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 October 5, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: He is responding and as the team said, if everything continues to go well, we're going to start discharge planning back to the White House.

MATT GALLOWAY: COVID has come to the White House, though, how sick the president actually is, is the subject of much debate. After conflicting reports on his health, Donald Trump left isolation to drive five flag waving supporters before returning to hospital. In 30 minutes, what his infection means for a vote that's less than a month away and what it means in a country where the virus itself has become a wildly divisive political issue. Also this morning, India was a key signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So why does the human rights organization Amnesty International say it can no longer operate in that country? And later.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Please join me in congratulating the next leader of the Green Party of Canada, Annamie Paul.

MG: After 13 years led by Elizabeth May, the Green Party is under new management and it's a historic change, ushering in the first black person and the first Jewish woman to be a permanent leader of a federal party. So what happens now? The new leader of the Green Party, Annamie Paul, is here in an hour. We begin though, on the front lines of the second wave of COVID-19, with this country's personal support workers. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: theme]

Back To Top »

'Care that is necessary for life': Personal support workers need full-time, regulated work, experts say

Guests: Asona Kirton, Laura Bulmer, Natalie Stake Doucet

MG: Every morning at about this time, Andrew Jantzen is supposed to be getting out of bed with help from a personal support worker. But sometimes that help doesn't show up to his Halifax apartment.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: When a personal support worker doesn't come, it's things like in the morning, I just can't get out of bed. So right off the bat, I've lost my entire day. I've also lost my ability to get water, to get food, to get help going to the washroom. It really is all of the things and people just aren't coming. I should be able to expect that my basic needs will be cared for, but I can't, especially right now, during the pandemic.

MG: Andrew says the lack of consistency and quality in his support workers makes him feel like a home care castaway.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It's incredibly emotionally exhausting to be trying to just figure out how to eat day after day, to get myself clean jus so I can, you know, feel like I'm in a body that has dignity, you know.

MG: These caregivers are known by different names in different places: orderlies, health care assistants, personal support workers, or PSWs. They work in homes and facilities and they do a lot of the heavy lifting and health care, figuratively and literally. And now, as COVID-19 infections continue to rise in many parts of this country, there is a push to hire more of them to cope with the demand. Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia all have plans underway for hiring thousands of caregivers. Asona Kirton is a personal support worker in a long term care facility in Toronto. Asona, good morning.

ASONA KIRTON: Hi, good morning.

MG: Just briefly, tell me about the work that you do. What kind of care do you give in a typical day?

ASONA KIRTON: So pretty much it's feeding, getting the residents up out of bed, getting them ready, getting them washed, changed and ready for breakfast. And then there's the feeding aspect of it where you help them, those who are not able to feed themselves. You have to feed them as well. And also, if they have any activities that need to get done, we get them to those activities as well.

MG: MG: I said in the introduction that you do the you know, the heavy lifting, literally and figuratively. Tell me about some of the physical challenges of a job like this.

ASONA KIRTON: That some of the physical challenges would be just basically the bending. Sometimes you have residents that are a little bit more on the heavier side. And in terms of repositioning and stuff, it can get challenging at times.

MG: You also have to be in some ways in in a position that can be a delicate one between the clients that you work with and maybe family members as well. What is that like?

ASONA KIRTON: That is interesting. At all times we have to, you have to respect the rights, the ones of the family members. Sometimes, even though, you know, you don't think that this is how it should be, it's what the family member wants. And at the end of the day, you have to remember you're working for the resident and for the family members. So you basically have to do what they request. Speaking with them sometimes can be challenging, but on the most part, we have a pretty good family members who understand what we do and understand that it's challenging and taxing and they appreciate it.

MG: What was your job like this spring as the pandemic really took hold?

ASONA KIRTON: Oh, wow. Yes, it's it was nerve wracking going to work every day, knowing that not knowing if I'm going to get infected or if I'm going to bring it home to my kids or, but I think that's overall, we had everything that we needed in terms of PPE. And anything that we needed, we were backed up by our management with and so it made it a little bit easier and less nerve-wracking going to work.

MG: Did you manage to avoid getting sick yourself?

ASONA KIRTON: Can I hold off on saying that?

MG: That's tricky. OK. I mean, it speaks to how delicate the situation is, right?

ASONA KIRTON: Yep, yep, yep. It does speak to how delicate the situation is, but I'd rather not say if I did or wasn't infected, if that's OK.

MG: I mean part of that is about the work that you're trying to do. We've heard stories of personal support workers juggling two and three different jobs because they don't make enough in one position. Is that where you end up?

ASONA KIRTON: Sometimes, yes, because the like as a personal support worker, there's a lot that you do. However, the pay does not match up to what you do. And so you end up having to work here at one job, part time and part time at another job. So sometimes you end up working in one location and then having to run across the city to another location to your job, because as personal support workers were just not paid enough or we do not get enough hours to like to facilitate full time hours, we're just part timers everywhere we go and that doesn't help you with the bills and making ends meet.

MG: And so the Ontario government has announced a plan to recruit and retain thousands of PSWs, and that includes a three dollar per hour pay increase. What sort of difference, given what you've just said, what sort of difference would that make in your life?

ASONA KIRTON: I think it would, it might just be a drop in the bucket, but we appreciate it for sure. The challenge is now, do we get the full time hours to then keep to then make this pay really be substantial to us? Because if we're still going to be doing the part time and then if at the end of it we're gonna go back to being what we were before then it really doesn't help.

MG: The other part of this is the province is offering a $5,000 bonus for new graduates and people who return to the field, who commit to working in long-term care. For people who've been in this all alongm how does that make them feel do you think?

ASONA KIRTON: Yeah, for people who have been in this, like it seems like, you know, a slap in the face. I mean, you know, we were just saying, like, yeah, we've been here, we've stuck it out, but there's nothing there for us, just those who are willing to come on board now. I think that it should be across the table. Like I see where you want to encourage people to come in, but also encourage us to stay and show us that you appreciated that we stayed this long in this field.

MG: Just before I let you go, we hear about a second wave that's all around us. The case numbers are spiking in many parts of this country. What would you like to see from governments to make the work that you do better and easier, and particularly for the patients that you're helping as well?

ASONA KIRTON: We need more staff. And like I said, we need more people who are able to be there to help out, because when this COVID hits, a lot of people for fear of taking it home to their to their families, they stay away. But if you give them an incentive to come to work, then people will do that. And I think that's what we need for personal support workers. I think more than anything else, personal support workers need to be, need to feel appreciated and if they do, they will step up to the plate and do what needs to be done to tackle the second wave.

MG: Do you feel appreciated?

ASONA KIRTON: Not all the time.

MG: Yeah. I'm gonna say thanks for the work that you're doing, and I really appreciate you speaking with us this morning, Asona. Thank you.

ASONA KIRTON: Thank you.

MG: Asona Kirton is a personal support worker in Toronto. Outside of Ontario there have been, as I mentioned, work that's been done to try to bring more people into this field. In Quebec there was a massive recruitment drive aimed at hiring 10,000 caregivers. They're known as orderlies in that province. British Columbia announced a plan to hire 7000 workers, known there as health care aides or health care assistants. There is widespread agreement that more of these health care workers are needed, but getting them trained is not as simple as you might think. Joining me now, two people with insight into this. Laura Bulmer is a professor in the PSW Program at George Brown College in Toronto and chair of the Canadian Association of Continuing Care Educators. Natalie Stake Doucet is the president of the Quebec Nurses Association, also a board member on the Canadian Nurses Association. Good morning to you both.

LAURA BULMER: Good morning.

NATALIE STAKE DOUCET: Good morning.

MG: Laura, you're one of the people who is going to be training these new PSWs. Tell me about what are facing in the midst of a pandemic and making sure that people are ready to step into the work that needs to be done.

LAURA BULMER: What a great question, Matt. There, I mean, nationally, we are seeing the dawn of a new educational era across the board. And certainly with the pandemic restrictions in place, the delivery programmes with lab and clinical components in particular can be challenging. You know, it started in March 2020. Obviously, when PSW program teams turn into crisis response teams, quickly shifting their approach to help get those graduates to be able to finish their studies. So the challenge is now that we're seeing are from an educator perspective, the pressure to learn technology at breakneck speed. It's overwhelming. You know, the addition of having to create online appropriate lessons and learning activities and evaluations while we promote a supportive environment has been really tough. Now, theory is not so much an issue compared to the challenges related to teaching PSW skills. Having students to do return demonstrations as the students do not have the proper equipment in their homes to get hands on experience. And we just don't have access to the campuses the way that we did before know and certainly to have virtual Face-To-Face conversations with students. And that helps. But nothing, nothing at all can replace the in-person contact before and after class. You know, those informal conversations,.

MG: Natalie, we saw in the spring what happens when you don't have enough of these workers? The shortage of orderlies and came back was disastrous. You were there on the front lines. What did you see?

NATALIE STAKE DOUCET: Absolutely. What was mostly frustrating for us and I mean, you know, the whole care team and that includes orderlies, nurses, licenced practical nurses that we've been talking about the shortage for years, even decades now. And going into the pandemic, a lot of us got sick. And a lot of us were, you know, thrown into, were moved from our usual place of work to go work in long-term care or ER, you know. Not ER, I mean long term care and clinics. I'm sorry. cBut then the government sounded surprised that, you know, the shortage was so critical and that we had so many problems and long-term care always feels like it's completely forgotten or even worse, ignored. And, you know, again, that's what we saw during this first wave of the pandemic in Quebec. A lot of our PPE was literally taken out of long term care to be sent to hospitals, so we felt like, you know, we weren't protected and we weren't listened to.

MG: I mean, and Laura was talking a little bit about some of the challenges around training. From your perspective, what are you up against in Quebec training thousands of people to work as orderlies with a crisis that's all around us?

NATALIE STAKE DOUCET: Well, I don't think that the issue mainly is with the training. I mean, I'm a nurse, so I can't speak for, I don't train my orderly colleagues and I trust them to do their jobs. You know, all my colleagues have ever worked with were really good people and extremely good at their jobs. So I think it is possible to do what the government has announced they will do. I just feel like it hasn't been completely thought through. How are the schools going to do this? This accelerated formation training. And the training that they're proposing is so that the new orderlies, which are they were supposed to be 10,000, now they're down to about 7000, that they only work in long term care because they don't get, they'd only get the training for that. That's why it's much quicker than the usual training. So how are we going to guarantee to make sure that they are actually kept in long-term care and not thrown all over the place as w. Seen since the beginning of the pandemic, there was very little respect for a person's speciality or where they're used to working.

MG: We got a statement from the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services that says in part: the arrival of these graduates in the field will add more resources to our establishments and thus ensure greater staff availability and better patient care, and that various measures will allow these new workers to integrate into their work environment and the collaboration of workers already in the place is required. How then, how do you ensure a part of that is about making sure that people stay in the job, but also and you've talked a bit about this, the idea of respect, Natalie. How do you ensure that those coming into the position feel as though they're being respected?

MG: Absolutely. I think your speaker, Ms. Kirton, I think you said said it perfectly. You know, there's very little respect for the work that they do, which is not basic care. It's really essential care. It is care that is necessary for life. So I think that's something that needs to be recognized and celebrated in the way that they do. And also that the work, you know, people need to work full time and in Quebec especially, it's been a real issue for orderlies to get positions. They all work full time, but with a part-time position. That means they don't get benefits associated with a full time position, and that obviously is problematic and it makes them much more vulnerable to, you know, management decisions of moving them all over the place. Our health minister just admitted that we've never stopped personnel mobility throughout the crisis. You know, our first wave, that was a real issue. Health-care personnel were a vector for spreading the virus. And, you know, we've been asking for years and years and years to stabilize the teams, especially long-term care. Long-term care is supposed to be, you know, a person's place of life, not just care. So you need and the staff needs and the residents need the same people to take care of them day in, day out, as much as possible so you can build relationships.

MG: I want to hear Laura's reaction to this. But have a listen to this first. This is from British Columbia, where the province is targeting, in particular the hospitality workers who've lost their jobs because of this pandemic to fill these new jobs. We spoke with Terry Lake, former B.C. health minister, now the CEO of the B.C. Care Providers Association that represents long-term care facilities in that province.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: So you can imagine that if you're working in housekeeping, in a hotel or in the kitchen of a hotel environment, that you could move into long term care and perform some of those similar types of duties that will be of great assistance to the operator of long term care. Meanwhile, working with on the job training and post-secondary institutions to provide the modular more formal training they could after a period of time, provide the more hands on assistance that's needed for toileting, for feeding and some of the really critical activities of daily life needs.

MG: Laura Bulmer, what do you make of the idea of British Columbia targeting in particular hospitality workers to fill these jobs?

LAURA BULMER: Well, again, I think it meets the need of trying to get some more workers out there. However, I do question the thought behind it. I think that there's a lot of feelings out there of people saying you can't just plug people into places to look after the elderly or vulnerable sick Canadians. It is almost like a calling in. The people that are in that profession right now are people who don't really necessarily do it for the money, clearly. So I'm wondering if that's a good fit. To me, it just seems like a real quick fix.

MG: How do you think this job is seen? I mean, outside of you, as you say, the people who are there aren't doing it for the money. But if you step back for a moment, even within the rest of the health care sector, how is this job seen, Laura?

LAURA BULMER: Ultimately, it's not seen as a profession of choice. You know, there is a hierarchy that exists, whether it be known or not, that, you know, that there's like doctors and nurses. And even within each one of those, there are different levels as well and the PSWs are at the bottom of it. And that's the unfortunate part, because they do the grunt work. There's no two ways about it.

MG: So what do you do to address that? You've been calling for standardisation and regulation, but is that the answer in terms of getting people to think differently about this job and then realizing once they think differently about it, how better to support the job beyond a temporary pay increase?

LAURA BULMER: Right. So certainly the lack of standardization is is mind boggling in this sector. You know, there's no standardised name, as you alluded to before. We the last time we counted, there is 50 plus titles across the country. It causes confusion and creates a space where, you know, recognition for what they do is difficult to decipher. There's no national scope of practise. There's no standardisation for education, for example, in Ontario. There's three entry to practise points. You can easily become a piece of you through a. College, a high school or a private school, you know, in the theme of a lack of standardisation, also includes code of ethics and the ability of this worker to, you know, be involved in medication management. And that's one thing I really want to bring up, too, is that PSWs are actually being asked to perform nursing skills. So consideration needs to be given to creating a new level of nurse as well.

MG: I can hear you agreeing, Natalie, in the background. We just have a couple of minutes left, but what do you want to see done to ensure that we don't have a repeat of what we saw in spring?

NATALIE STAKE DOUCET: There's a lot of things. First thing is to, you know, decent pay for the work, incredibly important work that they do. I agree with the idea of standardization, not just across provinces, but across the country. And I think our politicians need to understand what it means to work in long-term care. You know that excerpt you let us hear was, you know, seeing hospitality workers can just feed somebody and, you know, eating somebody in long term care is not just putting food in their mouth. There'sa thought process. There's an incredibly delicate balance you have to make sure that the person you're feeding, who's a delicate, fragile elder a lot of times doesn't, you know, choke or to make sure that the food stays down. It's not just, it's a much more complex level of care than I think a lot of our politicians realize. And I think that's what leads to a lot of the decisions that they make because they don't understand the nature of the work. And I think they should take the time to understand what it means to be a personal support worker or orderly in long-term care, and to listen to the people on the ground.

MG: Laura, we just have about 30 seconds left, Laura. Do you think that PSWs and other health care workers are better prepared now for what we're about to step into?

LAURA BULMER: In a short answer, no. No, there's no doubt in my mind that regulation of PSWs is crucial. So that's what we need to look forward to and we need to work on advocacy groups. We need to work together with government to advise the policymakers. It is too splintered right now. There's a lot of little fingers in the pile all over the place. We need to talk together to work on some more long term care solutions.

MG: Great to talk to you both together this morning. Thank you very much.

LAURA BULMER: Thank you so much. Have a great day.

NATALIE STAKE DOUCET: Thank you so much.

MG: Laura Bulmer is a professor in the PSW Program at George Brown College in Toronto. And Natalie Stake Doucet is the president of the Quebec Nurses Association. The CBC News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I mean, I have a mask right here. I put a mask on it, you know, when I think I need it. Tonight as an example, everybody's had a test and you've had social distancing and all of the things that you have to, but I wear masks when needed.

MG: With less than a month to go until the election, the president has COVID. We'll talk about what this means for him, the election for fighting the virus in the United States. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

[Music]

Back To Top »

White House correspondent discusses effects of the President’s illness on the campaign

Guests: Josh Wingrove, Jorge Salinas

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

[Music: theme]

MG: Still to come, the new leader of the federal Green Party. But first, a president in hospital.

[Music: theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Sounds from Donald Trump rally]

MG: U.S. President Donald Trump surprised supporters yesterday with a drive by visit outside Walter Reed Hospital waving in a mask from the back of an SUV. Doctors say he could be released as early as today after being admitted to the hospital Friday for treatment for COVID-19. A couple of weeks back during our U.S. election series, Road to November, we met a man named Dan Smicker. He is a sheep farmer in Dewitt, Iowa, and the chairman of the Clinton County Republicans. We called Dan back for his reaction to news of the president's hospitalization.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The president has to deal with a lot of people unfortunately in his job. Sooner or later he's going to get exposed to COVID, unless he wants to hibernate in a basement somewhere. I don't think he's anymore oblivious to the danger than anybody else. It's just a chance you got to take. Like I said, he said it completely caved up and hid in the basement, you know, for prevention measures. Or he could've conducted presidential requirements as usual. And we got a very good vice president, Mike Pence, to fill in. Well I wouldn't say I'm worried, you've always got to be concerned, but you know, you just have to wait and see what happens.

MG: And indeed, people in the United States and right around the world are waiting to see what happens. Josh Wingrove is the White House correspondent for Bloomberg News. Josh, good morning.

JOSH WINGROVE: Good morning.

MG: What do we know about how the president is doing today?

JOSH WINGROVE: Well, we know there are mixed signals. If you ask the White House doctor whose credibility has come under strain over the last 48 hours, the president is improving and facing discharge as soon as today to the White House, where his medical care would continue. But on the flip side, the White House continues to be quite misleading about the president's condition. For instance, they said Saturday that he'd not received oxygen on Friday and then later admitted that he had received oxygen. They still have not said how high his fever went. They're being unclear about whether he got oxygen again a second time on Saturday. And they have now prescribed three treatment drugs. The most recent one is a steroid, which is used mostly in more severe cases. So, you know, the breadcrumbs of these details are pointing to what is still a pretty severe case. And we're early on yet. Usually things get more serious between day seven and ten. So Trump isn't there yet. But in the public tone, the president himself is leading the charge on positive.

MG: Well and he's been tweeting away furiously this morning. I mean, I lost count in the number of tweets that he had issued. Many of them all in caps.

JOSH WINGROVE: Well, as I said, the third one is a steroid.

MG: Tell me more about this, what was going on with the doctor. This was fascinating yesterday and you've written about it, where the doctors said one thing and then there was reporting that was done to suggest that the doctor perhaps wasn't telling the whole truth or was deliberately not telling the truth. What was going on there?

JOSH WINGROVE: This is he appears to be trying to tweak the rules or tweak the assessment, I should say, to please President Trump. Trump habitually hates shows of weakness or what he perceives to be shows of weakness. Going into hospital is not something he wanted to do. And so it looks like they're frankly lying about or misstating about certain parts of it to make it look better. And so, you know, on Saturday, as I mentioned, he indicated that Trump had not received oxygen in a day earlier, the White House joined in. I mean, they all they were saying Friday was that Trump had mild symptoms. But we know now that, in fact, he had a fever that spiked to, quote, high fever. That's all we know about it. He had been on oxygen and that he was about to be hospitalised. And they spent all day calling it a mild fever excuse me, a mild symptoms. And so, you know, broadly, I think this is all sown distrust in it. So that brings us to today and his potential release. You know, we'll see. We'll see, I suppose, as of Saturday. They thought he could be, you know, another several days in hospital as of yesterday, potentially, really today shortening the timeline. But other external doctors are saying that if it was up to them, the president would stay in hospital. He needs to be monitored. He's not out of this yet. And in fact, it's still coming up to the most critical window of time.

MG: And we're learning right now that he's going to be meeting with his medical team today in the morning to assess his progress. And the team is optimistic that he'll return to the White House later on Monday. He left the hospital briefly yesterday for this motorcade appearance that was baffling to a lot of people, including doctors who work at that hospital. What is your sense as to why he would do that?

JOSH WINGROVE: Yeah, this plugs into his desire to sort of put on, I guess, the strong faith. And, of course, you heard the gentleman from Iowa just before me. You know, Trump says, you know, he does want to hide in the basement. But he's also demonstrating what is not best practise. You shouldn't be leaving your hospital if you're infectious or, you know, mid stage Cauvin patient. You should be wearing masks. The president almost never wore masks before this. He had massive rallies. He would bring the press to them. You know, we would be in crowds of thousands of people. Almost none of them wearing masks, shoulder to shoulder, I mean, really just floating the own government's guidelines, Trump's own government guidelines. So last night, he took this drive by amendment to the question of the U.S. Secret Service agents in that car who were in a sort of a hermetically sealed vehicle with an active COVID patient. The U.S. Secret Service isn't saying now whether those agents have to quarantine. So, you know, this is what we're seeing. And then potentially, if he comes back to the White House, raises the same issue. Is he still actively shedding the virus? And if so, will he be confined to the residence of the White House? This has put his own staff at risk. The resident staff at risk. You know, we'll see. Of course, Melania Trump herself is recovering, isn't quite as bad a condition, we understand, and has been at the White House this whole time. But there's a lot of moving parts to this one, but the president appears to try to be sort of rushing his way back to the White House.

MG: In part, presumably because an election is under a month away. What does this mean for the election campaign of Donald Trump?

JOSH WINGROVE: It's too early to tell. Historically, in these kind of situations, presidents some times see a bit of a bump in approval, but the election is in many ways under way. Ballots are being cast by mail or in advance. In many states already, the polls that have come since the debate, you know, either before or around the time of Trump's illness have shown Vice President Biden maintaining or expanding his lead on the president. So, you know, Trump's in trouble, but I think mainly what it will do is focus the news cycle as well as the voters attention on coded. And that is bad news for Donald Trump. He wanted to talk about the economy. COVID is an issue where polling doesn't really favour him. Americans think he's bungled it. And so that alone, focusing on this alone will be a bad news situation for him because voters think Biden would do a better job in handling the pandemic.

MG: There are other leaders around the world who have COVID-19. You think of Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom, you think of Bolsonaro in in Brazil. How did that play out for them in terms of how their electorate received that news and received what was going on in the midst of a pandemic, in the midst of a crisis?

JOSH WINGROVE: Yeah Johnson saw a bump, but it was very early on in his government and bump still that hasn't evaporated. Bolsonaro got a bump. But it was more correlated to him sending out cheques than it was his own illness. Trump's national security advisor, who himself had COVID and has recovered, said today that he was going to visit Bolsonaro.So they appear to sort of be setting up these meetings with folks that have had it and recovered to try to, you know, continue the positive spin I alluded to. But, yeah, you know, they bumps. It's a little mixed about whether it was their coded case or the stuff that went with it. But, you know, neither case is totally equal to the president's scenario. I mean, as we know, this has been a deeply polarizing presidency. You know, there's not a lot of undecided voters, as you can imagine, people either, they're either take him or leave him with President Trump. And so, you know, I personally have a hard time imagining how many voters might be swayed by this one way or another. And as I say, the campaign themselves, Trump's campaign did not want to be talking about COVID, they wanted to talk about reopening. So having their number one campaign asset, both as a rally post and as a fund raiser at a time where they're trailing Biden in cash too, is wounding anyway you cut it.

MG: Can he do those rallies? I mean, is there any expectation that those rallies would resume at all if he is able to get out of the hospital in the next few days?

JOSH WINGROVE: I mean, I don't think they would resume it easily. But absolutely, I would expect if he had recovered and had met potentially the CDC quarantine guidelines. But, you know, maybe not, who knows. But, yeah, he would resume. He thrives on those things. He loves them. And his supporters really don't seem to be all that worried about COVID when they attend them. Like I say, they're taking almost no precautions when they go. In the meantime, they might have Mike Pence continue it. It's unclear. Looks like the vice president debate this week is a go, although they're now haggling over the rules to make it a bit safer. But I fully expect that the minute that Trump can either strong arm his doctors to allow it or that they think it would be palatable politically, that we will see him in some form or another back on the campaign trail, whether it's rallies or whether it's more of a, you know, socially distance type events. He loves being at the podium and he believes that's the way he will win.

MG: This is a wildly unpredictable disease. What happens if he gets even sicker in the coming days?

JOSH WINGROVE: Yeah, I mean, I should know that Biden and his people are among the people that are praying to the president, first lady to recover, this is a rare point of sort of nonpartisan issue in the States. But, you know, if it's really serious, he in other words incapacitated, then the 25th Amendment comes into play and Mike Pence takes over. Pence's tested negative repeatedly despite attending many of the same events, including as recently as yesterday. But the president has been really against talking about this. The White House will not discuss contingency plans. He's, of course, discussing it might be an indication that things are worse, a lot to indicate. So, you know, I guess at the national security adviser was asked about that earlier this morning. He said the president has been in charge of the whole top. There's no question about that. Our adversaries know it. Our allies know it. So they're very uneager to discuss the scenario where things go south in terms of the president's health. Or, for instance, Boris Johnson was put on in an ICU bed and put on oxygen and had to transfer power to his foreign secretary for nearly two weeks, if I recall correctly. So that sort of scenario is not out of question, but they just simply don't want to discuss it.

MG: The president has said that this disease, the pandemic, will just go away, that it will dissipate when the temperatures change, that it's just like a mild flu. He put a video out yesterday saying he now gets it when he's talking about the virus and then he went on in that motorcade ride. What do you think, we're going to be speaking with a doctor about this in a moment, but what do you think, given how do this if this has been in the United States, that this will do for the way his supporters see the pandemic?

JOSH WINGROVE: I think that the president always bends the facts to his views and then sends them to the narrative he wants to build. So I think he will seize upon his illness and presuming and hoping he recovers, I think that he will try to use this as a campaign ploy, being like, look, you know, I'm prevented America from being defeated by this. I do not, for instance, to expect him to start wearing masks more frequently. But if anything, he might think his antibodies put him less at risk. So I really essentially don't expect much to change at all. He is they're sort of throwing the kitchen sink at him. You know, he's like there's three drugs he's taken so far. One of them is not approved even for emergency use yet. And they give him that almost immediately. Now, as I mentioned, the most recent one, which he's still on is for higher cases. You recall earlier in the year he took Hydroxychloroquine, which he thinks helps with this, but which the FDA has since issued a poisoning warning for. So they're really giving him sort of everything they can. And I don't expect a chastened Donald Trump to emerge from this, even if he makes a full and quick recovery.

MG: Josh, thank you.

JOSH WINGROVE: Thank you.

MG: Josh Wingrove is a White House correspondent for Bloomberg News.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: If anything it's going to bolster the actions I'm taking to protect myself and others from the coronavirus.

VOICE 2: Maybe he can totally change his narrative about it. People who follow him can see like it is a real thing.

VOICE 1: Dealing with the virus and those who don't wear masks is down to a belief level, so it's going to take a lot to sway them either way.

VOICE 3: Hopefully it will open up their eyes for them. That this is something very serious, that anyone can get, even the president of the United States, but I think some people are kind of have made up their mind about COVID.

VOICE 4: You know, his core, I think a lot of the rest of us have been kind of on board with it to varying degrees. My daughter wears a mask, but if she's out walking around outside, she told me last night, I take it off. And I told her, I don't think that's really a good idea. If you're meeting someone on the sidewalk, you should have a mask on.

VOICE 5: If the course of the disease is mild to moderate for him, it could amplify his disregard for precautions. If it's really severe but recovers, he may come out with a different message for people to take the disease more seriously.

MG: That's how some people in the streets of Iowa City are reacting to the news that the president has been hospitalised with COVID-19. It's a state, Iowa is, that is being hit particularly hard. With more than 90,000 cases on Friday alone, more than a thousand new cases. Dr. Jorge has Salinas is an infectious disease expert and hospital epidemiologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Doctor, good morning to you.

JORGE SALINAS: Good morning. Happy to be here.

MG: Thank you for joining us. What went through your mind when you heard that the president was hospitalized?

JORGE SALINAS: Unfortunately, this is something that could happen to anyone, particularly to people that are not following all of the public health recommendations. So this was not totally surprising.

MG: There has been some confusion as to how serious the president's condition was. Have a listen to something from Sunday's briefing. This is Dr. Brian Garibaldi of Johns Hopkins Hospital. He's part of the team treating Donald Trump.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We've been monitoring for any potential side effects, and he has had none that we can tell. His liver and kidney function have remained normal. And we continue to plan to use a five day course of Remdesivir. In response to transient low oxygen levels, we did initiate dexamethasone therapy and he received his first dose of that yesterday and our plan is to continue that for the time being.

MG: Doctor, what can you tell us by listening to that?

JORGE SALINAS: Well, there are several questions about for how long has he been sick. Depending on how long he's been sick, it may be too early to fully assess the extent of his illness. We now know that people tend to get sicker about five to seven days after the onset of symptoms. So he may just be at the beginning of that phase. So it's still unclear whether he will get worse or not. But the symptoms and the medications that they describe, meaning the hypoxia, the low oxygen levels and and the medications that were given as a result of that, the dexamethasone, speak of potentially him being already at that stage. At the five to seven days of illness. So I would still be cautious. His clinical condition can change in the next few days still. He will feel great because dexamethasone has that as a side effect. Anyone that receives dexamethasone feels very good. Fever starting to go away, you'll feel great. It doesn't mean that it has necessarily changed the course of the disease. Something else that is interesting about COVID is that people may have low oxygen levels and not notice it. And so I think that all those things can play a role in him feeling better than he really is.

MG: People are watching this around the world and I mentioned in your state perhaps watching it particularly closely because of how badly hit Iowa has been by COVID-19. On Sunday, the state was reporting that there were more than 90,000 confirmed cases. Why are the numbers so high so far into this pandemic?

JORGE SALINAS: It's a series of factors. We've had both outbreaks in congregate settings as well as a transmission in the community. The outbreaks in the congregate settings, including factories and meat processing plants, had to do with crowded indoor conditions, conditions that are now well known to excessive the transmission of COVID. And thetransmission at prisons as well, at colleges as in the rest of America, as well as transmission in the community. Unfortunately, our state has been very lax in the implementation of public health guidance, even coming from the White House. We don't have a face mask mandates, for example. There are virtually no regulations when it pertains to physical distancing or frequent hand hygiene. And one of the biggest recommendations, one of the most important recommendations to avoid large outbreaks, avoiding crowded indoor places has not translated officially into limiting the number of people that can gather or closing of bar or restaurants.

MG: How much do you think people are influenced by leaders like the president, who perhaps to your point, don't always follow those guidelines?

JORGE SALINAS: I think that the countries, states, provinces, et cetera, that have had a better response to all of it are those in which everybody is on the same page that leaders and the people follow public health and guidance and science. If we tried to make science and public health guidance debateable or not applicable to oneself, it becomes more problematic. There is disbelief mistrust in those recommendations and the uptake of the guidance goes down. And therefore, the effectiveness to fight the pandemic.

MG: So the president said on Sunday in this video that he now gets it when he's talking about COVID. Then he immediately left the hospital to go and greet supporters in his motorcade before returning. What effect do you think that could have on what you're talking about in terms of how people see this this pandemic?

JORGE SALINAS: Yes, unfortunately, I was very hopeful, I remain hopeful that the leaders, including the president, will change their mind, will modify their public health messaging and lead by example. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. And it may help persist these debates or lack of trust in public health guidelines, that lack of adherence to facemasks, for example, physical distancing. And it could just prolong the outbreak in the United States. Many people in many countries are unfortunately experiencing a second wave. For example, the United States has never left in the first wave and there's no end in sight yet.

MG: Is there the possibility that if people see that their president can get this, that anybody can get it and then people will act differently?

JORGE SALINAS: There is that possibility. Yes, I think that if anything, these cases, this outbreak at the White House shows that nobody is invincible or immune to COVID. And perhaps hopefully people will understand that if you follow public health recommendations, you can decrease your risk. It's been very clear that people at the White House were not following physical distancing, face masks and avoiding crowds. Therefore, hopefully, this will serve as an example as many other outbreaks that we have seen throughout the world to modify behaviours both in leaders and in the public. Now, what we also need to recognize that this outbreak is still evolving. Not everybody is out of their incubation period. That can be up to 14 days. So other people can get sick. Even if the president, which we all hold recovers and older people that were exposed in that in that outbreak are also at high risk because of their age and comorbidities and may also have poor outcomes. So again, and also I I believe there is already evidence that there are more, there's more transmission happening from the people that were present at the White House, they may have given them to their family members or to other people. So, again, the White House is just part of a chain of transmission. So I think that this whole example, this whole scenario, this whole outbreak could help educate the public on what can happen if you don't follow public health guidance.

MG: So just in the last minute or so that we have in the best case scenario, given how did this if this has been in your state and across the United States, what would you want to hear from the president? He's just gone through this. He's still in the hospital. What would you want to hear from him?

JORGE SALINAS: I wish he followed public health guidance from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the premier public health institutions in the world. And he would lead by example and wear facemasks in every public event. Avoid crowded indoor places, avoid crowded rallies and practice physical distancing. I believe that some of the White House has already started implementing some of these measures. I hope that that we see a change in the way he and his team conduct themselves to lead by example.

MG: Do you expect to see that?

JORGE SALINAS: I hope that. That's something that we have to continue hoping and that perhaps again, this outbreak is not over. And he himself is not out of the woods yet. No matter how he feels today. And again, there are other people that are still positive. And so we don't know yet what the final outcome of this outbreak is. There is still the possibility that somebody will get severely ill, even if not the president, that somebody could die from this outbreak. So I still hope that people that are very close to this situation will learn from this experience.

MG: Dr. Salinas, It's good to talk to you about this. It is a moving story and we will keep our eye on it in terms of what develops over the course of the next few hours, in the next few days. In the meantime, thank you.

JORGE SALINAS: Absolutely.

MG: Dr. Jorge Salinas, an infectious disease expert and hospital epidemiologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. He was in Iowa City. Your regional update is next. We're back in 90 seconds and you will meet the new leader of the federal Green Party. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Annamie Paul is Canada's first Black leader of a federal party. She says it shouldn't have taken this long

Guests: Annamie Paul

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

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I have in my hand the final round. The next leader has been elected by 12,090 votes. Please join me in congratulating the next leader of the Green Party of Canada, Annamie Paul.

MG: Eight candidates, eight rounds, and the Green Party has a new leader after 14 years. She is Annamie Paul, a lawyer from Toronto. And she joins me now. Annamie Paul, good morning.

ANNAMIE PAUL: Good morning.

MG: Congratulations.

ANNAMIE PAUL: Oh, thank you so much.

MG: What was it like hearing the interim Green Party leader, Jo-Anne Roberts, announce you as the new leader?

ANNAMIE PAUL: Just listening to it there, you know, she has a great delivery style. You know, it's humbling and you feel a sense of responsibility immediately. And being a woman of colour, being a woman of a first generation Canadian, you also feel a sense of history. So it was, it's a lot in just a few seconds.

MG: How did you win? You beat out seven other candidates. Why do you think you won and how did you win?

ANNAMIE PAUL: We won by just working extremely hard all the time. I was telling our team yesterday that you can know that every single thing that you did throughout this campaign, every phone call, every event that you organized, every time you woke up early, it all made a difference. It all mattered because, as you said, there were so many rounds. And I really do believe that Green Party members just responded to our message, which was all about making sure that we continue to be what we are, which is the most daring party in Canadian politics, the most innovative party in Canadian politics. And I believe that they you know, they really felt that I was committed to that.

MG: You have made history already. As you mentioned, you are the first black woman, the first Jewish woman to lead a federal political party. What does that mean to you?

ANNAMIE PAUL: It means to me that it's going to be easier for the next one and the next one and the next one. And I would say that the most the most touching and emotional part of all of this is really all of the people who have contacted me on social media. Bye bye. Email texting me to say that this has made a difference in terms of what they think is possible either for themselves or for their children. And so, you know, every time one of these doors is open, you hope that it's opened for good. And that's great for Canada because we have so much diversity and so much talent within it. It's always been a ways that we don't tap into it more often.

MG: Are you surprised that it took this long for this to happen?

ANNAMIE PAUL: I absolutely am. I am. And we need to continue, we need to reflect on that and we need to do better because I shouldn't represent so many firsts in 2020. You know, as I said, we have such a tremendous pool of talent amongst our diverse communities. We've done such a good job of attracting that talent from all over the world. If we're not using it, then it's a waste. And if we're not using it, then we're not accessing the best policy ideas. And given the tremendous challenges that we're facing both nationally and internationally, that we just can't allow that.

MG: I guess I ask that question in part because in the run up to yesterday's announcement, you were subjected to racist and anti-Semitic slurs during this campaign, many of which came from within your own party. What does that tell you?

ANNAMIE PAUL: Well, it tells me that we still have work to do. You know, those comments came, they came from all sides, let's say. And, you know, every every political party has work to do to make sure that anyone who is within their ranks represents their values. That's completely anathema to our core value of respect for diversity. To have any members that hold those views. And so, you know, I don't think they feel less welcome today. I know that they're absolutely the minority within our party. And I would say that the best response that Green Party members could have in terms of rejecting all of that was to elect me. So I'm grateful that they did and that was a very intentional signal on their part.

MG: One of your opponents in the race said that your first job is to unite your party. And you sort of hinted at this, but how divided is the Green Party of Canada right now?

ANNAMIE PAUL: Well, I've been so grateful that the other candidates came together very quickly to congratulate me and to commit to working with me. And that's exactly how I feel. I think that when you have leadership races, it's exactly the time to talk about different visions, different directions. And that's very healthy. And I think that that's one of the best things about the Green Party. And so this is the time now for us to come together and make sure that we're as ready as we can be to fight the next election and that we're as ready as we can be to share our good news message with Canadians about the kind of candidate we can have if we have the political courage to build it.

MG: Do you take over a divided party though? I mean, different ideas is one thing, but there were very different concepts of what the Green Party should be.

ANNAMIE PAUL: Well, every single candidate who ran in in the race has publicly congratulated me, publicly committed to working with the Green Party. And so absolutely not. Again, this is just the normal, healthy exchange of ideas that happens. And of course, people are passionate and Green Party members are passionate people. But we understand that we share the same core values. And that's the thing that's you know, that's the thing at the end of the day that keeps us united. And so I have every confidence that we're going to be able to work together.

MG: There was a real push to move the party further to the left. And I'm just wondering whether policies that wing of the party supported, things like defunding and dismantling the police, nationalizing parts of the economy, putting sanctions on against Israel, do those ideas have a place within your party?

ANNAMIE PAUL: Well, it's not my party.

MG: Do those policies have a place within the Green Party led by you?

ANNAMIE PAUL: Well, the membership of our party decides on our policies. And the great news is that we're going to be having a policy convention early next year. So we'll see what our members, how they feel about the direction that we're headed in. I ran to lead the Green Party because of what it is and because of the policies that it has. I feel that there's no doubt that it's the most progressive party in Canadian politics. So, you know, that's going to be, again, another very healthy debate that we have. And I'm confident that our members are going to do what they always do, which is present, as you know, a new slate of policy ideas that really speak to the needs of the moment.

MG: When you say that the Green Party is the most progressive party in Canadian politics, is that a direct shot at the NDP?

ANNAMIE PAUL: I wasn't thinking about them at all, to be honest. But I will say that there's no quite you know, whether it's the the NDP or the Liberals or the Conservatives, my sensation these days is that they're just simply intellectually exhausted. And by that I mean they they keep coming to us and looking to our policy platform for their ideas. They haven't been able, unfortunately, to create a compelling narrative about where we head next as a nation. And given how urgent the questions are, given how much we need that compelling vision, I think that the wells run dry. And really, if you're looking for that narrative and those ideas, you really need to be looking at the Green Party.

MG: You weren't thinking of the NDP at all when you said that?

ANNAMIE PAUL: I was not. No, I sincerely would like. I was thinking about our party and the fact that during these really difficult times where so many of us have lost so much, that the policies that would have made a difference are the policies that the Green Party has been talking about and pushing for for many years, like a guaranteed liveable income and a safe supply and universal pharmacare reforming our long term care system. When my father died earlier in late May because of the failures in that system. So I was thinking I was thinking about those things and I was thinking that, you know. But I will say, of course, that none of those things had been supported by either the Liberals or the NDP in the last election when I ran as a candidate and had they been in place, they would have made a tremendous difference.

MG: We are in people believe the crisis of our time when it comes to climate change. That this is the moment where we need to address this in a meaningful way and if we don't, it will be those subsequent generations that will pay for it. Given that, why do you think the party hasn't attracted more support?

ANNAMIE PAUL: Well, we know that over a third of people in Canada have said that they would seriously consider voting for the Green Party of Canada. Unfortunately, in the last election and because of the electoral system we have at the last minute made many people, more than a third decided to vote strategically. And so they were avoiding voting against something and not for something. And so our challenge, our job, my job as both leader is going to be to share a very exciting good news message about the future we can build that, you know, that is so compelling that they're going to want to take that final step and vote for us. And so, you know, that's what I'll be working on in the weeks and months and months to come. And I do believe that people in Canada exactly because we are living through a pandemic and because they've said they don't want to go back to the way things were, are going to be looking to make a different choice because they want a different outcome the next time.

MG: Your first challenge is going to be getting a seat in the House of Commons and you're going to be running in the riding of Toronto Centre in a by-election that's happening this month. You recently said that you'd had enough of candidates being parachuted into that riding and then taking the next train out of town until the next election. Who were you talking about?

ANNAMIE PAUL: I was speaking about the candidates that sorry, the MPs that have represented the riding for most, not all, there had been some exceptions. But for most of the last 27 years that the Liberals have held that riding, it's often a riding that the Liberals choose to appoint candidates in. The riding where they choose to appoint candidates that then get appointed to cabinet and then have spent all of their time elsewhere doing other things. And, you know, that might be fine for more affluent and secure ridings, but it's certainly not acceptable and not enough for a riding that is struggling with so many urgent issues. The opioid epidemic, affordable housing, child poverty, homelessness, these are all things that Toronto's Centre is in the grips of and they need real representation. They need someone whose focus is on them.

MG: For 14 years, Elizabeth May has been the face of the Green Party. In many ways defined that party. For Canadians who are just getting to know you, what's one thing that you want them to know about you?

ANNAMIE PAUL: I want them to know that I am someone who joined this party and has is committing the next years of their life to leading this party, because I believe that the true solutions, the true solutions to our most urgent problems are being offered by our party. I want them to know that if they have the courage and if they have the I would just say the courage, if they have the courage to to give us the opportunity to represent them, that they will never be disappointed in us because we are always going to prioritize them.

MG: We will talk again. In the meantime, Annamie Paul, congratulations and a pleasure to have you on the program this morning.

ANNAMIE PAUL: Oh, thank you so much. I'm looking forward to it. This is one of my bucket list things that I crossed off the list.

MG: Well, I hope there's a lot of other things in the bucket list. Annamie Paul, thank you.

ANNAMIE PAUL: Thank you.

MG: Annamie Paul, a human rights lawyer and the new leader of the Green Party of Canada.

[Music]

Back To Top »

‘We’re seeing the dismantling of a democracy’ says author amidst growing human rights concerns in India

Guests: Natasha Badhwar

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. Last week, one of the world's largest human rights organzations was kicked out of the world's largest democracy. Amnesty International says its bank accounts in India have been frozen, essentially halting its operations there. Another sign of what critics call an attack on that country's civil society. Natasha Badhwar is an author, filmmaker and human rights activist. She's in New Delhi. Natasha, hi.

NATASHA BADHWAR: Hello.

MG: What was your reaction to the news that Amnesty International says it essentially can't continue to work inside India?

NATASHA BADHWAR: Well, when the news did come with a lot of shock, with a sense of horror. Not necessarily, it was not necessarily not anticipated. You know, we have been watching chipping away all rights of civil society organizations, as well as some of the people themselves when they have tried to protest peacefully in the last year in India. So we have seen a backlash and we were expecting more, especially after the performance of the Indian government during the pandemic and the lockdown that left millions of poor people homeless and without food. At a time when they needed assurance and reassurance from the state, they were actually abandoned. So in that kind of a scenario, we were anticipating and we still are anticipating that actually the backlash would get much worse. But nevertheless, when it did happen and Amnesty International turned out to be the organization that was the first target, you know, there is not only shock and anger, there's also grief.

MG: Amnesty put out a report.

NATASHA BADHWAR: We're seeing the dismantling of a democracy.

MG: Well, Amnesty put out a report in February or on the February riots saying that the police in India committed, in Amnesty's words, serious rights violations by beating protesters, taking part in riots with Hindu mobs. How would the government have reacted to that sort of report, do you think?

NATASHA BADHWAR: Well there is, you know, a very, very robust heritage of civil society, protest and civil society. Fact finding team actually probing in to incidents of communal violence, probing into any kind of large-scale violence that has taken place that has hurt communities within the country and, you know, as you know, India is still a fairly young democracy. We have a freedom struggle that is very much alive in the living memory of people. Almost every generation so far has grown up listening to stories of people who have participated in the freedom struggle. So there have always been government excesses, irrespective of the party that has been in power. There has always been also a very robust, strong voice of the people. For that voice to be quashed in this manner and we don't necessarily see Amnesty International as an outsider. You know, Amnesty International is like any of the other not civil society organizations that have been working in this country, along with Oxfam, along with Greenpeace, along with many Indigenous organizations that have grown in India. And they are much loved. They are much appreciated. They have participated in, they have collaborated with the state when the need has arisen for rehabilitation, for relief work. So for the government to react in this manner to a report is completely uncalled for. And they are not the only ones who brought out a report like that. We must be mindful of the fact that the February violence actually took place in the vision of CCTV cameras. People who participated in the violence were actually broadcasting themselves, writing on Facebook Live. So, you know, it didn't take a lot of fact finding to be able to tell who was perpetrating the violence. You know, it's very, very obvious. The videos are still in the public domain that show the police participating and Hindu rights groups participating in violence.

MG: You and I spoke in February about that violence. Last week, there was a major protest that happened that has received a lot of attention and you've been talking about that as well. Just briefly tell us about what that protest was like.

NATASHA BADHWAR: So if you're referring to the citizenship protest, the government of India in mid-December brought out the Citizenship Amendment Act, that which also came very suddenly. It was passed in both houses of the parliament without much debate. It was kind of, you know, just pushed, too, before there could be a debate on it, either within parliament or outside. That actually looked like the beginning of what is called Hindurastra, the creation of the Hindu nation state, that makes people off communities other than Hindus and particularly Muslims, it gives them you know a second class citizenship. It disempowers them. Their citizenship is brought into question. Refugees from of who are who are Muslims and are coming from Muslim countries, neighbouring countries would not be given citizenship irrespective of the fact that they may have been persecuted. Now, this was a complete violation of what we would call the spirit of India, the spirit of the Indian constitution, which is to welcome and rescue anybody who might be in need of help because of persecution, because of their identity. So that is not acceptable to the people of India. And that was, again, a moment of great surprise, because across the country we saw regular people, many, many, many lakhs, millions of first time protesters walk out, embrace the Constitution in public, come out with the Indian flag, you know, draped themselves in the Indian colours and the national anthem and assert that we would not allow the dilution of the core values of the Indian constitution. And that actually carried on from mid-December to January and up to the third week of February. And the protests get swelling. There were 23 protest sites in Delhi itself and many more, you know, in every single state, in smaller towns. So that was really a moment that democracy reasserted itself, in a sense, or the people reasserted themselves.

MG: Well and the protests last week brought in the issue of violence against women as well.

NATASHA BADHWAR: Yes. Yes. There was a protest last week. This is so again, violence against women and caste based violence against women is something that has been a theme, you know, throughout recent history. It's not only something that is happening in India, it is something that we have seen happen in almost every society, irrespective of whether it's the first world or the third world. In India, we had an incident of a particularly gruesome rape, and violence took place in a small town, in a small village in Uttar Pradesh, which is a not Indian state, where a 19 year old woman belonging to the lowest coase, which are called Dalit caste, was gang raped and then beaten so badly that she died 15 days later. She suffered multiple violence, multiple layers of violence, in a sense when she was taken to the hospital because of her caste status and the poverty of her family. She did not get the kind of medical help that someone of a different social class might have been able to access. So, you know, her village failed her, her community and the people of her own neighbourhood violated her right to life. And the state failed her as well. So that has again brought out despite the pandemic. As you know, India's pandemic numbers look really bad at the moment. We are probably going to be the number one affected country soon. And despite the risk of getting COVID-19 people came out on the streets to protest against the mishandling of the case by the state again. And, you know, this is also a BJP ruled state. Uttar Pradesh, sthe chief minister, is very close to the prime minister. And those protests, you know, brought back to our memory in the sense of the protests that have taken place earlier this year.

MG: Just in the last minute or so that we have, you've talked about through Twitter the idea of a second struggle for freedom. Do you think the idea of India itself is under threat?

NATASHA BADHWAR: Absolutely. The idea of India is definitely under threat. We are intrinsically a secular society, despite the history of communal violence that India has seen, despite the violence during the partition of India. We are a nation that has seen almost no religion based terror activities in this country. And for the cultural fabric to be threatened in this way, for a state to deny that people can't actually live peacefully with each other is a threat to the very soul of what it means to be an Indian.

MG: Natasha, it's good to speak with you again. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

NATASHA BADHWAR: Thank you.

MG: Natasha Badhwar, an author, filmmaker and human rights activist. She was in New Delhi. That's The Current for this Monday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q. Tom Power speaking with Alanis Morissette. Her first album in eight years is out. 25 years ago, she released Jagged Little Pill. She's got quite a story to tell and you'll hear it coming up on Q. We'll leave you this morning with some music from India. This is "Khoon Chala" sung by Mohit Chauhan from the 2006 Bollywood blockbuster Raang De Basanti. It is about five young men inspired to fight government corruption. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

[Song: "Khoon Chala" composed by A.R. Rahman]

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

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

Oct. 5, 2020 episode transcript

More Stories Like This