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The Current Transcript for June 7, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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Examining the threat of ransomware attacks

Guests: Joe Uchill, Curtis Minder, David Shipley

SOUNDCLIP

I think we need to be optimistic because we're part of this earth, right, and that's what the pandemic taught us. So many of us turn to wild spaces for enjoyment for weeks. So it shows us how

MATT GALLOWAY: Important that is. Despite all of the turmoil of the past 15 months, life in the natural world seems to have proceeded as it should. The birds return, the perennials bloom. The baby raccoons are back digging under my deck. Nature is healing well. Not so fast. In 30 minutes, what scientists are still learning about the good and the not so good effects of the pandemic on our natural world. Also this morning, Globe and Mail health columnist André Picard on a concerning covid variant and a race between it and the second dose of vaccines. And your thoughts on needle phobia and our conversation with the poet and residential school survivor Dennis Saddleman. Plus.

SOUNDCLIP

[Crowds chanting]

Tonight, we are celebrating where it started as a protest to encourage the government of change and now [unintelliglbe] has announced that he has a new government.

MG: After four rounds of elections, a new government in Israel isn't a huge surprise. Who could make up that government is, though,. In an hour what political enemies are playing nice to help oust Benjamin Netanyahu and what that might mean for a stalled peace process. We begin, though, with the thieves holding your data hostage. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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MG: The world's largest meat processing plant ground to a near halt in some locations this past week, some of its operations, including here in Canada, were paralysed by a cyber attack known as ransomware. Remember that pipeline shutdown in the U.S. last month that led to people panic buying gasoline? That, too, was ransomware. The targets are global. In Ireland, a covid-19 testing portal was targeted and shut down here and attack compromised the government of Nunavut in 2019. And now the U.S. government says ransomware attacks should be treated as urgently as terrorism. Joe Uchill is a senior reporter with SC Media. It's an online cybersecurity publication based in Washington. Joe, good morning.

JOE UCHILL: Morning.

MG: How would you describe what ransomware is? What's a ransomware attack?

JOE UCHILL: Well, ransomware attack is when business operations or organisation operations are held hostage through some means that could be encrypting of all the data on the network, it could be through threatening an attack that shuts down machinery. It could be threatening to leak data or it could be all three.

MG: And how is that how does that happen? I mean, how do they get a hold of my data in the first place?

JOE UCHILL: Well, it's through traditional hacking. So ransomware operator will break into a network and. Operate from their.

MG: How common is this I mean, I mentioned a couple of examples in the introduction, the pipeline shutdown, but also the meat processing plant. Give us a sense of the scale of this.

JOE UCHILL: Well, it's one of those things that since it's a crime that involves a lot of secrecy and one that companies are traditionally loath to admit to, that goes unreported. But some estimates put it at about three hundred and fifty million dollars globally a year.

MG: And what's the range of the targets, I mean, those are big companies, the company that operates the pipeline and the meat processing plant, but is it all enormous companies or sometimes are they smaller entities as well?

JOE UCHILL: It's a crime of opportunity. So it's basically any network which they can get into. But there is obviously. An incentive to attack the biggest networks that they can get a hold of, but ultimately it ranges everything from hospitals, to critical infrastructure, to schools, to local governments. It could be anyone.

MG: And the point of this is money is not the main motivator.

JOE UCHILL: That is the only motivator. The point of ransomware is you sort of have to view it as an asymmetric attack. To the people who are being attacked, it's obviously a shutdown of major, major operations. It can be dangerous. It can be a national security threat to the people who are attacking. It's a petty crime. It's just a way to steal money on a large scale.

MG: How much money are we talking about here?

JOE UCHILL: The best estimate I've seen is about 350 million dollars worldwide, that's dollars.

MG: But per I mean per attack, how much would with those who are doing the attacking want to to make from each one of these ransomware efforts?

JOE UCHILL: Oftentimes it's scaled to the size of the company that they're attacking. And a lot of the time they have the information on the insurance that the company has. So they know the amount of money they can specifically request. But the law firm Baker Hostetler in the United States estimate calculates that on average of their clients who've paid it was about eight hundred thousand dollars.

MG: What do you make of the idea that the U.S. government wants to now treat ransomware attacks as seriously as terrorism?

JOE UCHILL: What I make of it is that, less important than the language that they use and what metaphor they're comparing it to, whether it's terrorists or pirates or however, is that we are finally taking it seriously as a national security threat. For years, this was viewed as a nuisance, as something that. It was only important for businesses to consider defending against and was something that governments could leave to the companies to handle on their own. But increasingly it's clear that if critical infrastructures can be could be put on hold, that there's a real danger to allowing these attacks to go on about it.

MG: Do we know who's behind the most recent attacks, attacks on GBS, the meat processing plant?

JOE UCHILL: The smaller economies are very complicated, and so we know generally what group of people designed the malware in each case. In one case, it was a group called REvil and one another it was called Dark Side. But the groups that designed the malware aren't usually the groups that install it. A lot of the times these are run as affiliate programmes. So the hackers that installed the programme are really just licencing use of the ransomware and sharing a cut with the person who designed it.

MG: Who's at the centre of it, though. I mean, if you trace it all back and we're going to speak about negotiations with these people in just a moment. But as you as you understand it, who's at the centre of these operations?

JOE UCHILL: These are criminal groups that are separate criminal organisations, oftentimes based in Eastern European or countries or Russia itself.

MG: And are they ever caught for what they do not?

JOE UCHILL: Frequently it does happen. The problem which we tend to run into is that countries that harbour a lot of these criminal organisations don't tend to prosecute crimes or even investigate cyber crime that's directed outside of the country. We see with a lot of these ransomware groups REvil and Dark Side included, that they specifically check to see if if they are if the networks they are looking to, in fact, use Cyrillic keyboards. So they check to see if they are located within Russia. There's a tacit understanding, at least there's a belief that there's a tacit understanding between the Russian government and these ransomware groups that as long as they aren't directing their attack or attacks domestically, they're pretty safe. And so when it comes to prosecuting these, for the United States or for other countries, there's really no way to get extradition unless they can capture these criminals on vacation, which happens occasionally. But it's obviously not the best option for justice when you're counting on vacation plans of the criminals involved.

MG: Joe, it's good to speak with you about this. Thank you very much.

JOE UCHILL: Thank you.

MG: Joe Uchill is a senior reporter with Southsea Media, an online cybersecurity publication based in Washington. Curtis Minder has found himself in the strange world of negotiating on behalf of companies caught up in these ransomware attacks. He is the chief executive officer and founder of Group Sense. It's a threat intelligence company. Curtis, good morning to you.

CURTIS MINDER: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MG: Thanks for being here. How do you get involved in ransomware cases as a negotiator? What are you doing?

CURTIS MINDER: Well, how I get involved is typically driven by either the victim themselves reaching out to our firm or a law firm or cyber insurance company often calls us to assist usually.

MG: And then what do you do once you get that call?

CURTIS MINDER: Well, the first thing we usually do is we engage with the company to help them come to a business decision on whether they should negotiate at all or proceed at all is ultimately a financial transaction and a business decision in many cases. And then if they decide to do that, we we act as the liaison between the victim and the threat actor.

MG: And these are companies whose data has been held and the you know, the perpetrators are saying, pay us the money or else we're going to do what with your data. Hold on to it still or release it or what are they threatening to do?

CURTIS MINDER: Yes, it has evolved over the last year or so where the the typical imoof the threat actor is to, one, infiltrate the network and exfiltrate or take a large amount of the clients critical data and keep a copy of it. Then, two, lock those files inside the networks that are no longer usable using an encryption algorithm similar to what Joe was talking about with the malware. And then on occasion, they will also launch campaigns or what they call denial of service attacks against the company. So there's two to three methods that the threat actors will launch against the company. The exfiltration of the data is typically used from an extortion perspective where if someone is not negotiating in good faith or moving forward, they will threaten to leak that data or alert the affected clients of the company.

MG: How do you start negotiating with a ransomeware hacker?

CURTIS MINDER: Well, the tip is it depends on the type of threat actor that is perpetrating the attack. There are several different kinds, but the typical attack is perpetrated by one of these ransomware gangs Joe talked about are evil and dark side gangs like this. They're very organised, very tablet based organisation. And what you typically find is when you come into your office and all your systems are down, you'll find a ransom note, which is typically a file on your computer. The ransom note will actually give you instructions on who attacked you. They usually announce themselves. It gives you a short list of things that you should not do. Like, for example, please do not try to retrieve or repair these files yourself as it will cause damage, et cetera. But then, you know, it will give you a location to where you can communicate with a threat actor. And that's typically a dark Web site. The note will also give some basic instructions on how to access that site because it's not, you know, typically accessible through a normal Web browser. And then the actual negotiation occurs on that dark Web site to a chat option.

MG: You could imagine the people whose data has been seised could be rather upset by that action. Is part of your role to kind of. Talk them down a little bit so that they don't go in too hot against the attackers and perhaps exacerbate tensions that are already playing out?

CURTIS MINDER: Yeah, yeah, it is the typical victim, especially when you talk about the smaller businesses where the person is, you know, their livelihood, their personal livelihood is involved, it can be very emotional. And even in the larger cases where we're talking about a multinational organisation, we do several of those as well. The people who own the cybersecurity infrastructure, like the CISO, for example, the chief information security officer can take personal offence to this. And so one of the things that we bring to the table is some objectivity. And yes, in sometimes where we're acting as a counsellor and a negotiator simultaneously.

MG: Do you know who you're negotiating with? Are these kind of, you know, repeat offenders or they new players that you have to engage with each time?

CURTIS MINDER: It's a combination, the the groups, the ransomware gangs, you know, we see them on a regular cadence, but as Joe illustrated, they also have what they call ransomware as a service. It's basically an affiliate programme where you can licence the platform that they use to execute the ransomware. And so in those cases, a lot of times there's a large number of new actors that we haven't seen before that are just licencing the existing platform.

MG: And is your goal, I mean, is a definition of success that you would get all of the data that's being held back?

CURTIS MINDER: Yes, yeah, and reduce any ransom payment to the lowest number possible.

MG: How do the attackers want to be paid?

CURTIS MINDER: Cryptocurrency is definitely standard operating procedure. The typical factor is still asking for Bitcoin in most cases, but let's say 20 to 30 percent of the time we're seeing other crypto currencies like Monero, for example, that are more difficult to trace being used.

MG: How do you ensure that the companies are going to get hacked again?

CURTIS MINDER: You don't and I would caution folks, you know, who are working with security companies that make superlative promises around that, but you don't. But there are some basic, best practise, security, hygiene, things that most companies can do that well, not only protect them after the fact, but prevent ransomware from occurring in the first place.

MG: And we're going to talk about that in just a moment. Just finally, from you, I mean, how busy is your business these days in negotiating with ransomware hackers?

CURTIS MINDER: We're overwhelmed. But I think a lot of the negotiators in the industry are, but we're managing.

MG: Curtis, good to speak with you about the work that you're doing. Thank you.

CURTIS MINDER: Thank you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Curtis Minder, CEO and founder of GroupSence. For more on what this means for Canada and how companies could go about protecting themselves from this. We're joined by David Shipley. He's the co-founder and CEO of Beauceron Security, joins us from Frederickton. David, good morning to you.

DAVID SHIPLEY: Good morning.

MG: How serious of an issue is this in Canada?

DAVID SHIPLEY: According to Statistics Canada, one in five Canadian businesses have been hit with a serious cyber attack, including ransomware, in 2020. And we know from your previous guests that a cybercrime and ransomware in particular are dramatically underreported. And I can tell you it's affecting every community across this country. You just don't see it in the headlines. I've received calls from small businesses that are down to pen and paper trying to run their business through the pandemic because all this chaos and now being victimised by international criminals.

MG: Does the pandemic exacerbate things because so many people are working from home and security at home might be different than security on the you know, the company network in the office?

DAVID SHIPLEY: There are two aspects of the pandemic that affect the security posture negatively. First is the technology. As you know, we're no longer in the office with all of those traditional corporate security measures in place. And so the home is more vulnerable, but we're also more stressed out. We're tired, we're exhausted and we're more susceptible to the techniques. Criminals use things like phishing emails to break into the network in the first place. So it is both human and technical, and that is why criminals have made more money than ever before.

MG: So we've been talking about the fact that the United States is stepping up its approach to cracking down on this. The UK and Australia have done similar. What about Canada? Whereas Canada and in fighting this?

DAVID SHIPLEY: So according to our current strategy, we will have our full capability for police coordination across Canada fully stood up by 2023, which is ridiculous. And our current strategy calls for the coordination of police forces and intelligence across the country within a centre created within the RCMP. And that sounds fine in principle when we're talking about intelligence sharing. But it is not the same level policing you get in the United States with a national police agency, the FBI, with agents trained to the same standard and resources across the country. What kind of cybercrime policing effort you get in Canada today depends on whether you're lucky enough to live in an area with a good sized municipal or provincial force with the resources to deal with it.

MG: Does that suggest I mean, we talked about this being underreported, but does that suggest that even what's being reported is not being taken as seriously as it should be in this country?

DAVID SHIPLEY: Oh, 100 percent. Like I can tell you, like the triage that's happening right now in Canada was policing. You know, you have to have a crime of a certain amount of dollars before even going to make it to the desk to get some files pushed around. It better be huge before you're able to get the resources. And this is not a slight against our police forces. They are overwhelmed. They do not have the tools, training or resources. And we need a different kind of police officer for this crime than we've ever needed before.

MG: What's at stake here? I mean, if these threats continue and the attacks continue to escalate, what is at stake in this country?

DAVID SHIPLEY: Well, we've already seen the implications around the world. Energy sector is being crippled, like the same attacks that happened to the colonial pipeline can easily happen here. And our pipelines are as unregulated as theirs are. So it's a ticking time bomb for that kind of disruption. We've seen the Irish national health care system in a multi week, crippling because of an entire ransomware attack. And the only reason we haven't seen the same thing of the same scale in size in Canada is because our health care delivery is so decentralised that we haven't seen these kind of 100 hospital attacks like the states, the UK or Ireland. So, our schools, we've seen large school districts in Ontario crippled as ransomware attacks. This is affecting every facet of our society and is pushing some businesses over the edge.

MG: So just in the last minute or so that we have, what would you want the government to do now to better protect companies from these attacks?

DAVID SHIPLEY: Well, we actually need to do a couple of different things. We need a national police force, fully resourced with officers trained at the national level to deliver cyber crime and the jurisdiction to do it, to deliver cybercrime protection to Canadians with a new tax regime that actually gives businesses the same thing we've done for energy retrofit, cybersecurity retrofits, some tax credits to help them invest, particularly now that they're already struggling in the pandemic. And we need to have a conversation about prosecuting Canadians involved in cyber crime. It's interesting to note that one of the affiliates now charged in a major attack in the United States is an accused man of Quebec who is reported to have made up to 27 million dollars, according to American officials. So this isn't just about Russians hacking us. This is also about Canadians also being involved in cyber crimes affecting our allies.

MG: And just very briefly, people have also talked about the idea of regulating crypto currencies the way that these attackers are being paid.

DAVID SHIPLEY: Oh, 100 percent. We we cannot continue to have a global financial system that operates on the side unregulated, and that allows for the movement of tens of millions of dollars. And that's the attacks that we're seeing. And, you know, we have to regulate some of the ransomware, the cryptocurrency business if we're going to bring ransomware to control and we have to stop paying ransoms. The fact that the insurance industry and negotiators exist so that businesses can look after their self interests but just perpetuate this industry is causing of this chaos.

MG: David, great to talk to you about this. Thank you very much.

DAVID SHIPLEY: Thanks so much for the time.

MG: David Shipley, co-founder and CEO of Beauceron Security. Coming up after your CBC News, we're going to take a look at our relationship with nature in the midst of a lock down, the good and the not so good about what this pandemic did to our natural world. I Matt Galloway you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio one. We're back in six minutes.

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Pandemic like a global experiment on how human activity affects wildlife, researcher says

Guest: Amanda Bated

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

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MG: Still to come, Israel's longest serving prime minister is suddenly on thin ice, what that country might look like if a shaky new coalition holds. But first, we're stopping to smell the flowers and take stock of the natural world in the middle of a pandemic.

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They've come down from the hills. I thought you heard of it? Oh, well, this is what you call, this is what happens when humans clear off.

MG: Bloody herd of them. You may remember those scenes that went viral on social media last March, Mountain Goats who'd basically taken over a Welsh village as a team and residents stayed inside, obeying the stay at home orders. The goats clambered over the stone walls, munched on the hedges.

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Come on, boys. We'll treat wildlife long once we're gone. Bloody nuisance we are.

MG: Seems only natural when humans are out and about less, the natural world with all its animals and plants would emerge to fill the void. Many were seeing this as a sign that, as they would say, nature is healing during the pandemic. Well, the truth of the matter is a bit more complex. Amanda Bates is a professor of ocean sciences at Memorial University, and she led an international study to look at how covid-19 lockdowns have affected the natural world. Amanda Bates, good morning.

AMANDA BATES: Good morning.

MG: At what point in this pandemic did you realise that this was something worth looking at to figure out whether the absence of us would mean a difference in life for plants and animals in the natural world?

AMANDA BATES: I realised, as soon as this lockdown kind of came into place, it was a shock to everyone. And I remember feeling shocked myself and having my kids come home from school and then seeing that this was really a global experience. And so I remember thinking, wow, I wish we had monitoring in place so that we can see what's going to happen now. So we realise this quite early. And a number of colleagues and I wrote a paper where we kind of did a think tank exercise on how the pandemic would influence nature and conservation. And I wrote a paragraph in that on, wow, this is an actual experiment. We can learn a lot from this. And so it kind of went from there. And now a lot of my research is now looking at this event, even though this isn't exactly what I do. So I haven't necessarily been trained to get ready to look at how a global change in human activities is going to influence nature.

MG: Did you go into this with, like, a preconceived idea? I mean, again, that idea that nature is healing, I think a lot of us felt that if we're not out there, life is going to return to normal in the goats are going to come clambering over the wall and eat our garden.

AMANDA BATES: I think that there is that perception that somehow humans are removed from nature. And if we're not there, everything's OK, and that if we remove ourselves, that somehow we're going to have this recovery or these kind of more natural responses. That certainly did happen in some cases, but it was far more interesting than that.

MG: Do we know how much human activity has changed life on the planet as a result of the pandemic?

AMANDA BATES: I think what we can say for sure is that around the world there were changes in how wildlife responded, how they behaved, where they were found, what they were eating both in the water and on land. So we can say that with high confidence. But now, as we take a step back, how many of these are going to be very fleeting? We don't really know. And in some cases, there was some really strong positive effects. So now what we're left wondering is, are these going to translate through generations of different populations and cohorts of wildlife? Or, you know, is it just going to be kind of a one small thing where the great that there was a good year, but we're not going to see positive effects into the future.

MG: So we heard about the goats. What are some of the other examples of how the pandemic changed, where animals would go?

AMANDA BATES: There are so many examples. So I'm going to pick one. That was one of my favourite. Yes, from Canada. And so this was work where a research group were tracking snow geese. And snow geese, of course, are really fascinating because they move from the US and then across Quebec up into Nunavut. And so what researchers found is that like first, normally all of these snow geese would be hunted. So since 1998 or so, they've been culled essentially as they're moving through Quebec. And this year that didn't happen and because there weren't any humans there, these geese could, you know, there's this agricultural forest for them so they could be where they wanted. So these geese gained a lot of weight. They were really fat. And when they reached various places and Nunavut, the hunters realised how these are really fat geese this year. You get this amazing connection between what's happening in different places across this huge landscape that's Canada, how that affected these pest species, so we have this huge influx of very, very healthy geese and these geese in turn feed and graze in the Arctic and have an impact there. And they can have a negative impact there. But then they're also really important food resource for Inuit. It was so interesting to see this complexity and even that one example.

MG: You want to give me one more?

AMANDA BATES: Oh, so something that really struck me in looking across cases from all over the world were the fact that so many animals change where they are because of food, like people are leaving food everywhere. And we're doing it just inadvertently because we're dropping food when we're eating our lunch. And if you have even just a few crumbs from hundreds or thousands of people in a sea that are dropping food, that's going to change where things like pigeons are located. It also caused many urban animals to starve. So they were starving in cities because people weren't outdoors, feeding them.

MG: Because people weren't out eating their lunch, because they weren't at work.

AMANDA BATES: Yeah, yeah. Or they weren't at universities. Universities is one of the places where this was observed because the students left and then researchers were there and they started looking at differences in the behaviour of both wild and urban animals that were, for instance, on campuses where people saw this in city centres. But we also saw this in the ocean. So there's a whole number of ways in which we provide food to animals in the water, such as when we're fishing and we're getting fish and chucking it off docks that, you know, as a food source for everything around. So that people notice that there was changes in the fishes that were near docks. But also, depending on how this is managed, if you're providing food supplements to sea sharks to bring sharks in so tourists can confuse those sharks, that also changed distributions of a number of species because we weren't subsidising and feeding some areas for tourism. You know, you always see signs when you're in parks, like try and leave no trace, pick up all your your food sources. And I don't know how you are, but if I'm eating my lunch somewhere, I'm always, I always drop a little bit and I always think I wonder if that matters. Does this matter? And I think what we saw with this is it does, because so many people were doing this. But then, of course, the question now is, well, how can we use this information in a positive way to try and create better strategies for managing, managing wildlife?

MG: Can I ask you about the parks? I mean, one of the things that we saw during the pandemic is part of it's because people were stuck at home and they were starting to go crazy and they needed something to do. They couldn't travel so they couldn't go somewhere else is that people were out hiking and they were going through trails and being more involved in the natural world around them, perhaps in the ravines, in their city or in the local parks. Take a listen to Sarah Rang, who's executive director of the Invasive Species Centre. It's a non-profit in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

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We just need to take a few simple steps to make sure that we don't inadvertently spread invasive species as we're hiking along the trails. And that can be as simple as just brushing your clothing off because plants tend to hitchhike on your clothes or your pet off ass well. The other things that we're seeing is some new folks trying new things. If you are new to boating, make sure that you clean drain, dry your boat just to make sure that any aquatic plants that are stuck on your trailer or your boats, please remove those at the boat ramp, don't spread them from one lake to another.

MG: How many of those negative sorts of impacts are happening? Because, I mean, it's not just dropping food that we're kind of, you know, maybe dropping the invasive species into communities that they're not normally there.

AMANDA BATES: Yeah, we've got lots of hitchhikers on us all the time. There were a number of negative effects. And actually Sarah Rang's clip there, I think illustrates a couple of points. One is that we had a lot of people who engaged with hiking and wildlife viewing and camping. I mean, camping stores just reported they were sold out. So now we have a lot of people who just haven't learnt about what to do when you're out in the wilderness or how to interact with nature in a really safe way. And so the reports all over the world that people just weren't doing things in a great way. They were leaving their wetsuits out and the stinky wetsuits there, those wetsuits were attracting bears in British Columbia. There was reports of people that were trampling orchids in the UK because they just didn't know not to stay on the trail. And there's this little patch with endangered orchids, the orchids all got trampled. But the reason why is because staff got reduced because of covid and staffs stopped interacting as well. So you get this influx of people in less people there to kind of govern or manage or educate, and then globally, you see this kind of issue where this interaction led to a whole suite of effects that definitely weren't anticipated.

MG: We're on the trails more, but were on the roads less, what happens if we're driving less?

AMANDA BATES: There was a lot that happened if we're driving less, that's for sure. There were way less wildlife strikes. And there's a group right now who's working to collate all of this data from around the world.

MG: When you say wildlife strikes, you mean like wildlife being hit by cars.

AMANDA BATES: Or by boats, but also animals in the water struck by ships and boats and animals on land, of course, they're struck by cars. So there's much more evidence from our roadways because we monitor our roadways. We have cameras on our roadways. But definitely there was less road kill because there was less traffic.

MG: In the oceans. I mean, one of the things that people have been taking a look at is ocean noise. And what happens if the traffic in the ocean changes, how that affects wildlife. David Barclay is an assistant professor at Dalhousie University's Department of Oceanography. He's been studying ocean noise on the Pacific Coast. Take a listen to David Barclay.

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Essentially, the reduced human activity caused by the pandemic in the Salish Sea between Victoria, Vancouver and Nanaimo. There was a reduction in activity that led to a reduction of noise. Killer whales tend to communicate up in the kilohertz range and they hunt at even higher frequencies using very broad band clicks. So the question is, OK, well, we know that there was a reduction in low frequency, but what was the reduction in these in these high frequency bands? And now that we are a year later in the pandemic, we actually can look at the data in a little bit with a little bit more confidence. We do see, you know, in 2020, between March and mid June, even even into July, a reduction of noise up in the kilohertz range that communication range of the southern resident killer whales.

MG: What do we know about this? If there's fewer boats and less traffic in the oceans or perhaps a different kind of traffic, how that could affect the lives of marine animals and the ecosystem in general?

AMANDA BATES: I think what's fascinating about this particular event is it taught us that there's noise really coming into our oceans from recreational boats, from flood planes in and out, from ferries as also from shipping. But before this event, there really wasn't a way to coordinate a global shutdown or even a regional shutdown in noise. And it's kind of this insidious effect that it's hard to link to wildlife responses. But I think this is one of the most transformative kind of outcomes of the pandemic, because there is now very strong evidence from around the world, from both land as well as in the ocean, that animals are responding and behaving differently when noise is less. And that's fascinating to me because I don't think I would have predicted that. And I am a marine ecologist but if you had asked me if I thought we were going to see a difference in fish behaviour in a marine reserve in Israel and the number of clicks that crabs might make in some sort of an MPA like a protected area, because there were less flow planes coming in or less boats, I would have probably said no. I wouldn't have thought it would have mattered. And so now, as a group of scientists were challenged to understand, well, what does this mean? What are the implications of this? We can see that there was a really strong response in our wildlife from crabs to whales. So now what? And I think that's the really interesting outcome of this, because I think now that we're going to have a lot of funding for research that looks at sound, both monitoring for healthy communities and species and populations in the wild, because maybe we can use sound to understand if they're kind of healthy and happy, but also trying to understand how sound is influencing how animals communicate where they are. And it could potentially, you know, influence other aspects of their biology and ecology.

MG: What should we do with this information than, like, specifically when it comes to the issue of sound in the ocean?

AMANDA BATES: I think what we need to do is focus on this issue of sound. And the reason why is I think we're changing where animals are. And if we change where they are, it means they're not you know, they're not using optimal habitats. They're not using of the optimal kind of pathways for transportation that are good for kind of energy budgets. So that means like take this example of, OK, you want to walk somewhere, there's a big construction zone in front of you. You go around it, no problem. But what if you're hungry? You're really hungry. You have no energy. You said you have to go on this long walk around something that's going to take a bit more energy than you might have. Or it could be go around this area and there's something there that's dangerous. So I think, you know, I think the challenge is because we're increasingly interacting with nature, more mean human beings are so connected to everything. And that's what this is really showing us, that now we need to take this step back and really use this event to try and see how we can better understand how to, I guess, get the most optimal outcomes out of the interactions that humans have with wildlife in nature.

MG: What does that mean, optimal outcomes?

AMANDA BATES: Here's an example. In Boston, there was a park, there was actually greater noise in the park when cars were going faster, but there was less of them. In the other two. There was less noise going into the park when there was fewer cars on the road. But now this tells us something, oh, when cars are going faster because of the frequency of sound that's being emitted by those really fast cars going in and you're getting more noise in the forest. Well, fast cars are dangerous. They're dangerous to humans. They're also dangerous to wildlife. So if you slow those cars down, we're also going to reduce the noise that's going into our park as cars are going by it. I think it's just this point to not miss reflecting really carefully on what's been learnt and then asking, well, what can we do with this that's going to teach us a little bit more about how we can do this job of being stewards of our natural world because there are so many humans now. We need humans acting as custodians and stewards and and thinking about how we promote and facilitate the health of our natural systems.

MG: Let me play you one more thing. This is about turtle conservation. And the clip in many ways, I think shows kind of a mixed bag that that covid might be for for some animal populations. David Godfrey is executive director of the Sea Turtle Conservancy. It works not just in the United States, but also on conservation in Panama.

SOUNDCLIP

We're on pace to have record nesting in Panama. So that's obviously positive. But the negative thing going on is that there's virtually no tourism still and that's a major part of their economy. So there's a bit more desperation in people down there. And we've seen a pretty dramatic rise in the number of leatherback nests that are being poached. That is, people are coming and digging up the nests, taking the eggs for food and to sell. People get about a dollar, an egg if they sell them in Barbes and cantinas. And if you're getting 80 to 100 eggs in a nest, it doesn't take long for a bunch of nests to add up to a pretty substantial payday for some people who might have lost their jobs.

MG: What should we take from that? I mean, that sense of desperation, the economic pressure that has implications on nature as well. You're talking about tourism earlier. This is sort of connected with tourism as well. What are we supposed to do from that?

AMANDA BATES: Well, I think one of the most important aspects of the pandemic is now being emerge. So as our governments emerge, as our economies emerge, we have the opportunity to not think about short term economic gain. I mean, if governments, if countries, if people are worried about their livelihoods in the moment, of course, that's what's going to be considered. But there's also the opportunity to think about how can we use this as a moment, a pivot point, a transformation moment to think about how we create more resilience. So what we learn from this is that livelihoods that are dependent on tourism and only tourism need to be diversified. And so that's a huge learning point from this this outcome. And as we look at decisions that are being made by governments, for instance, you know, logging is huge in so many places right now because, of course, lumber is so...

MG: In demand.

AMANDA BATES: Right, now it's in demand. But what that means is that, you know, in some places like Fiji, you know, areas that were previously protected are now being harvested. And this is happening all over the world. So what that means is those forests are going to be lost. It might give you the support for livelihoods in those places now, but what about 10 years from now or 30 years from now? And so I really, really hope from this event is that we have some visionary leaders, some visionary thinkers that realise that this is a moment for transformation for human beings and that we can think very carefully about what the learning outcomes from this event are. And again, try and create greater resilience both in societies and human societies, but also in our natural systems because they're so connected.

MG: You use the word transformative a number of times over the course of the conversation. Where do you see the most tantalising potential when it comes to that word, transformation, coming out of this pandemic,

AMANDA BATES: I guess what I'm thinking of is the transformation is we're going to do things differently and having that capacity to create greater human well-being. So I really hope that that's one aspect, that there's a greater sense of that understanding of how important wildlife and nature are to kind of human well-being. But also we now understand how fragile our economies are, how important, you know, being able to provide food and resources locally. How important diversification of our economies are. Because if we lose that and livelihoods are at risk, that's when we we need to make choices that are about our own security, of course. But that also can come at the expense of future generations. It's given us the potential to see flaws. It's given us the potential to see holes, and it's given us the potential to see where we need to kind of put energy and resources to make more resilient systems. And I guess that's what I mean by transformation.

MG: And at this point, when somebody says to you, nature is healing, what do you say back to them?

AMANDA BATES: I think what I say is that human beings have such a key role to play in that. So we are not removed. And what we also learnt from this pandemic is that human beings are still part of this process because there are so many of us on this planet from the choices we make and what we buy, but also these amazing programmes that we fund and implement. We still play such a key role in the solution. And there were so many species this year that didn't benefit from the incredible activities that we do in terms of restoring habitat, protecting nesting areas. I suspect from what I've heard, that the role that humans play in this restoration of nature is so important.

MG: It sounds almost optimistic.

AMANDA BATES: I think we need to be optimistic because we're part of this earth, right. And that's what the pandemic also taught us. As soon as we had our normal way of going kind of removed, so many of us turn to wild spaces for enjoyment, for recreation. So it shows us how important that is.

MG: This is fascinating. Amanda, I really appreciate speaking to you, but the work that you're doing. Thank you very much.

AMANDA BATES: Thank you for having me.

MG: Amanda Bates is a Canada research chair in marine environmental physiology at Memorial University, associate professor as well in the Department of Ocean Sciences. In July, she will join the University of Victoria as impact chair in Ocean Ecosystem Change and Conservation. Has your relationship with the natural world changed because of the pandemic? You spending more time out in nature on trails, perhaps getting it in spaces that perhaps you haven't been in before or enjoyed in a similar way? Let us know what your relationship like is like with nature in this pandemic. You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca Or tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Coming up after your regional update, the race between vaccines and variants is back on in Canada. And some experts are warning that the more transmissible Delta covid-19 variant may jeopardise our reopening plans. Say it ain't so. Globe and Mail health columnist André Picard is here to talk about that and more coming up. But first, Benjamin Netanyahu has led Israel for over a decade, and now the country is reckoning with what things might look like with someone else in charge in 90 seconds, political sea change in the Middle East. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

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What a new governing coalition could mean in Israel; and André Picard on new variants and vaccines.

Guests: Haggai Mater, Andre Picard, Karin Marley

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current. After 12 years in power, Benjamin Netanyahu is on the verge of being ousted as Israel's prime minister. An unlikely coalition of political allies and foes is poised to form government if their agreement can pass a confidence vote in the Israeli parliament in the coming days. But it remains to be seen whether a new government will change the tone of politics for both Israelis and Palestinians. Haggai Matar is a journalist in Tel Aviv. He's executive director of 972 Magazine. It's a non-profit news outlet, Haggai Matar. Hello.

HAGGAI MATAR: Hello, good morning. Thank you for having me.

MG: Thanks for being here. I said that this is an unlikely coalition. How would you describe the coalition that was formed last week? Is there a word that you would use?

HAGGAI MATAR: Unlikely is excellent description. I don't think anyone here as well had been able to imagine such an unlikely coalition being formed, just even two months ago. This would have seemed completely bizarre to such a coalition as possible. But here it is, with one force uniting all the different players in it, which is the resentment of Benjamin Netanyahu.

MG: I want to talk about that resentment in a moment. But I mean, just briefly, who are some of the most polarising figures in this unlikely group?

HAGGAI MATAR: So the incoming prime minister, if the government is approved by parliament, will be Naftali Bennett, who is head of a pro settlement rpo annexation extreme right wing party. And then at the same time, you're going to have with him the same coalition, not only moderate and centrist, but also secular, liberal, leftist and even more likely, an Islamist religious Palestinian party. So these are forces that, until very recently, were not able to sit at the same table, let alone form a coalition.

MG: What is it that brought them to the same table?

HAGGAI MATAR: It's really the political deadlock that Israel has been in for the past two years, we've had four rounds of elections. If this government is not successful in forming, if it does form and then collapses within a few weeks, which is also possible, we'll see a fifth round, people are talking about a sixth round of elections. All that is very possible. And I think the understanding that the main cog in the system right now is Benjamin Netanyahu, that all political divisions aside, he's become the main access defining Israeli politics. That is something that all different parties, for different reasons, find unbearable and unsustainable in terms of the damage it's doing. Israel has been operating without a state budget since 2019. Major positions in public service are being filled. So the state is really going into a situation where it's non-functional and all these different political players are aligned to put a stop to that.

MG: What is it about him? I mean, he's been, as I mentioned, the longest serving prime minister in Israel's history. What is it about Netanyahu that that is so toxic to various parties that they figure that they can figure out some sort of political gain to come together and try and oust him.

HAGGAI MATAR: Well, if you look at the right, I think you have a bunch of right wing leaders that were kind of aspiring replacements for Netanyahu. They were assuming that at some point he will step down and they will be his heirs. But over the years, they just realised that that's not going to happen. It is going to stay on for decades if he can. So they realised that they needed to start fighting him. Then on the centre and centre left, you start seeing voices that were extremely unhappy, first with Netanyahu's political corruption, which is facing multiple charges in court these very days, but also at his attacks against democratic and liberal institutions such as the courts and the prosecutions and the media basically kind of inciting against all these institutions and dismantling gatekeepers wherever he goes. 300 percent are opposing that. And obviously on the left and Palestinian parties opposing him for his incitement against Palestinians, the continued occupation and so on. So you have these different players with their different political motivations, finding this unlikely alliance.

MG: What would if this new government is able to pass the confidence test, what would it mean for Palestinians both in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza?

HAGGAI MATAR: So, unfortunately, probably not much. One of the things that made this new government possible would make this new government possible is this agreement to basically keep the status quo, as it is on all issues and controversies between these different new allies, which is almost everything. If you talk about the relationship between religion and the state, the economy and, of course, the issue of the occupation, the siege in Gaza and apartheid policies, all these questions are of this very deep disparity in the policies the different parties have. So the choice now also included a confession of not changing anything in any of these policies, which for Palestinians mainly means sustaining a very terrible toxic situation,

MG: could it get worse? I mean, you mentioned Naftali Bennett, who could be the prime minister. He supports the annexation of the West Bank.

HAGGAI MATAR: Right. So the good news is that, for example, he won't be able to proceed with formal annexation because he has so many allies in his coalition that would oppose. So that is not likely to happen. On the other hand, the gradual, informal, the de facto annexation that is happening on the ground will continue and then it will keep that up and probably even step it up further ,with Netanyahu kind of blowing at his back from his new position as head of the opposition and kind of trying to to outflank him on the right, even though they were in opposite seats up until recently. So Netanyahu will be calling him out for not being right wing enough that he will probably try to double down on settlement policies as much as he can. That's definitely a risk to take into consideration.

MG: You mentioned that there hasn't been a state budget in, what, four years? I mean, given the instability within the government, what is important to Israeli voters right now? What are they looking for?

HAGGAI MATAR: So definitely stability and the budget and the ability to go back to functioning, some very critical parts of the economy and of government that are really at a standstill. That is obviously very much essential for many people. Also, I think for the people who support this coalition against terrorism, legitimate, you know, personally feels like an opportunity. Like the entire political system has gradually centred on this one question of are you for or against Netanyahu? And everything else became marginal. Going back to actual concrete political debates, ideological debates that are not about one person is also something that many people are looking forward to. But we also need to recognise that this is not Israelis. This is about 51 percent of Israelis, whereas the other 49 percent are very much opposed to this and support Netanyahu wholeheartedly and would want him to stay in power. So the situation is still very much polarised.

MG: And he's fighting very hard to ensure that this coalition doesn't even get off the ground. What do you think it's possible that the coalition will succeed?

HAGGAI MATAR: That's a very good question. We've never seen a coalition as diverse as this in Israel before. Israel has always had coalition governments. No party has ever ruled by itself here, but they used to have much more in common than this new government, this new coalition will do. And Netanyahu is definitely threatening to pull the rug under this new coalition by constantly taunting the more right wing members of this coalition and blaming them for allying with the left with terrorist sympathisers, you know, stuff like that, and essentially trying to pull them out of the coalition. And the coalition is so small that you will only need to pull out two or three members of parliament, the Knesset, to basically make the entire government collapse.

MG: Is it too early to start talking about his legacy as a prime minister?

HAGGAI MATAR: I think it is unfortunately, it's definitely always interesting to talk about what Antonio has done here for the past 12 years, and he has done a lot, but at the same time, he's going to be ahead of their position. If this government does fail within the coming few months, it will appear that no one can be in charge here, but it will be a victory for him, kind of proving what he's always been saying.

MG: Haggai, it's good to speak with you. Thank you very much for a look into what is unfolding. We'll keep a close eye on it. Thanks again.

HAGGAI MATAR: Sure, thanks so much.

MG: Haggai Matar is a journalist. He's in Tel Aviv.

[Music]

MG: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One, my name is Matt Galloway. We are just two weeks away from the official start of summer. Do you feel like it's time for a vacation? Well, you may not be jetting off to sip wine on a Parisian terrace anytime soon, but the rock may be within your reach.

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Getting Newfoundlanders and Labrador Orian's vaccinated is the key to a return to a more normal sense of life. A big part of that involves the reopening of Newfoundland and Labrador to travel. And I'm so happy to be able to announce that plan today. As early as July 1st, when roughly 75 percent of people over the age of 12 are vaccinated with at least one dose, and there our low covid-19 case count numbers and low hospitalisations, we are excited to lift the travel ban and welcome recreational travellers to Newfoundland and Labrador.

MG: Even with that invitation on the table. There may be reason to hesitate before you get on the plane. André Picard is a health columnist with the Globe and Mail. Andre, good morning.

ANDRE PICARD: Good morning.

MG: Do you think the carrot of being able to travel across this country and go to beautiful Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, is enough to boost vaccination rates beyond where they are in this country already?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, people are certainly eager to travel. There's no question about that. We're close to that, you know, magic, 70-75 percent. But I think the big question remains, what happens if we don't get there? What happens if there is a resurgence? So I think we're going to see these opening ups, but they're going to be very cautious. A lot of people, I think, will be very leery to travel. There'll be a small number that'll be really keen. But it's going to be interesting to see how it unfolds.

MG: One of the reasons why people might be leery, as you say, is because of the news regarding the Delta variant. This is the variant that was first discovered in India. What are we starting to see when it comes to this variant?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, we know that it spreads more quickly. It seems to be a little more harmful that people suffer a little more. So this what we're seeing throughout the pandemic, we had coronavirus classic, you know, the original, and then we had the alpha, which was about twice as likely to spread. And then this one is twice as likely again. So it's getting more potent as it goes along. So that's concerning. We saw in Britain, this Delta variant has gone from non-existent to the dominant strain in just four weeks. So there's a real risk and a real worry that this is going to happen in Canada as well.

MG: What do we know about why this is unfolding that way in Britain? Again, they had been under pretty tight lockdown for a long time and then this gradual sort of easing of restrictions. The next one set to come in a few weeks time. Why is this happening now, this way in the UK?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, there's a couple of things at play. One is this is more transmissible. So that's concerning. And there's still that fairly large pocket of unvaccinated people. So all these Delta vaccinations are happening in the unvaccinated and in those with just one shot. So it's sort of bringing about this discussion, we have to speed up the second shot to lessen this. But there's that, you know, even though we have we're getting close to, we're over 60 percent vaccinated, that's still 40 percent unvaccinated. So it's a real risk that this can take off in that significant minority.

MG: Tell me more about the second dose and how that could be sped up. We know that in some provinces there are different rollouts than other provinces. And some I mean, Ontario seems rather confusing to some people in terms of who can get the second dose and when and how you can book it. And what do we know about how that's unfolding across the country?

ANDRE PICARD: Yeah, that's a you know, we're seeing a repetition of when we had the first doses, who gets it in what order. And we're having that discussion anew with the second dose. And you're right, in Ontario, as always, there seems to be confusion. Even the health minister was confused to give some information and then it turned out it was incorrect. But the question is essentially do the same thing as the first round. You go for frail elders in long term care, essential workers, target neighbourhoods. These debates were never really resolved the first time around, and we're having them again.

MG: And is the sense that if we are able to speed up those second doses, that this will - I mean people have compared this again to a footrace between the the variants in the vaccines that we'll be able to keep that Delta variant at bay?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, the less disease that's in the community, the lesser the risk of it spreading. So that's where the second dose is is key to make sure there's fewer people out there not vaccinated. And then the second part of this is we know that the Delta variant, it only seems to protect about a third of the time if you only have that one dose and that heights quite considerably with two doses. So there's two things at play there that are all the experts are saying we really have to accelerate the second dose, especially now that we have a lot of vaccine.

MG: How cautious do provinces need to be right now? We've talked about the, you know, the marshmallow test before, In BC movie theatres are going to be reopened, gyms as well, increasing gathering sizes, there is all of this swirling around while the reopening is unfolding. So how cautious two provinces need to be right now do you think?

ANDRE PICARD: that nobody really knows. It's one of those things that if you do it wrong, you're going to look terrible in retrospect. But we don't know. We know there's a seasonal effect. It's good that it's summer, so there's less spread of illness. So that's good. But if you go a little too quickly, you risk having explosions of cases. I was just reading a case this morning about a hospital in rural Finland where 100 people got infected, 17 died in an area where there's almost no covid. But it just happened to be this area. So there's this risk of real bursts. And I think, you know, we're kind of rolling the dice in some cases when you have big events like a Calgary stampede, we just don't know how that will play out.

MG: Stampede is a ways off. I mean, hockey, we're already seeing fans in the stands and twenty hundred in Montreal for the game six match up against the Leafs, hundreds in Toronto, Winnipeg as well. And one of the reasons why that's happening, some people believe, is because we're looking south of the border and seeing in the United States, you know, tens of thousands of people in the stands for sporting events. Are we trying to keep up with our neighbours to the south, do you think?

ANDRE PICARD: And think there's definitely some covid envy going on. There's no doubt if you if you're a hockey fan and you watch back to back 2500 people in Montreal and then 25000 in Las Vegas, it was quite shocking to see, you know, just to see a whole bunch of people yelling and screaming, not a mass in sight. I think we kind of look at that and go, well, if only we could do that. But I think Canadians are a little bit more cautious. But there's definitely pressure to do things differently, to open up and kind of take some risks, as a lot of U.S. states have done. And to be fair, not necessarily with horrible results.

MG: Just one final note on the hockey piece. We learnt yesterday that the federal government has approved a travel exemption for the Stanley Cup playoffs. So NHL teams can cross the Canada U.S. border with a modified quarantine. If we allow this for professional sports teams, what message does that send to ordinary Canadians who are trying to get across the border?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think it's going to get a mixed reaction. Again, I think some people are going to be really angry. We know the folks pushing for family reunifications are very angry about this and probably rightfully so. A lot of people are going to say, well, it's fair because they are in this bubble. No one has probably tested more than hockey players. They get tested every day. They're going to be tested, coming into the country, going out. But this notion that, you know, they were given a national interest exemption, that hockey is somehow special, you know, are they as important as Truckers' and giving us our daily goods? I think that's a debate. We have to have society wide, but it seems to be a done deal.

MG: This is still on the vaccine issue. The prime minister is headed to the G7 meetings in England at the end of this week. And there were a number of initiatives that have been on the table about covid-19. One of them is this idea to vaccinate the entire world by the end of 2022. Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, said that that should be a global goal. In what ways do you think that Canada could step up in order to achieve this?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, you know, there's a lot of talk and very little action. So we know the G7 health ministers last week pledged a lot more money, two point four billion dollars, but didn't really pledge vaccines. So it's this, you know, I think it's a real moral imperative. How much vaccine are we going to share? And we're not doing it. We've administered about 1.8 Billion doses around the world now, and only 0.4 Percent of those have been in low income countries. So this is really a global dilemma and it's a real bioethical challenge. And I think there has to be less talk about this and there has to be some real commitment to do it. But realistically, the way we're going now, we won't have the world vaccinated till at least 2024.

MG: What is it? I mean, if you take a look at the United States, the U.S., while the White House announced that it was releasing millions of doses of vaccines, they have a lot more than we do. But we have purchased, or at the very least secured, you know, several times more doses than we need. What should what role should Canada play in that?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, the question is, how quickly do we-- you know, are we just going to be selfish about it? If I could just put it bluntly, that's the question. Do we have to vaccinate everyone in this country twice before we donate any vaccines to Africa, for example? That the trade off. And I think the Canadians are probably quite split on this. I think a lot would like to see us be more generous and fair and others are thinking, oh, we have to take care of our own first. I don't think this is an issue that any politician can win on.

MG: Does it put Canada's decision to take vaccines from the covid pool and the mad scramble a few months ago for vaccines in a different light?

ANDRE PICARD: I think that's always been a bad decision. I think we should contribute to COVAX. I don't think we should be withdrawing four from it, even though we're legally allowed to, and I think that sends the wrong message. Canada prides itself on being generous, a citizen of the world. And I think we have to put our our vaccines where our mouth is, not just our money now.

MG: All right. Great to speak with you, as always. Thank you very much.

ANDRE PICARD: Thank you.

MG: Andre Picard, health columnist for The Globe and Mail. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Last week we spoke a lot about residential schools in this country. After the call moves to First Nation announced preliminary findings of the remains of 215 children buried unmarked on the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. As part of that conversation, we played a recording of Dennis Saddleman reading his poem, Monster, at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. Dennis Saddleman was forced to attend that same school for 11 years, beginning in 1957. And on Friday he was a guest on The Current. His words struck a chord with you. Senior producer Karin Marley is here now to share some of your responses. Karin, good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Good morning. That many listeners told us how moved they were by Dennis Saddleman's words. Elizabeth Berlasso in Halifax wrote: Monster stopped me in my tracks. Listening to Dennis Saddleman' s voice rang with a power of rage in the weight of grief. His poem stopped my mind from racing. I just stopped listening, my body quivering in shame, tears streaming, listening to the untold horror story of abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church and blindness of the government. I've been whitewashed with lies my whole life as a colonised settlor and past member of the Catholic Church. My heart aches for the indigenous nation in this country and I bow my head in sorrow.

MG: David Bardsley in Hackett's Cove, Nova Scotia, had a similar reaction: Listening to Mr. Saddleman's reading of his poem, Monster has moved me to tears to openly weep for the pain he survived and for those innocent children that did not. Dennis, if I may call you that, you have made a new ally today.

KARIN MARLEY: Here's part of a letter from Kate Milner in Ailsa Creek, Ontario: The words of Dennis Saddleman's poem cut me to the core. The children, the babies. How could someone, anyone look down into the innocent face of a child and think, this is OK. This is right, the abuse that I am inflicting upon this young person will make our country a better place. But more than that, how could a government not only sanction but encourage such brutal treatment of children? How could officials tear them from their families and communities? I understand colonisation. I understand greed, vanity, the view that my beliefs are better than yours. I know where this comes from. But what could possibly be so important that an entire culture had to be eradicated in favour of a more Eurocentric vision?

MG: We have posted a recording of Dennis Saddleman's poem, Monster, as well as the second poem that he performed on the programme on Friday. You can find both of those on our website go to cbc.ca/thecurrent. Last week we also spoke with neuroscientist and science communicator Samantha Yameen about her phobia of needles.

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They can trace it back to a routine vaccination when I was 12. I was really excited at that school. I ran to the front of the line because I knew then, as I still knew now, that vaccines are amazing. And I ran the front line, got my vaccine, and unfortunately I think - eh - and ever since, I fainted with every needle, fainted generally just at the doctor's office and in other settings, too. I feel like there's just so many layers to the anxiety. It's not really about the prick itself. It's about the experiences I've had in those types of settings.

MG: Many of you also wrote in to us about receiving covid-19 vaccines and overcoming a phobia of needles to do that. Michelle Merchant wrote: My teen has a needle phobia which has caused both of us a great deal of anxiety with a global pandemic. I am so happy to say that my teen was able to get the vaccine and I'm very proud of them because it's not a small achievement to face one's phobia. My teen and I often get very patronising and invalidating responses when trying to figure out how to get my teen vaccinated. This time around, I had a very understanding public health nurse offer an appointment for my teen to come and visit the clinic before the vaccination to help get used to it. I also found a pharmacist who has a needle phobia herself and that was a godsend.

KARIN MARLEY: Felicia Houtman says: Thank you so, so much for your interview about needle phobia. It was very reassuring to hear everything said exactly how I feel, including the fact that for me this started at a young age. Fortunately, my experience with the covid shot was good. They were very nice and accommodating. They let me lie down for the shot. Plus, a nurse stayed with me for thirty minutes after while I continued to lie on the court. I'd like to suggest the booking sites include information that we needle phobic people can be accommodated. It will encourage us to book our vaccines ASAP and give us peace of mind.

MG: This comes from Joanne OSullivan: As a lifelong Neidl. Bob, I really appreciated you educating people that it is not just about a fear of pain. If one person stops themselves from saying, but it doesn't even hurt, to a needlephobe because of your story, you have done a helpful thing.

KARIN MARLEY: And this last one is from Belinda Elysee-Colin, my two daughters have the same fear and I've never understood it. Now I have a much better understanding of what they are experiencing and how I can help them. They were both able to get their first dose of covid vaccine with the support of the staff at our mass vaccination clinic in Brampton, Ontario. One of my daughters was lying down in a private room similar to that described by our guest. The other one was kept distracted by the young nurse so well that she didn't even notice when the nurse gave her the needle. It was a great experience for both of them.

MG: Thank you, Karin, for helping read through and sift through the mailbag.

KARIN MARLEY: You're welcome.

MG: The Current senior producer Karin Marley. And thanks to all of you who write every single day, you do write every day. And we appreciate that. And some of your letters end up on the radio as well. You can get in touch with us thecurrent@cbc.ca. And that's The Current for this Monday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q. Tom Power and his music panel breaking down the highs and the lows of last night's Juno Awards from the great history of Canadian hip hop performance to a beautiful version of a tragically hip song featuring the hip and Leslie Feist. It was wonderful. And you'll hear all about that and more coming up in just a few moments on CBC Radio One as well, a conversation with Gia Coppola. Does that name sound familiar? Yes, indeed. She is the granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola, has a new movie out following in the family business. And you'll hear all about that coming up as well on Q with Tom Power. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Monday June 7, 2021 Full Transcript

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