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The Current Transcript for October 21, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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As confidence vote looms, do Liberals want an election, or a distraction?

Guests: Mia Rabson, Marieke Walsh, Niigaan Sinclair

SOUNDCLIP

How do you satirise someone that is on the surface satirising himself? We needed to get deep within the psyche and the dream lives of who this person is.

MATT GALLOWAY: The Oscar winning actor Tim Robbins is no stranger to political satire. His classic film, Bob Roberts, depicted a politician who preyed on the resentments of the rural working class and promised to retake America. Sounds familiar? In 30 minutes, Tim Robbins is here to talk about satire in the era of Donald Trump. His new fictional podcast and the creative good that he says could come out of Hollywood taking a forced pandemic break. Also this morning.

SOUNDCLIP

You may open the envelopes containing your papers. The exam starts now.

MG: You ever have one of those dreams where you sit down to do an exam and you just draw blank on everything you learnt that year? In the midst of this pandemic some school boards have cancelled exams. In an hour, we'll debate whether the change should be a permanent one. Plus, health writer Andre Picard on growing case counts in the West, cancelled trick or treating in the East and rising conspiracy theories as the pandemic drags on. But before that, this question: How do you feel about a federal election? We will find out later today whether we're off to the polls. And that is where we start. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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MG: Canada's coronavirus tally surpassed 200000 cases this week, and with numbers in some regions so high that health officials are cancelling trick or treating on Parliament Hill, though, the really spooky news is the spectre of a snap election.

SOUNDCLIP

Canadians have a trust problem with this prime minister. It's because he keeps looking after people who need his help the least. Now Canadians want to know what powerful friend. Is he protecting now? Whose name is beneath all the black ink on the we documents? Who did he prorogue parliament for who? And what are the prime minister covering up with these latest threats of an election?

Conservative Party leader Aaron O'Toole in the House of Commons yesterday. And this was the prime minister's response.

SOUNDCLIP

The speaker was with the leader of the opposition said this morning with the motion he put forward in his own name and even with the question he's asking, he is demonstrating clearly that he has lost confidence in the government's ability to manage this pandemic. The question he has put before the House, which will be voted on tomorrow, is whether or not parliament has lost the confidence of, the government, has lost the confidence of parliament.

MG: That vote he's talking about is set for later today. And our national affairs panel is here to walk us through what we might expect. Mia Robson is national affairs reporter for The Canadian Press. Marieke Walsh is a political reporter for the Globe and Mail. They're both in Ottawa. And Niigaan Sinclair is a columnist with the Winnipeg Free Press. Good morning to you all.

GUESTS: Good morning.

MG: Marieke. Is there going to be an election?

MARIEKE WALSH: You tell me that. I guess we'll find out. You know, maybe today it all depends on who calls his bluff and how they respond. I think, guys, it's going to be an interesting few hours on Parliament Hill, but it might not all be decided today.

MG: Mia Rabson, fill us in on what's going on here. There's a conservative motion. The prime minister, as we just heard, says this could trigger an election. What's really going on here?

MIA RABSON: This is a power struggle about who has control of parliament and the House of Commons during a minority parliament. That the only reason we are in it, we are in a situation where we could see the government fall today, is because the liberals have made this motion a confidence motion, which the NDP said yesterday they could not find another instance where an opposition, they motion had been turned into a confidence matter by the government ever in Canadian history. So this is a first, but really it is a power struggle between the conservatives and the liberals, for the most part about who will get to control things on Parliament Hill. The liberals say they only want to talk about the pandemic. The conservatives want to ask them questions about we. The bizarre thing is that they're both proposing committees. It's just about sort of how many employees get to sit on the committee and what kind of powers that committee would have to dig into what the pandemic spending and decisions about what would've been made about the pandemic since March. So they both kind of agreed that we're going to have a committee. And I think Jagmeet Singh probably summed it up for Canadians very nicely yesterday when he used words like ludicrous and stupid to describe the situation.

MG: Isn't it the job of opposition parties like the Conservatives to ask questions, to dig into these issues? And if it is, then are they being prevented from doing their job? If the liberals say if you want to set this committee up, then this will be a confidence motion.

MIA RABSON: It's not that they'd be prevented from doing their job if they didn't have this committee. There are other committees, but the liberals have actually been filibustering attempts on some of those other committees to bring up the WI issue, which is why we've landed where we are today, because the conservatives said, well, if you're not going to let us do it at ethics and you're not going to let us ask these questions that finance that, maybe we need a separate committee. And so there are two things that some are really thinking about today, is whether or not the liberals are doing this because they really do want an election. They claim they don't. But they're you know, they're the ones who put us in this situation. So it's a legitimate question. Do they really want to have an election? Do they think this is their chance to win a majority or increase at least increase their minority and sort of say, hey, to the opposition? Look, Canadians have given us the power and the authority to govern through the pandemic now, or is there else? Is there also something that they're trying to hide? Is there are there questions about why they really don't want to answer? Some have suggested to me that it's more about the fact they don't want the focus to be on we, because the longer the focus is on we, the harder it is for the government to do other things and keep the focus on things they'd rather that rather look at. But when you're threatening to have an election because you don't want to go to a committee, it does sort of raise the spectre that maybe there is something that they're hiding.

MG: Marieke Walsh, what do you make of that? I mean, is there anything there? When we're talking about the WE scandal there being enough to perhaps trigger an election? We heard Aaron O'Toole saying, you know, what's the prime minister got to hide?

MARIEKE WALSH: Yes. Exactly. And I think that I think that is that is one of the questions. You know, one of the things leaving opposition parties in Parliament Hill watchers a bit incredulous right now is that the government is suggesting that, you know, the mere fact that ministers and the prime minister might be called to testify at committee would somehow grind to a halt the government's response to the pandemic. We've had committees sitting throughout the pandemic, we've had ministers, we've had deputy ministers, senior civil servants and the prime minister testify at committee. And the government has shown it's been able to do both. So I think that's one of the reasons why people looking at this dynamic makes them think. The liberals who do actually want an election to avoid this. And on the flip side, the liberals do have concerns around the structure of the committee proposed by the conservatives, in part because the conservatives would give more weight to the opposition on on that committee. So there would be a bit more of a of control with the conservatives and the other opposition parties. But Jagmeet Singh with the NDP has that. You know, these are things that can be negotiated if people want to negotiate. And that's really the question, right? We'll go to an election. If enough people in the House of Commons wants to go to want to go to an election, we won't. If one party or multiple parties decide, actually, now's not the time. And that's what they will be discussing in their caucus meetings this morning before they ultimately have to vote in public.

MG: Niigaan Sinclair, many parts of this country are in the midst of a second wave of covered 19. Is now the time for federal election?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Well, I mean, certainly it's not the time for the Conservatives or the NDP. I mean, they're either one of them are prepared or ready to, especially in terms of money to be able to run in the election. So, I mean, if you're the liberals and you look you're looking at your major opposition, you're looking at it at a pretty even keel road to perhaps the majority. But I actually think this whole movement of overplaying the hand here is really just to continue the same trajectory of trying to get the WE scandal off the books and try to get that off the attention commentary reason why the parliament is because they want to get it off the schedule. I mean, this is turning into a liberal sponsorship scandal, part two, and. They would be better suited to get this back on the pandemic, which they were doing really well on. They were getting high popularity as a result of their reaction to the pandemic. And the more that they can get the attention put on their reaction to the pandemic and their work with the pandemic, the CERB, for example, of their successes with addressing the financial issues, with the pandemic. The more better, I think that the government wants. I actually think this is more a diversion issue than it really is. Anything else.

MG: Mia Rabson, finally on this and briefly, there are questions as to whether if the liberals do want an election, they would suffer at the polls because people perhaps don't want an election. They're focussed on trying to keep their heads above water in the midst of a pandemic. British Columbians go to the polls on Sunday. Voters in Saskatchewan elect a new provincial government on Monday. Is there any sense that in those provinces, voters are annoyed with the fact that they are, you know, going to cast a ballot?

MIA RABSON: Not particularly in British Columbia in particular, where they didn't have to call this election. This was this is a decision by the Horgan government to go a little bit early. Initially, there were a lot of anger. I saw lots of that sort of thing flying across social media. People were quite angry about the idea that they were asked to go to an election in a pandemic. And he looks set potentially on Sunday to be elected to a bigger majority, to an actual majority. He doesn't have a majority. He's in a minority right now. And so if the liberals are looking to them, I mean, New Brunswick had an election that government again elected with a majority government, ie, Saskatchewan looks less natural party looks like they're going to be elected. So maybe this is a time for incumbents and there is a sense that the liberals would likely pull this out again. But you never know. I mean, voters are fickle and none of those elections have been held in provinces where the pandemic is sort of a red hot zone right now. Ontario and Quebec are different matters. But as someone else pointed out to me yesterday, if there's anyone that can prove an election can happen in a pandemic, in a hot zone, it's the United States. And, of course, that election, presidential election is proceeding. So the idea that an election can't happen in a pandemic is certainly not really real anymore. And incumbents are doing quite well in Canada. So that's maybe what the liberals are looking at.

MG: Let's talk just briefly about the hot zones. There is a sense, Marieke Walsh, of, I think pandemic fatigue and frustration across this country and yet case counts continue to go up. How would you rate the government's pandemic response during the second wave?

MARIEKE WALSH: I think the challenge in the second wave really does come down to communication. I think you hit the nail on the head when you're talking about pandemic fatigue. And the focus that the first wave brought to Canadians, where all eyes were turning into the prime minister's daily press conferences and where there seemed to be such focus on what leaders were saying and what direction they were giving. I think that has really dissipated in the second wave. I think both with a frustration from the mixed messages Canadians are getting from the varying levels of government and officials who are responsible, but also because people are tired of this. And I think in the face of that, the government has struggled to, you know, recapture that sort of urgency from the first wave. I think also the liberals are still trying to figure out how to best influence and how to have an impact on areas of jurisdiction that really are provincially controlled. And so therefore very much out of their hands. At the same time that voters expect them to be acting on and working on these things.

MG: The other issue, Niigaan, is something we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks, and that is what's happening in indigenous communities that perhaps avoided the first wave and are now really concerned about what's going on in the second wave. Mark Miller, minister of Indigenous Services, says those communities are likely to be hit harder. What is being done to keep those numbers down?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: So right now in Manitoba, you know, proportionately relieving the country in terms of new cases. And one in seven of those cases are indigenous. And so most of them are happening in the inner city of Winnipeg. And what's happening is that we've got situations of poverty, people who have widely expected it was into just communities, racialized communities, poor communities that are most hit. And so just like during the Spanish flu in 1919, it took about six months for indigenous communities to be hit particularly hard. But when they were hit, they were hit harder than typical other communities throughout the country. And so what we're seeing here in Manitoba and also along the prairies is indigenous communities hit faster and harder than typical communities throughout the rest of the country. And what has to be done is there has to be a more aggressive stance than what has been up to this point within indigenous communities in which you're often seeing as leadership within those communities locking down much faster and much harder. And then you're seeing the opening up movement. And I totally agree with Marieke, there there's really been a communication problem. Europe, a country of people taking it seriously, because when the things were opened up, people generally thought, oh, well, OK, we're good now. We can try to, you know, move slowly through this. But the problem is, is that the only way you're going to be able to control this is lockdown.

MG: You mentioned the idea of an aggressive stance. Let's talk about calls on the government to take a much more aggressive stance when it comes to handling the violence against Mi'kmaw fishers in Nova Scotia. What do you make of the government's response, Niigaan Sinclair, to what we've seen certainly over the last week or so, but this has been happening and building for the last couple of weeks?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Well, the main issue is really been the lack of RCMP response to the violence against the fishermen. And so, of course, the federal government, by taking a sort of fairly neutral stance in relation to the RCMP. The real issue, of course, is that leads to why the RCMP is perhaps so stagnant in addressing the issue has been that the federal government had 21 years to try to define what a moderate livelihood is from the Marshall decision of 1999 hasn't done so. Conservative or liberal governments haven't done so. And so as a result, we've got this issue of trying to define what is the Mi'kmaq right from their 1752 tree in relation to lobster fishing. And of course, what that means is left to the hands of conserve conservation ministers to impose this limitation on their ability to set traps. And of course, the amount of traps that Mi'kmaq setting is less than 10 percent of what Canadians are setting. So the real issue here is conservation surrounding Canadian fishermen and the fact that many often illegally fish as well. But by the RCMP just standing by and letting Canadian fishermen, you know, burn down lobster, buildings, attack fishermen, assault people on the water, attacked them with boats. By the RCMP doing nothing, they're condoning what really is a legal right of the Mi'kmaw, so if the RCMP is not going to follow the law, who will?

MG: Mia Rabson, what do you make of the government's response? Thus far? It's been. People have said, well, this is a provincial responsibility and then ultimately others have said no, this is and we spoke with Murray Sinclair, Senator Murray Sinclair about this. He said it's the federal government that needs to act, particularly when it comes to the RCMP.

MIA RABSON: For sure, the federal government is in charge of the RCMP. And it took them quite a long time. It seemed to sort of step in to start saying things to be a little bit stronger. Even on Friday, the prime minister was asked about it and he was sort of waffling a little bit in that. 'Well, you know, this is a serious situation. And, you know, we want thing that we have to it's not going to be easy and we want to solve this and we're going to sit down'. There was no urgency to the situation. And of course, the next day, an entire fish plant burnt, burnt to the ground. And it was only after that that we started to see strong language coming from the Public Safety Minister Bill Blair that we start this calls for an emergency debate. There was a question on Friday, but why it takes a crisis for government to respond. And it was like it took an extra crisis for them to actually get their act together and start thinking about it. I mean, they've had two decades to define what a moderate livelihood actually means. And no government has done it to date. And it may be true that it takes something like this for governments to realise, OK, now we actually had to have to do this. And in the meantime, there's communities that are suffering. There's individuals that are afraid to go to work. And this also comes to the heart of reconciliation, which this prime minister has said over and over again, there is no relationship more important to him than the relationship with the indigenous peoples. And this is another chance where he has to prove that. And thus far, the actions have been quite slow.

MG: Marieke, what about the relationship between the federal government and eastern provinces? I know that you worked in that part of the country for some time. What do you what's going on with that relationship?

MARIEKE WALSH: I think that's what is very curious to me more generally about this year. Nova Scotia is in the midst of its second or third crisis this year if you include the pandemic. You'll recall the country's largest mass shooting there in the spring. And the liberals hold 10 out of the 11 seats in that province. And yet it seems that Nova Scotia continually seems to not be prioritised. And what I mean by that is that despite this liberal presence on the ground, the people I speak to in Nova Scotia seem to feel that it is not responded to with an urgency that other areas of the country are responded to. For example, with the mass shooting, the Liberal government actually ignored calls from the local community for a full enquiry, set up another enquiry that didn't meet the standards and then had to back down after a massive outcry. Now, after an [unintelligible] gone, Mia said decades of concerns around this. This is not the first time that this has reached a crisis point. They're only responding when two crises happen. And I think the concern politically for the liberals is that people are going to start to question why that is and why, if they have so many MPs from the government, there is not a more focussed response and an earlier response. And that's going to be something, I think, that the liberals need to respond to and respond clearly to.

MG: Niigaan in the remaining couple of minutes that we have, do you see political will from the federal government to resolve this crisis once and for all? To your point, it's been 20 plus years since the Marshall decision. People are still trying to figure out what a moderate livelihood means. Is now the time that the government, with the pressure on and violence unfolding, will be seized to resolve this issue?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Well, I think it's in the middle of a pandemic is not the time to initiate consultation because I mean, they have a constitutional obligation to consult with Mi'kmaq communities in order to define what that moderate lively it is. The last thing you want is for the federal government to impose what that looks like. And when that conservation ministers come in and impose it, what isn't happening up to this point is a moderate livelihood is really a poverty lifestyle. I mean, many fishermen in the Mi'kmaq communities are not doing well or not, are not certainly making it adequate life style, life, income to be able to live off of their fishing, which is what the whole purpose of the treaty right is. It's intended to have people continue their way of life. It's not meant to drive people into poverty and keep them there. And the other problem, of course, is there really is no other side in this. Whenever we just talk about treaty rights, it's often indigenous people giving up things. But there's never the other side of the issue, which is that Canada also has to recognise that they're part of a treaty. And if we're going to renegotiate the treaty, then we have to recognise that the entire reason that Canada has access to water is because the Mi'kmaw had the original hold the rights, the title rights to that water, to those lands. And therefore, Canada has to then offer to the Mi'kmaw, give up things, things that they're giving up.

MG: There is lots to talk about, as always, and it's going to be a big day in Ottawa. Marieke we put you right on the spot at the very beginning so we'll see what the answer is to that loaded question that I asked you. In the meantime, it's great to speak with you all this morning. Thank you.

GUESTS: Thank you.

MG: Mia Robson, national affairs reporter for The Canadian Press. Marieke Walsh is a political reporter with the Globe and Mail. And Niigaan Sinclair is a columnist with the Winnipeg Free Press. Of course, the latest on what happens with that confidence vote. You can follow it on CBC News Network and cbcnews.ca. The CBC News is next. And then you may know the Oscar award winning actor Tim Robbins for his roles in The Shawshank Redemption, Bull Durham, Mystic River, all great films. His new project is called Bobbo Supreme. His new character is Donald Trump. Tim Robbins joins us coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current CBC Radio One.

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Tim Robbins on satirizing Trump, and the time he turned him away from a party

Guests: Tim Robbins

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

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MG: Still to come to exam or not to exam, that is the question for some high schoolers this fall in 30 minutes to students debate the merits of final exams. But first, Mr. Robbins goes to Washington.

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VOICE: Good morning, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT: Morning.

VOICE: Your breakfast sandwich, Sir.

PRESIDENT: Where is the puff patrol?

PUFF PATROL: Here Mr. President.

PRESIDENT: Dress me, paint me, do my hair. You've got one minute.

VOICE: Mr. President, the Joint Chiefs are waiting in the Situation Room. The incident in Michigan has escalated overnight. Early this morning, we received images of hogtied liberal politicians being held against their will in the Michigan State House. The militias maintain occupancy of the building for the past 24 hours. Local police have refused to act. The National Guard is on alert and you have not recommended any action be called, sir.

PRESIDENT: The militia, what's it called?

VOICE: First Disas, Mr. President, First Disas.

PRESIDENT: Good name.

VOICE: Yes. A good name. Not advance grammatically, but direct to me.

PRESIDENT: And they like us?

VOICE: Yes, sir. They're big supporters.

PRESIDENT: What's the problem?

VOICE: Well, they've seized a government building, Mr. President. This is a grave situation. This is something we have to seriously consider as something we haven't seriously considered before. This is an actual uprising of armed people, people that love us and support our policies. Yes. But they've seised a government building and are trying to force the democratically elected representatives out of office.

PRESIDENT: And the problem is?

VOICE: These people with the guns were not elected, sir.

PRESIDENT: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, lots of words. Leave me alone. They're pages.

MG: That's a scene from Bobbo Supreme, a new fictional podcast written, directed and starring Oscar award winning actor Tim Robbins as the president of the United States. It may sound alarmingly close to recent events in Michigan when the FBI foiled a plot to kidnap the state's governor. But it would appear that Tim Robbins has a gift for being prescient. He wrote those scenes a year ago and he joins me now on the line. Tim Robbins, good morning.

TIM ROBBINS: Good morning.

MG: What went through your mind when you saw that news about the plot against the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, the same day that you released the first episode of this podcast?

TIM ROBBINS: Well, we're on to something. You know, I wrote, when I wrote it, it was, you know, as you doing satire, you tried to project what the what the future behaviour will be of the character you're looking at. And it was pretty clear that that's where it was headed. You know, from the start. Trump has been throwing out at first what they called dog whistles and then full on barks to his supporters. Basically, he's laid the groundwork for this, you know. Well, when you tweet liberate Michigan, then two days later, there's a hundred people outside the statehouse. They are fourteens because they don't want to wear masks. You know, you got a volatile situation. And yes. And it came true.

MG: The lead character in this podcast, Bobbo Supreme, is described as an infantile, narcissistic lounge, singing game show, hosting narcoleptic racist billionaire recording artist and leader of the free world, entirely fictional.

TIM ROBBINS: Yes, well, he is. Well, he's the unchecked ID. You know he is- How do you satirise someone that is on the surface satirising himself? And so what we needed to do is we needed to get deep within the psyche and the dream life of who this person is and try to imagine what it is to be behind closed doors with a person like this.

MG: Spoken with authors who say that they struggled with satirising Donald Trump, that they worried whether he'd perhaps killed satire because he shattered so many norms during his campaign, but also in the last four years. Did you ever struggle with that?

TIM ROBBINS: No. I think he killed parody. But I don't think he killed satire. I don't think it's enough to just do an imitation of him. I think you have to look deeper. That's why, you know, we didn't want to try to imitate his voice. I went to what I believe him to be, which is a gangster or a thug. I grew up around these people in New York City. I grew up with them on the streets. And I've seen them at elite functions as well. It's that sense of entitlement that goes way beyond what is right and wrong. And it's basically about who is the toughest and who is the most intimidating. That was my street life growing up as a kid in New York City. And so that's what I tapped into this character.

MG: Have you met him before?

TIM ROBBINS: I met him once. He wanted to come into a party that I was throwing for a friend of mine, a birthday party. It was a small gathering. And his guys said, Mr. Trump wants to go party. And I said, no, he's not invited. And I the time I already knew who he was. You know, to me in New York real estate, he seemed to be corrupt. He was thuggish. And he had me made ugly buildings. And they seem to be popping up everywhere. And so I had no interest in meeting him or hanging out with him. And I said, no, no, he can't come into the party. And then a flash bulb went off and there he was. He was travelling around a photographer and snuck a photo of him and me together. I'm sure that doesn't exist anywhere because I don't think he would be wanting to be seen with me. But, yes, he was that kind of guy, you know, always in the nightlife, always trying to ingratiate himself with people, and a thug.

MG: We hear a little bit in the clip at the beginning. This podcast moves like a thousand miles an hour. It reminded me a little bit of looking at Twitter where you just see the kind of constant scrolling of things and everything sort of happening. Very quickly, can you just talk a little bit about pacing something like this? Is that re conscious of how it was going to mean as a obviously how it's going to sound, but how it's going to reflect in some ways the manic, frantic nature of the time?

TIM ROBBINS: Well, it had to have that for a number of reasons. But one of them was that that I wanted to try to create that sense of it because I wasn't originally intending to do it as a film. I wanted to try to create that sense of madcap, fast paced comedy that, you know, exists. You know, all those 1930s screwball comedies that I was when I started my actors, I was like, you know, you can the human brain can process very, very, very quick dialogue. They proved that in those screwball comedies, you know, it's quite literate comedy that is coming at you 100 miles an hour. I wanted to do that because I wanted to get the constant feel of motion, I wanted the listener to be in an oral environment that fills their imagination, that they're catching up with rather than lagging behind. So the challenge with that was that. How do you create that in this new technology? Because everything's got a slight delay in it. And how do you get the actors to work that fast and almost overlap? And what I found was that there were limitations in the recording of it. We had 35 people in 35 different locations, all tapped into one central engineer that was recording them all. And we did a rehearsal on Zoom and they got the idea of the pace of it. And they're all fantastic actors. But still a lot of it had to be achieved in the editing, you know. Clapping And that quick, quick pace.

MG: And again, in the end, as we say, the before times, you would have been perhaps in the same room. I mean, a bit like an old time radio theatre or something like that, where will you be able to look at each other, be able to pull something like that off. It's quite something to be able to do it from wherever you happened to be in people's bedrooms, offices, garages, what have you.

TIM ROBBINS: It was an exciting challenge. We did a rehearsal on Zoom where they could see each other. The technology wouldn't allow us to have a visual as well. It just would have compromised the recording quality. So they got an idea of it in rehearsal and then we did it live. You know, everyone had their different microphones in different locations, and we did it in a six hour time period, just super quick and efficient. And a lot of challenges, of course, a little technical glitches in the middle of brilliant line readings and, you know, a lawnmower or a leaf blower or this is there was a lot of challenges.

MG: People have made comparisons, obviously, to Bob Roberts, the film from 92, which portrays a candidate who, you know, in some ways draws on the resentments of rural voters, talks about retaking America. What is it about those characters? You kind of hinted at it with Trump, but what is it about those kind of individuals that is interesting to you?

TIM ROBBINS: Well, it's all image, no substance. It's appropriating cultural references for their own benefit. It's the dumbing down of the American discourse. All things which I feel are a threat to a free and open society. So that's why they have been my targets.

MG: Do you feel prophetic in making films and podcasts like this, you know, kind of in some ways looking around the corner and wondering kind of where you're going to end up, because people, again, have said Bob Roberts is a film that in some ways came to be true. And you can imagine that some of the excesses of a podcast like this, were he to win a second term, could be in the realm of possibility as well.

TIM ROBBINS: Or perhaps if he doesn't win a second term. I think the beast has been unleashed. You know, how do you get the genie back in the bottle? I don't know. It's a he has been serving a function for a certain faction of our society that is benefiting greatly from being president. And that is not going to change the what's going to change is the face of it. If there's a positive side to the past four years, it's been that Trump has truly revealed the beast reality of this policy. He's really you know, he hasn't been good at putting a shiny veneer on it as past politicians with similar policies have done. He's he's revealed something about us as well as the country. How do 60 million of us still support this man after what he's done? Clearly divisive, clearly mean, his policies have affected people in a really harmful way. And he seems to be getting away with it. I was just recently thinking about that one of his first public statements about I can shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. That was for me at the time, was like this deep Mesmeric moment. It was like a hypnotist. I am going to tell you the truth. And because I'm telling you the truth now, you will never doubt me.

MG: You were a big supporter of Bernie Sanders four years ago and then this year as well. Do you understand the appeal that - and I'm not comparing Trump to Bernie Sanders - but do you understand the appeal that he has to people who feel as though that they've been cut out of the conversation, they feel as though they've been left behind?

TIM ROBBINS: And they have been left behind. I do I do have sympathy for that. I understand that there are people that are very angry. But what's brilliant about the Republican strategy is that, you know, this has been a slow rollout, you know, it started in the 70s with the criminalisation of drugs, drugs that were being used at the time by people that opposed the policies of the Republican Party. So you criminalise them, you put them in jail and they lose their vote. And then, of course, the deregulation of the airwaves in the early 80s that led to billionaires being able to control mass amounts of radio stations throughout the United States and eventually television stations. This doesn't happen overnight. It was a strategy. It worked. And here we have the result of it, and it's now manifesting in the most absurd ways [unintelligible] on conspiracy theories and being accepted as fact. But the problem is that there wasn't enough of a movement on the other side. To make up for it. For example, if I would be incredibly discontented, if I was facing a future of the idea that an illness could ruin me, an illness could bankrupt me, an illness could make me homeless. I'd be pissed off. It's living in a constant sense of anxiety. And you know that there were people in Democratic Party that tried to rectify that. But there were too many powerful influences on both sides that were not going to allow that to happen. Now, we are the only advanced society in the Western world that doesn't provide for its people that way. That's a huge thing. That's one of the reasons I was supported. Bernie Sanders.

MG: How do you think a Trump supporter, if they were to listen to this podcast, how do you think they would hear? The characterization and the caricature of the president is this is a savage one. It's a really brutal one. I just wonder how they would in a really divided time. How do you think they would hear this?

TIM ROBBINS: Well, I'm not sure they'll hear it, but if they do, I hope they laugh. Because that's for us this is what has been missing, you know, for all of us. The idea that we can get together and laugh at something that happens in movie theatres and theatres and we share experiences in concert halls, share emotions. And no one is checking your politics at the door. No one is saying you can't come in here because of this. It's an open forum. And in open forums, we see the power of art. We see the power of art to unify in collective emotion, whether it's sharing a sadness or anger or humour. So in this time, it's important, at least, I believe it's important for us to find that whether anyone is going to change their mind at this point about the election. I don't have any illusions that I think it's important that we create forums of communities that, well, you can listen to something, you can laugh and you can understand you're not alone. You're not insane. There are other people that think this. Believe this. That's what laughter does unifies. It gives strength.

MG: I just wonder whether you were, I mean, in a super polarised time where some of those supporters would say what you just, you know, Hollywood elite, liberal elite, what have you. Whether. This would deepen that sense of polarisation in the country.

TIM ROBBINS: Listen, I'm never not going to do something because someone is going to be offended by it. You know, that's you can't operate from that point of view. You have to pursue your truth and your own freedom of speech, your own creativity, and you have to go down that path. A long ago gave up the notion that I can please everybody, that I have to just pursue what my truth is.

MG: What do you think you'll wake up to on the fourth of November?

TIM ROBBINS: Probably chaos. You know, I think he's already laid the groundwork for that chaos. I think he knows he's losing in that thing. He wants to delegitimize the election and will probably claim victory early on. And that will create a reality for some people. And then if more information comes in that says he loses, then he will say, well, I won and you see they're trying to steal it from me. I don't think the actual vote count will be relevant to the truth that is created by someone who's losing the election.

MG: How worried are you? I mean, as an American and somebody who has spent a lot of time talking about the state of your country, how worried are you about that?

TIM ROBBINS: I'm deeply worried, mainly because a good deal of his supporters are heavily armed. And I wonder if what we saw, the plot that was thwarted in in Michigan, I wonder if that isn't happening throughout the country. I hope not. I pray not. I think that would be something that would be a wound that we may never recover from. I don't know. I really don't know.

MG: One of the things just finally that that would have offered people some sense of normalcy in, you know, the normal election or an election, not in a pandemic which might still be going off the rails, is that you could get together, you could watch a movie to your point. You could be in a theatre. You could go to an event and see live music. We can't do that now. What worries you the most about losing those sorts of things? Good, because it feels as though the future of those things is really in the balance right now.

TIM ROBBINS: Well, yes, and I have a theatre in Los Angeles that we've had to shutter and we're exploring how to create that community online. It's tough. It's a real tough time. Here's what I do know. However long it takes, he won't kill theatre. He won't kill live music. It will be there in some way in the future. I've tried to encourage the actors and writers and directors in my company that this should be the time for incubation and for development of new projects that we can do in online form. But live theatre, I think we're probably eight months, nine months away from that gathering. That's shocking to me. I do know that when we re-enter, we have to re-enter with a sense of danger and a sense of purpose that wasn't there before. I think we're in a moment that is going to lead to a significant cultural shift. I think a lot about what happened in the early 70s in Hollywood when I'm trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel. I think about Dennis Hopper and Easy Rider. And at the time, Hollywood was kind of flailing about. The society was in turmoil. There were riots in the streets. There was the Vietnam War protests. Society was in turmoil. And Hollywood was making thoroughly modern Millie. And no one was going to this benign musical. And they were freaking out and they were blaming television. They said new movie industry is dead. It's television that is killed it. But then this guy comes along, Dennis Hopper, who makes Easy Rider. It's a huge hit. And often they understand there's an audience out there.

MG: Because it speaks to the moment.

TIM ROBBINS: That's right. And so they hire all these hippie filmmakers. And that's how we get Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma and Alan Pakula and how Ashby and Robert Altman and the film industry is transformed. It becomes this cultural shift, an artistic moment where we start to understand how powerful cinema is again. And I think we're in one of those moments. I think it was kind of prefaced by right before the pandemic when Parasite won Best Picture and best foreign picture and best director and best writer. And was the academy saying to Hollywood, we need to make more films like this. This is this is a film about poor people. It's a film about the collective anxiety of what it is to live in a in a culture that is so economically divided. This is a story that resonates with people. Is Hollywood listening? Are we going to come out of this pandemic and make a bunch of distracting romantic comedies and Marvel movies? I suspect there will be an attempt to go back to what they consider to be normal. I'm not sure that the audiences will buy it anymore. I think in a lot of ways, this period of time has kind of nullified what the preferred star system and this the kinds of stuff they were throwing out there. I think. I'm not sure it's going to work after this. I mean, if you look at the top movies from the past couple of years, they're all either remakes of franchises. It was kind of I was kind of repeating itself.

MG: You see this as a restart moment.

TIM ROBBINS: I hope so. I certainly hope so. I don't know. But I believe we have that opportunity, that possibility.

MG: That's the most optimistic thing I've heard in a long time. And we'll leave it there. It's a real pleasure to talk to you. Tim Robbins, thank you.

TIM ROBBINS: Thanks for having me.

MG: That's the Academy Award winning actor and director Tim Robbins. His latest project is Bobbo Supreme. It is a five part fictional podcast. Coming up after your regional update. Who amongst us has not had an exam nightmare? Maybe it's the classic lost pencil. Maybe you realise you didn't study. Maybe you're more of the dreaded not wearing pants type. Whatever it is, exams can haunt us long after the fact. Should exams be a thing of the past? Now that parts of the country have cancelled them due to this pandemic, we will put that question to two students still in their prime exam years Matt Galloway. This is The Current. We're back in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

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Debating the value of exams, André Picard on the latest in fight against COVID-19

Guests: Joel Westheimer, Bridget Salamon, Luca DiPietro, Richelle Marynowski, Andre Picard

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. High school is different in all sorts of ways. This year, most students are taking two courses at a time instead of the usual four or eight. And this intense, shorter schedule means that exams are happening in November. That is, unless you are a student in some school boards in Ontario. The Toronto District School Board, the Waterloo Region District School Board and both the public and Catholic school boards in Ottawa are amongst those that have opted to cancel exams altogether, at least for now. This is a move that some people would like to see made permanent. And so this morning we're going to debate the merits of examinations. Of course, we need to bring in a couple of experts for this. And so to that end. Luca DiPietro is in grade 12 at the Blessed Trinity Catholic Secondary School in Grimsby, Ontario. Bridget Salamon is in grade 12 at Walter Murray Collegiate in Saskatoon. Good morning to you both.

BRIDGET SALAMON: Good morning.

LUCA DIPIETRO: Morning.

MG: Before we get to the debate and we will get to that in just a moment, Bridget. Tell me a little bit about how school is going thus far. You still have exams at your school?

BRIDGET SALAMON: Yes, I actually have one this afternoon, but I have one tomorrow morning.

MG: Oh, my goodness. I hope you're ready for this afternoon.

BRIDGET SALAMON: Oh, it's fine. We've done this before. Otherwise, it's going OK. We're getting used to the new wave.

MG: And Luke, what about for you? How are things going so far?

LUCA DIPIETRO: Quite well at my school board. We're actually doing one course at a time for 22 days. It definitely is a quick pace. Some courses have chosen to have exams and some do not have exams. It's definitely unusual, but we're making the best of it, making the best of it.

MG: Let's debate the value of these exams, because, as I say, cancelling the exams has some people saying, well, this should be the way of the future and other people who are quite concerned about this. So the meat of the debate is, be it resolved that we need to ditch the exam. Bridget, you are arguing in favour of this and you have a minute to state your case. Are you ready?

BRIDGET SALAMON: OK.

[Sound: Ding]

BRIDGET SALAMON: Unfortunately, the exams are completely antithetical goal of education, which is to ensure that students comprehend. This is mainly because exams, of course, cramming for many students distressed or executive function, some quarters obviously are going to worsen this in the short timeframe. Then there's a diverging [unintelligible] who struggle with executive dysfunction, but makes it really difficult to study, a narrow divergence already of trouble with timing and memory. And finally, exams not test learning. They test how good you aren't kicking exam, which is a very different skill than learning. To test your short term memory, how you interpret things as well as your ability to work quickly and efficiently under stress. So, for example, like, I'm really good at taking exams, but I'm really bad at comprehending things. However, my exams do not show this. Basically, exams don't test your learning. They test your ability to take an exam, which should not be the goal of our education system. Thank you. [Unintelligible] for the resolution.

[Sound: Ding]

MG: Nicely done. So a lot packed into a minute. We'll get to some of the things that you said in a moment. Luca, it is your turn. You are arguing against the resolution. Be it resolved that we need to ditch the exam. Are you ready?

LUCA DIPIETRO: Yes.

MG: Your minutes begins now.

LUCA DIPIETRO: Exam served the purpose of connecting the dots of a course they allow for student to form intriguing new connexions between the course's key concepts and exam allows for students to retain the knowledge from the entire course and used effectively in the future. Exam provide a holistic review of the course which will undoubtedly help them as they progressed to post-secondary and into the real world. And exam is the potential of the benefits students and teachers. Students can revisit concepts that they struggled with earlier and be assessed up on their approvement at the end, of course. Exams from educators reflect upon their student success and determine what concepts need further reinforcement. An exam allows students to develop a variety of skills that are essential in any career pathway. These include determination, time management, hard work, perseverance and allow them to combat performance anxiety. Studies show that exams strengthen memory passages and allow apprehended knowledge to be called upon and a higher success rate and without an exam. It result that we keep exams.

[Sound: Ding]

MG: Excellent. Luca, you also crammed a lot into your allotted time. Bridget, what do you say to Luca's argument that these are important for a number of different reasons? One is, I mean, universities might prefer students who have to take exams during covered, but also there are other things in terms of the skills that you learn from sitting down with your peers and taking an exam.

BRIDGET SALAMON: Personally, I don't support exams at any level of education, which includes the university. And the point that universities [unintelligible]high schools that don't do exam is, quite frankly, false because they haven't [unintelligible] exam but you're going to care about your grade. And quite frankly, I think universities really care more about whether you've comprehended the things you want in high school, which will not come through exams but will only come through courses which do not include exams and instead actually like try to get you to comprehend the material.

MG: Luca, how do you respond to that?

LUCA DIPIETRO: Well, I disagree with that notion because university is one of the benchmarks of student achievement for centuries has been exams. And the statistics show us that within exams, students retain certain skills they learnt in the court better than without an exam. They're eager to use it when on the job they develop real world skills that as time management as well. You mentioned the point that university would not deter from taking students that did not take an exam. Well, that is true because exams served the purpose of showing if a student has completely understood the course, if they can make those higher learning connexion and if they truly understand the entire concept of the court.

MG: Bridget, how do we assess whether the student has understood to Luca's point the totality of what was taught in the course? If we don't have something that sits them down and says, all right, tell us what you've learnt?

BRIDGET SALAMON: I think exams are probably the worst way of getting a holistic view of how much people have learnt in a course, that's what you call this year of exams. Because in an exam you can't reinforce concepts after the fact. If you fail an exam, you don't really get to be like, okay, let's figure out what concepts or whatever it is that. I think a better way would be like, you know, sitting down with a teacher, doing some projects, sort of things will go on in a stressful environment and expecting them to write an exam.

MG: Luca, what about that point around? Stressed that there is unnecessary stress caused by exams, especially for students who might find the exam format more difficult. They might suffer from exam anxiety and testing zaatar, for example. Do you worry that that exams amplify that in terms of performance anxiety?

LUCA DIPIETRO: I am the first person to say that yes, exams do cause me stress, but when I take an exam and I prepare properly, it helps me to manage performance anxiety and other factors of my life. For instance, today I was nervous coming on the show, but using the skills and performance anxiety, combat training that exams have really taught me. I was able to really overcome my fear and I feel that in any career, students will face stress and exams, help them to prepare for the future and help them to better understand themselves and combat stresses in their lives.

MG: You've done very well this morning, by the way. I should just mention that. Brigitte, to that point around skills that you learn, time management in particular. I remember when I was taking exams and I had to think about making sure that I was able to do the work in the time that I was allotted. Luca says that this is good training in some ways for whatever might come ahead. What do you make of that?

BRIDGET SALAMON: I don't think that exams are going to give you the skill of time management. I've been taking exams and I'm in grade 12 now and I still have terrible time management. So clearly taking exams does not provide any benefits. Because myself and many of my classmates have not seen these benefits, which means that all of these things that Luca keeps stating that exams give you, are fundamentally false. So I think a far better way to implement mental health programmes at schools to give gets better coping mechanisms to deal with stress instead of just drawing them in a stressful environment, expecting them to somehow start to thrive.

MG: You both are giving people a lot to think about. And so we will give you the opportunity to nail that down in a closing argument. You have 30 seconds to make a closing argument. Bridget, you're up first. You ready to go?

BRIDGET SALAMON: Sure.

[Sound: Ding]

BRIDGET SALAMON: Exams are incredibly exclusive to work who are more divergent and struggle with executive dysfunction because an incredible amount of stress and anxiety which will not be solved by increasing the number of exams. And they do not test the learning. The fundamental key to all of my argumentation. Exams do not increase your level of learning. They do not provide a good measure of how much you work. They instead test in short term memory the ability to perform well under stress, which I do not think should be the goal of our education system. Also proud to propose this resolution today. Thank you.

MG: Well done. Luca, you're ready to go for a closing argument?

LUCA DIPIETRO: Yes, I am.

[Sound: Ding]

LUCA DIPIETRO: Compare a course to a story. Each chapter added a new element to its storyline in the final chapter. All of its pieces come together into one final conclusion. A course within an exam is simply a story without its final chapter. Without an exam, students do not gain real world skills resulting from the setting process and do not retain knowledge. Similar to that, when taking an exam. Exams assist students in developing learning habits, improve memory retention and combat performance anxiety exam. Prepare students for life outside the classroom and it is essential that we keep them.

[Sound: Ding]

MG: Well done, by the way. Is there anything, Luca, that Bridget said that would have changed your mind?

LUCA DIPIETRO: You know, during COVID, I believe, did a lot of insecurity and uncertainty felt by teachers, students and the entire education community. So if we were to cancel exam, it would need to be a blanket statement almost internationally or else we would see discrepancies in grading. Some students would have it easier than others. Universities have a very difficult time in selecting successful applicants because some students took an exam, some did not. But yes, during COVID, there is a lot of stress and I do believe that there could be alternative ways of testing, such as a culminating task at my school work.

MG: Bridget, was there anything that Luca said that altered how you view the exam?

BRIDGET SALAMON: I think unfortunately most of the argumentation ends up excluding neuro divergent people. And so, like when you talk about, you know, retaining knowledge and strengthening memory. Well, that doesn't happen with people who are neuro divergent and also what happen to people who are stressed about exams. So I don't think that exams are a good way of testing all this holistically when a good amount of people are just inherently excluded by the structure of an exam.

MG: Having to come on the radio and deliver arguments in a minute and then 30 seconds with a bell, digging in the background is not particularly stress free. You both have done an excellent job on this. I appreciate you stepping out of school and class to present your arguments. Thank you.

LUCA DIPIETRO: Thank you for having us.

BRIDGET SALAMON: Thank you.

MG: And Bridget, good luck in your exam this afternoon.

BRIDGET SALAMON: Thank you.

MG: Thanks so much. Bye bye.

LUCA DIPIETRO: Bye bye. Luca DiPietro is in grade 12. The Blessed Trinity Catholic Secondary School in Grimsby, Ontario. Bridget Solomon is in grade 12 at Walter Murray Collegiate in Saskatoon. I hate to say it, but chances are that Luca and Bridget have many more exams in their future. Just ask my next guests. They have taken and handed it their fair share over the years. Richelle Marynowski is an associate professor of education at the University of Lethbridge, and she spent two years developing provincial exams for the Alberta Education Department. Joel Westheimer is the Education Research Chair in Democracy and Education at the University of Ottawa. They've been listening in. Good morning to you both.

RICHELLE MARYNOWSKI: Good morning.

JOEL WESTHEIMER: Morning, Matt.

MG: Joe Westheimer. We just heard some of the arguments for and against cancelling exams. What do you make of this decision by some school boards to drop exams this year in the midst of a pandemic?

JOEL WESTHEIMER: Well, first of all, Matt, let me say that the great thing about this debate is that both those students are right. And this is the problem with exams. You see, exams serve some students and don't serve others. And that's why they're both right. You see, there are different kinds of students and there's rarely a one size fits all solution to any educational problems. So exams are going to serve some groups of students well and other students they're going to be detrimental. Now, during the pandemic, I think that it's not even a question. There's no question that we need to cancel exams during the pandemic or at least the traditional forms of exams. And I would say that there's three reasons for that, which I'll just say very briefly to your listeners. The first is that we know from decades of research that in times like these exams are going to measure almost nothing other than inequality between students. So we don't really need to give the exams because we already have the data that we need to find out the outcomes, forms of economic inequality, inequality in access to technology, inequality in the amount of time parents can spend with students at home right now. Some students have parents who are emergency responders and so forth. And so that's the primary reason not to give exams during a crisis like this. And the second reason is that it will take pressure off students, some of whom are experiencing an undue amount of pressure during this during this crisis. And the third is that it will take pressure off of teachers, which I feel is very important in this time, because what we want teachers to be focussing on is not making sure that every student has covered every little bit of fact and piece of random information or even logical information, but rather that teachers connect with families and students and help rebuild the relationships and the community that's been lost during this very extended time of social isolation.

MG: Richelle Marynowski, I'm not going to use the bell, but as somebody who has developed exams, what is the point of an exam?

RICHELLE MARYNOWSKI: The great question exams measure more than inequality and do measure more than random facts of knowledge. What's really important about examinations is that students and spend the time to prepare and review knowledge and to think about the content that they've learnt. And I take Joe's point about traditional exams. So if we think about exams in a different way, they can do so much more than what they have in the past. I much prefer an open book kind of exam where students have resources to look at where I'm asking higher level questions, getting students to connect knowledge. Getting them to make conjectures. Getting them to think about future ideas and how it connects to future knowledge. That's how I see an exam in this time would work very well.

MG: And if we do that, what do we learn and what do the educators learn? And then what is assessed in that process?

RICHELLE MARYNOWSKI: RM: In that process, we really get a good sense of what students are being able to put together in a moment, them being able to access different forms of information. Like I said in an open book exam would be great for them to be able to access the Internet, access their notes, be able to put ideas together and compile ideas rather than bringing forward quick facts that are easily testable and easily marketable.

MG: So that's very different than sort of examining rote facts, memorisation, for example.

RICHELLE MARYNOWSKI: Very much. Very different.

MG: Joel, if that were to be put in place, would you be more in favour of exams, getting a better, better built map, a mouse trap, if you can call her that way?

JOEL WESTHEIMER: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Richelle is absolutely right that there are of course better exams and worse exams unfortunately are you know, some we could call it testing. Technology is not at a place right now where we can measure a lot of the things we care about. So, for example, exams are very good at measuring, you know, whether two plus two equals four, whether kids know that, whether they can decode the words of a sentence, they're less good at measuring things like critical thinking, things like whether students are able to be in healthy relationships or be happy and content with the work that they're doing or can follow their passions. And so what ends up happening, because, you know, we as human beings, we all love numbers. I love to say this school is doing 92.5 In this other school is doing a 89 and so the first school must be better. But what happens is because we can't measure all the things we care about and we love numbers, we start to care about the things that we can measure. And that's the problem with many exams, even the better ones, which Rachelle is absolutely right. There are better exams, but even those shine a spotlight on a very, very narrow band of what schools hope to accomplish. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't do assessment at all. There are wonderful forms of assessment that are in place in many schools across North America. Just one example is portfolio assessment.

MG: Which is what?

JOEL WESTHEIMER: Like an artist who carries around one of those giant, you know, black portfolios and they've chosen their best work to put in there and then exhibit those work. Some schools have gone to a model where students choose their best work over the semester or over the month or over the year, and then exhibit them to two teachers, to community members, sometimes to other students. And so that way we're getting students to showcase their best work rather than what exams are designed to do, which is kind of to catch you not knowing something.

MG: Michelle, would that allow us to get a better sense as to how the student is doing? You know, show me your best and this is what I've done rather than being in the room with the clock ticking. And yet your book might be open. You may have access to the Internet, but there's still that looming pressure of this is the exam time and this is where you're going to be tested.

RICHELLE MARYNOWSKI: I firmly agree that there are multiple different kinds of assessments that can be done. And I agree that if an exam caters to one kind of a student, a portfolio caters to another kind of student. So I think balance is in order that we take a look at exams and how those can draw knowledge from students and help them make connections and how a portfolio can showcase best work. So one thing that I know one exam can do, particularly a multiple choice exam, can help pinpoint misconceptions that students have about a topic, if the question is well crafted. It can help me as a teacher understand what I need to do to help support my students. And as a student, it can help me understand where my misconceptions lie.

MG: Bridget also raised the issue of students who are neuro diversion, for example, students with autism. Do you worry, Richelle, that exams just that the very nature of exams put those students at a disadvantage?

RICHELLE MARYNOWSKI: I don't necessarily agree with that. I agree, though, however, that they do put some students at a disadvantage.

MG: Tell me why highlight why you don't agree with her.

RICHELLE MARYNOWSKI: I think that difference in categorising different students, that they have different skills and different assets. I imagine that some autistic students would perform really well at exams because they appreciate the structure and they appreciate knowing how to go through something. It is a known structure. It's a known way of working and other students, but really struggle with the stress and the pressure behind it. So I, I see a balance in kind of either one of those options being possible.

MG: Do you see, this is an opportunity - I'll ask you both this and I'll start with you, Richelle. Do you see this as an opportunity to rethink the exams have been in place, it seems like, since time. Is this an opportunity to rethink the place of those or at least what those exams could look like to ensure that all students can do their best in those in that moment?

RICHELLE MARYNOWSKI: Absolutely. I think this is an excellent opportunity to do that. And I think many of us, particularly in the post-secondary world that I'm most comfortable with right now, is we are taking a look at alternatives, better ways of assessing, because this has forced us to take a look at our practise and say, wait a minute, this might not be the best thing that we're doing here.

MG: What about for you, Joel? Just briefly, again, there's this cliche of build back better. And if we're not going to throw the exam out, can we build the exam to be better?

JOEL WESTHEIMER: Yes. Matt, one of the things that I think has been amazing about this pandemic and I'm an optimist, which is and Richelle is obviously also in. So with all the trouble the world is facing right now, I also see a silver lining, which is that everything that was impossible before the pandemic all of a sudden has become possible. We saw just as an example in the United States, you know, that Bernie Sanders brought up health care for all and everyone, including Democrats. Republicans said that's impossible. You know, you'd need to spend a trillion dollars to do that. Well, now the United States is spending three trillion dollars. So everything that was impossible before is possible. And what I do see as being possible is rethinking the way we assess students and the way we help students. But here's where Richelle and I would completely agree on something, which is that it's difficult to have this conversation without talking about what the purpose of the exam is. Right. If the purpose is to sort students, for example, you know, I don't want a surgeon any more than the two of you do operating on me who hasn't passed an exam that tests whether they know the parts of the body and everything else. Right? On the other hand. So that's one purpose of an exam. You know, whether they get into med school or who gets into a University of Toronto and who doesn't. But another purpose of an exam is to help students improve. Now, for example, in Ontario, EQAO testing, neither teachers nor students get the results of the exam. So it's not going to help students improve. So we have to, you know, in another hour when we talk about this next time, Richelle, and you and I could talk about what the purposes of exams are and whether the current exams serve those purpose.

MG: We will do that in future. In the meantime, it's great to speak with you both this morning. Thank you.

Absolutely. My pleasure.

MG: Richelle Marynowski is an associate professor of education at the University of Lethbridge. Joel Westheimer, University Research Chair in Democracy and Education at the University of Ottawa. We turn this to you. Where do you stand on the debate? Should we ditch the exam? Can we make the exam better? You can let us know on Twitter at The Current, CBC on Facebook, or go to our Web site and click on the contact link cbc.ca/thecurrent. This is indeed The Current. My name is Matt Galloway. In the past few weeks, in the midst of this pandemic, Quebec and Ontario have been in the hot seat, struggling to contain new surges of covered 19. That's moving further west now. Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, breaking case records. Things seem to be holding in the Atlantic bubble at present. And so to talk about all of this and where we might be going. We're joined by Andre Picard, Globe and Mail health columnist. Andre, good morning.

ANDRE PICARD: Good morning.

MG: Let's take a look at what's happening in central Canada and in the West. Do we know where the surges in cases are coming from?

ANDRE PICARD: It's community spread. We know that. It's what the West is experiencing now is what Quebec and Ontario have experienced in the past few months. So it's the exact same patterns. You know, we talk about this often. It's like Groundhog Day. Exact same patterns. But they're just moving geographically around the country, around the world.

MG: So when you talk about communities spread, I mean, there's nearly 50 COVID cases linked to a wedding in Calgary. A church event in Saskatchewan now has infected more than 85 people. These are kind of the super spreader 101 kind of examples, I guess.

ANDRE PICARD: Yes, exactly. Yes. You know, I was reading I was going through the data last night to Saskatchewan it's bars, Manitoba, it's bars, Saskatchewan, it's church services, Alberta, it's weddings. It's when people congregate in close quarters. Alcohol is often involved. Where there is an alcohol. There's singing in church. So these things are all very predictable. And that's what's frustrating, I think, is we don't seem to have taken advantage of the learnings from what happened elsewhere. You know, there's lots of examples from Ontario and Quebec that we could have prevented these things happening in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta.

MG: There are calls when these cases go up to lock society down further. Jason Kenney, Alberta premier, has said that he's looking at a more restrictive approach and putting more responsibility on individuals and individual responsibility. What do you make of that approach?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think we have to look at the data and be guided by that. And what the data tells us is, you know, bars are a problem. Social gatherings are a problem. So we've reopened churches. We've reopened. And there's that's just not justified by science. It's all well and good to say individuals can take responsibility. But individuals are guided by social policies, by social norms, by the reality. If they have to go to work, just work at a banquet, then they're at risk. You know, you can't blame individuals for making a living if the rules allow that.

MG: Individuals are also guided by the information they take in. And CBC has a story this morning about conspiracy theories. Randi Hillier is an independent MPP in Ontario. He has been talking about how he believes the government is going to be creating internment camps for people who have COVID-19. Obviously, this is not the case, but the prime minister has had to respond. Other people have had to respond as well. How difficult is it to tamp down that sort of misinformation and disinformation?

ANDRE PICARD: It's really hard. We're living in this age of disinformation with the social media. And I it's a new thing and we just haven't come to grips with it yet. I think we in the media struggle with it every day. You know, that internment camp story. You write about it. Do you ignore it? What's the best? There's no easy response to this. So I think sort of this constant work, it's really easy to put out falsehoods like this, and it's really difficult to beat them down and to show that they're not true and they distract from getting good information.

MG: These things take fire in some ways because of fatigue? We talked about fatigue before and the fact that people are tired of this. And you see that in of trust of public health, where I'm allowed to send my kids to school, but I'm being told not to send them out to go trick or treating. And you've written about this saying that this is kind of ghoulish politics. Is this about trust in public health in some ways and how you maintain that trust while people are getting tired of the pandemic?

ANDRE PICARD: It's absolutely the biggest tool that public health has that politicians have in a pandemic is that trust. And if you lose it with bad communication, with reopening too soon, with locking down too broadly to really fine, fine, fine lines to find the balance here. And I think we're struggling with that. I think what we're learning is that massive lockdowns don't work. They're ineffective. People get tired of them. We have to really target. So when things happen, you have to hit quickly and hard. And we've been seeing this since March. You have to act swiftly and then reopen slowly. And we haven't seemed to have not learnt that lesson over seven, eight months yet.

MG: And morale is really important in all of that. That's a huge part of the equation.

ANDRE PICARD: Well, in morale, you know, with higher morale is difficult. It's failing. Winter is coming. It's going to be a lot harder. And we have to wrap our minds around this. We have to take out our little victories. And that's why, you know, you mentioned I was writing about Halloween. I think we have to give ourselves some treats literally and figuratively. And Halloween's a relatively safe thing to do. Give the kids a treat because there's some hard days coming ahead.

MG: Andre. Great to talk to you, as always. Thank you.

ANDRE PICARD: Thanks.

MG: Andre Picard is the Global Mail's health columnist. He's here regularly on The Current to talk about this pandemic. Your thoughts on what he has said. Welcome. You can reach us through the Web site at cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. That's it for The Current for today. Q is up next on CBC Radio one. You'll hear from the showrunner of Social Distance new Netflix series that was put together during the few months of this pandemic. We're talking to Tim Robbins about this? How do you make a podcast? How do you make a television programme during a pandemic? You'll hear about that coming up, CBC Radio One's Q in the meantime, that's it for The Current. I'm Matt Galloway take care of herself and I'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Wednesday October 21, 2020 Full Transcript

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