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The Current Transcript for April 8, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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I'm five months pregnant, every doctor's appointment and every ultrasound has looked just like this; me alone, trying my very best to stay safe these days. Rule number one is to avoid covid-19

MATT GALLOWAY: Pregnancy is stressful at the best of times. Now throw in a global pandemic. I don't remember that chapter and what to expect when you're expecting. Shannon Higgins has been living this over the last many months, weighing whether to get the covid vaccine now or after she gives birth. Her documentary Expecting a Shot, in 30 minutes. Also this morning, while much of the country churns through a third wave, a covid success story, life is quickly coming back to normal in Atlantic Canada. A look from Halifax and how they did it. Plus, if you've got a pandemic puppy, it's a bit of a weird question, but does it look like you?

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If you go to a dog show, you'll see that the people showing poodles and the poodles are clipped like canine topiary. Well, so are the owners, their hair will be pristine.

MG: Bruce Fogle left Canada in the 1970s to become a veterinarian in swinging London in an hour. His take on our relationship with our animal friends. We start, though, back on the road in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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Canada’s Road Ahead: Pandemic adds to uncertainty in Fort McMurray

Guests: Jessica Rejman, Dan Edwards a

MG: Well, it is time to get back in our virtual van and continue on Canada's road ahead, this is our series looking at the impact of this pandemic on Canadian communities coast to coast to coast. And this morning, we're pulling into Fort McMurray, Alberta. It is the hub of the oil and gas industry in that province. And we're here to find out what happens when a pandemic disaster mixes with a natural disaster and maybe even an economic disaster as well.

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Mother Nature has its wrath. When it unleashes its wrath. You need to mitigate and do what's right for the long term of the community.

MG: Fort McMurray was hit with its worst flood in a century last spring, about 13,000 people were forced from their homes, all while trying to protect themselves from covid-19. Now, a year later, it's time for another spring melt. CBC reporter in Fort McMurray, Jamie Malbeuf, met up with Keith McGrath, counsellor with the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo, and they spoke on the banks of the Clearwater River, one of five rivers that runs through town.

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KEITH MCGRATH: Our waterways, we have, you know, the mighty Athabasca to the north, we're standing alongside the clear water. We have the Mouth of the Snye. The Mouth of the Snye a birth path of water that used to be coming in from the Athabasca. Then we have the confluence of the hanging Stone River that flows again. So I guess we have a lot of waterways that meet here right in our downtown core. What caused the flood upstream, there was a blockage and Mother Nature has his way. Water has a way of finding a way through every crack and crevice on the planet and when the water can flow, is going to back up. I got the first call from the family [unintelligible] landing that they wanted to move somewhere procession's because there was some water, I don't know the exact date, but that was my I guess, my early telltale sign that we were headed for some trouble. And I was sitting about two o'clock in the morning on [unintelliglbe] Street, watching the water come up and watching the city workers do all they could do to fight back Mother Nature. And you just don't do that. And I felt helpless, just like the days after the fire.

MG: The flood hit low lying areas around downtown especially hard, causing something like 520 million dollars in uninsured damages, forcing people as well who had already fled a wildfire in 2016 to flee again this year. The city has spent 10 million dollars on flood control measures, including temporary berms.

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KEITH MCGRATH: So right here, the burm you're standing on it's 250.2 elevation. Just imagine sitting on top of a bouncy castle, a big floating balloon. Hey, and you jump up and down. I haven't jumped up and down these ones, but they're nice. And the nice thing is they never miss them because they're 12 feet high and some of them are like really long. It's like you're walking to like a lake. Yeah, like a big bouncy house. This is not permanent. This might be a bit of overkill in my eyes, but if you look in that tunnel, those people are out of their homes for six months. So it's easy for some old pompous prick to come up here and stand up on the berm and say this might be overkill. But what I can tell you, I haven't. When I seen seniors last year helping them move out of their house with all their possessions. That's what strikes me. This work should have been done 10 years ago, should have been done 20 years ago. And until they can take the politics and the egos out of city hall, politicians' only job, only job, should be to deliver core services and keep their communities safe.

JAMIE MALBEUF: So with the berms and everything being put in, are you worried about another flood happening this year?

KEITH MCGRATH: I'm not worried about a flood this year because people got their heads on their shoulders. If you look around this community, we have more of a risk. And I'm sure that is not just in the back of my mind. You look across the valley here, there's not a piece of snow in the bush. This is a very dry province right now. So my worry is, is that we better have the right safeguards in place for forest fires this spring. I'm not worried about a flood that destroyed.

MG: On top of last year's flood and the wildfire of 2016, as you can imagine, Councillor McGrath says the pandemic has taken its toll. Now, add to all of that the economic downturn in the oil patch.

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KEITH MCGRATH: Every headwind that the good man could throw at us has thrown at us floods, fires to pandemic. Well, one thing is constant is the suffering that some are going through, the loneliness. You know, people get isolated for 14 days and some of the bigger companies don't have the supports in place to go check on those people. So it leads back to depression. And then that depression, it was not treated properly, leads back to suicides. The work that we used to have is not there. And if there's not as much work to go around, people are arguing about who's getting to work. Don't pity us because we can we can look adversity in the face. Like the last few years here have been tough. But we're going to fix that, I think. So that's why we stay mad, because we got a lot of times a lot of us raised our families there. It's home. And there's no place in the world perfect. But there's hope here. There's hope that isn't always going to be this way.

MG: Councillor Keith McGrath. Jessica Rejman is watching and waiting to see how high the river rises this year. Jessica lives in a neighbourhood called Waterways. Her basement was under six feet of water almost a year ago. Jessica, good morning.

JESSICA REJMAN: Good morning.

MG: How worried are you about more flooding this spring?

JESSICA REJMAN: I think I was talking to a few of my friends and like Keith McGrath was mentioning about the new barricades that they have set up, I think it sets off a lot of anxiety for all of us that it's almost foreshadowing the things to come. And for a lot of us, it just brings back memories of last year and we're just scared that another flood might occur.

MG: Tell me about last year. When did you realise that a flood was coming?

JESSICA REJMAN: So we have a river icebreaker camera and I was watching that from camp, I was two hours south of the city in atwork, just watching the break up camera. And I was very concerned because it looked like a lot of ice and then it would break up and then it would stop and plug again. So it caused me great concern. So then I called my fiancee at home who had just gotten off work, and I told them to start moving some of our possessions upstairs on the off chance that we would flood. And he did manage to get a few of our wedding things upstairs, but he didn't really take it as serious as I was taking it. So he didn't end up moving a lot of things upstairs to a safe location. So unfortunately, that night I was going to come back home and see if I could either hook up the trailer because I had the trailer hitch on my truck. But I was worried that because we were we were under mandatory evacuation already by the time I got off work that I'd be driving two hours to get into a community that I might not be able to get into. So I fell asleep and my first image was waking up to my doorbell camera and the water had risen over the car in the front driveway and over the trailer in the front driveway.

MG: Oh! Goodness. And into the basement as well. I mean, what is what is six feet of water in the basement look like?

JESSICA REJMAN: It covered my panels. It destroyed everything, it caused everything to just float up and shift. It caused so much damage. And when you're looking at perspective here, I mean, we were covered by insurance after the fire, but after the flood, a lot of us didn't have that insurance to fall back on. So a lot of us were terrified of what that meant and what was worth saving, what we could save. It was a very scary, real situation.

MG: And you were what is it? You were without the furnace and hot water for how many months, after that flood?

JESSICA REJMAN: So I knew that I would potentially get laid off from my oil and gas job, so I was scared to spend some of my own money because obviously with everything going on with covid, I was worried that I might not be able to find another job right away. So I didn't want to spend any of my own money because I wanted to make sure I had enough money for my mortgage. So I was waiting on disaster relief funding and unfortunately, they finally released a little bit of a payment to me, enough to, like, repair my utility room in November. So up until then and we were running with extension cords, heaters, and even to this day, the entire basement is run on extension cords just because we don't have the power reinstated down there yet.

MG: What was the work that you were doing? You mentioned getting laid off. What was that work that you were doing?

JESSICA REJMAN: I was a process operator on site.

MG: And what did you do for work after you got laid off?

JESSICA REJMAN: So I was working while I was there casually at the Boomtown Casino as a server, so unfortunately we were temporarily laid off in December due to covid and we were hoping to get back there with Alberta relaunched into phase three. But unfortunately, it's been a long time coming for that. And then with Kenny's announcement on Tuesday, obviously we're reverting back to phase one. And I had managed to get another job serving a few weeks ago, but now they're going to have to close their restaurant because they had just reopened after the flood because they were devastated by it and they just reopened about a month ago. And now they're going to have to close their restaurant, too, because we don't have a patio.

MG: How are you holding up in all this? I mean, your wedding was postponed as well because of everything else. And there's so much going on and I haven't even mentioned the pandemic. How are you holding up in all of this?

It's been stressful. I mean, if you talk to a lot of brides, a lot of us don't know what to do. And we've lost thousands and thousands of dollars on venues, vendors, you name it. That part of it's been difficult. And we had just sent out all our invitations previous to the flood. So then we had to just obviously we were way too stressed out to deal with anything that year other than what we were going through. So we had postponed it to this year. But as you can see from the measures that are going on, we just knew that we had to push it once again. But, yeah, it's just been stressful in that regard because it's been a lot of wasted money, a lot of moving the wedding around. And that part of it is quite stressful because we just never know what kind of wedding to expect because we thought maybe by now things would have improved, but clearly not.

MG: How do you think things in your town have changed over the last few years, given everything that the people in Fort Mac have gone through?

JESSICA REJMAN: I think it's different because if you looked around after the fire, there's still a lot of empty lot in the neighbourhoods that were hit the hardest and a lot of people were scared then to come back. And I don't think that the flood helped anything in that regard just for home buyers and homeowners. In regards to the fire in the flood, it's really scared people away, especially from our neighbourhood, I feel. But the businesses, they're trying their best that they can do to stay resilient through all of this because they were hit really hard by the flood. And now some of them are just that, getting to the point where they can reopen and now their doors are being closed again. And I know it's really hard for all the gyms and fitness centres out there. It's just- it's a tough go all around because I know a lot of people are just, yeah, OK, covid shut down this, covid shut down this. But you have to remember, these businesses just got back on their feet from the flood. So they're just being hit with the double whammy.

MG: Given all of that, I mean, one of the reasons why we're doing this trip across the country is to talk to people about the road ahead, as the title of it is, Canada's Road Ahead, how optimistic are you about your future in Fort McMurray?

JESSICA REJMAN: I think the majority of us, we have to stay optimistic. I mean, it'd be sad to think think that things won't improve from here, from here. So a lot of it is just from surviving from one day to the next, because a lot of us have been in that survival mode since the fire and then for the rest of us has been since the flood. So it's difficult to pretend like things won't get better because I think optimism is really all that carries a lot of us through, because a lot of us have been obviously very financially stressed out since the onset of covid and all the lockdown's. So it's hard not to remain optimistic because you have to believe that things are going to get better from here.

MG: Do you and your fiancee, I mean, do you ever think of leaving town going somewhere else?

JESSICA REJMAN: It would be really difficult for us because the home prices have plummeted so much. And then it'd be hard for to convince people to buy on a flood plain, because, again, you look around, you see all these inflatable berms. It doesn't tell people, please come by down here. That's that's what made it difficult, it's becoming unattractive just because of that flood scare, you know, just that flood scare always in the back of everyone's mind.

MG: You've been through a lot. It will get better, but it's a lot to carry. I wish you the best and I really appreciate talking to you. Take care of yourself, Jessica.

JESSICA REJMAN: Thank you so much.

MG: Jessica Rejman lives and works in Fort McMurray, Alberta, as we were hearing, it's not just the pandemic and the threat of the flood that is making life harder in town this year. The city is also the hub of the oil and gas industry in northern Alberta, and that has been caught in a steady economic downturn for the past several years. The number of people living below the poverty line are unemployed, and Fort McMurray has been rising. Dan Edwards runs the Wood Buffalo Food Bank in Fort Mac. Dan, good morning to you.

DAN EDWARDS: Hi there. How are you?

MG: I spoke with you on this programme right after those floods happened, just and briefly remind us how badly your operations were affected about a year ago.

DAN EDWARDS: So, yeah, about a year ago, the food bank itself was affected by the floods. We had about four and a half to five feet of water throughout the entire building, which is, you know, the building itself sits above ground level. So really from ground level up to that four and a half. But you're really looking at about 10 to 12 feet of water that was in the area that we were located.

MG: I remember speaking to you and you're describing kind of the scramble to keep operations running. Those operations are important in part because the pandemic, but also the economic downturn has meant that there's a higher demand for services of food banks, not just in your community, but but across the country. What's the situation like in Fort McMurray? I mean, how much demand are you under right now?

DAN EDWARDS: We're still seeing people needing our services every day. We work on an appointment based system, so we we have appointments every single day that we are open. And we just continually seeing new families that need assistance where we're being reached out to every day because again, because of the floods, we are still not at 100 percent of our operations. The building that we occupied was released back to us only a few months ago. Now, our positive in this is that an opportunity presented itself and all of the chaos to actually purchase a new building to us that we're going to be moving into that is much larger and will actually meet the capacity issues that we were having in our previous building but we only just got access

MG: In the situation, have you found that people are, you know, able to support the food bank? Food banks rely on many, you know, ways on donations, but also on the generosity of volunteers to come and help out. So has that been continuing?

DAN EDWARDS: It has been continuing with covid. It's been an interesting year of everything, just as it was to work with HHS and make sure that we're doing everything appropriately. But we have been able to remain open and remain a place for volunteerism to happen because it's so integral. We can do our job with our volunteers, but we do a much better job with volunteers. So they're so important to our operation.

MG: You've lived in Fort McMurray for how long?

DAN EDWARDS: I've been in McMurry for about 12 years now.

MG: Jessica talked about the resilience of people in town. I mean, how would you characterise that? How do you explain, given everything that people have faced, everything that's been thrown at them, that people are still resilient in the face of all of this?

DAN EDWARDS: And I think she really touched on it. It's resilience, but it's also surviving. It's the you know, we're a boots on the ground town. Even when you were listening to Council Democrat speak and how he speaks, he's a very, you know, boots on the ground. We just dig our heels in and and get the job done. And that's really more of the mode that we're in now. And she says, you know, the housing market is not amazing. So, you know, with she's in waterways, it's not an attractive place to be buying as a homeowner. So therefore, you're stuck with a mortgage that's probably was valued higher than what people would perceive is what should be normal because of inflated prices that we've been facing for years as well. And now you're basically underwater on a mortgage, you know, using the unfortunate term of that sort of thing. But it really is- like myself, I live in a house that I paid far more than I should have ever paid for it. But that was what the housing market determined and my own home isn't even worth what I paid for it now. And I'm on high ground. I'm in a nice area sort of thing.

MG: So, I mean, I'll ask you the last question that I asked Jessica, just in the last minute or so that we have. Where's optimism for you? What's the road ahead for you in this town, given everything?

DAN EDWARDS: The optimism for me is that, again, it's the life is just that life is filled with unexpected and we can, you know, put our feet on the ground and keep moving forward or we can stick in the mud and wallow in self-pity. And one of them is awful. And one is how we continue to move forward and really show that resiliency that everyone is taking notice of. But it is just that grit that, you know, I think is just so important to just life in general, no matter where you live, is you can you have two options. You can sit and dwell on negativity, or you can just move forward and keep moving forward and take life as it comes and and just really trying to find the positivity and everything. There's positive stories throughout the whole year. As bad as covid is, and it is really bad, we can still find positive stories to talk about and positive things that have happened because of it, even just some of the scientific breakthrough is amazing. There's so much positivity that we can focus on rather than negativity.

MG: It's a good message. Dan, I'm glad to talk to you again. Thank you very much.

DAN EDWARDS: Thank you.

MG: Dan Edwards, executive director of the Wood Buffalo Food Bank Association in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Listeners can read and hear more about our virtual road trip, Canada's road ahead on the website, cbc.ca/canadasroadahead. Next week, we head north to Yukon. Well, coming up after your CBC News, with the weight of your own life and baby on your mind, how does someone who's pregnant right now navigate the difficult decisions around getting the covid shot? CBC producer Shannon Higgins takes us inside the science and emotion of making that choice. Her documentary is coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Pregnant people wondering whether to get COVID-19 vaccine

Guests: Shannon Higgins, Karin Marley

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

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MG: Still to come, we're heading to beautiful Halifax, Nova Scotia, where you can now go to a full exercise class at your local gym. Wonder what that's like. But first, navigating pregnancy during a global pandemic.

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MG: As the third wave of covid-19 rises across many parts of Canada, for many people, vaccines are the lifeline. They are safe for most people and already saving lives. But if you are pregnant right now, you're worrying about two lives, not just one. And the decision to get the vaccine is not as simple as just waiting for your turn. Shannon Higgins is a producer at CBC's Daily News podcast Front Burner and a former longtime staffer here at The Current. And this is her documentary, Expecting a Shot.

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VOICE 1: OK, see you in an hour, I love you.

SHANNON: Bye. OK, I'm at the doctor's office on the east end of Toronto. It's pretty noisy down here. And as usual, I'm super PPE-ed up. I got a K in 95 on and on top of that, I have a surgical mask and I have a visor, too. And it's pretty foggy in here since I wear glasses. So I feel a bit ridiculous. But this is the way it's got to be.

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SHANNON: So I'm five months pregnant, every doctor's appointment and every ultrasound has looked just like this, me, alone, trying my very best to stay safe. According to my GP, aside from all of the regular pregnancy advice these days, rule number one is to avoid covid-19. And it's for a good reason. Pregnancy increases the risk of severe outcomes. So when news broke that Ontario was the first province to prioritise pregnant people in a vaccine rollout plan without any conditions, a lot of doctors applauded the update and other provinces have made similar moves.

NEWSCASTER: Pregnant women in Manitoba are eligible if they're over 35, have a BMI over 30, have pre-existing diabetes or hypertension, or have cardiac or pulmonary disease.

VOICE 2: I suddenly got a rush of messages from a friend of mine saying, did you know that you for the vaccine?

VOICE 3: And in Alberta, there are calls to have even earlier access to the vaccine. Initially, I was excited to have the option for sure. It could be weeks before it's my turn. So the baby could come at any point, now. I feel like the decision makers have maybe missed the mark a bit. I mean, we don't stay pregnant forever.

SHANNON: The updated rules in Ontario mean that I could get vaccinated in phase two sometime between April and July, which is exciting. But it also left me with some questions, you see, none of the covid vaccines authorised in Canada were specifically approved for use by pregnant or breastfeeding people. So, why are we being offered the shot? Is it safe to take while pregnant and. Should I get it? To make that decision, I needed to get some more information, so I started with my own Dr.

All right, let's go in.

[Sound: Door closes]

SHANNON: Hi there.

VOICE 4: Hello.

SHANNON: I'm just here to see Dr. McKenzie.

VOICE 4: All right. He already knows you're here. Shannon's here.

SHANNON: OK, great.

VOICE 4: With a big microphone.

SHANNON: Oh, yes.

DOCTOR MACKENZIE: Come on in. Doing good?

SHANNON: Yes, right up here. And we'll have a listen to a little [unintelligible].

DOCTOR MACKENZIE: All right. So let's have a look at your belly and we'll just have you bring down your pants a little bit so that we can get to the [unintelligible]. My name is Robert McKenzie. I am an obstetrician gynaecologist at Michael Garron Hospital.

[Sound: Noise and heart beat]

SHANNON: What information do you think is most helpful in this decision to get the vaccine or not?

DOCTOR MACKENZIE: So I think I mean, this is obviously a really common question at the moment. And I think what's really important to look at is why are we giving people the vaccine? We're going to give people the vaccine because we know that it's highly effective at preventing you from getting covid for preventing you from getting a severe disease. And I think, you know, already we know that pregnant women are at a higher risk not getting covid, but of getting severe disease from covid. And so I think the issue with pregnancy is that pregnant women were not included in the trials. And so we don't have the evidence to make people feel super comfortable about choosing the vaccine. We do know, however, that there is a true risk of covid and a true risk of severe disease from getting covid, and that there has been no proven risk from the vaccine and no real reason scientifically why we would think it would cause harm to either mom or to the foetus. And so in choosing the vaccine, who should get the vaccine, is such a personal decision. But the most important thing to look at is what is your risk of getting covid number one and then what is your risk of getting severe disease from it? And so when we look at what is your risk of disease, I think the three main things to look at is what is the prevalence in your community? And so you being in Toronto, very different than being in Atlantic Canada and then looking at your occupational exposure. So obviously very different to women who are working from home and rarely leaving their house versus those who are working in hospitals or in grocery stores or bus drivers. So, basically community, work and then home. Are you living with somebody who has constant exposure or are you living in a crowded place? Do you live in a shelter or do you and your partner live alone? And neither of you leave the home to very different risks. And so that was kind of looking at what's your risk of exposure and what is your risk if you do get it, that you'll get severe disease? And so we know that most pregnant women have mild to moderate disease. But there is I think the number quoted is about eight to 11 percent of women will be admitted to hospital. About two to four percent end up in the ICU. That's not an insignificant number. And the other comorbidities that we know that contribute to severe disease are often seen in pregnant women. So a higher BMI or age over 35 other things like smoking or pre-existing hypertension or diabetes or asthma. So pregnant women already are at higher risk of severe disease. And then many of our pregnant women fall into the category of having other comorbidities. And I think really looking at what is your risk and then making a decision, knowing that it is a very real risk covid an illness from covid. And it's we have no reason that we can explain why this is going to be a harmful vaccine to you or to your baby. And so I think we feel very comfortable offering it to pregnant women. And it's you know, I kind of think that as a pregnant woman, there's this fear of choosing something that could cause harm. And I think perhaps our job is really to remind people that there's also harm that can come from not getting the vaccine.

SHANNON: OK, well, Dr. McKenzie made a few things really clear. Covid is bad news for pregnant people, period. The choice to get the vaccine during pregnancy has a lot to do with understanding your own risk. And the vaccine looks pretty safe so far, though. We can't say that with 100 percent certainty yet. But that doesn't mean there's no evidence to base your decision on. There's actually a lot and it's growing every day.

DOCTOR BOGLER: Yeah, it's evolving day to day, which is so fascinating as we see real world data come out.

SHANNON: That's Dr. Tali Bogler.

DOCTOR BOGLER: I'm a family physician at St. Michael's Hospital and I practise low risk obstetrics at St. Mike's. And I'm the chair of the Family Medicine Obstetrics Team at St.. Mike's and co-founder of at Pandemic Pregnancy Guide.

SHANNON: That guide is on Instagram. It's a great resource full of up to date info on the covid vaccine and pregnancy information that's been evolving from the very start.

DOCTOR BOGLER: So the trials for the vaccines that are available to us did not include pregnant people or breastfeeding women. So that's the first thing. And then you had lots of countries and large organisations for that reason, saying the vaccine should not be given to pregnant people or those who are breastfeeding because of that. So that was the big first headline. But then things started to evolve and we evolved on this because many large obstetrical organisations said, but we know that pregnant people are at increased risk. How can we be denying pregnant people from getting the vaccine? Pregnant women, especially those at high risk of being exposed to covid-19. Or more at risk of severe illness should be given the choice. So the first thing, first reason, even with a real world data, that many obstetrical organisations said women should be really given the choice to get the vaccine after having a discussion, a risk benefit discussion with their treatment provider. The main reason they felt so strongly about this is because we knew that the vaccine isn't a live vaccine, which is something we generally tend to recommend against in pregnancy. We give many other vaccines in pregnancy. We know that the MRNA vaccine doesn't interact with your DNA. We also saw in the initial trials there were some people that got the vaccine but then got pregnant or then found out that they were pregnant and there were no red flags or adverse outcomes that we knew of. So because of that, people from right from the get go thought this is probably safe. There's no biological plausible reason why this wouldn't be safe. And then some of the real world data started to come out. So, for example, now we have from the states over - now it's over this number - over 30000 pregnant women in the United States have received the vaccine. They have not found any significant difference in terms of side effect profile and adverse pregnancy outcomes. In pregnant person that recieved the vaccine versus the general population. So that's really reassuring.

SHANNON: And now there's even emerging data about how the vaccine may protect newborns.

DOCTOR BOGLER: So then there's even more real world data, some stuff that's getting published that actually if you get the vaccine in pregnancy, the pregnant person can then possibly transfer antibodies to those protective antibodies against the virus through the placenta and actually protect the baby and through breast milk as well. And the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, they published a study with one hundred and thirty one women in the United States who received the vaccine. The majority of them are pregnant and were breastfeeding. And they found that the people that were pregnant and mounted an immune response as good as someone who is not pregnant. So we know it's effective and it was effective in transferring antibodies through the placenta to the baby so I could go on and on. But every day we're seeing more real world data.

SHANNON: OK, so that's what we know as of today. And excluding pregnant people from clinical trials is not weird at all. Doctors often rely on real world use to decide what's safe.

DOCTOR BOGLER: We don't have the trials yet, but thankfully, there are some emergency vaccines that are now starting to include pregnant people. So primarily a Pfizer vaccine. So they've just started their trial. It's going to take a few months for us to really see the results. And they're also going to be following the babies for I think it's about six months after delivery to see how long potential antibodies have might have transferred during pregnancy, how long do they last, how did the babies do, etc. So we're missing that data.

SHANNON: Even so, all of this information sounds super reassuring to me. But does that mean that every pregnant person should just try to get access to the vaccine as soon as possible?

DOCTOR BOGLER: Yeah, it's a really good question. So right now in Canada, the National Advisory Committee on Immunisation and even our Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Canada are not routinely recommending that all pregnant women should get the vaccine. Basically, what it's saying is women should be given the choice to have a risk benefit discussion with their maternity care provider or their most responsible treating provider. And the reason we're not saying everyone should routinely get it is because of what I just described. We're still missing those trials to give definitive answers whether or not these vaccines are safe. We think they are, from what we're seeing, that real world data, it's very reassuring, as you said, but we're still missing that data to say 100 percent it's safe. And so it should be a risk benefit discussion. And I think it should be done with someone who knows you, someone who's treating you in your pregnancy or your family doctor who understands your whole situation. I don't really think it should just fall on the pregnant person to decide on their own, because it's it's a hard decision to make, as is so many things in pregnancy.

SHANNON: And just like so many of those other big choices, moms to be go online looking for advice on a Facebook pregnancy group I'm part of. Some wanted to get the shot as soon as possible. But there were others who are waiting until after giving birth to get vaccinated, like Amber Wills, a woman who shared her thoughts with me in a voice note,

AMBER WILLS: I am a 32 year old woman residing in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. I am currently 28 weeks pregnant. I have fully decided that I will not be getting the covid-19 vaccine that is available. My reasoning for this is because I am currently working from home full time and I do expect to until I deliver in June, I do everything curbsides. So I don't feel as if the risk of me getting covid-19 is high enough for me to actually look into the vaccine and potentially take on the risks to my unborn baby.

SHANNON: The problem is not everyone has such a clear cut situation to help them decide. It's something Dr. Bogler sympathises with.

DOCTOR BOGLER: I would say the majority are in the middle zone, so I think health care providers who are very at high risk of exposure, a little bit of an easier decision. Right. And then people that are totally isolated, also a little bit of an easier decision. It's the ones in the middle that sort of like sometimes are exposed or it's it's not so black and white. I'm not at high risk. I'm not a low, low risk. What what what do you recommend? And I think it has to come from a place that's not judgemental. Like I validate their concerns. I get that people are nervous about a vaccine in pregnancy. I don't expect most of my patients to be completely chilled or calm about it. But, you know, this highly politicised vaccine that's in the news all the day, of course, they're going to be anxious about it and want to talk about it with somebody. Here we go. There's the heartbeat, so let's see what it says about in the mid 120s, about all this

SHANNON: Back in my doctor's office. Dr. Roberta McKensie, still busy trying to capture a heartbeat,

DOCTOR MACKENZIE: It is moving in there. A pregnant person, suddenly, decisions become monumental, like what to eat for dinner.

SHANNON: Right. So true.

DOCTOR MACKENZIE: What do you intend to wear? Yeah, and then you put a global pandemic on top of that. And then there this sense because the vaccine is being offered but not approved, but the decision is handed down to like personal choice. That's stressful.

SHANNON: It's really stressful. And I think that it ends up being a very personal decision. And I think the fear is that it is easier to say no to something than to say yes to something, even though there is such potential benefit. And I think one thing that's important to note as well is that women who develop covid not only can they develop severe disease, but because of that they often deliver their infants early. So I think the rate of preterm delivery is about twice that in women who develop covid compared to the background population. And with prematurity, there is a whole slew of things that are associated with that in terms of morbidity to your newborn. And so by not choosing the vaccine, you are potentially taking that risk of prematurity, which, you know, I think we we know that we have wonderful neonatologists and great care in the NICU, but there is still morbidity associated with that. And I think that's another important thing to think about when making a decision.

[Sound: Heartbeaet]

DOCTOR MACKENZIE: Well, every time we hear that, that's your baby moving on. Very active.

SHANNON: It's like the galloping horse. Sounds good.

DOCTOR MACKENZIE: Sounds great. You have a very active baby in there. Heartbeat sounds lovely. All right.

SHANNON: I'm gonna be honest with you leaving that appointment, I'm still not 100 percent sure what to do. But I'm thankful for the choice and for so much information, it's clearly something not every pregnant Canadian has access to right now.

SHANNON: [To someone else] Excuse me. I just came from my OB. I'm pregnant and I'm doing a documentary about the vaccine, so we're just asking people how they feel about it, if they're going to get it.

VOICE 5: Which vaccine?

SHANNON: For covid. Are you interested in getting the vaccine?

VOICE 5: After giving birth? Not now, because I spoke to my doctor. They said before to get you have to get the vaccine. You need to talk to your family doctor and if they agree, you can take the vaccine. But for now, they say, after giving birth, I can take the vaccine.

SHANNON: Would you like to get it sooner?

VOICE 5: Yes, is it availabel for pregnant women to get vaccine?

SHANNON: Yes. Next month.

VOICE 5: Next month?

SHANNON: If you want it.

VOICE 5: Oh, I didn't hear about that, but I have to talk to my doctor first before to get vaccine. I don't have a problem with the vaccine, but I have to talk to the doctor first. Yeah.

MG: That was CBC News producer Shannon Higgins in her documentary Expecting a Shot. The Current reached out to the Public Health Agency of Canada to see if there were any plans to update its recommendations for pregnant people. A government spokesperson responded with a statement reiterating their current recommendations and adding, quote: "The National Advisory Committee on Immunisation continues to monitor the evidence. And this recommendation may change as more evidence on safety and or efficacy in these populations becomes available. NASE guidance is advisory, and ultimately it's up to the provinces and territories to determine which populations they prioritise". You can head to our Twitter feed for a link to the recently updated FAQ fact sheet from the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada. You'll find that @TheCurrentCBC. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. You ever heard of Harry Hibbs? The answer to that is a resounding yes for many of you. According to the email inbox, earlier this week, we ran a story about the man our guest called, and this is quite a quotation "The best bellow bender on a button box there ever was". The Newfoundlander and accordion player died in 1989, but his music holds memories for a lot of you who wrote in to tell your stories about the man known as his NIB's senior producer of The Current, Karin Marley is here to dig into the virtual mailbag. Karin, good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Good morning, Matt. Our first note came from Bill Mills in Truro, Nova Scotia. He's a fellow radio broadcaster. It turns out he was recalling his stays at CKDH, Amherst and he says one morning, as I did occasionally, I played Harry Gibbs as part of my extra and ask the question, how do you drive a Newfoundlander crazy? You tie them up in a chair, then play Harry HIP's. The phone rang shortly after. It was a wonderful lady with a thick Newfoundland accent. Which parentheses here I am not going to try and do go back to the letter? She asked. Are you Bill Miller's the radio announcer. I said yes. What can I do for you? She said, I have a question. What's black and blue and floats in the harbour? I said, I don't know. She said, you, if you don't stop telling them, Harry Hibbs jokes. And she gently hung up. I wonder how gentle that was. I became very acquainted with how people really held Harry in such high esteem. I fell in love with Harry Hibbs and his defenders that day.

MG: Your responses really showed how beloved Harry was outside of Newfoundland. This was a note from Nicole Degrosseilliers, who said, I am a French Canadian woman raised in the very French Canadian small town in northeastern Ontario over 40 years ago. My dad had purchased a Harry Hibbs record, the Cariboo Club, for my mom. And did they ever play that record? I'm fortunate that I am now the proud owner of Said Record and still enjoy listening to it. We introduced one of his songs to California friends of ours and they are hooked. His music is timeless and every time I hear it, I want to get up and dance.

KARIN MARLEY: His music brings a lot of other people to their childhoods as well. Debra Baker of Grandpre, Nova Scotia, says, Oh, my goodness, when I heard you were talking about Harry HIP's, I went straight back to the kitchen of my childhood. At one p.m. on Sundays, the radio was turned on and orders from dad was no talking. Harry Hibbs is on as kids were more or less a captive audience. But I'll tell you, fond memories, even though it was music my father liked, it sure was something my dad loved to hear.

MG: We also heard about those who met the man himself. Ron Calling's claims: My mother once danced with Harry Hibs at a curling club function in Gander, Newfoundland, some fifty years ago, and she still has his autograph on a Dumarey a cigarette pack.

KARIN MARLEY: Send a picture, please. We need proof. This last one is from Evelyn Corbett in Chatham, Ontario. I do love the music of Harry Hibs and the accordion. In 1969, I danced to it at the airbase in Trenton, Ontario, where my husband Mike and I were celebrating our first wedding anniversary. We were with family and friends, all good old Maritimers. It was a wonderful evening. And nine months later, in July, my beautiful iaughter Georgeann arrived.

MG: Lovely. Thank you to all of you who wrote and to listen to and thank you, Karen, for helping us sift through the mail.

KARIN MARLEY: You're welcome.

MG: You can write to us at thecurrent@cbc.ca and, yes, indeed, we read everything you send, but only a few of those letters actually end up on the air. Coming up after your regional update, let me end on some more good news. I'm announcing that we're lifting more restrictions thanks to your hard work. We're able to keep our cases low and we're able to open up just a bit more with the rest of the country. Locking down and enviously looking on Nova Scotia is easing up on some of its Koed restrictions. Will head there coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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Much of Canada is fighting a COVID-19 third wave, but Nova Scotia is cautiously lifting restrictions

Guests: Robert Strang, Joe McGuinness, Bruce Fogle

MG: Hello, my name is Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

I'm announcing that we're lifting more restrictions, starting with the Newfoundland and Labrador border, you will no longer have to self isolate for those 14 days in Nova Scotia.

MG: While most of this country is headed back into lockdown, things are looking up in Atlantic Canada. Low case counts mean that restrictions are actually being lifted. In Nova Scotia, retail stores and gyms are now open at full capacity.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We've literally had to be operating at like maybe five to six capacity in our store at once. So knowing that we can be 100 percent capacity coming for spring and summer, amazing.

VOICE 2: There's always that little bit of concern that a huge we can't make it in I can't get to class on time and we feel badly when you have to refuse somebody. So this will be more exciting that they won't have to worry as much.

MG: Restaurants and bars are open to. And it sounds like Caledonians are ready for happy hour. Joe McGuinness is co-owner of Dirty Nelly's Pub. Joe, good morning.

JOE MCGUINNESS: Good morning, Matt. How are you?

MG: Well, I'm OK. How about you set us up for Friday night? What do you expect Friday night to be like at Dirty Nelly's?

JOE MCGUINNESS: Well, believe it or not, your sunny 14, 15 degrees, the patio's will be open downtown Halifax. You know, once the sun comes out, everybody wants to hit the patio. So we do anticipate a busy day at Dirty Nelly's. And as the evening goes on, hopefully the weather will cooperate. And we have entertainment playing in the afternoon and then in the evening time through till 11:00 p.m.

MG: I've heard there's no dancing allowed, though.

JOE MCGUINNESS: Unfortunately not. There's no dancing.

MG: Is that difficult to enforce, given the fact that people have been under restrictions such as they are for so long?

JOE MCGUINNESS: For those people who know Nova Scotia music is in their DNA and they love to get up and dance and, you know, it's a matter of controlling the music and not getting the audience to the point that they want to get up and dance. But people have because of adapted to dancing while sitting and moving their bodies and shaking while they're sitting down. So it's it's just another example of pivoting in this moment of covid.

MG: What is the toughest part of all of this last year been like for you and your staff?

MG: Certainly, you know, back in March, April, it was difficult not knowing where we were going, but I think our leaders are premier as Premier McNeil and now Premier Rankin and they under the guidance of Dr. Strang, in addition, with the support that it's been provided by the federal government, has given us hope. We're we're we're treading water. We're holding it together. And it has been adapting and being optimistic. We are optimistic that there is light at the end of the tunnel that we can welcome people into our patios or beer gardens. And we're hospitality and we want to welcome people into our establishments. And people, as I say, here in Nova Scotia, are very, very social. And unfortunately, in this social environment, it's asking people to sit down and wear masks and and, you know, for the most part, the public here have been phenomenal and understanding of the situation that we're going through. And we are very, very thankful here in Atlantic Canada in that we see on the news every day what's going on in the rest of the country and indeed the rest of the world. So we're we're extremely fortunate to be in the position that we are in.

MG: I want to ask you about that just in a moment. But I mean, as a business person, the unpredictability of it must be torture in some ways because you don't know whether the money will be coming in, the money that you need to to keep the lights on.

JOE MCGUINNESS: There's no doubt it has been difficult, but, you know, the wage subsidy, the rent subsidy, the grants, the various different financial establishments, the banks that are there to support this, they do know that Main Street is the lifeblood of every community. And we know that we're in a difficult time and that if we collectively as a community work together, keep our businesses open, bring our employees back to work, we know our customers will support us and our guests will return eventually once we get through this.

MG: So before I let you go, what's a word of encouragement that you would give to pub owners and other parts of this country who can't see the end of this yet, who are in many places heading back into another lockdown and wondering whether they'll be able to hang on?

JOE MCGUINNESS: There is a light at the end of the tunnel, you know, where you can pivot if you can do take out delivery, utilise social media in order to communicate to your guests what you're going through. We do believe in a sense of community that are guests. And if you've built up a loyal clientele, they will return. They are looking for an opportunity to socialise with their families, with their friends, go out and have celebrations again, and there is light at the end of the tunnel. But, you know, the public does need to follow directions from our former leaders. And here Dr. Strang is being given daily updates to Nova Scotians and they followed his direction following tracing, utilising, tracing up, masking, social distancing. And people have followed. And we as a we as a province have benefited by everybody coming together.

MG: Well, enjoy yourself this weekend and it'll be great. I'm proud of what people in the province have done and maybe just a little bit jealous as well. So thank you.

JOE MCGUINNESS: Thank you very much.

MG: Joe McGinness, co-owner of Dirty Nelly's Irish Pub in Halifax. He mentioned Dr. Robert Strang. He's guiding Nova Scotia through the pandemic, helping that province steer clear of a third wave thus far. He is Nova Scotia chief medical officer of health and joins me from Halifax. Doctor, good morning to you.

DR. ROBERT STRANG: Good morning.

MG: In many ways, as you well know, Nova Scotia has become the envy of Canada for its success in this pandemic. How do you think you got to where you are now?

DR. ROBERT STRANG: I think there's a few key factors that I have to start by acknowledging that we have some advantages by our geography, more, much more rural, dispersed people. We don't have large, big, large urban centres. Even Halifax is, you know, half a million people. So we don't have the large, very dense urban population. So we're covid really can spread. And so we have some advantages. But I think, you know, early on we realised that we needed to protect ourselves. Like the other Atlantic provinces, our border measures are critically important. They're not perfect. But what they do is a slow down. Having the vast majority of people having to quarantine if they come to this province very much slows down the entrance of covid limits. The number of cases that can come in keeps it within our combat capacity. We've invested heavily and have, I think, a very innovative testing strategy. We would do a lot of asymptomatic testing, which helps us really detect any virus very early on. Leadership has been very important that we've had had strong leadership that we have covered has and the protection of the health and safety of Nova Scotia has been both with Premier McNeil and Premier Rankin. First and foremost, we have not politicised covid and we've understood, I think, to their credit within government that actually good public health is good economics, that if you and when we've had to, we've had to act quickly. And we've taken down very quickly early on. And people understand that actually, if you do that, you put you up in them, even from an economic perspective, put you in a situation where you can recover as early as possible. So we haven't had this dynamic of public health versus the economy. We understand that the two go hand in hand. But I think one of the largest pieces has been how Nova Scotia, and Mr. McGuinness spoke to it, have bought into this. And I think success breeds success. People see that if they commit and the mantra has been that we need to keep each other safe and work together and people have seen that that actually works. So we have really good bye in. People trust each other. They trust the leadership and the direction we're going, and they can see the results of that. So all those together have kept us in a good space. But it's very precarious as we look at what's around us, even in the rest of the country.

MG: I going to say, when you look at what's happening in other parts of the country, in B.C., Alberta, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, what goes through your mind

DR. ROBERT STRANG: makes me extremely nervous. And I wake up every day saying, OK, what's our case count from from the 24 hours before. We have to, to me, the message that I continue to deliver to Nova Scotia is that we can't relax. We have to stick with our border measures, everything that's kept us safe. The year plus now we have to stick with that while we are ramping up our vaccine and getting as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible. We're on target for having every adult in Nova Scotia and offered vaccine by the middle of June. So if we can get through the next couple of months, I think then we're starting to be in a place where we have enough population immunity from the vaccine to start to think about what the future could be with that level of protection.

MG: If you go back a year, where we were was a pandemic that was hitting people, particularly in long term care homes, and Nova Scotia was not immune to that 53 of the 66 people who died from it in the province died linked to a single outbreak at a nursing home in Halifax. What do you hope we have learnt collectively from that?

DR. ROBERT STRANG: So, I mean, absolutely understanding the vulnerabilities of of seniors, especially seniors who are living in one called congregate living situations where they're living together, and that we need to do everything we can to prevent the introduction of of of the cold virus into those living situations, because once it's in there, it's very difficult to control.

MG: People have said that this could be a reckoning in terms of long term care, not just there. But I mean, if you take a look at what happened right across this country, do you see that?

DR. ROBERT STRANG: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think, you know, for me as a public health person, I mean, there's that we have to acknowledge that how we care for seniors in this in this country, we need to think differently, not just from an infection control perspective, but certainly when you bring large numbers of very vulnerable people together that that we put them at risk. What we don't acknowledge is that every year influenza goes through long term care facilities and people die because of that. We've been very complacent about that for years and years and years. So I think we need to look at fundamentally look at how we care for our seniors and in a more compassionate way and large kongregate living situations. How do we build perhaps more if we are going to use those models? How do we make them safer in terms of better infection control, things about staffing, shared rooms, all those kind of pieces? So there's lots we need to think about that that pre-date. Well, predate covid, covid has just highlighted some of those as it has highlighted other disparities in our community that we're covered is having an impact in vulnerable populations, whether they're people who are precariously employed with, you know, service type jobs, low income, and they have no alternative but to go to work, you know, marginalised populations and other ways which have the bearing, the greatest burden of covid. There's many disparities in our community that across the country are that that covid is actually highlighting. And so what's our willingness to actually make those better?

MG: Just in the last few seconds that we have? It's been a hard year for everyone that you write on the front lines of dealing with. And Joe talked about being out there and giving information every day to the public. How are you holding up in this?

DR. ROBERT STRANG: I'm tired. I know my chief medical officer of health colleagues, we're all you know, this is this weighs heavily the type of decisions we have to make, often with less than complete information. And what the challenging part is that all the restrictions we necessarily put in place when we have to use them, they all have their own set of impacts, mental health issues, isolation. So none of these are easy decisions to make. And but, you know, finding the balance between controlling covid, but also knowing that everything we do has that negative impact that weighs heavily.

MG: It's good to hear what's happening there. And as I say, there are a lot of people across this country who are looking with some envy at what's going on in your province. Doctor, thank you very much.

DR. ROBERT STRANG: Thank you very much. Have a good day.

MG: And you, Dr. Robert Strang is the chief medical officer of health for the province of Nova Scotia. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway.

[Music]

MG: London banned the Edison Lighthouse rocking out on Top of the Pops in 1970. England was swinging back then and it was then that a 26 year old veterinarian from Toronto arrived and one of London's poshest neighbourhoods to begin a five decade career treating animals. Bruce Fogle has written a number of bestselling books about pet care, but his new book is a bit of a wild memoir called Call the Vet, My Life as a Young Vet in 1970s London, Bruce Fogle. Good morning. Hi.

BRUCE FOGLE: Hi, Matt.

MG: Describe the city that you arrive in. I mean, in our mind's eye, even if we aren't travelling these days, we might have an idea of what London is. What was London like in 1970?

BRUCE FOGLE: Well, 1970 was still under the influence of post-war recuperation. The buildings were black and sooty. There were bomb sites right in the heart of London around Regent's Park that some of the great terraces hadn't yet been rebuilt. And large squares like Fitzroy Square, the bottom of Fitzroy Square, where still World War Two bombed out buildings with lots of feral cats in it. So it was in that sense, it was quite different. The icons that we were familiar with, Carnaby Street, Soho, and of course, the grand places like Westminster Abbey and and Buckingham Palace. So things that growing up in Canada were second nature to those of us who grew up in English-Speaking, Canada, because it was sort of like home. But it was, in a basic sense, radically different to what I was used to in North America.

MG: We heard a little bit of the Edison Lighthouse there in 1970 on Top of the Pops. I mean, what was popular culture like and what were you I mean, you start the book in many ways with a story of you showing up in the wrong attire in some ways in the office.

BRUCE FOGLE: Well, you know, if you're a student in the 1960s, it was more than likely that you might have flower decals on your car. Your hair would be a bit long. So I fit into the stereotype. And there was one instance shortly after I started working for this delightful man, Brian Singleton, where he called me in because there had been a complaint about me and I'd worried that the complaint was that I had misdiagnosed. But in fact, the complaint was that I was wearing sandals and the woman didn't like seeing my toes sticking out of my sandals.

MG: Describe the clinic that you were working in when you first arrived in London, then the man who was running it.

BRUCE FOGLE: So Woody Woodrow had set up the practise and he was joined by a super sophisticated vet named Brian Singleton. And Brian, who was the Yorkshiremen created the British Small Animal Veterinary Association. So he was professionally aggressive. It was a practise where although in Canada, vets would wear green smocks or white lab coats at Woodrow and Singleton Veterinary Surgeons on Pont Street, it was Savile Row suits and of course, white shirts and ties.

MG: As you say, the clinic is located in an area where the great and the good live. Who are some of the people who brought their animals to your clinic?

BRUCE FOGLE: Well, this was, again, I hadn't I hadn't realised the stratification in the UK, so I was working close to Westminster, to parliament within walking distance of Buckingham Palace. And the great and the good would concentrate there amongst the the most expensive homes and the most expensive shops and restaurants in the UK. So the J. Paul Getty would come in or if there were noted actors or actresses coming from the United States or from the UK, they would use this practise. Now, I have to admit that certainly in the first year, maybe two years that I was practising, famous people would come in. But I was so concentrating on what was wrong with the dog or the cat that more often than not I'd fail to actually recognise or look at the person who came in, for example. That is how I met my wife in 1971. An attractive young woman came in with her dog and I hadn't realised I'd just seen her on stage a couple of weeks before at a theatre called the Royal Court. Nor had I realised that the actress that I saw the Royal Court was the same actress I saw at a theatre called the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus. I was more interested in why was her dog vomiting? And in that context, Julia recognised that I was never going to notice her. So she invited me out rather than by inviting her out.

MG: It's a good thing the dog wasn't feeling well.

BRUCE FOGLE: The dog was feeling very well by then. Good. But for example, when Julia and I married in 1973, John Gielgud, Sir John Gielgud gave us his flat in New York for our honeymoon and he did so because he was one of the clients at the practise and I became very interested in his menagerie of dogs, and he had a marvellous aviary, so in fact we became good friends rather than normally I would meet people of that ilk through Julia but in this instance, it was the dogs introduced me to John. And he was he was absolutely wonderful.

MG: I asked this question with some caution. There are some wild stories in the book. Tell me the story of Mr. Sport and the beer mug.

BRUCE FOGLE: Well, that's not a wild story. That's a straightforward what vet sometimes have to do. Mr. Spot was owned by a breeder, a dog breeder, and he wouldn't perform properly. So a straw and a beer mug were necessary to collect, well, the beer mug to collect a semen sample and a straw to introduce the semen into the breeders bitch that was in season. It sounds weird and it does lead to a lovely repartee between the vet and the nurse when they're doing things like that. But that's just part of veterinary medicine.

MG: Why a beer mug, of all things?

BRUCE FOGLE: It's got a handle on it. So it means that you can have your hand at a slight distance. I think I mentioned in the book an incident at the Ontario Veterinary College where Professor Barker asked me to collect a semen sample from a goat from a billy goat. Professor Barker asked me to do so because his son, Ian, was my best friend. So I'd had dinner with him. And when we eventually got to the obstetrics and reproduction clinics, he recognised me because he'd fed me dinner at his home. So it was, Fogle, go collect a semen sample and the the nanny goat is simply being held on a rope by a farmhand and the billy goat prances down and Professor Barker gave me the artificial vagina to collect the semen sample and knowing exactly what would happen. And that was that goats ejaculate very, very quickly. So I got shot in the eye and it is the smelliest stuff. I can still remember washing, it seems, for days to get rid of, get rid of the smell. So it's large animals as well as small animals that sometimes need vets to help to produce the next generation.

MG: I'll take your word for that. You mentioned the veterinary college in Ingolf, Ontario. One of the things that that you write about in the book is learning to perform surgery on dogs in the 1960s. What was going on there at the time?

BRUCE FOGLE: You have to put it into the context of the culture that existed in the early 1960s. And it's a culture that today still makes me shiver when I when I think of what I did to the dogs and the sheep that I operated on. This was early 1960s. And if you just go back a few years to the late 1950s, there were experiments like Harry Harlow's experiments where he took newborn monkeys from their mothers and denied them contact and monitored what happened to them. Now that type of experiment was acceptable. Then if there was an ethics committee, then an ethics committee passed, that is acceptable. I doubt that there was an ethics committee to look at what was going on. So that happened to be the culture where I started to study veterinary medicine. So in those circumstances in Ontario, dogs that ended up at dog shelters were given to research organisations for those research organisations to do what they wanted to do. And that's how at that time the Ontario Veterinary College got their dogs and those dogs were given to the students to operate on. And that meant that I would do something called a laparotomy, which is simply open up the abdomen and then sew it back up. And then we'd play with that dog for two weeks while it healed. And the next week we'd operate on a sheep once the dog had healed and all of us would play with our dogs, we do another operation

MG: On the same

BRUCE FOGLE: On the same dog, because this was survival surgery. And I hate to say it, but we all wanted our dogs to survive and the sheep to survive because we wanted to prove to our professor of surgery that we were good at what we were doing.

MG: Were you thinking of the welfare of the animals at the time as you're doing this?

BRUCE FOGLE: No. Well, if we did, none of us mentioned it to each other.

MG: How does that experience shape the work that you've been doing since? I mean, you take a look at what you're doing now and the relationship that you would have, not just with the owners of those pets, but with the pets themselves, the pets that you're treating. How did what you were doing then shape the work that you do?

BRUCE FOGLE: In the immediate context of the surgical exercises we had, within certainly the less than six weeks of my starting working in London on a Saturday morning, somebody raced in with a small dog, a little thing called a shih tzu, that it had its chest torn open by a German shepherd and its lungs had collapsed. Now, I done that surgery at Guelph. I had done a removal of of a lung. I knew how to do it. So, in fact, I was able to save that dog because that was an operation that I had done as a surgical exercise. Today, I'll get up on my soapbox and I'll question. But when I was a student, I can't say it really entered my mind. It wasn't until I spent time with other species and realised that they share so many things with us. They're simply articulated in a different way. And once you become aware that the animals that you live with, which almost invariably are dogs and cats, have these feelings and emotions, then you end up with your Eureka moment. Well, if they have them, don't pigs have them as well? Don't sheep have them as well? Don't cows have them as well? And that creates a whole Pandora's box of questions about our attitude towards the living world around us.

MG: Is that how as a vet you would be able to deal with, not just as you write about the, you know, the joy of saving an animal, but also the real heartache of having to to put an animal down?

BRUCE FOGLE: The heartache is, if anything, for the more for the people who surround that animal than for the animal itself. Because by the time you make that type of decision, certainly in your professional mind, you know, with it, the best option for that dog that will alleviate pain and discomfort is for its life to end.

MG: Let me ask you, just before I let you go, let me ask you two quick final questions. One is any you've hinted at this. What what do you still love about the work that you do as a vet after all these decades?

BRUCE FOGLE: You know, the funny thing is that I ended up in a partnership with three other vets. None of us had to or have to continue working. But we all continue to do it. And the conclusion we come to is that we're surrounded by the better half of society, and that is people who have made a financial and emotional investment in other animals. They get some added value out of living with other species. I work with really nice people. They can get antsy on occasion, but they're they're lovely people to to spend your day with. And then the other half of the equation is I'm spending my time with other species and they're always fascinating. After 50 years plus, I've got an inkling of how dogs and cats in particular think and respond. So I know them. I know how they're thinking. I know how to approach them. And I still find that very, very rewarding.

MG: Is it true that people look like their dogs?

BRUCE FOGLE: They choose dogs that complement their personalities. We choose them to integrate into our personalities and into our families.

MG: Bruce Fogle, it's a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you very much.

BRUCE FOGLE: Thank you.

MG: Take care. Bye bye.

BRUCE FOGLE: Thanks. Bye.

MG: Bruce Fogle is a veterinarian based in London, England. His new book is called Call the Vet My Life as a Young Vet in 1970s London. That's The Current for this Thursday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q We're talking about covid success in Nova Scotia. If you're living in a location that's staring down a third wave right now, you might be thinking not this again. You might be feeling burnt out as well. Tomorrow, we will hear from experts in psychiatry and neuroscience about what pandemic burnout actually is and how long term stress impacts your brain. But we would love to hear from you, who has a piece in The New York Times that talked about hitting the wall. And if you're a runner, you know what that feels like. And if you're in this pandemic, you know what it feels like as well. What is burnout look like for you? You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or email us thecurre t@cbc.ca. Again, thecurrent@cbc.ca. Your stories of covid burn out tomorrow on the programme. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening and take care.

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Thursday April 8, 2021 Full Transcript

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