to contain this virus?

DR. TOM FRIEDON: I'm afraid that until countries and communities do a better job, travel restrictions are likely to be present. I think, unfortunately, until there's much better control, you're going to see much less travel.

MG: Dr. Frieden, appreciate your time to speak with us this morning. Thank you.

DR. TOM FRIEDON: Thank you very much.

MG: Dr. Tom Frieden is the former director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. He's now president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives. And he was in New York.

SOUNDCLIP

We are dealing with the reality of some 14,000 lightning strikes over a 72 hour period. Trust me, that did not occur last year. That had previously occurred in the late 1980s. But when you add to the lightning strikes, the fact you have 150 plus million dead trees related to a five plus year historic drought in the state of California, yes, I conclude climate change profoundly is impacted, the reality that we're currently experiencing.

MG: That's the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, laying out all the reasons this wildfire season in the American West in particular is like no other. At least 15 people have died in wind driven fires in California, Oregon and Washington State. Over three million acres have burned in California alone. That's a new record. And the sky turned an unsettling smoky orange. All of this before the worst of the fire season traditionally starts in October. Peter Gleick is a climate scientist and co-founder of the Pacific Institute. It's a climate and sustainability think tank. He's in Oakland, California. Peter, good morning.

PETER GLEICK: Good morning to you.

MG: You're in the Bay Area. We have seen the pictures of these. You know, it looks like something out of a horror movie or end of days film these orange skies. What does it look like where you have been over the last few days?

PETER GLEICK: Oh, it's been on. It's been unreal. The truth is, the sun didn't come up at all. A few days ago, for the last several weeks, we haven't really seen any blue sky. We've seen- if we've seen sky at all. It's been smoky, white. There's ash falling on the cars and on the gardens. And unfortunately, a new part of our morning ritual now is where you get up and we brush our teeth and we look at the air quality monitors online and see what the air is like. And it's unhealthy. It's really a different world out there.

MG: Now, living with fires has been a bit of a become a bit of a reality for people in other parts of the world. Why is this fire season so exceptional?

PETER GLEICK: Well, yes, we've always had fires in the western part of North America and Canada and Washington, Oregon and California. So we understand wildfires. But what's different is the scale and the scope of the current fires is unlike anything we've seen in the past, the speed with which the fires have both started and then explosively grown is unprecedented. And the smoke, which I suspect you're seeing in much of Canada now as well, is incredibly widespread over the over the entire western United States. And it's just made it's a little bit given everything else that's going on this year, it's a little bit apocalyptic.

MG: But part of it's California, but there are more temperate areas in Oregon and Washington state that would rarely see fires like this. Why is that happening now?

PETER GLEICK: So the reality is what we're really seeing is climate change. What we're seeing, as the governor said, in your run up to this story, we're seeing the reality of climate change hitting home. What's happening is a combination of changes in rainfall and snowfall patterns, much higher temperatures that are drying out the soils and drying out the vegetation. We did have an extraordinarily severe, the worst on record, five year drought that killed over 100 million trees in the mountains, which is part of the fuel load we're seeing now. And the higher temperatures and the lightning strikes, all of that combined is unprecedented. All that combined is a signal that human caused climate change is now influencing the fire season, just as it's influencing hurricanes in the Gulf and in the Atlantic. And it's influencing heat stress and it's influencing a snow in our mountains. That's what we're seeing now.

MG: Your governor said if you're in denial about climate change, come to California. How is that playing out in the public discussion about these fires? Are people drawing those links and drawing those connections?

PETER GLEICK: Well, I hope they are. I think the unprecedented nature of what we're seeing in a lot of different areas, not just California, but frankly, around the world tells us. I'm a climate scientist by training. What we've been forecasting, what we've been predicting literally for decades is now here we're seeing rising seas. We're seeing widening severe wildfires. We're seeing storms out of the oceans, the hurricanes and the typhoons being stronger than they would otherwise be. And I think the public is getting it. You know, if you look at polls, I'm not a pollster, but if you look at public opinion polls, there is a growing awareness of the reality of climate change because it's affecting people's day to day lives. Now, whether that reality is penetrating to the political level yet certainly at the local and the state level, here it is. It has yet to penetrate seriously at the federal level, as unfortunately a lot of things have failed to penetrate recently. But I do think the public is getting the message is starting to get the message, and that's the first step in changing what we're doing.

MG: Well, there are questions as to whether the media is covering this in a way that would explain to the average person that this is the result of climate change and that the climate is changing. And then leading to this. Genevieve Guenther is the founder and director of End Climate Silence, pardon me. And she says that that the media coverage of the wildfires has been, in her words, abysmal. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

Two major national newspaper had front page article about the wildfires in the American West. And one of them compared the atmosphere in San Francisco to a nuclear winter and never mentioned the word climate change. And the news media has a responsibility to inform their viewers when they're reporting on these disasters, like these fires, to inform them about the connexion to climate change. And invariably, they never even mention the word.

MG: Do you agree with her that some of the media coverage of these wildfires has overlooked that role of climate change and that that is a dangerous thing?

PETER GLEICK: Well, first of all, let me let me thank you for not over looking it, for explicitly addressing it as we're doing right now. But, yes, she's absolutely correct. All too often, long after the scientists have said, look, we see the influence of climate change on these extreme events that are occurring, the media is not adequately covered. That the media has failed to draw those links. I think that is starting to change. But it needs to change faster because public education is an important part of this. The more the public understands these things are connected, the more likely our politicians are to finally say, OK, we'd better do something about that. We're now faced with unavoidable impacts of climate change because of our failure to reduce emissions decades ago. We have to adapt to those changes. We can no longer avoid like the fires we're seeing now. But we also have to work to reduce emissions to make sure that the impacts don't get worse and worse in the future. And that's going to require the public to understand what's going on and our politicians to act.

MG: You used a word, and maybe you coined this word, climate apocalypse on Twitter and you got brushback for that by some people saying that this language is alarmist and could actually be counterproductive. What do you make it?

PETER GLEICK: So I'm sure I didn't coined the term, but there's a difference between being alarmed about something that's an incredibly severe problem and being alarmist, which implies that that alarm is unjustified. I am alarmed. I'm alarmed at what we're seeing. And frankly, anybody who looks around at Hurricanes, at fires, at rising sea levels and isn't alarmed is not paying attention. So, you know, I reject that criticism. But as I think you said in the previous segment, you know, don't read the comments.

MG: I was in California last year. And I remember seeing assigned by the side of the road and it said, 'Will you be ready when the fires come?' Not if the fires come, but when the fires come. What do you think the future of the American West looks like, given what you are living through right now?

PETER GLEICK: Well, I think we have two things we have to worry about. I without a doubt, the fires are going to get worse, not better, because we know temperatures are going up. We know that droughts are getting more severe. Basically, the drivers of climate change, the drivers of fires are worsening. And we also know that more and more populations today live in vulnerable areas. But again, as we said at the beginning, fires aren't totally new to the area, though. The western part of North America has always had fires. And so we're always somewhat aware of that risk. So part of the response has got to be changing the way we locate our communities in fire prone areas. Part of the response has to be changing the way we build homes in these areas. Instead of making them out of wood, we should think about non-combustible materials and the builders know how to do those things. So the responses are changes in zoning, changes in fire suppression practises, changes in forest management. There are ways to adapt to the growing risks of climate change. The problem is, until we're taking the problem seriously enough, we're not going to implement all the things we need to be doing.

MG: I guess just in the last few seconds that we have, is it possible to adapt fast enough as climate change continues to progress?

PETER GLEICK: Well, we have to adapt faster because climate change itself is accelerating. We're at the beginning of climate change. It's going to continue to get worse even if the global community gets its act together to reduce emissions of climate change and gases. But, yes, I do think it's possible to adapt. But it's going to require more public awareness, more media attention, more political attention to think about what we need to do and then to do it in advance. It's one thing to respond to a crisis after it's happened, but it's a better thing to prepare in advance for what we now see as common.

MG: As we said at the beginning, the traditional fire season has yet even to begin in your part of the United States. I wish you the best of luck and stay well, Peter. Thank you.

PETER GLEICK: Thank you very much.

MG: Peter Gleick is a climate scientist and co-founder of the Pacific Institute. He is in Oakland, California. Well, that's it for The Current for today and for this week. Stay tuned to CBC Radio one for Q. Tom Power, of course, is the host and he will be speaking with Lucy Liu. You know, Lucy Liu, big star. Charlie's Angels. Kill Bill. Kung Fu Panda. She has a new TV show called Why Women Kill. You'll hear all about that coming up on cue. If you missed anything, it's been a very busy week and you can get caught up on The Current through the CBC listen app. It's free. Find it wherever you find your apps. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. It's great to be back. Have an excellent weekend. We'll talk to you Monday.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

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

Friday September 11, 2020 Full Transcript

More Stories Like This