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The Current Transcript for January 5, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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They didn't think about those who were staying at home so far, only about going on holiday and having fun, this pained me a lot.

MATT GALLOWAY: It's unclear who the pope was speaking about there. But you wonder whether the ears of some Canadian politicians were burning. At a time when Canadians are being told to stay home and sacrifice much in the fight against covid-19, it turns out a number of our elected officials jetted off to warmer places, returning not only to outrage but demotions at work. In an hour, the effect, both politically and socially, of do as I say, but not as I do. Also this morning, covid-19 has been bad for humans. Now it also presents a unique threat to the endangered African mountain gorilla. Margaret Evans reports from the mountains of Uganda. Coming up in an hour. Plus.

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The future of the country is on the ballot here in Georgia, where the battleground where the firewall for stopping socialism.

MG: Georgia is on the mind of many in the United States these days, from Donald Trump's eye popping call to officials in that state commanding them to find more votes for him to today's runoff elections for two Senate seats. That will determine in many ways what Joe Biden can achieve as president. Coming up, the crucial role that black women have played in shaping politics in that state. We begin, though, in Canada's north. The vaccine has arrived and not a moment too soon for communities there. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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'It's a game-changer': Indigenous leaders encourage communities to line up for COVID-19 vaccine

Guests: Feddie Louie, Jerry Daniels, Lorne Kusugak

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It is one of the best holiday season gifts that we could get.

MG: That's Caroline Corcoran, the premier of Northwest Territories, reacting to Health Canada's approval of the Moderna vaccine. The vaccine could be a game-changer for Canada's remote communities. It's easier to transport than the Pfizer-Biotech vaccine and has already been delivered to some small towns across Canada's north and for indigenous communities with few medical resources. The vaccine is welcome news for leaders. This morning, we're going to examine the impact of this vaccine in First Nations communities starting in northern British Columbia. Feddie Louie is the emergency operations centre director for the Talton Central Government. Feddie, good morning.

FEDDIE LOUIE: Good morning.

MG: You're one of the lucky ones. You've got the Moderna vaccine last week. What was that like for you?

FEDDIE LOUIE: We were so relieved to receive the vaccine. It's a game changer for us.

MG: You're very deliberate in using the word we. Why?

FEDDIE LOUIE: Because we consist of three small communities and we all work together and we are all in this together. It's we all the way.

MG: Did you personally feel the significance of it in that moment? I mean, a needle is a needle, but this is a different thing.

FEDDIE LOUIE: I was fortunate to be one of the first ones to receive the vaccine. And my in-laws, who are in their late 70s and 80s, were ahead of me. But boy, the emotions were were pretty high. And for an emergency operations lead, the relief that comes with that vaccine is immense. Having been on the front line for nine straight months of preventing COVID from coming into our communities has been no small task. But the relief was overwhelming.

MG: Tell me more about those emotions. I mean, yes, it's family. And as you mentioned, your in-laws were there as well. But this is about your community. So tell me about those emotions.

FEDDIE LOUIE: We live in a remote part of British Columbia. We have one highway that goes through and it goes through to Alaska. So getting into our communities by road is not an issue. It's a year-round highway. But we live in an area where health services are minimal. We have three health centres, two operated by indigenous First Nations health authority and one by Northern Health Authority. And none of those have emergency critical care services because we are too small. So it is just overwhelming when you have to wait on average, 22 and a half hours for a medevac to remove one of your people when they're critically ill or injured. So when the vaccines came and we still and still continue to stand our ground on preventing covid from coming to our communities, the vaccine is another tool for us to help our people in that battle against covid.

MG: When you talk about standing your ground, people have said that it's because of you and the work that you have done that covid has not arrived in your community. What have you done to make sure that the community has been safe before the vaccine was even available?

FEDDIE LOUIE: I'm going to say I did my part to lead, organise, coordinate, collaborate and communicate. And that is what I did. I pulled everybody I could together, got people into working groups, got everybody focused. Our emergency management committees on the ground, on the front line, meet weekly. We talk about the issues our communities are faced with. We also talk about the positive things that covid has done for us. It's just coordinating and communicating and collaborating with different groups and partners and service providers and making sure everyone is up to speed on what is going on.

MG: In doing that work, who is in your mind in terms of people that you're most concerned about in your community?

FEDDIE LOUIE: Our elders and the people who are immunocompromised because a lot of young people and middle aged people have gotten covid that we know of, not in our communities, but outside people that we know, and have gotten through it. Our front lines are to protect our elders. No one else is going to do it but us and we have to do it.

MG: What are you saying to members of the community who might be a little concerned about getting the vaccine?

FEDDIE LOUIE: I just say to them, do the research. I'm not here to convince anyone to get the vaccine. It's a personal choice. It's basically an invasion of one's body. So I don't try to convince them. I just point them toward the research and the information that is available.

MG: And is there a sense that that will be enough to convince people that this is worth it, that they need to get the shot?

FEDDIE LOUIE: I hope so. I know my sister's elderly and I spent a long time convincing her I don't know of any of the other elders that refuse to get the shot. I know there's a couple that would love to get it but can't because of past medical history. But for the most part, most elders are getting it.

MG: And for you, you see that as part of your job, as you say, to speak with people like family members about this.

FEDDIE LOUIE: It's all our jobs to help protect our communities. Vaccines are one more tool in our toolbox. Our communities operate on a different process than the province. The province puts out orders that are province wide. We have, since day one, have had a travel ban into our territory. It has never been lifted. We have turned away our own members. We've stood our ground on what we wanted to do for our communities to keep them safe, and it meant, you know, a lot of times as a lot of stress and a lot of heartache, but it had to be done.

MG: I was going to say, what's the hardest part been of all of that?

FEDDIE LOUIE: Turning on your own members. You know, this is their territory, but if they don't live here on a year round basis, they can't come here because it's too risky for elders.

MG: Do you have enough vaccines for the entire community?

FEDDIE LOUIE: We have enough vaccine for the entire community of Iskut. We don't have enough vaccines for the entire community of Iskut, Dease and Telegraph. We can get about 75 percent of the people vaccinated. And we're hoping we're really hoping that Northern Health will pick up the difference when they get their vaccines.

MG: Given everything that you've been through already. How significant is this moment that these vaccines are there? I mean, it's easy for me to say that that this is important. But for you, how significant is this?

FEDDIE LOUIE: It is lifesaving for us. It means that we will get back our freedom. We have been in lockdown basically from day one. It's a game changer. It's freedom for us. And that's what I said to my sister. I said, you'll get your freedom back. Means we don't have to live in fear. You know, we don't have to worry about whether or not somebody is going to infect one of our elders or one of our homes. It's huge. I just get so emotional when I think about it. It is such a game changer. Covid has taken away so much from our communities, so much the social connections, you know, are, I wouldn't say severed, but have been put on hold for a long time. And our elders need that. They can't be isolated. The mental health impact of covid has been devastating on our nation in terms of keeping our elders happy, keeping them well without putting them at too much risk has been a tough job.

MG: When do you get your second shot?

FEDDIE LOUIE: On January 23rd.

MG: You're counting down the days.

FEDDIE LOUIE: Absolutely. Because 10 days after that, I and a whole bunch of our people will have 95 per cent immunity against COVID.

MG: And what will you do then?

FEDDIE LOUIE: I am probably going to have a really big dinner with my in-laws, my children, who I've seen very little. I've gone through Christmas without my grandchildren because our community doesn't allow our members to come home who live outside. So it's a lot of choices you have to make.

MG: It'll be some moment. It's really emotional hearing you talk about it.

FEDDIE LOUIE: It's been a long 10 months. We, like I said, right from day one when World Health Organisation declared a global pandemic. Iskut itself has been behind a gate since that day.

MG: Feddie, thanks for the work that you're doing and your community. Thanks to you as well. And I really appreciate speaking with you this morning.

FEDDIE LOUIE: Thank you.

MG: Take care of yourself.

FEDDIE LOUIE: You too. Be safe.

MG: Feddie Louie is the emergency operations centre director for the Talton Central Government in northern British Columbia. Manitoba's First Nations have been some of the hardest hit in this country by covid cases. The province's government announced last week that 5,300 doses of the Moderna vaccine will be made available immediately to First Nations communities. Jerry Daniels is grand chief of the Southern Chiefs Organisation of Manitoba. Grand Chief, good morning to you.

JERRY DANIELS: Good morning.

MG: Feddie Louie Was saying that it's life saving to get this vaccine into her community. Is that sound familiar to you?

JERRY DANIELS: Oh, yeah, for sure. Definitely. We have the same the same sentiment here as it relates especially to our elders and those with compromised immune systems.

MG: What are you up against in terms of getting the vaccine into these communities? We know that there are some isolated communities that will present some additional hurdles. So what are you facing?

JERRY DANIELS: Well, you know, in Manitoba, we have over 60 communities we're talking about 150,000 people. And what we're doing right now is we're screening which which areas we want to focus the initial five thousand three hundred vaccines. And so there's a process for registering and from there, we're really focussing on the care homes. And elders who are 65 and older is where we're focussing this first batch.

MG: What is your assessment of how the provincial government has handled the rollout thus far?

JERRY DANIELS: Well, I think in the beginning we had a huge concern because we were concerned that they weren't understanding of the fact that First Nations have had very disproportionate, you know, health outcomes. You know, we have 11-year difference in life expectancy. As we started to see very early on, the impact on First Nations was much higher than the, you know, the regular Manitoban. You know, we had as of right now, nearly 50 percent of the ICU patients in the hospitals are First Nations. So those are the numbers that we use to effectively lobby the province and the federal government to understand that First Nations have been the hugest impacted by this and for for that reason alone had to ensure that the vaccine would be made available to First Nations as on a priority basis.

MG: Well, Premier Bryan Pallister had said in December that holding back a portion of the vaccine for Indigenous communities would, in his words, shortchange Manitobans. What was the effect of that?

JERRY DANIELS: Well, I think that was a pretty divisive comment he had made at the time, and, you know, we were quite upset that he didn't understand the the health outcomes that were taking place in front of us. And it only made sense that First Nations. If you gave us the the vaccine to those of us who have compromised some of those of us who are of the age of being impacted by this, we could take some of the pressure off of the health system. And that's that's what we want to see because we don't want to get to a point where, you know, we're having the system be overwhelmed. And that's where I think Pallister, I think, came to understand how important it was that First Nations to prioritised.

MG: Getting the vaccine into the community is one thing. Getting into the arms of community members is another. And Feddie was talking a little bit of a vaccine hesitancy. There has been a long history of racism within the health care system towards indigenous folk. How do you go about addressing some some hesitancy around that vaccine?

JERRY DANIELS: Well I think it's important that we communicate that the vaccine is a peer reviewed thoroughly, you know, analyzed health product that we're utilising to to really protect our most vulnerable citizens at this point. And we have to have confidence in that our best health-care professionals are advising that this is the best course of action for us. We have to have confidence in that. And so, you know, that's what I would say to our members. That's what we've been saying. And that'll definitely be part of the vaccination process that will be happening in the next few days. We've already heard from some of our communities that there is a great deal of skepticism among our citizens.

MG: And you see that as Feddie did you see that as a as a role for you to help address some of that?

JERRY DANIELS: Yeah, I think that that's part of the reason why we wanted to have a registration process, because we can't assume that everyone is going to want to take the vaccine. And we would rather have a good idea of who is prepared to take the vaccine before we start to lay out how we're going to go about distributing the vaccine. We have in southern Manitoba, 34 First Nations communities, 90,000 citizens, a half of which are on reserve. And then we start to break down the numbers, how many citizens are we talking about who are 65 and over for the first initial batch?

MG: I wish you the best of luck. And it's good to speak with you this morning, Grant. Chief, thank you.

JERRY DANIELS: Thank you.

MG: Grand Chief Jerry Daniels of the Southern Chiefs Organisation of Manitoba. In Nunavut, the first doses of the Moderna vaccine arrived last week and vaccinations are expected to start soon. Lorne Kusugak is Nunavut's minister of health minister. Good morning to you.

LORNE KUSOGAK: Good morning. Well,.

MG: It's been several days since none of it has reported any active covid-19 cases, there are no new cases. Given what you have been through, how does it feel to be at that point in your territory right now?

LORNE KUSOGAK: It feels good. The battle is never over with this covid, but it feels good. We went from people talking about having the highest per capita rate of covid and having no active cases. That currently is it's been it's been a fight and the communities are feeling good about their accomplishments.

MG: And so what is it going to mean to get that vaccine into the communities?

LORNE KUSOGAK: Well, it just it means that it's a start towards finding an end to this constant struggle and fight and worry about getting covid, especially for our elders in our communities that and those that are most vulnerable.

MG: I was speaking with with the grand chief about this. Tell me about the logistical challenge challenges that you'll face. The territory has a relatively small number of people to vaccinate, but it is, as you well know, incredibly spread out. So how do you go about doing that?

LORNE KUSOGAK: Well, our team has been working on that very thing and what our strategy is to hit the communities where we have elder care facilities. That'll be our first priority to hit those communities. And while we're there, because it's so hard to go in and out of communities like this, that while we're there with the vaccines and we will look to give 75 percent of the population their injections while we're there so that we don't keep going back and forth just because of the logistics. And then from there, we'll look at going through the regional centres and and continuing that immunization program. But we will try to immunize as many people as we can while all the while the teams are in the communities where it's happening.

MG: What about that issue of hesitancy as a minister responsible for health for the territory, how are you going to go about addressing some of the concerns? I mean, then they might be linked to historical issues that might be linked to issues that are current when it comes to discrimination and racism within the system. How are you going to go about addressing that?

LORNE KUSOGAK: Those concerns are there, but, you know, it's always those concerns are always going to be there. We were one of the first people to get it. So you hear people out there saying, well, we don't want to be guinea pigs. And to try to say, to convince them that we are not guinea pigs. A million people have taken this vaccine already. And the other side of the coin being, if we're first people will say that we're guinea pigs. But if we're last, it's here we go again, being last. So you never win on that discussion. But I think what's important for Nunavut Iniut to understand is that getting the vaccination is, yes, it's about protecting yourself. But for me, it's more about protecting those that cannot get the vaccine, to protect the children and those that are in the position where because of their health and other reasons that cannot get immunized. So to take the injection, to protect, to protect others, including yourself, I think is key is a very key message here, because not everybody can get a vaccination and been encouraging those who have come across and have and that have publicly said that they have they don't want to take the vaccine. You know, sometimes it's not about us. It's about protecting those that cannot be protected.

MG: Just before I let you go, when do you expect the first needles in people's arms?

LORNE KUSOGAK: Early this week. Well, we're halfway through the week now, but hopefully before the weekend's over, we will have immunization start in the elder facility here in Iqaluit and then on to the other three communities in Nunavut, there's facilities. And then from there, we'll keep going forward.

MG: It's good to speak with you again. And good luck. Lorne Kusugak, thank you.

LORNE KUSOGAK: Likewise, Matt, likewise. Have a good day.

MG: And you. Lorne Kusugak is the minister of Health for Nunavut. The rollout of vaccines is offering, as you heard from our three guests, a lot of hope to many Canadians. For others, there are many, many questions still left unanswered. Who should be vaccinated first? How will folks know when it's their turn to get the shot? Why is it taking so long in some provinces to roll out the vaccines that we already have in freezers? There are questions as well around safety, around the efficacy against emerging new strains. We want to hear from you. What questions do you have about the covid-19 vaccine and its roll-out? It maybe you have questions about how it'll work. Maybe you have questions about when you'll know that it's your turn to get the shot. Email us thecurrent@cbc.ca or tweet your questions to @TheCurrentCBC. Tomorrow on this programme, we will offer some answers with help from Dr. Lisa Barrett and an expert in infectious disease and immunology at Dalhousie University in Halifax will put your questions to her. Email us, thecurrent@cbc.ca. The news is next. And then.

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The virus easily attaches to them, just like it does to us, which means that the way that covid-19 is affecting humans is exactly the same it will affect the great apes.

MG: Margaret Evans takes us deep into Uganda's forests. Her documentary, A Charmed Circle, reveals the rush to keep a pandemic from penetrating an already vulnerable community, the mountain gorilla. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

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how COVID-19 is threatening Uganda’s mountain gorillas

Guests: Clara Hughes

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

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MG: Still to come, getting the vote out in Georgia, the state's runoff election for two Senate seats is today and the outcome will make a big difference to that entire country. But first, gorillas in the crosshairs. How covid-19 could impact an already endangered species.

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MG: The mountain gorilla is amongst the most endangered species on this planet. They were almost driven to extinction following decades of the illegal hunting and loss of habitat. And there are just over a thousand of them left in the wild. Almost half of them are in Uganda's Bwindi National Park, where careful conservation efforts have helped build the population back. But now a new threat has emerged. Covid-19 the CBC's senior London correspondent Margaret Evans trekked to the remote mountains for this story. Here's her documentary, A Charmed Circle.

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MARGARET EVANS: A journey to Uganda's impenetrable forest. The name alone making it sound like a quest, and so it is of sorts. It begins on a rainy runway in Entebbe. Two pilots in a 12 seater plane that in better days would before, not so in the age of covid-19. The flight to Uganda's southwest corner takes just over an hour, a full day on rough roads on the ground, descending through cloud cover towards the town of Kisoro. The bits of land that first appear seemed surrounded by a foamy sea, but their hilltops emerging through mist and the forests lining their slopes seem to hang in the air. It's beneath the canopy of those trees that you'll find the mountain gorillas nurtured back from the brink of extinction by conservationists, but still endangered. And now there are new threats on the horizon, carried as usual by man.

PILOT: Thanks for flying with us, we wish you a lovely stay.

[Birds chirping]

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: If covid is to get into the guerrillas, you could wipe them out, you know, you could wipe them out. It would be terrible. It really would.

MARGARET EVANS: Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is perhaps Uganda's best known veterinarian. She's been caring for mountain gorillas for some 20 years now. They share ninety eight point four percent of human DNA, which means they can catch many of the same diseases we do, including those of a respiratory nature. Kalema-Zikusoka's fear today is that the coronavirus will find a way to penetrate the impenetrable and so the gorillas.

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: The virus easily attaches to them, just like it does to us, which means that the way that covid-19 is affecting humans is exactly the same it will affect the great apes.

MARGARET EVANS: The Bwindi Impenetrable National Park north of Kisoro is home to around 450 mountain gorillas. That's nearly half of an overall population of 1063. The rest are in neighbouring Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We are skimming the Congolese border as we drive towards Windi, the Virunga Mountain Range, where the American primatologist Dian Fossey did so much to raise awareness about mountain gorillas is clearly visible, a line of distinctive and mostly dormant volcanoes straddling the three countries. Children on the side of the road wave and shout, Hello, are our vehicle passes by. We're heading for the Kooringal sector of Bwindi to catch up with Dr. Kalema-Zikusoka, the steel and layered beauty of the landscape, a contrast to the churning nature of the roads.

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: Thank you, everybody. I got a phone call this afternoon from the district health inspector. They tested 18 people today and 10 of them were positive for covid-19. Yes.

MARGARET EVANS: Kalema-Zikusoka is taking part in a seminar organised by the Uganda Wildlife Authority, talking to park rangers, trackers and porters about how to protect themselves and the gorillas from covid-19.

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: Covid is spreading quickly. Community transmission is catching, is really moving fast. And so we need to be very, very careful to to protect the gorillas in the moment.

MARGARET EVANS: We're joining the group as guinea pigs of sorts. One of the first public treks in to visit the mountain gorillas since March when Uganda closed its borders and shut down tourism because of the pandemic.

EMMANUEL: So once again, you're most welcome to our Starting Point. We're going to start working from here, but make sure you keep the distance from each other.

MARGARET EVANS: Our guide, Emmanuel [unintelliglbe] has been a ranger for eight years as we prepare to head out down steep trails towards the forest on the other side of the valley. He's armed not just with a machete, but with hand sanitiser.

EMMANUEL: Be careful, though.

MARGARET EVANS: There is no way into the forest but on foot. And it's not a trek for the vertically challenged. The elevation in some parts of the park is as high as 2600 metres above sea level. The word Bwindi means a dark place and at its edge, it looks like it might swallow you whole, the truckers have gone ahead, their voices calling in the distance. Even the crescendoing drone of insects draws you in dream like dark and hypnotic. And when the guides tell you you were with the gorillas at first, you don't believe them. The weave of the forest is so thick that it acts like a shroud. But his eyes adjust, eyes appear hair and then slowly a giant hairy arm stretches up from the forest floor to pluck at a bamboo branch. Sleeping giants coming to life.

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: And under that is two females about one year old.

MARGARET EVANS: The gorilla family we're tracking has already been touched by covid-19 indirectly. Their leader, a 25 year old silverback named Rafiki, was killed by a poacher in June.

EMMANUEL: When one individual dies within the family, especially this group, after losing their head, who is called Rafiki the silverback, they had to mourn some good time.

MARGARET EVANS: The gorillas are scattered, but within earshot of each other, there are 11 in the troop and their approach to us seems to be a kind of assumed but gracious indifference.

EMMANUEL: There are many there.

MARGARET EVANS: The one black back called Tabac flicks a few glances our way before returning to his daydreaming pose, lying on his back, staring at the sky. A young mother decides to climb a tree, baby in tow, only to feel it bend all the way back to the ground beneath her weight in just a few minutes. It feels like you've known them forever. There is lots of hand sanitiser and everyone, gorillas excepted of course, wears a mask. But so thick is the jungle that social distancing is extremely difficult and staying the required 10 metres away from the gorillas isn't much help if they decide to investigate you.

EMMANUEL: Move close to the other side.

MARGARET EVANS: At one point, Tabo emerges from the Bushes to cut our party and to see soon, followed by Ramuqui, Rafiki's successor.

EMMANUEL: I've broken the law by coming to Earth. We are too close.

MARGARET EVANS: Oh, here comes the other one.

EMMANUEL: Yeah, this is the [unintelliglbe].

MARGARET EVANS: He leaves no one in doubt that he's in charge, stopping to give us a stare. And it's not until you see him moving on all fours knuckle walking that you realise just how big he is, how long the stretch of his forearm.

[Chatter]

MARGARET EVANS: OK, so you want to go out this way.

EMMANUEL: Yes.

MARGARET EVANS: Wendy is home to 21 different guerrilla troops, but not all of them have been habituated to humans. Rules that have are key to Uganda's tourism industry and so also to their own protection and exploitation.

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MARGARET EVANS: A role with small wooden huts is squeezed between the road and the edge of another heart stopping drop to a valley below, just opposite the Ranger station we set off from earlier in the day. They're all shuttered, safe for one. [Unintelliglbe] saw activity at the station and took a chance setting out h er wares, a collection of woven baskets, T-shirts and tiny carved gorillas. She says she hasn't had a customer in eight months.

VOICE: Since covid-19 came.

MARGARET EVANS: The death of Rafiki, she says, was a blow on top of that to anyone depending on tourism.

VOICE: We are so annoyed they playing on the people would not go back there. Policy to kill the bill was very important because everybody, when they [unintelliglbe] guns and buy everything.

MARGARET EVANS: You think tourism will start up again soon or do you think it will be another long time?

VOICE: I don't know. I don't know.

MARGARET EVANS: A Life-Size statue of Rafiki greets visitors across the way at the Ranger Station, a reflection of how important mountain gorillas are for the Uganda Wildlife Authority. Gorilla based tourism funds 60 percent of their operating costs in a good year. Covid-19 changed that, says Chief Warden Nelson Gooma.

NELSON GOOMA: Is that how we lost revenue? We are not getting revenue. And so there are those requirements you need to do to manage your park. And so we started getting all the difficulties.

MARGARET EVANS: With fewer tourists and rangers in the park poaching went up, doubling across Uganda and rising by 30 percent here in Bwindi.

NELSON GOOMA: When we lost Africa, everybody got concerned. And so we had to devise a strategy to dominate the interior of the park, including that we would do what we call like hunting. The guys will come in the bush and keeps shifting from one area to another where where the hotspots.

MARGARET EVANS: Well, that's meant sending rangers out more often and for longer periods of time without the tourism dollars they've relied on in the past. Conservationists are hoping a tough sentence handed down in July to the local man who killed Rafiki will serve as a deterrent. The man who called it self-defence but admitted to hunting other animals in the protected area was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Goolma believes they have things in the park back under control.

NELSON GOOMA: We need the tourism to generate revenue for us to be able to conserve, and so we'll be able to get the balance between the two.

MARGARET EVANS: But what if the tourism industry doesn't recover any time soon? The beauty in this part of the world is profound, but so too is the poverty and the presenece of the mountain gorillas living in 330 square kilometres of protected jungle has an impact on the communities living pressed up against it.

[Music]

MARGARET EVANS: On Sundays, the sound of church music rises up through the terrorist hills surrounding the town of [unintelligilbe]. It drifts past all the signs, optimistically pointing travellers in the direction of guerrilla themed lodges and canteens are past barefooted children running along slippery paths and banana trees and small vegetable gardens and mud houses with tin roof tops covered in the usual syrupy and bikini leaves in one of them. Still in his Sunday best after church, he used to poach for a living.

MARGARET EVANS: [Foreign speech in translation] We used to hunt Bush pigs in different kinds of antelope, he says. We'd collect honey and timber from the forest and even mine for gold.

MARGARET EVANS: He was convinced to stop by an NGO called Conservation Through Public Health. It was founded in 2003 by Dr. Kalema-Zikusoka. One reason you'll find her treating human pathways along with those of the gorillas.

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: We actually set up conservation through public health to improve the health of the community and the health of the gorillas together because we thought that one would always undermine the other if they're not careful. So you really can't protect the gorillas without improving the health of the communities living around. And it's one important, very important aspect of community well-being as well. You know, it's a very big health is another dimension of poverty. But just as we're improving their health, we're also finding ways to improve their livelihoods.

MARGARET EVANS: It meant convincing people like Burkina to give up one way of life for another, in his case, small-scale farming. They helped him get started by giving him seedlings. Some former poachers and their families also now work in tourism. Or they did.

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: Earning a living, protecting the gorillas. And a lot of them got the opportunity of becoming porters who carry tourist bags to the gorillas. They are quite a lot compared to the other fellow community members. And that has really helped because sometimes you find that a porter is the son of a poacher. And then if the poachers sees that his son is earning a little money from tourism, he won't go into the park because he knows he's earning it because of the gorillas. And so there's a whole cycle of events.

MARGARET EVANS: The organisation also identifies health ambassadors and local towns, provides tools for learning from guides to handwashing to who to call when you need to get a gorilla out of your garden. Really. They've been known to venture out of the forest on garden rage for things they like. Sweet potatoes, for example. The Uganda Wildlife Authority has tried to dissuade them by planting tea around the edges of the park because gorillas don't like it. It's also a way for people to earn money. And at day's end, workers carry big sacks of tea on their heads up from the valley to a meeting point on the road where buyers come by with big trucks to take it to market. Sometimes Kalema-Zukisoka will intercept the workers and give them masks. She worries about contact between them and the gorillas. Given how close they are to the forest edge.

[Indistinct chatter]

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: I se you have themsome. Are they happy?

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: Like the ecosystems at work in the forest, it all feels precariously balanced. How can communities convince to transition away from hunting and cutting timber in the forest survive if the tourism industry offered in its place has ground to a halt? If covid-19 poses an existential threat to the gorillas, shouldn't we simply stay away from them? But if we did, would they and their habitat remain safe? Kalema-Zukisoka ka calls it a wake up call for the world describes tourism as a necessary evil.

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: It's very delicate because the great apes generate more revenue than other wildlife species, and yet they're most likely to get wiped out by humans if they get humans, get too close and give them diseases, or if they go outside into people's gardens to because they've lost their fearful people, because they've been habituated for tourism. So it's a very delicate balance. And so many things have to be done in order to maintain this. But if it's done well, it can really help to lift people out of poverty.

MARGARET EVANS: That means guarding against the threat of genetic diseases, the ones that can jump between species.

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: So I'm going to go ahead and collect a faecal sample from the nest.

MARGARET EVANS: On her treks into the forest. She collects samples of gorilla dump to test for signs of covid-19 and other diseases.

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: And we collect a lot because some of it is going to be for viral analysis, some of it for parasitology.

MARGARET EVANS: If a gorilla were infected, plans would be put in place to isolate that gorillas troop from other groups. Treatment, not an easy prospect.

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA: Going to label it, but it's very difficult because it's even hard enough treating people with covid-19 when it's become very severe. What about gorillas? You know, you can't bring them in and put them on a ventilator in a hospital. You have to do everything out in the wild.

MARGARET EVANS: The impenetrable forest dates back some 25000 years, a refuge not just for the gorillas, but other animals, including elephants and hundreds of species of birds, butterflies, trees and flowers. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site. And there is a real sense of enchantment in its embrace. We hit the forest itself, where the protective charms being cast around the gorillas by their guardians, busy, counting up which family members have made an appearance today.

[Indistinct chatter]

MARGARET EVANS: Visitors are allowed to stay with the gorillas for no more than an hour, and in the end it is [unintelligible] who calls time gathering the family under a tree backs turning. Except for the little ones peering over shoulders. The charmed circle is closing ranks. But the glimpse in the allowed us was an act of extraordinary trust. I hope we don't betray it.

MG: The documentary was written and produced by the CBC's senior London correspondent, Margaret Evans, with help from Lily Martin and Jean-Francois Bisson. This is The Current on CBC Radio one. My name is Matt Galloway. Happy New Year. I think I can say that all week long. I have to check the rulebook on that. In the meantime, yesterday to greet this New Year, we hosted a virtual on the radio open house kicking off 2021 with a few high profile Canadians on the guest list. People that we knew you would enjoy catching up with. Kathy Starkel was listening in Winnipeg and wrote What a way to start the New Year with a person like Clara Hughes. She is definitely sunshine, even on a dark day. Well, we asked Clara what music was helping her get through the dark days of winter as this pandemic goes on and on and on. Have a listen.

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CLARA HUGHES: Hi, I'm Clara Hughes, six time Olympic medallist and speed skating and cycling and a song that I love because it makes me think of the most beautiful day in the calendar year for me personally. And that is the winter solstice. That is the death of winter, because that is the day that we move from darkness to light. And this song by Nina Simone is a beauty. It's called Here Comes the Sun. Nina Simone had a lot of struggle in her life, but her beautiful, beautiful, haunting voice got me through in my life so much darkness and light. And this song brings us into that beautiful light.

[Song]

MG: Oh, my goodness. Nina Simone. Coming up after your regional update, what began in Ontario has quickly spread to Alberta and Saskatchewan too. No, not the virus. I'm talking about government officials resigning after travelling during the lockdown, paying a premium price for some sun and sand. That's coming up next. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stick around.

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Canadian politicians face scrutiny for pandemic travel; and the state of Georgia faces high-stakes elections

Guests: Mark Pickup, Felicia Davis, Helen Butler

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current. While we were told to hunker down and stay in. It turns out that some politicians did otherwise.

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I don't have a vocabulary adequate to express the frustration and disgust that I feel for the just flagrant disregard for the health measures put in place. None of us got together over the holidays because we're concerned for everyone else. Why are these ministers not?

MG: These ministers has emerged travelled despite public health guidelines to avoid all nonessential travel. Politicians in Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta did it. Several federal employees did to a senator as well, and they've been stripped of their parliamentary roles. Last week, Ontario's finance minister Rod Phillips, resigned from cabinet after his tropical vacation came to light yesterday. Resignations dominated the news in Alberta that province's municipal affairs minister, Tracy Allard, resigned after acknowledging that she had vacationed in Hawaii this month. Premier Jason Kenney's chief of staff and several others in his government also resigned. Some had been to see loved ones. Others had been on holiday. Many Canadians are not impressed, like these callers to CBC Radio in Alberta.

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VOICE 1: When you go into politics, you should be aware that you're going to be in the light and that's what's going on here. How could these six people possibly get the impression that it's OK if we follow these protocols to jet set off to somewhere and get away with it scot free? I mean, this is so glaringly obvious. It just makes the average individual mad beyond belief.

VOICE 2: You know what? The message that I got from what the ministers and the MLAs and the burocrats did was that either one that they are above the law or the second they couldn't understand the guidelines and they are incompetent. In either case, they should be gone.

MG: Mark Pickup is a professor of political science at Simon Fraser University who's been doing research into behaviour during this pandemic. Mark, good morning.

MARK PICKUP: Good morning.

MG: To understand the outrage we just heard there from those CBC listeners in Alberta when it comes to politicians travelling, despite guidelines that some of them were offering themselves to stay home.

MARK PICKUP: Yes, yes, I do. I can understand what they're feeling and I can understand that this is going to erode trust in politicians and we'll have an effect on potentially have effects on whether the average Canadian abides by the guidelines as they have been.

MG: Tell me more about this as you understand it. And again, as I say, you've been researching behaviour during the pandemic. What are the consequences when politicians do this? I mean, some of them have been demoted. We've seen the public putting up, you know, welcome home signs outside their constituency offices. But beyond that, what are the consequences?

MARK PICKUP: One, it's important when you're asking individual citizens to pay a cost to do something that's costly to them, where they're not seeing the family that would normally see or going to vacation, they would normally go on. It's important that they feel there's a good reason to do so. And they have to believe the government, the public officials, when they're being told there's a good reason not to travel. So when they see politicians travelling to go on vacation erodes that trust. The other thing it does is that individuals who would normally be highly motivated to go travel during this time or hours are to be more social, even if they're not travelling, just be more social, are motivated to interpret the situation in a way that what they're doing those things is OK, that it's OK to get together with large groups, it's OK to go on vacation. And this gives them those reasons. It says, you know, if the politicians are telling me to stay home or travelling, it can't be that serious. It must be OK if they're doing it, it must be OK for me to do it as well.

MG: But if we know that if we know that this is serious, this pandemic that's, you know, infected millions, killed people across this country and right around the world, we know that we're supposed to stay home. What effect does it have if our elected officials, some of them, decides that they are going to violate some of those guidelines in spite of that knowledge?

MARK PICKUP: Yeah, well, I mean, these governments are relying the provincial government and the federal government relying on not necessary laws. It's not illegal in many cases to to travel. They're relying on, you know, people to buy into the idea that it's not acceptable, that there are norms that we shouldn't do it because it's good for us as a whole to not do it. So it erodes those expectations. So it says if others, if it's politicians, the ones telling me that I shouldn't do it are doing it, then maybe the expectations are not that I should stay home. Maybe the expectations are that it's OK for me to travel. So it gives excuse to those who would like to travel those excuses.

MG: Should there be any differentiation between people vacationing and people who might perhaps have been visiting an ill family member?

MARK PICKUP: I mean, this is up to sort of political leaders to sort of make these decisions, but certainly many of the public health officers have suggested that that's true for the average Canadian. Again, haven't set in stone explicit rules, but when it is OK and not OK, again, there's differences in community messaging across the provinces. But in many cases, the public health officers have said, you know, we think it's at least, you know, it should be no nonessential travel. But what is essential was non-essential, at least to some degree, is open to the individual Canadian. Certainly vacationing is, I think, a clear is a situation where it's not acceptable. There's probably other places where it probably is acceptable and in the grey zones in between.

MG: I just wonder whether I mean, in part, many of these politicians have said, I apologise for my mistake. I made a stupid mistake. And the response is, I mean, it's not as though you tripped into an aeroplane and suddenly, you know, the door opened and there you were at St. Bart's. I mean, it's more than a mistake. It's a calculated decision. And whether that leads more broadly to cynicism when it comes to some politicians.

MARK PICKUP: Oh, absolutely, yeah, I mean, again, the situations where someone going to see a dying relative who's very close, that, you know, Canadians might have more sympathy for that situation and that may not have the same effect as someone who's going off just to a sunny part. You know, then you're part of the world like it might do in any other year. It certainly is going to lead to people having even less trust in politicians than they do, which is already fairly low as it is. Those provinces have relied more on their public health officers to message, you know, get the messaging around covid might be a little better off. And it seems it is possible for individuals to not trust politicians, but to trust the public health officers, although it still doesn't help.

MG: For the months that this pandemic has unfolded, we have been told that we're all in this together. And that suggests that there's a social contract, that we are part of that, that you decide not to do something. You sacrifice something because, you know, we're just talking about this. When it came to masks and to vaccines, you do it, for yourself in some ways, but you do it for other people. Do actions like this jeopardise that social contract?

MARK PICKUP: Yeah, it's not just a contract. It's I mean, it's what we call norms. It's the belief that I should do something and I shouldn't do something else. And I expect others to do it. And if they don't, I'll disapprove. And I know that they'll disapprove of me if I do certain things or don't do certain things. And certain people have more influences, are more of an influence on those social expectations. And politicians can be trendsetters in that sense. They can set a trend as to what is and is not acceptable, and that that is the problem when politicians sort of go against what their own government is telling the average individual to do, they're changing with the social expectations.

MG: Are is it fair to hold an elected official to a higher standard than your average civilian?

MARK PICKUP: Yes, I think so. I mean, to what degree, you know, it's again, it's difficult to say certainly to send that they should not be travelling on vacation when it comes to travelling to visit a sick or dying loved one. You know, that's a tougher call. And to call that each party's having to make at this point. But absolutely, they have to be held to a higher standard because they are often setting the expectations for the rest of Canadians.

MG: So these politicians have been named shamed and many of them have been forced to either resign or have been stripped of political duties. Does that help prevent some of the things that you're worried about happening?

MARK PICKUP: Yeah, in some ways, what you know, the leaders of the parties and others are saying is no, in fact those were violations of the expectations and now they're being punished for it. And that will hopefully then counteract the damage they could have done by saying, know, some people are breaking the expectations. But when they do do it, they're caught, they're shamed, they're punished.

MG: Do you expect more of this? I mean, we're nowhere near the end of this pandemic. There's light at the end of the tunnel, but we're still in a long tunnel. Do you expect more of this sort of behaviour or is what we've seen over the last couple of days and weeks enough to nip that in the bud?

MARK PICKUP: I mean, certainly we'll probably find more troubles being revealed from the past, certainly I think now individual politicians get how important it is that they, you know, be exemplars for correct behaviour, and that will help reduce this what we've seen. But, you know, it's hard for me to predict the future.

MG: Mark, thank you.

MARK PICKUP: No problem.

MG: Mark, a professor of political science at Simon Fraser University.

[Music]

MG: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio one, I'm Matt Galloway.

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[Crowd chanting]

MG: It's the scene outside of the White House after Joe Biden officially won the presidential election. The crowd there is thanking Stacey Abrams, the former candidate for governor in Georgia. Stacey Abrams has been getting a lot of credit for helping flip that state democratic, something that no one has done in 30 years. She's not the only person, though, making an impact in Georgia. And the work didn't end in November. Today, many people will be watching that state as two Senate runoff races close. The two seats up for grabs aren't just important for Georgians. They will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate and potentially give the Democrats control of all three levels of government in that country. Felicia Davis is convenor of the Clayton County Women's Black Women's Roundtable and director of the Historically Black Colleges and University Green Fund. Helen Butler is executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda. It's a nonpartisan civic engagement organisation. Good morning to you both.

FELECIA DAVIS: Good morning.

HELEN BUTLER: How are you?

MG: I'm well, thanks. Helen, I want to start with you. You were part of a big town hall event last night hosted by Oprah featuring Stacey Abrams and, you know, a lot of star power on that stage. Runoffs don't generally get this sort of attention. How are you feeling about this Election Day given everything that's happened over the last couple of months and maybe the last few years?

HELEN BUTLER: Well, I'm very excited about it. I could tell you turnout has been astronomical for primary race. And so we are just excited that people are getting up and really exercising their right to vote and having a say in who will represent them come of this following year and in Congress. And so I'm just so thrilled that people over three million people have already voted. Today is D-Day. It's Election Day, and we've already seen people in line waiting to cast their vote. And so it's running smoothly right now from all accounts. And we're just excited that people are getting engaged.

MG: What about for you, Felicia? You've been in this game for a couple of decades working on voter outreach and education. How does today's vote feel compared to others that you've been in the mix?

FELECIA DAVIS: Well, for a runoff, it's amazing. I think for years we have argued that if, in fact, we had additional resources, we could mobilise more people. And in fact, I think every voter deserves to be courted and informed. So I think they should hear from candidates and they should be informed about the process. So it would this particular one on Georgia has never been a battleground. It's always been overlooked. So it's like we had this opportunity to be a battleground state with meagre resources for a moment in time. And today we will see what difference it makes. We already know from November that change is possible. So both Helen and I work from a nonpartisan perspective because our agenda is to see that everyone votes. In particular, I focus very narrowly on increased black voter participation and that is definitely up. People will ask, are you where you were in November? The answer is no. It is a runoff for the Senate. It's not the president. So we will see what people do today. But absent the focus we got as a result of November runoffs and what would you say? We usually 20, 30 pecent [crosstalking]. And we're up around 80 percent of what we previously see. That's more than double.

MG: Tell me a little bit, Felicia, just briefly about you work in Clayton County. As I mentioned, John, this is part of John Lewis's district. It's a working class neighbourhood. It's a predominantly black community. What's at stake for for the folks in Clayton in today's vote?

FELECIA DAVIS: Oh, everything. So we are impacted more by everything negative. So for us, this the this shift, a Democrat Republican is the one we have been ignored to some extent by both parties. So now with Clayton County playing such a prominent role in a transition to a new direction, that means we stand to get attention and attention in America means additional resources. The other thing is that the Keema Williams, a young black woman who will be our new congresswoman in the John Lewis seat, she goes to Congress with additional strength, with a strong turnout from her district. That is power for a new congressperson. They could be in terms of priority, should be low on the totem pole. But she goes with visibility and strength coming from a massive turnout from her district. That is power.

MG: Let me sneak Helen back in. Helen, what's at stake for you and your community today as well?

HELEN BUTLER: Well, I think Felicia has brought it home just for Claydon, but you're talking about power throughout the state for our communities, for the black community, we're talking about a great kind of health care. We're talking about rural areas, getting hospitals back. We're talking about economic development for our communities. We're talking about quality and equitable education for our communities. We're talking about health care into and really culvers really to get back to a normalcy. So everything is at stake for us and mainly for our young people who have turned out in astronomical numbers. And, well, it means criminal justice reform, that they're talking about reform to really have people that will respect and honour their lives. And so it is everything for us. And we are excited that people are engaged.

MG: It is hard to talk about the state without talking about what happened this weekend. Audio leaked of President Trump pressuring the secretary of state in Georgia to find, in Donald Trump's words, 11,780 votes for him. What did you make of that, Helen, when you heard that audio?

HELEN BUTLER: Well, I was totally shocked, I had never heard of a president asking someone to do something illegal, because if I did that in Georgia, I would be under jail. And so I just could not imagine that the leader of the free world would be asking our secretary of state to do something that was not legal. And it just I I was just amazed. I mean, there was no words that could express what I felt because it had never happened before in my lifetime. I never heard of that.

MG: What about for you, Felicia? I mean, there's this long history of voter suppression. There's interference in Georgia. I mean, people have said that this is part of that that that connection of voter suppression.

FELECIA DAVIS: Very, very, very different reaction. This is a guy who has done everything in the world. He asked for people's birth certificates. He has lied and lied and lied. And a lot of people, half of the voting population believed. Things so now I feel like this, I wasn't surprised at all. I was glad it was caught on tape and the question is put before others. The black community got and understood who this person was before day one because he was running around trying to get President Obama to show a birth certificate. So we understood who he was all the time. But now at the 11th hour, just in the nick of time, everyone sees who he is. And so my question is, black Georgians have done all we could. I'm looking to the Georgians and asking, what will you do now? What will you do? Your governor is Republican, U.S. secretary of state is Republican. They have stood before you and not just told you, but show you there was no fraud in November. So how do you vote today? We've already ploughed ours in and the black community, we've done our best look to bring America forward. Now, what will the rest of the people do?

MG: Well, let me ask you about the community, what the community has done. We heard at the beginning, Stacey Abrams being thanked for for laying the groundwork. And black women like yourselves, along with Stacey Abrams, people believe, are instrumental in what happened in Georgia in November. Helen, what do you see as the role of black women in the electoral success of the Democrats in that state?

HELEN BUTLER: Well, black women have always been the leaders. We've always taken care of our communities and people around us. So the role of black women, it's really been instrumental in making sure that our communities get what we need from our elected officials. So you can't win without the black women's vote. And so we as Felicia said, we do understand what is happening. But again, black women are critical in any election cycle. And we've shown that time and time again. And we use our power to improve our communities and we will continue to do that again. We're bringing along others with us to make sure that we have the best communities that we can, and that's what we're all about.

MG: Are you confident, Felicia, that the actions of black women will be recognised by Joe Biden, his administration, after this? You talk to in some ways about not being, you know, a swing state in passing. And people have said that the state but also perhaps the votes of black women have been taken for granted. Are you confident that given that role that Helen's been talking about, that that will be reflected perhaps in not just, you know, in positions in the White House, but also in actions by that Biden White House?

FELECIA DAVIS: Joe Biden understands that black women picked him. And when we picked him, we then determined that in order for him to win, he would need to have a black woman vice president. So that was step number one. And we in order for that to happen, black women had to organise and leverage our collective power, which we did. And then going forward, we say that that's not enough. We needed that in order to secure a victory of thought. But we determined the days of being taken for granted are over. But beyond that, our leadership is required. So we have always been supportive, we've always been important, and we've always been a large part of the Democratic base. But things have gone off track. And so as women, period, not even black, taking race totally off of it - as women, we understand coming to this pandemic that we needed to step forward because we are the ones are unacceptable, not wearing masks, unacceptable, having super spreaders, unacceptable... What's going to happen tomorrow for my black woman's perspective is unacceptable. So we are stepping forward to say, oh, no, this this democracy, we have sacrificed too much to move it forward. To have 10 or 12 people in the Congress decide, oh, well, maybe we can do things differently because another group is exercising their power, that is not going to happen. So black women across this country, not just in Georgia, we have been supported by our sisters, the Black Woman Roundtable in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. They are made calls into Georgia, the women that are out in Hollywood [unintelligible] Oprah, of course, win with black women is a collective. So all across this country, do not ever think that it has been. Stacey Abrams, Helen Butler, Latasha Brown, Alicia Davis, Deborah Scott. Now, where are you? On the ground in Georgia? True. We are supported by our sisters across this nation and we hold that our leadership, which comes from a place of compassion, that our leadership is embraced by others because we want the best, not black people. We want the best for America. I work on climate change. Climate change is global. We but but it requires a belief in science. So we have to put science back on the agenda. So the direction that black women are pulling America in says, let's restore honesty, let's stop lying to the people, let's put science back in. We can solve a pandemic without science.

MG: There's a lot of hope in what you're saying around this election. We will see what unfolds today and whether that hope is manifested in how people vote. In the meantime, it's great to speak with you both. I appreciate your time on a busy day this morning. Thank you.

FELECIA DAVIS: Thank you so much.

HELEN BUTLER: Thank you.

MG: Felicia Davis is the convenor of the Clayton County Black Women's Roundtable and director of the Historically Black Colleges and University Green Fund. Helen Butler is executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda.

MG: You can't talk about Georgia without talking about this. The Ray Charles.

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[Song]

MG: That's The Current for today. Coming up next on CBC Radio, and it's Q and a reminder, we're looking for your questions on the covid vaccine. Do you have questions around the vaccine and its rollout? You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca. We'll get to your questions tomorrow. I'm Matt Galloway. Take care.

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