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The Current Transcript for June 8, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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Canadians must stand up to Islamophobia after fatal attack on Muslim family, says advocate

Guests: Irfan Chaudhry, Mustafa Farooq

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There was cultural abuse, we know there was physical abuse in the case and sexual abuse, and so there was certainly a good deal to apologise for.

MATT GALLOWAY: In the wake of the discovery of the remains of 215 children on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian residential school and long before survivors and their families have been calling on Pope Francis to apologise on behalf of the Catholic Church. He hasn't, but Vancouver's archbishop has. In 30 minutes, Archbishop Michael Miller on the meaning of his apology. What actions need to follow and whether the church's records on residential schools will finally see the light of day. Also this morning, baseball has a sticky problem, namely the sticky stuff that pitchers are using to make the ball almost unhittable. In an hour, a look inside what some are calling the sport's biggest scandal since steroids. Plus.

SOUNDCLIP

We will have everyone who needs to be vaccinated by September. We all hope that that is all that we're going to need, but we don't know what the future looks like for a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, Canada will be developing domestic manufacturing.

MG: Why global health experts are calling for a dramatic change on how we manufacture vaccines to help the world tackle this pandemic, but also plan for the next one. We begin, though, with anger, fear and broken hearts in London, Ontario. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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MG: The family was doing what so many of us have done during this pandemic, they were on a peaceful walk together, taking in the air in their neighbourhood on a warm spring night. And then witnesses saw a black pickup truck mount the kerb, hit them and speed away three generations of a family. Salman Afzaal, his wife, Madiha Salaman, their 15 year old daughter, Yumna Afzaal and Salman Afzaal's mother killed in an attack that lasted just moments. Steve Williams is London Ontario's chief of police.

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I'm also able to tell you at this time that based on information collected during the course of the investigation, we believe that this was an intentional act. And that the victims of this horrific incident were targeted. We believe the victims were targeted because of their Islamic faith.

MG: Aarij Anwir is the imam at London Muslim Mosque. Imam, good morning.

AARIJ ANWER: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

MG: I am sorry for the loss in your community.

AARIJ ANWER: Thank you. We appreciate your condolences.

MG: I know that you have had a long day and a long night, so I appreciate you taking time to speak with us. How are you? How are you coping with what has happened?

AARIJ ANWER: This has been one of the most difficult days of my life yesterday and today, the last 24 hours. Just yesterday, I was walking up to the news about this, even though it happened on Sunday night but we got it officially on Monday, Monday morning. And since then, we've been in the mosque trying to coordinate our response, how the the community, the situation to, you know, it's a- the time spent is on the problem, it's actually the heavy heart that we all had in that room while doing this. That's really where, you know, it was very tough.

MG: What are you hearing from your community?

AARIJ ANWER: What I'm hearing is very similar to what you describe in the opening. There's a lot of, a lot of grief, a lot of pain. I would say everybody is heartbroken and this is across the board. Irrespective of personal religion or ethnicity, everyone feels the pain of the time. There's also outrage because this. As the chief of police said, was a hate motivated crime and motivated by the Islamic identity of this family. And we're also angry because this is not the first time that we've experienced this as a community, we've seen this in 2017 with the Quebec City shooting just last year, we had a person stab another individual in the mosque in Toronto. 2018, if I'm correct, is when the shooting in Christchurch happened in New Zealand. Far from home, but same same idea. So we've seen this happen so many times, almost becoming a yearly occurrence. And that is really, really traumatic for the community experience.

MG: What do you tell, I mean, in addition to being a leader in your community, you're also a husband and a father. What are you telling your own family about how to process this act of violence?

AARIJ ANWER: I mean, my wife was asking me, do I go for a walk this morning because she was tied up and I said to her, it's up to you. I would do it if you're comfortable. But even the fact that we're having this conversation tells you how. How bizarre, how sad things are.

MG: There's a lot of fear around that, I mean, a fear that people are afraid to be out and be visibly Muslim. And I just wonder, I mean, beyond even your own family, what you tell members of your community as a community leader about that.

AARIJ ANWER: When we tell people is this take your precautions and be safe. We don't want people to put themselves in a situation where they don't feel safe themselves, first and foremost. And then they also tell them that, look, we have the full support of the police, the government and all the politicians is in that from that angle, there's nothing to worry about. But the trauma is fresh, these wounds are raw, so it's understandable if people want to not expose themselves in this moment. So that's what I tell them, that's what we tell them as a mosque. And we also tell them that, look, this is something, as a community, we don't want to live in fear. You don't want to be defined by this, we don't want to be terrorised by this, so let us be courageous and bold and defiant by being normal.

MG: By being able to go out for a walk, for example.

AARIJ ANWER: Exactly.

MG: I mean, to your point, this is not the first attack like this in Canada. You mentioned the Quebec mosque attack, the attack at a mosque in Toronto. There have been attacks on women wearing hijab in Edmonton. What does that tell you about the state of Islamophobia in this country?

AARIJ ANWER: I think it's like it's bubbling under the surface and ... every now and then, it rears its ugly head in a really devastating, violent way. Since the Christchurch mass shooting, every Friday, we hire a police constable with a cruiser to sit in the parking lot just as a visible show of force. Just so that if anybody has any bad ideas, that the image of the police officer sitting in the drive, it deters them and they've been doing that for over two years now. So we know. This is something that's real, the community feels that that's this is the strategy that the mosque adopted as part of wrapping up our security, like our security cameras were upgraded. We hired a security firm. We do this with the police force, all of this to do something that's completely normal. Right. Which is congregate in the in the mosque in our place of worship. So we know this is there as a community. But there's nothing that can prepare you for what happened on Sunday night.

MG: How will you honour this family in the days ahead?

AARIJ ANWER: We will honour them by upholding, but by cherishing their name. This is a family that we love dearly. Unanimously, they were loved by people. The [unintelligible] are calling us. They can't believe that this family has been snatched away from us, so we will honour them by remembering their name and by cherishing their memory. We will honour them by continuing some of the things that they have done at the mosque, the things that they participated in. We want to continue that in their name. We already have a fundraising campaign that's taking place by a launch, good outcome in partnership, but Islamic Relief Canada and the NCCM organisation and as a Muslim mosque that has surpassed over 250,000 dollars, and we will, once the dust settles, figure out what to do with this money. Specifically, if the family wants this to be a trust that that benefits in the name of this family, the community, in some way, shape or form. So all of those things are in the future, but we will absolutely cherish the time family honour that name as a community.

MG: Again, I am sorry for what your community has gone through, but I really appreciate you taking some time to speak with us this morning Imam, thank you.

AARIJ ANWER: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

MG: Imam Aarij Anwer is the Imam at the London Muslim Mosque. Muslim communities across this country are mourning with those in London. And questions are being raised about a crime that police have said was motivated by hate and what it says about Islamophobia in this country. Mustafa Farooq is the CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims. Irfan Chaudhry is the director of the Office of Human Rights, MacEwan University in Edmonton. Good morning to you both.

GUESTS: Good morning.

MG: Irfan, what went through your mind when you heard about this attack?

IRFAN CHAUDRHY: You know, just reflecting on the imams comments, just not very similar, you know, you just just just something you're still trying to digest. If I'm being completely honest.

MG: And Mustafa

MUSTAFA FAROOQ: You know, having been here in London over the last 24 hours, it's just been incredible. And people like Imam are in the forefront of moving things forward. But it's time for all Canadians to step up and move things forward just with the family.

MG: What are you hearing from the community? I mean, you had said that this has had a chilling effect on the community. Tell me more about that, Mustafa.

MUSTAFA FAROOQ: I mean, this is just devastating. Practically speaking, I know you think, as Imam Aarij alluded to, we've seen a huge spike in Islamophobic violence over the last few years. And this kind of chilling, horrifying attack just sent shockwaves through the community like you were just out for a walk like so many of us have been. It's been a tough year for everyone. And for this to cap it off, it's just too painful.

MG: Irfan, within 24 hours of this attack, police called it a targeted hate crime. What is significant to you about that in terms of how quickly police responded in that way?

IRFAN CHAUDRHY: Yeah, I think that the word quick is something really important to kind of hone in on, because, you know, usually you find police service is hesitant to, you know, kind of frame it under the hate umbrella in most aspects. So obviously, with things still unfolding and not having full information, there must have been something within the course of their initial interaction with the person that had them feel comfortable that they can go ahead with not only just the murder related charges, but then also the additional consideration of hate motivation. So I'm really interested to kind of learn more about things unfold, because I think this could also be a phase of really trying to get a sense of where we're at in terms of Islamophobia, in terms of motivation, in terms of how we might be able to utilise this as not having to wait for a horrific act to to be, you know, labelled as such in terms of the Islamophobia and hate crime perspective. Because I think, as Muslim and even others have alluded to, these are things that have been impacting our communities over the last number of years. And even when the various forms of discrimination, racism, anti-Muslim bigotry that people are experiencing, it shouldn't get to the level of something like this. So that's what I'm really trying to learn more about. And that's why it's really significant for them to be able to name it as such quite quickly.

MG: Police have also said the terrorism charges are a possibility. What do you make of that?

IRFAN CHAUDRHY: Yeah, I mean, you know, at the end of the day, when you look at the definition of terrorism in the criminal code, you know, an act committed in whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose with the intention of intimidating the public, to me, this fit that parameter of that threshold. So I think, you know, utilising all aspects of our justice system to ensure appropriate accountability is is there I think it's important.

MG: Do you think that the justice system is being utilised to your point through all of its aspects to address hate crimes like this? Or could this steer that justice system perhaps in a different direction or from.?

IRFAN CHAUDRHY: Yeah, I think in general in Canada, hate crime laws tend to be fairly weak. I think, you know, as we talked about earlier on, the fact that the police have labelled this as motivated by his quite quickly to me shows that there was just very strong evidence at hand to label it as such. And so I think as things unfold, as this case may be, has some precedent setting pieces to ensure that, you know, we're looking at a hate and bias motivated crime, we're looking at them from not only is the impact of the immediate community, but also the national community. So I think even without mentioning all this is impacting all Canadians, all Canadians have a role to play in stepping up here. And I think half of the issue is when something like this happens and the appropriate mayor, let's say, whether it's the criminal code, legislative, whether this prosecution, you know, what have you, the layers of the justice system, I think the biggest piece is acknowledging that hatred and bigotry is still a real issue impacting our community. And that acknowledgement through our system has strong symbolic value. And it gives some element of helping people feel like the justice system has has our back. And I think time and again, we've seen that. Unfortunately, sometimes that isn't the case.

MG: Mustafa, your organisation has tracked something like three hundred incidents, including more than 30 acts of physical violence towards the Muslim community between 2015 or 2019. How would you characterise Islamophobia in this country right now?

MUSTAFA FAROOQ: I mean, it goes beyond just the sort of physical acts of taking place in that period of time. And we've seen a huge spike since. I think what is extremely clear is that a huge percentage of Canadians have unfavourable attitudes towards Muslims. You know, in 2019 we had a one hundred fifty five percent increase in attacks against members of the Muslim community as independently documented by Stats Canada. You know, and there was a poll that was done around that time that showed that forty four percent of Canadians have unfavourable attitudes towards Canadian Muslims. That's [unintelligible]. That's unacceptable. And the reality is that it has its effects. We need to see Canadians stand up. We need to see there be action on this. It's not OK that we have to go through the Quebec City mosque massacre in 2017. It is not OK that in 2020 in September, I had to stand at the aisle and see the body of Brother Mohamed Aslim Zafis, whose throat was slit by a man with a connection to a white supremacist group. It's not OK that earlier this year we had someone opened fire with an air gun, at a Montreal mosque. It's not OK that what's happening right now in London. It's not OK. We need to see change.

MG: What change do you want to see? I mean, when you take a look at and we can talk about all Canadians in a moment, but from a government perspective, you had, you know, leaders, prime minister or others tweeting out condolences to the community and also pledges to support. What action do you want to see, Mustafa?

MUSTAFA FAROOQ: Well, I mean, first of all, it's important that that every Canadian stands up, including our leaders, to say that they will take action now, because the reality is that not every kid is doing that right now. And I'll call them out on right now the [unintelligible] and the journal de Montreal, you know, didn't even run the story. This is not something that for many people want that they want to acknowledge on their front page that this needs to be something that Canadians are talking about in terms of immediate action that needs to happen. We need to see a national action summit on Islamophobia or veterans or federal territorial provincial municipal leaders are coming together to develop our next steps because there's a variety of things that need to happen from a systemic level to fighting individual acts of violence and dismantling white supremacist groups. I mean, I only have to drive a few hours from where I am right now to get back where there it is illegal for someone who wears a hijab to become a teacher at a French public school. That's unacceptable. That's insanity. That needs to change.

MG: And to your point, it has to start with people recognising and calling this what it is

MUSTAFA FAROOQ: Yes, precisely that start there, but not.

MG: What about for you, Irfan? I mean, you're in in Edmonton, where there have been a series of attacks on women in hijab in that city. What action do you want to see broadly to to to address Islamophobia in this country?

IRFAN CHAUDRHY: Yeah, I know, I think you know what Mostapha just mentioned, you know what I've observed here in my own province, you know, it doesn't it shouldn't it shouldn't have to get to this threshold for it to be labelled as know, hate motivated crime. I've come across some of those experiences where you have someone from the Muslim community report something through to a law enforcement entity, whether in person, whether through a phone call or whatever you have. And it might not be the same level of severity as something like this, but then it gets discounted or they get kind of brushed off or they kind of, you know, are told, yeah, you can't do anything about that. And I think this is very positive attitude we're seeing nationwide, I would say, in terms of how we address not only just Islamophobia but forms of discrimination that are intimidation and harassment, racial harassment, religious harassment. I don't think we're set up right now, you know, to address it in a meaningful way. And I don't think we should be downloading everything to law enforcement. I think that's also another default assumption that often is utilised. But I think just going back to some of the comments raised earlier around the community impact this has a far reaching impact on communities and I think at least having that space to dialogue and grieve collectively as a starting point. And, yes, having our leaders there for sure is a starting point. But, you know, a hundred percent agree with Mossop. Acknowledgement is the bare minimum that we can all all do. But now I think it's that commitment and a commitment to action. Right. So if you see Islamophobia or other forms of discrimination in action being comfortable enough to know how to counter it, of course, your personal safety is something to keep in mind in this horrific event. Highlights that. But I think it's being able to provide any kind of support to document, resources, you know, what have you, to ensure people feel empowered and equipped to counter these things. Because, again, it's not it's not just these overt, horrific acts that we see around Islamophobia. These are the most visible, of course, but it's those everyday actions that they're built to this sometimes that I think need to be challenged a bit more collectively.

MG: This is a difficult morning. I really do appreciate both of you taking time to speak with us. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mustafa Farooq, the CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, Irfan Chaudhry is the director of the Office of Human Rights at MacEwan University in Edmonton. Your CBC News is next. And then indigenous leaders in this country have been asking for an apology for residential schools from the very top of the Catholic Church. The pope has not apologised. The archbishop of Vancouver has. My conversation with him coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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Church apologies for residential schools a necessary step in reconciliation, says Vancouver Archbishop

Guest: Archbishop Michael Miller

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

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The biggest barrier to ending the pandemic remains sharing. Of those of resources of technology.

MG: That's Tedros Adhanom of the World Health Organisation, with a plea to member states and manufacturing companies, COVAX, the organisation created to distribute covid-19 vaccines equitably to the world, still doesn't have enough doses to meet its target of immunising 250 million people by September. And with wealthier countries still focussed on vaccinating their own citizens, the end of this global pandemic looks like it may still be a long way off. My next guest has an idea of how to ramp up the worldwide vaccine supply to get us out of this crisis and get ready for the next one. Dr. Prabhat Jha is an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto's Dalai Lama School of Public Health and at Unity Health, Toronto. Doctor, good morning.

DR. RTABHAT JHA: Good morning.

MG: Why is it that we are still dealing with this global vaccine shortage all those months after the first clinical trials and approvals?

DR. RTABHAT JHA: Well, it's very disappointing. We've got an extraordinary triumph of science, which is vaccines that have worked extraordinarily well against covid-19. Yet it's not reaching all of the people that it should reach. And the main limitation has really been insufficient supply. But this is not just a short term problem with vaccines. It's been, in the longer term, insufficient supply and to remedy that, we've we've suggested that we have to do very much business as not usual. Otherwise, without the world being vaccinated, we simply will not be able to walk out of the pandemic. Even vaccinating all of North America would still leave us vulnerable to, for example, variants that come from other parts of the world, to which the vaccines may not be as effective. And the idea of travel or normal commerce in the usual sense, just won't return until the world is vaccinated.

MG: You laid out this road map in the Lancet medical journal recently. Let's walk through this kind of three pronged plan that you have. What is step one?

DR. RTABHAT JHA: Step one is to recognise that the current vaccine market is too small and too concentrated. So what we have proposed is what countries adopt is this idea of adult immunisation programmes. You want to fully immunised adults, that is getting the existing vaccines that work well, for example, annual flu shots or there's sees occasionally five year you give a pneumococcal vaccine, which is very effective against Omonia and use vaccines against cervical cancer. So the idea we've proposed is to create a global adult immunisation effort in which countries would pay on a routine basis for getting their adults immunised. And so you're looking at a market of about five billion adults worldwide, about average of 1.1 Vaccines per person. So that would create a much larger market that in which many other companies could enter the market. It would spur innovation in vaccine design and delivery and probably lower costs. Just everyone knows that if you go at scale, you do get cheaper, cheaper goods. Everyone who uses Amazon or uses Wal-Mart knows that if you go at higher scale. So that's the first pillar.

MG: Second part of this is about the idea of creating these incentives for pharmaceutical companies to to make these vaccines and what you call on a war basis. What does that look like?

DR. RTABHAT JHA: Well, there's two additional pillars. So one, as you said, Matt, is correct. You need the existing private pharmaceutical companies to expand production capacity. But so that would mean giving them appropriate incentives so that they are actually producing what is needed. In Japan, for example, they've provided some taxpayer funding up front to a pharmaceutical and said, well, when we need you, you have to produce vaccines at our request and our cost. So that's one element.

MG: So that they stop producing what they might be producing and shift to what the what the country actually needs.

DR. RTABHAT JHA: Yes, tor temporarily. That could be the case. And the truth is, if you look at the giant, very well-run pharma companies in California, like Genentech and others, they're producing wonderful monoclonal antibodies and other things. My mother benefits from one of these therapies, but the urgent need would be if those what we call bioreactors, the things that can actually make the different types of vaccine were turned to in the short term to producing covid vaccines, then that would, could meet much of the world's need. But that's not going to be enough. So the third pillar that we've suggested is what we call a global vaccine manufacturing compact. Now, what that means is we'd have several countries, perhaps Canada and Norway, Switzerland, Singapore. Now, what's common about these is there's generally small, but they have good scientific and training capacity. And their goal would be to produce vaccines in the billions far in excess of any temptations for domestic hoarding, which is unfortunately what's happened in India. India has, through the Serum Institute of India, provides much of the world's vaccines for children. But because of the political pressures and the unfortunate and very sad second viral wave in India, there's lots of pressure to say no exports. And even our neighbours to the south have very clearly said Americans first. But that's a lose lose strategy. You cannot get past this epidemic without worrying about the whole world being vaccinated.

MG: And is that what you say, when you say that, I mean, you can't leave a programme of vaccination to market forces, but also to politics that you need to try and take it out of that through something like a global compact?

DR. RTABHAT JHA: Yes, I think the insular political decisions are always going to be insular and they're short term. What we do need is in addition to what politicians are doing, which just scrambling to get vaccines for their population, we need a global solution. And the global solution would be a manufacturing compact that produced billions in excess. Now, this would not be I mean, the concern is always, do you create a white elephant like Mirabela Airport or something. No. The idea is that you have this run professionally. It's run as with a good business model, and it does make a modest profit off each of the sales. But it emphasises volume on the each of the the vaccines sold and therefore it can achieve the kind of scale. And we know this can be done quickly. The UK government was able to repurpose basically mothballed facilities and produce 100 million of the AstraZeneca vaccine in 10 months. And they did it on a not for profit basis. And partly that was driven by Europe, the British concern about Brexit and whether they'd have access to European vaccines. So we know this can be done is just a matter of the political will to get it done.

MG: Stay with me. I want to bring in another voice to this conversation. Andrew Casey, the CEO of the industry group Biotech Canada, represents a range of companies in the vaccine sector and obviously a vested interest in what we've been talking about. Andrew, good morning to you.

ANDREW CASEY: Morning.

MG: What do you make of Dr John's suggestion for ramping up the global vaccine supply, particularly of low cost vaccines?

ANDREW CASEY: I can't disagree with any what Dr. Jha really said. I think we have an enormous challenge ahead of ourselves. We've seen this. It's an unprecedented challenge with the covid-19 situation. But I think what's really important about the work that Dr. John, his colleagues have done is to start thinking about going forward because we have to prepare for the next one. We're sort of getting through this one with duct tape and wire and all the rest of it and keeping it in the air. Well, I think we have to prepare for potentially covid 29 or 39. You pick your year, you pick your virus. And this is the type of thinking that we're going to put out there to sort of figure out we don't want to go through this same situation again.

MG: You represent, as I mentioned, companies in the vaccine sector. Do you think they would be interested in participating in this plan that I mean, you charge less per dose, but you have a much larger market?

ANDREW CASEY: Well, I think looking at the principles of the three pillars, I think the first one is really saying vaccines are enormous value. And finally, a recognition. I think we've gone for a long time, sort of just assuming that vaccines are out there and taking them for granted. I mean, we have the ability to eliminate smallpox, which is killing somewhere in the area of five million people per year through vaccinations. So the first pillar to sort of say that this is, you know, create some sort of immunised adult programme, obviously, that would grow the amount that is produced. I think that would be a very valuable thing to do. It would also create greater incentives for more research, which would create more technology. So when you look at the MRNA, you'd see more of those types of developments coming out of that type of an idea. I think from the growing of the Global Compact, where you turn to countries like Canada and other nations that could meet supply internally and then grow and produce for a bigger audience, that would make great sense for Canada. We've got the science. We've got the research here. We've got the capacity to do it. And I think that that would be a fantastic idea.

MG: So when it when he said when he says that the companies can make a modest profit, do you think the companies that you represent would be onside with that?

ANDREW CASEY: Well, I think you structure it correctly, what is defined as modest process. I mean, there's ways to do this, right? It's as you pointed out, with companies like Wal-Mart, you do it on scale and so you can make it over a larger amount. In this particular case, we're going to be looking to create 10 to 15 billion vaccines. And so there's a way of doing this for sure. I think there's also a recognition that, as you point out, that you're looking at almost like Olympic athletes where every four years or so that they go, they get into full competition. But you need to do something in between. As an athlete, you don't sit on the couch and drink beer and eat chips you have to stay in shape. And so that creating them as commercial entities in between the crises is where you're allowed to make them allow them to commercial. When the next crisis comes up and you turn to them, then you have a new way of facilitating that arrangement.

MG: The idea of developing and making vaccines we know takes time. It also takes money. And there are some companies like AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson that have pledged not to profit, at least during the pandemic. Take a listen to what Pineau of Pfizer, Canada, told us when I asked him why his company had not made a similar pledge.

SOUNDCLIP

Pfizer is a company that honours innovation and the risk and reward that comes with innovation. We've worked really hard and took on billions of dollars of risk upfront, not accepting government money until we approach the stage of commercialisation. And so taking on those billions of dollars of risk should include some profit as a reward for that.

MG: Dr. Jha, is it reasonable to ask companies to take lower prices, considering to Kapinos point the investment that they make in developing these vaccines that we rely on?

DR. RTABHAT JHA: I think it's reasonable for companies to say that they do have to earn profits. That's why they're created and that's to whom they're accountable, their shareholders and others. That's perfectly reasonable. What is not reasonable is to say the claim that, well, all of the investment that goes into creating a vaccine is really just been borne by the company. If you look at this scientific ecosystem, then it very much always has public investments in research, including MRNA, any research that was done through the National Institutes of Health and Canadian funding that have created the basis and every major vaccine or every major drug that is out there has in the background public funding for scientific research that created those. So we have to recognise that. And I think the just the claims, for example, by the head of Pfizer, that while they've put in all of the resources, that's not quite true. There has been government investments in the research in the first place that created the possibilities for them to go into. But I do view this as a partnership but with fair and transparent pricing. No one is asking anyone to take a loss, but nor is anyone endorsing the idea that this is an opportunity for rent seeking and making enormous profits when they're not justified.

MG: Let me ask you, just in the remaining time that we have both of you about the practical challenges around this, of increasing the production of vaccines. We are months, maybe years away from some Canadian facilities coming online. Andrew Casey, why isn't that happening faster? And is it possible for that to even happen faster?

ANDREW CASEY: It depends on the technology you're talking about. You know, with the first two that came out, were MRNA Technologies, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and we just didn't have the technical capacity here in Canada to manufacture those vaccines. We have two facilities that do traditional protein based vaccine manufacturing, but we do have a third one coming online with [unintelligiblee] currently in phase three clinical trials. They use plant based technology to grow vaccine. So it's really exciting new technology that has some great promise going forward. The NRC facility in Montreal received a significant investment they'll be able to manufacture. There were some additional investments into resilience company biotechnology out of Toronto to increase its manufacturing capacity as well into Sanofi, the plant in Toronto. So Canada is taking steps, putting some significant investments into those technologies. And I think we will have the capacity to grow that ability. And as Dr. Jha says this could be a potential opportunity going forward for Canada to meet the global demand.

MG: What are the supply chain challenges that you would anticipate? Because it's not just, you know, the idea of creating the factory and perhaps as people have talked about lifting the patents or releasing the patents, you also have to have the vials and the sand to make it through the pandemic. So what do you expect there when it comes to those challenges, Andrew?

ANDREW CASEY: Yes, you've got upstream and downstream challenges. If you take the Pfizer vaccine, which is actually Pfizer combining with BioNtech out of Germany and a Canadian biotech company called Actuators, which is the company that developed the lipid envelope, but that vaccine has 280 components in it, so ingredients and most of those are manufactured in. And similarly sterile GMP, good manufacturing practise facilities, and so you can quite often get bottlenecks upstream where your supplies that are coming in to manufacture the vaccine or where the challenger, then you manufacture the vaccine and you can have downstream bottlenecks where you have, as you point out, sterile. You need the medical grade sand for the viral [unintelligible]. You need the syringes, the rubber stoppers, the ability to put the the vaccine into packages and ship them. And as we know from the vaccine shipp them at a fairly cold temperature. So all sorts of bottlenecks occur both upstream and downstream. And those have to be addressed to it's not just manufacturing the vaccine itself, because that can actually be done, especially with the MRNA can be done in a fairly large scale.

MG: Dr. Jha, just finally, if we don't get this right, what's at stake? You have said that vaccine nationalism threatens to take the triumph of science and turn it into a tragedy. So what happens if we don't? This is difficult, right? It's hard to pull off, but if we don't at least make a solid effort, what's at stake?

DR. RTABHAT JHA: Lots of human misery, first of all, and unfortunate deaths. But even from a narrow perspective, if Canada and Canadians want to return to life as normal, want to engage in business, travel and meet family, have new Canadians come and really want to live in a world where everyone is prospering or getting better, that just would not happen until we get all adults in the world vaccinated, at least. That is just a simple reality. I think people recognise that. And you have to look OK, what would that cost actually do? Well, the International Monetary Fund has made an estimate that it would be 50 billion dollars to meet that need. That's actually nothing, 50 billion dollars U.S. compared to the trillions that have been lost and the billions of children denied schooling is absolutely nothing.

MG: And so we have to do this, I mean, we can't we can't afford not to do it,

DR. RTABHAT JHA: We cannot afford to say we've just vaccinated ourselves and we're fine. That just will not work.

MG: Andrew Casey, just in the last few seconds that we have, when do you think we would see the first Canadian made covid vaccines roll off the assembly line?

ANDREW CASEY: Well, [unintelligible] Quebec City with their plant based technology. They're in phase three clinical trials. The data looks very promising. Their facility in Quebec City is expected to be up and running in the fall, which should coincide with them coming out of the clinics, which means we could probably see a Canadian vaccine, Canadian made vaccine as early as this fall,

MG: As early as this fall.

ANDREW CASEY: Hmm mm.

MG: We will watch for that. And I appreciate speaking with both of you about this. Thank you very much.

ANDREW CASEY: Thank you very much, Matt.

MG: Andrew Casey, CEO of the industry group Biotech Canada. Dr. Prabhat Jha is an epidemiologist and health department epidemiologist at the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health and at Unity Health in Toronto.

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MG: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One, my name is Matt Galloway. While parts of Canada are still gripped by playoff hockey fever. I'm looking at you, Montreal, in particular, the return of summer also means baseball. And that, in turn means the return of another pastime, cheating at baseball. Take a listen to the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, Mike Schult, at a news conference recently.

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This is baseball's dirty little secret. There are people that are effectively not even trying to hide it, flipping the bird at the league with how they're cheating in this game.

MG: The manager had just been ejected from a game before that press conference after one of his pitchers had his ball cap confiscated by an umpire. The ump suspected that the cap had some sticky stuff on it. And that sticky stuff is baseball's dirty little secret. Here to expose it for us is Stephanie Apstein, senior writer with Sports Illustrated, part of a team that investigated the practise of doctoring the ball. Stephanie, good morning.

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: Good morning.

MG: What is the goup? I think that's the technical term that these pictures are putting on their fingers during the game.

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: Well, there are a lot of different levels of goop, actually. So every pitcher is allowed to use the rosin bag behind the mat, and that's sap, basically. And so it gives you a little bit of stick. But on the lower end of cheating, some pitchers have realised that if you use spray on sunscreen on your arm and you mix rosin into it, it's stickier. So that's one end. And then on the higher end, you have sort of these industrial glues such as Spider Tack, which is basically something so sticky you could cut your hand in it and touch your hand to a cinder block and lift the cinder block.

MG: What?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: Yeah.

MG: It's that sticky.

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: It's no Joke. Oh yeah.

MG: And baseball players are using this.

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: They are quite a lot of them, I had one picture suggests to me it was 80 to 90 percent.

MG: Why would baseball pitchers use something that sticky on the mound?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: The idea is that it adding a substance to the baseball like that increases how fast the baseball spins when you throw it, and that therefore increases the movement and makes it harder to hit. And so you see strikeouts are way up. Batting average is the lowest ever at the moment. So it does seem like it's working.

MG: I was reading in your piece about the sound that it makes. If you have that super sticky stuff on your hands and you throw the ball as the ball leaves your hand, there's a sound, right?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: Yes. People in opposing dugouts have noticed that they can hear the ball tearing off skin. So it sounds kind of like Velcro or like a Band-Aid ripping off.

MG: Is there a rule against pitchers using this stuff during a game?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: There is. You're not allowed to doctor the baseball, but for a century, pitchers have been trying to get away with it. The issue recently is that we have much better technology and so they can- In the past, they had to sort of guess whether it was working. Now they can throw it and immediately they can see; did it in fact increase my revolutions? And if so, how much? And if not, what can I do to make it more effective? So they've really Maximised the official.

MG: I was say to your point, I mean, people have been trying to figure out how to game this game for a long time, right? I mean, there's been from the sun screen to some Vaseline under the bill of your hat on and on and on this degree of ball doctoring. How long has that been going on for?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: Yeah, as you said, it's you know, the past is as much a pastime as baseball is cheating in baseball. This degree is probably been going on since about 2018 when more teams and more individual players got access to that level of technology I was talking about, the pitch tracking software that allows them to identify immediately how fast the ball spun.

MG: And up to 80 to 90 percent of pitchers would be using this?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: Something like that. Yeah, that's what one pitcher suggested. And some of them, they're not all using spider tack, the centre block stuff. Some of them are using sunscreen rods and some of them really do just want to get a grip on the baseball. But a lot of them are using it as performance enhancing, yes.

MG: One of the great things about the piece that you wrote is that you actually speak with a number of pitchers. How do they justify what is essentially cheating on the mound?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: I think there are a couple of ways. One is that they believe that, well, one of them is that they believe no one is policing this. So how much can the league really care about it as a rule? One is that they feel that they do need to get a grip on the baseball when it comes out of the package it's very slick. And so the fear is that if you throw it just as it is, you might hit someone in the head because you can't control where it's going. And then I think the third way is that the league has been sort of messing with the baseball over the last year, the composition of the ball, they wanted more offence than they wanted fewer home runs. They keep adjusting the insides of the ball. And at one point they sort of juiced it, made it bouncier and more made it better for hitters. And so pitchers started to feel like we've got to do something to keep up because we're being evaluated on our numbers. Teams don't care that the ball is bouncing or they care that we're giving up runs. And so they found this solution.

MG: Do they have any shame, those pitchers that you talked to using whether it's that the cinder block stuff, as you call it, or something a little bit more benign?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: You know, I expected to find pitchers who did feel guilty about it, and I really couldn't. They the the minor leagues I spoke to said this is what the team wants. The team will sometimes tell you which substance to use. The team wants guys who can spin the baseball. And so this is what we're using. One of them said, you know, people compare it to steroids, but steroids are bad for your body. This is just something that you stick on your hand. It's not- you know, the you're not going to get kids addicted to a drug. It's not the same thing. And so they don't, I think, feel that bad about it.

MG: How high up in the pitching ranks does this go? I mean, you could imagine that perhaps players who are at a lower rank would use this because this might give them an advantage and help them be better on the mound, but are the best of the best also using this, apparently?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: They are. And I think that's part of why it's proliferated, because players see the sort of less successful pitchers see how successful the best pitchers have been and I think I got to get some of that.

MG: How has this affected batting averages and hitting around the league? I mean, we talked early on a bit about how they're you know, there are more strikeouts, it seems like, than the normal. But what's going on?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: It's suppressed offence a lot. We've had six no hitters so far, it's become, it's become a real problem there. It seems like every night you just watch a parade of batters strike out and go back to the dugout. And fans are getting frustrated. Players are getting frustrated. Marlins manager Don Mattingly called the game unwatchable recently. It's become a real problem.

MG: Why aren't batters raising a ruckus about this if they're striking out? Because they can't hit the ball, because the ball's moving all over the place, because it's coated in, you know, glue. Why aren't they saying that the game is crooked?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: They're saying it quietly, I think some of them are concerned about being too open with their complaints because they know that their team-mates are doing it, too. And so it is helping them on that end. But they are you are starting to hear- they're definitely complaining about it amongst themselves and you're starting to hear. I had a couple of hitters talk to me on the record. You're starting to hear hitters come out and say this is a problem.

MG: Just finally, we just have about 30 seconds left. I mean, the game is still recovering from the Houston Astros cheating scandal that may many people believe have won them the World Series in twenty seventeen. What would this mean for the game, this scandal, do you think?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: I think it would be a problem. And I think you can tell the league agrees by how quickly they're trying to crack down. A midseason crackdown is a big deal. And so I think you can see that people are really concerned about this.

MG: But cheating is as old as baseball. So if they figure this out, is there just some other way that pitchers will doctor up to doctor to the ball?

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: Oh, absolutely. It's build a better mousetrap, they build a better mouse.

MG: Stephanie, thank you.

STEPHANIE APSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

MG: Stephanie Apstein, senior writer with Sports Illustrated. That is it for The Current for this Tuesday morning. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q It's the 20th anniversary of Degrassi, The Next Generation. Here is your correspondent ageing himself by saying that when he first watched Degrassi it was Degrassi junior high. There going to be celebrating Degrassi the next generation. Coming up Tom Power speaking with Lauren Collins and Jake Eppstein playing little trivia talking about shooting that Degrassi Reunion Drake music video from a few years back. You'll hear that coming up on CBC Radio One in a few minutes. In the meantime, I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll talk to you again tomorrow.

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How Canada could help to ramp up vaccine production; and how ‘sticky stuff’ is behind cheating in baseball

Guests: Prabhat Jha, Andrew Casey, Stephanie Apstien

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

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MG: Still to come, the gaps in the global vaccine supply and manufacturing system have been made clear over the past year, and that problem won't be going away even when lockdowns are lifted and we can all hug each other again. The race to scale up vaccine production in 30 minutes. But first, an apology from an archbishop.

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MG: The usual sounds came out of Catholic churches across this country on Sunday, but in many there was also something different. Take St. Augustine's Parish in Vancouver.

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Good morning and welcome to our celebration. I'd like to start by reading our statement in regard to the residential schools in Kamloops. All of us students are deeply grieved by the news of the tragic death of hundreds of young indigenous children of the Kamloops provincial school. My deepest condolences go out to all who have been directly or indirectly affected by this unprecedented tragedy of Canadian history.

MG: In the Vatican on Sunday. Pope Francis addressed the preliminary findings of the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, a school run by the Catholic Church for decades. The Pope talked about feeling pain after that news and expressed a closeness to the Canadian people traumatised by it. But there was no apology, something that indigenous leaders and Canada's prime minister have been calling for.

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When I went to the Vatican a number of years ago, I directly asked His Holiness Pope Francis to move forward on apologising, on making these records available. And we're still seeing resistance. It's something a number of other churches and the United Church and others have done. It's something we are all still waiting for the Catholic Church to do.

MG: Archbishop Michael Miller did apologise in a statement last week. He's head of the Archdiocese of Vancouver. And Kamloops was in the historical boundaries of that archdiocese. Just a note before our interview that the archbishop is awaiting throat surgery. Archbishop, good morning.

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Why did you feel it was important to make that apology?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: Oh, I think it was important to make the apology because it was so shocking, so saddening, so distressing. I think it's my obligation to express apology, sorrow and regret at the revelation of yet another painful situation that has hit us in the face. I think apologies are a necessary part of reconciliation and they get their weight if they're accompanied by actions.

MG: What are you actually apologising for?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I think for many things. One, of course, is that the bodies of the children were unmarked, that their names are not memorialised or remembered, that it would have been very painful for the families, that their remains were not returned to them or honoured in the way the that families would want. But it's also part of a larger picture. I think it reveals to us the error of a colonialist policy to which the church was a contributor and implementor, in which the dignity and the reverence for indigenous culture, language and so on was not fully respected. There was, you know, cultural abuse. We know there was physical abuse and occasion, sexual abuse. And so there was certainly a good deal to apologise for.

MG: As you mentioned, the Catholic Church was an implementer in all of that. Why do you think the Pope did not apologise?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I think on this occasion it wouldn't have been appropriate for, but I don't think to apologise from the balcony at a Sunday Angelus. I'm hoping that The Pope will, in fact, some day deliver apology in person to indigenous leaders who will accept the apology after the Angelus. Traditionally on Sunday, The Pope offers a comment on situations around the world. He did that. He expressed his sadness. But I think a papal apology is a far more formal event in which people are present. And it would be delivered in either English or French, in person, not in Italian and more formal. I think to expect that after the Angelus is kind of misread how the pope uses those comments on Sunday morning.

MG: But help me understand that. I mean, he had an opportunity coming out of a week of extraordinary pain and trauma, not just for survivors of residential schools, but the families of those who attended that school. Why wouldn't that be an opportunity coming out of that week to express what you have talked about and the need to apologise for being, again, the implementer of many of the things that happened in that school?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: Yeah, I wish I could. I don't know why. I know that the apology that is being asked for from the TRC is that the pope come in person to issue an apology. He just might not have thought that this occasion was the one in which to deliver the apology.

MG: But he has been asked I mean, the prime minister we just heard asked, asked as the pope faced a. To come in us and says that there has been resistance from the Catholic Church. Do you think that there's been resistance to an apology?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: All I could do is speak for myself. There's no resistance on the part of the Archdiocese of Vancouver and many other dioceses to making an apology

MG: In the absence of an apology from the pope. What do you think the messages to survivors of residential schools and the families of those who went?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I hope that they see that the that there are apologies offered by those who are nearest to the situation, which was, you know, the responsibility of the Archdiocese of Vancouver until 1946. Likewise, afterwards, the the Diocese of Kamloops, the religious communities that these were the people, we were the people on the ground. And I would hope that our apology is seen as as a closeness. Of course, the Holy Father speaks a voice for the entire church. But, you know, I also think that apologies offered by the people who have been sort of closest to the situation, you know, they're heartfelt and sincere. Although it might not be enough, I hope that they are at least accepted as gestures of goodwill and of closeness.

MG: Do you want to hear an apology from Pope Francis?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: If someone asked me, do I think the pope should apologise, I would say yes to that question.

MG: Murray Sinclair, who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was on Cross Country Check-Up on Sunday. Take a listen to what he said in response to the comments of the pope on Sunday.

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They're quite afraid to make any kind of an apology because an apology will be taken in some jurisdictions, I believe, as an admission of liability, and that can easily be seen in their avoidance of taking responsibility. And that statement from the pope is an avoidance of responsibility.

MG: Archbishop, is this an avoidance of responsibility?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I'm a little reluctant to say that from the point of view of the pope, I don't know that I know that we in the archdiocese of Vancouver have taken responsibility and will continue to do so.

MG: There's the suggestion that perhaps an apology from the pope as, again, the voice of the Catholic Church could lead to calls for not just compensation, but I mean that that could be a sign of liability. Do you think that that is a factor here?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: It might be a factor, but I really I don't know. I know certainly for us here in Vancouver and in many diocese, that wasn't a factor.

MG: As you mentioned, there is an apology and then there's an apology that comes with actions. The missionary oblates of Mary Immaculate ran almost half of the residential schools in this country, including the one in Kamloops, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond Aki kwe was on this programme last week. She's director of the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre and a professor of law at UBC.

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There are records that are quite important that have been withheld or not accessible. They're also not accessible to the community. So even in my role at UBC, where we're trying to commemorate work with community and survivors, we don't have access to records. So and a survivor or a community says, you know, we want all the records for the Kamloop school, for instance. You know, we just can't we don't have all of your records. They're not available because the Catholic Church in particular has not made them available.

MG: What can be done to make those records available?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: Well, what I would say can I can I read to you from my statement that I made last week, it said, We, meaning the Archdiocese of Vancouver, will be fully transparent with our archives and records regarding all residential schools and strongly urge all other Catholic and government organisations to do the same. Our records regarding the Kamloops Indian Residential School were provided to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and will remain available for review.

MG: She says that that there are key documents that are missing.

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: There might be. There are none from the Archdiocese of Vancouver. And those are the only archives that I have access to and can speak to.

MG: Where would those records be?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I don't really know, because I they would be with certainly with the religious communities that ran the schools. But I think many of those are available. But I don't know the details of their archival situation.

MG: Well, Murray Sinclair has said that the church should allow an independent mediator to go through records in the church archives here and also in Rome, where he believes some some records are stored. Is that something that should happen?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I'd be quite willing that to have an independent person look through our records. That's that would be fine with me. I think that's often good.

MG: Why wouldn't the records be released, do you think?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I don't know. You'd have to, I think, speak to the to those who might not have released their records.

MG: I mean, the sense from some people is that if records aren't being disclosed, it's as though there's something that does not want you know, the people don't want disclosed. Do you think that that's fair to say?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: That's probably fair to say. Or that there might be reasons of of privacy. But I. Don't really know, because I'm not in that situation that have records that haven't been made available.

MG: I guess just to go back to that initial question, though, is there anything that can be done to compel those who have not yet released records to ensure that those records are made available?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I think that certainly I think that most records have been, any compulsion would have to be, I believe would have to be illlegal, that have to be legal steps taken.

MG: That the Canadian government would need to take the church to court?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: It's not the church. It would be the specific entities or those who hold the archives. You know, the church is a great big organisation. It would have to be specific people.

MG: But again, there are some suspicion, again, that some of those archives are being held in Rome.

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: And I think if that's true and those who have the suspicions and know something should approach the authorities and ask for the release of the documents.

MG: There are also calls for this to be treated as a criminal matter. And we know that the RCMP is investigating. Do we know how many people who worked at these schools are still alive?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I'm unaware of that totally, to be honest. I think that most of the deaths of the children go back quite a ways. And so I'd be surprised. But I don't know that. I don't have that information. That's up to those who are completing the the investigation, which is is not yet fully released its report. So we look forward to that.

MG: Do you consider the school grounds where it's believed that there are upwards of 215, but the remains of 215 children, would you consider the school grounds a crime scene?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: If it falls under the legal definition. I don't really know sort of the legal definition. For me, it's a very sad place and we should do everything to make sure that it's memorialised in a way that the First Nations would like it to be. I would leave that decision up to the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation to, you know, reach that judgement.

MG: But again, to many people, it's much more than than a sad scene. I mean, there are remains, unidentified remains of our children that are buried within this site.

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: And if making it a crime scene would help in the healing, then yes, of course, I'd be in favour of that. But it's it's not really my decision. I'd leave it up to the, certainly up to the First Nations involved.

MG: Are you surprised by the reaction to this discovery? It's a preliminary report, but are you surprised at how not just Canadians, but people around the world have reacted to this?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I certainly understand the reaction. I hadn't, you know, anticipated anything. But it touches a very sensitive chord. We're talking about children who were buried without, you know, without being, it seems, without being returned to their families. Their graves were unmarked. I think that touches a very deep core within us. And in that sense, it's not surprising that people would react in that way.

MG: What does it tell you beyond the story of, you know, the remains that were found, what does the reaction tell you about the place of residential schools in the history of this country?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I think it certainly reminds us and we keep reminding that this was a very flawed colonialist policy that Canadians put into effect and either directly or indirectly supported for a number of years. It's a huge flaw in our history. And now we must make amends and do what we can to correct that. We cannot erase it. We cannot deny it. We have to move forward and as I said, make amends and ensure that we respect the culture, the languages, the the traditions of all First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples in the lands of Canada.

MG: There are questions about moving forward and what's happening now in this country. Take a listen to this parishioner from St. Augustine's Church in Vancouver.

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It hasn't shaken my faith in any way. It calls me to draw deeper on my faith. It caused me to look in, to see, to see how did we let this happen. And I think just as importantly, what are we doing now for which we will be judged and for which we will be considered that it was atrocious behaviour. So I think that all of us as individuals need to look at ourselves now. We need to look at our institutions. We need to look at our organisations and what are we doing that is either perpetuating that or is creating a different problem.

MG: Archbishop, how do you assure Catholics like her that this time is different, that the actions being taken to reconcile with Indigenous people in Canada are genuine?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: Well, I can speak, you know, for the Archdiocese of Vancouver. And they I must say that the parishioner sort of showed very acute judgement on what has to happen now. And we are certainly in the archdiocese, we have many programmes of outreach working with and under the direction of First Nations people. I think it's slow. It's it's not going to be that we can do one thing that everyone is going to say, yes, I think it's a long process that we were in the residential school system, so to speak, for a long time. It's going to take a long time for us to emerge from it. But we take the direction from the First Nations people involved. Immediately in this situation for the Kamloops Indian Residential School, we've certainly offered support, mental health support and counselling for family members and others who have lost a loved one. We've also offered technological and professional support to the nation and all those affected to help them or to assist them really in the way that they choose to honour and retrieve and remember their deceased children. And we've pledged to do this in all residential schools that lie within the historic boundaries of the Archdiocese of Vancouver. We're taking little steps and we're certainly working with First Nations people to to be reconciled, to emerge slowly but surely from a pretty horrendous past.

MG: What are the big steps that you think you could take?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I think the big steps are simply listening to Indigenous people, hearing, hearing what they have to say, honouring their cultures and tradition, being far more attentive in sort of every day. And for us pastoral outreach to the First Nations people, a lot of it has to do with listening and taking our cue from them.

MG: There are many indigenous people in Canada who are, in spite of all of the still closely tied with the Catholic Church.

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: And indeed there are. And that's also true in the archdiocese of Vancouver.

MG: What do you say to them?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: Well, I think we've tried to say the same things. We're sorry for the past. We support you. Now, for example, one of the things that we're doing, our First Nations counsel is looking at the liturgical practises in the churches that have First Nations roots and residence and how we can incorporate those practises into the liturgy, into our celebrations of the mass and other celebrations in a way that they tell us would be appropriate. That's a very kind of concrete way of honouring and I think respecting the the profound spiritual traditions that arise within First Nations communities.

MG: Let me ask you personally about this. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond Aki Kwe, when she was on this programme, also pointed out that the mission of the Oblates in particular was the burning zeal for the salvation of souls. And she says that they pursued that in incredibly brutal fashion by taking, as the phrase is, the Indian out of the child and leaving generations of trauma. And she told stories of children and memorial records that were just given numbers. Indian girl 237. And we had survivors on this programme last week talking about what they went through at this school, the physical abuse, the sexual abuse, the psychological abuse that has that has continued for decades now. I mean, as somebody who has dedicated your life to this church, where does that leave you? And how do you reconcile what has happened in the name of the church in these instances with that church that you have dedicated yourself to?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: Right. What I can certainly say without any qualification is that those practises were simply wrong. And when things are wrong, even evil, that we express remorse. There's no defending practises of cultural, psychological and emotional or sexual abuse. I do not want to defend those practises, but my understanding of the church is certainly larger than evil that is perpetrated by specific individuals.

MG: What have you reflected on in the last week or so?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: Well, it's caused me to reflect on not just how did these things happen. It's really pushed me to think more. What can we what are the little steps? And then looking to the big steps that we can carry forward. How do we honour, how do we revere, how do we ensure that such a thing will never happen again with regard to First Nations people, but also other people in our society, other groups? I think it's just sort of heightened the awareness of, you know, the need to honour and to treasure the human dignity of each and every person and his or her culture.

MG: Just finally, we talk a lot about reconciliation in this country, and you need truth to get to reconciliation. We are learning more about the truth, certainly in the last week or so. What is reconciliation, true reconciliation look like to you?

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: I think true reconciliation will be when we can be with one another, remembering our painful past, certainly from my point of view, and are able to to move ahead in common projects, looking to the future, knowing that there is pay, if there are painful memories, that even forgiveness in a certain sense plays a part of that reconciliation will be when when together we can move forward without rancour, with true repentance, with mercy. That to me, would be a setting for for reconciliation, never forgetting. I don't believe we can erase or forget the past, but we must stop. We must also think that we can move to a future that we're not simply chained to the past. The past conditions us, but it doesn't determine us.

MG: Archbishop, I'm glad to have the chance to speak with you this morning. Thank you very much.

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: Thank you very much, Matt.

MG: Take care of yourself.

ARCHBISHOP MICHAEL MILLER: You too. God bless.

MG: Michael Miller is the archbishop of Vancouver. For anyone experiencing pain or distress because of a residential school experience, you can call the Indian Residential Schools crisis line. It's available 24 hours a day and the number is 1 866 925 4419. Well, coming up later this week on the programme on Thursday, we have a special show. It is that time of the year, as you know, and students are graduating from high school and from colleges and universities. And since conversations have been scaled back, we're paying tribute with our own ceremony for indigenous students, graduating now is especially meaningful. Mick Favel is receiving a journalism degree from the First Nation's University of Canada and the University of Regina.

SOUNDCLIP

I'm the first generation of my family not to go to residential school. You know, I just took a residential school class and I learnt a lot of history about, you know, what they- what happened, how it was formed in all these all the players involved. But, you know, I also had to take a look at my personal history. And, you know, that was kind of my way of dealing with all of this stuff that's happening right now.

MG: On Thursday, I hear more from Mick and other students, our special guests, and we'll honour the class of twenty, twenty one in style. That's coming up on Thursday on The Current. Coming up after your regional update, a sticky situation in Major League Baseball, one that has led to strikeouts galore in the big leagues. We'll talk about that in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Tuesday June 8, 2021 Transcript

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