Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2022

The Current Transcript for February 10, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

All right, what is it, what are they going to eat? Should I put the chicken nuggets now? Am I going to leave them in the toaster oven? Are they going to burn because I'm busy doing this work over here? It's you laugh or cry, right?

MATT GALLOWAY: This pandemic has been hard on all of us working from home, juggling jobs with kids who might be learning remotely. It's a lot, especially for single parents. This morning, as part of our Work in Progress series, we look at how single mothers are making it all work or not. That's coming up in 30 minutes. Also this morning. For years, scientists have been trying to harness the extraordinary power of nuclear fusion, the promise and almost limitless supply of low carbon energy in an hour, while European scientists say they have had a major breakthrough. And what this might mean for the climate crisis? Plus.

SOUNDCLIP

Postie is is like a walking party, you know, he just brings out everywhere he goes, whether it's a hotel lobby, a long term care home or somebody's home. He brings that beautiful energy.

MG: Postie Connolly loves the power of live music, and for years he's been bringing it to seniors in long term care homes. Coming up how the P.E.I. musician is keeping the singalong going in the time of COVID. We start, though, with our National Affairs Panel on political leadership as protests and border blockades drag on. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

The political fallout of the anti-mandate protests

Guests: Paul Wells, Allison Smith, Kelly Cryderman

SOUNDCLIP

Our country is divided, our country is tired and they need leadership. So again, I'm going to ask the prime minister. His senior Liberal MP said that there is a strategic decision made on that side to stigmatise and these are not my words stigmatise, divide and wedge. This is what the prime minister did. Why is it needed for this pandemic? And what this government has provided has been responsible leadership that put the health and safety of Canadians first and foremost. That's exactly what we did. That's exactly what we talked about in the last election campaign. That's exactly what we're going to continue to do in following the science.

MG: Those were interim conservative leader Candice Bergen and the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaking yesterday in Parliament. And as she pointed out, it's not just the official opposition putting pressure on the government. This week, two Liberal MPs publicly criticised their own party's COVID 19 response, calling it politicised and divisive. Our national affairs panel is here to talk about the pandemic, the protests and the politics. Paul Wells is a senior writer for Maclean's magazine. He's in Ottawa. Allison Smith, publisher of Queen's Park Today and Alberta Today. She's in Toronto. And Kelly Cryderman is a reporter at the Globe and Mail Calgary Bureau. Good morning, everyone.

GUESTS: Good morning.

MG: Good morning. Paul, we just heard that exchange from the house yesterday. This morning. There is no movement at the Ambassador Bridge, the Cootes border crossing or in Ottawa. How much pressure is the prime minister under to resolve these issues?

PAUL WELLS: I mean, it's brutal pressure. He's not wrong that the people mounting these protests represent a tiny minority even of the population of truckers in Canada, but they are enough to tie up a significant part of our border traffic and to shut down the centre of the capital city. And he seems at a loss for what to do with it. One assumes that almost all of his day is preoccupied with this. But what we're seeing is very little of the prime minister we we just got his itinerary for the day. His only public event for the day, at least the only one they've announced is 45 minutes in question, period, yelling back and forth with the opposition. There's four, you know, nearly two solid weeks. Justin Trudeau has been locked behind closed doors and for a period at the beginning of this mess, he had actually moved out of Ottawa to go to work at his country home in Harrington Lake. And all the ones, including a lot of auto ones I know who would normally support the Liberal Party, are also at a loss because they don't know where their prime minister is.

MG: A lot of people are wondering, Allison Smith, where the premier of Ontario is the Ambassador Bridge protest is affecting people's livelihoods, especially in the automotive sector. Ford Motors have shifts at its Oakville Plant Stellantis and 5000 workers home from its Windsor facility. Toyota says that its plants in Ontario won't be producing vehicles for the rest of the week. Where's the premier being on this?

ALLISON SMITH: I saw yesterday was a really big dissonance between what was going on on the ground, especially the Ambassador Bridge, with these plants, you know, announcing they were closing because their parts and supplies are stuck in Michigan. And what politicians at Queen's Park spent the day doing, you know, ministers of the Crown were announcing funding for the horse racing sector and rapid tests at Walmart. We haven't heard Premier Doug Ford speak about this really at all. He's had some tweets and, you know, a statement or two from his office. But I think you know where the while he's not battling, you know, with Justin Trudeau or throwing kind of partisan jabs in relation to this, he says they're working together. But where it does remain political is that Doug Ford's advisers have decided at some point last summer that that the public likes him more and is more likely to vote for Ford in the June election, the less they have to see government messaging coming out of his mouth. And the fact that crisis isn't an exception of that or exception to that is telling to me.

MG: Kelly Cryderman, let's talk about what's happening in Alberta. What's been the response from the protesters who remain at the Cootes border crossing in light of Alberta, easing its pandemic restrictions?

KELLY CRYDERMAN: The reaction has been to carry on and actually double down on the protests, but the protest at Cootes has been going on for about 13 days now, on and off and on. Some traffic has been able to flow after Jason Kenney, the premier of Alberta, made his announcement that Alberta would be lifting its proof of vaccine programme almost immediately be lifting the mask mandate for children next week. That there was a discussion and they decided that wasn't good enough and that they would continue protesting until all mandates, both federal and provincial are lifted. And and that was surprising in some ways to some people, because the focus of the protests and coup with the organisers that I've spoken to and the people who have been speaking to the organisers on the ground. Their focus has really become recently, maybe because of just proximity, the provincial health restrictions. Obviously, they have been inspired by. The protests in Ottawa were inspired by the protests in Ottawa in an hour against all health restrictions. But there's a lot of. Politics specific to Alberta that is going on, including Jason Kenney being an unpopular leader and facing a lot of dissent from within his own caucus.

MG: Does that speak to the urgency that you've seen, not just in Alberta, also in Saskatchewan, when it comes to accelerating the lifting of public health measures?

KELLY CRYDERMAN: You know, I think it's not surprising that conservative governments on the Prairies would be amongst the first to be lifting any kind of health mandates right now. And you know, Jason Kenney, when he speaks about faith in the US, even blue states in the US lifting mask mandate, there is something to that. And you know, when he does speak of polling that shows there's increasing impatience with health mandates, where it gets lost is when he announces that Alberta is proof of vaccine programme will be lifted mere hours after he makes the announcement, which seems like a bit of theatrics to me. Also, you know, since he has made the announcement. He has got into a social media war with the teachers union, who has expressed concern about some of the mask mandate. And it starts to feel less about him being on the leading edge of public health and more about politics again. And you know, there is, you know, the opposition NDP certainly makes the direct accusation that he is being moved by the protests into by the anti vaccine parts of his caucus, which he of course, strenuously denied.

MG: Paul Wells Most of these mandates are provincial. If you're talking about vaccine passports, if you're talking about mask mandates, if you're talking about capacity limits as you understand it, why aren't those who are protesting saying they want to speak with the premiers? Why are they focussing their their fury on the prime minister?

PAUL WELLS: I mean, to some extent, it's a reflection of the same urban rural East-West divides that had in much less spectacular fashion tested our federation really since time immemorial. But but very much since the re-election of the Trudeau government with a minority in 2019, you start to suspect that this isn't so much about the border mandate for truckers, which is very much a federal jurisdiction, as that the border mandate for truckers is a pretext to port all this other stuff up to the federal level so they can have the fight with Trudeau that they want. Nobody watching Fox News in Colorado knows who Doug Ford is. But they've heard of Justin Trudeau, and they know he's he's on the other side. And since this whole mess is being at a minimum, cheered on by the populist conservative right in the United States and clearly to some extent financed by it and perhaps even getting organisational muscle from the American Conservative, right? It's really handy to have this be an Ottawa fight and not a not a series of regional fights with mostly conservative premiers.

MG: Allison Smith, do you think people care who is responsible for what? Don't they just want things solved when it comes to whether it's the blockades that are underway right now or trying to figure out a way forward in dealing with the pandemic at this stage?

ALLISON SMITH: I mean, if you hear from political leaders, they don't even seem to know whose problem this is to solve. As recently as yesterday, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told reporters it's Ontario's job to clear up the protest or of the protests at the Ambassador Bridge because the province has jurisdiction over the Highway Traffic Act. And you know, that just sort of surprised me because when you're talking about sort of the level of organisation and funding and bitcoin and all of this, you know, really kind of unprecedented stuff that's going on with these blockades. And, you know, the minister that's in charge of emergencies is talking about the Highway Traffic Act. It really doesn't feel like they're reacting to the scope of the problem. And I think you heard some of that from Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson a few times. You know, he's been asking for help from the province, from the from the federal government, and a lot of attention was paid to him asking the conversation about how many OPP officers are going to Ottawa, how many RCMP officers, that sort of thing. I thought something interesting that he wrote to to Premier Doug Ford on Monday. He said what the city really needs is cyber investigation capacity, social media, forensics capacity, financial forensics capacity. And I think, you know, when those words are being thrown around and the organisers are saying yesterday they have a bitcoin team lead who is facilitating cryptocurrency transfers from all over the world, it really just doesn't seem like these are the type of problems the city of Ottawa is equipped to handle or the province of Ontario. And I think people might be questioning whether the government of Canada is equipped to handle them right now, either.

MG: Kelly are people questioning whether Jason Kenney is equipped to handle what's happening on his southern border?

KELLY CRYDERMAN: Yes, I think and you know, I think that goes for both levels of government right now. And, you know, the same problems that have played out in Ottawa have played out and put in that no RCMP talk about the logistics of actually removing trucks right now and of course, tow truck companies that are not interested in participating because they're worried about losing business down the line. And, you know, I think it speaks to law enforcement and government. It's certainly been surprised by how rooted these protests and how how long lasting they'll be. And you know, I see that surprise and, you know, bit of flat footedness playing out in Ottawa and Alberta right now and the lines that the Alberta government is using has used since the beginning that it is up to law enforcement at their discretion to lay charges. It's the same kind of language being used at the Ambassador Bridge right now as well when it comes to politicians saying it's up to law enforcement to make the decision. Where we hear law enforcement saying, sometimes overtly, that they're going to need help beyond what they're current capacity right now, chief of

MG: police in Ottawa saying that he doesn't think there's a policing solution to this, for example.

KELLY CRYDERMAN: Yeah, yeah. He said that a week ago, Paul

MG: Justin Trudeau has faced criticism from the Conservatives when it comes to how he's handled the pandemic broadly, but this moment in the pandemic. But he's also now dealing with two of his own MPs. You said that the comments by Joel Lightbound and now you've Roby are are the most senior threat and serious threat that Trudeau's leadership of the party has faced since Jane Philpott left. What do you mean by that?

PAUL WELLS: Well, as my colleague Terry Glavin has pointed out on Twitter, that could be taken. I mean, it's just about the only threat to his leadership. [unintelligible]. But this is a horse of a different colour. The Liberals are good at circling the wagons and shooting out word and identifying any disagreement as essentially poor citizenship. So it's a different thing when two MPs leave Town and Robillard a day apart, both say. Not only that, the government's choices on this particular crisis are flawed, but that it's it's it's manner of governing is petty and divisive. And that's why. And Rovian art is less well known. He has a clearer grudge. He was punished already for travelling over the holidays. Joel Lightboundis a star pupil. He has been parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance, which is normally. A path to a cabinet post. He was until the beginning of the week. Chair of the Quebec caucus, which is a big and important caucus in this government. He's been absolutely a team player and what he said validates all of the criticisms that the official opposition has been putting out.

MG: He also suggested that perhaps there were other employees who shared his his beliefs. Do you think there are other M.P.s? Is this just a hint of dissent within the caucus?

PAUL WELLS: So I can guarantee you there are many other employees who think what he said. I would honestly be surprised if more said, because the Liberals do have just enormous caucus solidarity. You know, I deal more often with staffers and former staffers. I'm the sort of stuff to do a light, Brown said. It's not unanimous, but that's that is a widely shared view of how this government handles debate and and and policy.

MG: Kelly Cryderman and how did those sorts of comments resonate in western Canada?

KELLY CRYDERMAN: And in terms of?

MG: The terms of the divisiveness in terms of suggesting that that the liberals handling of this has been divisive.

KELLY CRYDERMAN: Yeah. You know, I do think there was a reasoned argument. Of course, you could disagree with it from the former conservative leader Erin O'Toole and people like Jason Kenney that the the trucker's mandate, for instance, was ill timed and unnecessarily heavy handed. When you have a group of workers that is already 90 percent vaccinated, I know the US was doing it, but there is certainly that room for debate and and to have it have any discussion of any vaccine mandate only being a good thing, I think that has been long a concern amongst conservatives, certainly conservatives in the West. And what are what I'm hearing from the many MLAs I talked to who have always been unhappy with any kind of health mandate is in the last two or three weeks. The momentum has really changed in terms of people calling, writing letter from MLA told me they have never heard from people enough, saying they want some kind of back to normal because hey, even if you're vaccinated, you can get COVID. And it's just ridiculous at this point to still have the health restrictions. And they say the number of calls and emails and texts they're getting on that front has just gone up in a way that they've never seen.

MG: Allison. In the face of that, Doug Ford has held the line for the most part on his pandemic reopening plan. Things have not been accelerated in the province of Ontario.

ALLISON SMITH: Yeah, exactly. And Health Minister Christine Elliott said yesterday that they're not going to be they're not going to drop the vaccine passport any sooner than expected. And, you know, maybe the experience of what happened to Premier Jason Kenney this week, you know, maybe that was a trial balloon for other other provincial governments. You know, what's the point of kowtowing to these protesters if they're not going to stand down when you give them what they ostensibly want? So, you know, things seem like they're going to they're going to stay status quo here in Ontario or, you know, slowly wind down over the next few months. I think Doug Ford's main goal is to have no public health restrictions, no mask mandate when when the province and the people of Ontario head to the polls in June, we'll see whether you know that is possible in the face of COVID and how much of a wrench this blockade situation throws into those plans or, you know, government's plans generally.

MG: It's great to speak with you all about this. We will be watching to see whether those leaders are more visible in the face of these protests and where this goes from here. In the meantime, thanks everyone this morning.

GUESTS: Thank you. Thanks. Thank you.

MG: Paul Wells, senior writer for Maclean's magazine in Ottawa Allison Smith, publisher of Queen's Park Today and co-host of Canada Lands WAG The Dog podcast, as she was in Toronto. Kelly Cryderman is a columnist at The Globe and Mail's Calgary Bureau. Your CBC News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

At the beginning, I would have to send it to my mom's house. She'll stay there for weeks. I'll get it for the weekend because I couldn't. I couldn't miss work.

MG: Single parents are making some really tough choices. During the pandemic laid off lockdown, schools and daycares shut in six minutes. We'll hear about weathering COVID 19 as a single mom. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. Much more to come. Stay with us.

Back To Top »

What working single parents faced in the pandemic

Guests: Melissa Gorecki, Ramona Gnanapragasam, Kelley

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come this week, a British lab announced it successfully created for about five seconds a mini star. Those five seconds are being called a breakthrough in the field of nuclear fusion. More on the high hopes and big obstacles for fusion in just under 30 minutes, but first to the pandemic through the eyes of single parents.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Hi, baby. Here's a cheese-string for you. Yes, and your bottle.

MG: Getting her boys settled in.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: OK, Ari, I'm going to put cocomelon on for Kai. I'm going to be with my client. OK? You can keep an eye on your brother.

CHILD 1: Yeah.

VOICE 1: OK, thank you. Love you.

CHILD 1: Love you.

MG: Melissa Gorecki is getting ready for work.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Hey, how are you?

VOICE 2: Good, how are you?

VOICE 1: Good. Go ahead. Sorry about the mess, as usual.

VOICE 2: No worries.

VOICE 1: Come on.

VOICE 2: Oh.

VOICE 1: Oh, I know he's walking actually now.

VOICE 2: Hi.

VOICE 1: I know.

MG: I know. Balancing her at home beauty business with being a mom to two young children has become much more difficult during this pandemic today as part of our Work in Progress series. We continue with a look at how single mothers are managing through COVID 19. Katherine Scott is a senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

SOUNDCLIP

Single Mothers has been one of the groups that have been most impacted by the pandemic in a myriad of ways. Single mothers, as a group, experience wide and large scale losses when the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020. There was a precipitous drop in employment and hours of employment, and while most other groups started to rebound by the fall of 2020. Single moms, particularly those with young kids under six, have struggled ever since. Even the latest labour force data in two years in almost in December, single mothers with young kids thirty six percent fewer hours. So that's an extraordinary number of women and thousands and thousands of single moms who are still working without employment or working much reduced hours.

MG: I'm joined now by three people who are living that experience every single day. Melissa Gorecki we just heard from She's on the line from her home in Brampton, Ontario, where she runs an eyelash extension business. Ramona Gnanapragasam works as a personal support worker in Toronto and is a single mother of two. Children and a woman were calling Kelley, who does not want to be identified to protect her child's privacy. She works in project management and is a single mother in Edmonton. Good morning, everyone.

GUESTS: Good morning. Morning.

MG: Melissa, you have a lot going on. We just heard what life is like for you. How difficult is it trying to keep your business going in the midst of all of this?

MELISSA GORECKI: Yeah, it's been really chaotic. I don't really have any other words for it. It's it's been almost impossible to manage. You know, I feel like I've been pulled in way too many different directions more than usual. It's been really hard.

MG: What is the various levels of lockdown meant to that, that chaos, as you describe it, because it's not as though it's been a consistent thing. The things keep changing sort of week by week, month by month. What does that meant?

MELISSA GORECKI: Yeah, exactly. You know, even actually I'm in Ontario will have provincial lockdowns. But then again, when the provincial lockdowns end, we even have a regional lockdown. I'm in Brampton, which was a hotspot, and there was workplace lockdowns or restrictions and then personal services. And we were one of the last to open. And when restrictions were eased up, there was times when we would get the word that we were ready to open up again. And you start filling up your your books and taking appointments and getting everything ready and situating child care if needed. And then the following week we get lockdown again, and it was just a big mess.

MG: Ramona, tell us what you've been through your W now, but what was your work at the start of this pandemic.

RAMONA GNANAPRAGASAM: The start during the start of the pandemic, I was working at a retirement home. I was also doing a retail job and it was very hard at first because mean scheduling because it was so early on to the pandemic and I worked in the retirement. But the retirement home setting, it was very different because how do I juggle the kids, right? Do I work? What if I get COVID? It was so early on that nobody knew what, about virus potential is. But childcare was closed up until late August. At that time, I was, I only had one daughter, so at the beginning I would have to send it to my mom's house. She'll stay there for weeks. I'll get her for the weekend because I couldn't. I couldn't miss work.

MG: You mentioned that that you had just one daughter at the beginning of this and then you had a second baby during the pandemic.

RAMONA GNANAPRAGASAM: During the pandemic.

MG: Congratulations.

RAMONA GNANAPRAGASAM: Thank you.

MG: I mean, it's great, but it's also it's more in the midst of a difficult time.

RAMONA GNANAPRAGASAM: Exactly so after when he came. So he was born in 2021 in March. And it was also tricky because at that time, I also went into school, but juggling two kids back and forth, online learning, also working just early on, just before I went on maternity leave, it was just a lot of back and forth, especially being pregnant and dealing with the lockdowns made. It's a lot difficult.

MG: I want to talk more about how you managed to find space for all of that because it's a lot, but Kelley, tell me about your situation. What was happening with your work when the pandemic hit?

KELLEY: Yeah. So for me, I was working a full time administrative job as well as a part time retail job. And so when March 2020 hit, I was laid off of my retail job and then a couple of days later, I was laid off from my other job via email without any sort of notice. And so all of a sudden I was left with no income. Living in a jurisdiction that has an incredibly high cost of living and being the sole income earner. And so it was before anything had really kicked in with CERB or, you know, no one really knew what was going on. So, I kind of panicked and I thought, you know, I can't pay my rent, I can't pay my bills. So I, fortunately, there was a job that was available not too far away in an industrial setting. And so within a week and a half of being laid off of both of my jobs, I sort of jumped into this. This new role, each day was a way for long days, you know, that we're really quite physically exhausted. But you know, I felt I had no other choice. And in doing that, I was leaving my 10 year old son alone at home every day, and it was up to him to make sure he was getting the food he needed. Of course, I left things out and made things easy for him, but he was left to do that. He was left to figure out online schooling. And just to add to that, our apartments went on lockdown. And so essentially no one could could come in to support. That first bit was was really tricky because I would come home really exhausted and then have hours of homework to do with my son, you know, and he was feeling frustrated and he didn't know how to cope, understandably. And yeah, it was a tricky situation.

MG: Melissa, we heard at the beginning just what it was like in your house trying to work, but also trying to figure out how to keep the kids entertained being. In business, in your own home, how challenging was it to to make sure that you were still able to take on clients, but also make sure that the kids didn't feel as though they were, they were just being left alone?

MELISSA GORECKI: Oh yeah. So, you know, I was actually pregnant in 2020 with my second as well. So the baby was born in September 2020 and my son started JK at the same time. And very quickly went into school lockdowns. So, you know, I'm trying to juggle like if I can take one or two clients and breastfeeding. I'm trying to help my son with his first year in school. It was really hard and a lot of my clients, like I've been in the industry for eight years and a lot of my clients were very supportive and understanding, and I set them up with other less techs nearby to try to tell them, like, Listen, I don't know what I'm going to be available. It's going to be very erratic. So if you would like to transition to somebody else, these are my referrals. And some people stayed and just kind of went with the flow with me, which was amazing, but it was just kind of enough to get by. When I did have clients, you know, I would try to you have to plan ahead. It was with two children, even just one you have to pretend like, OK, are what is what are they going to eat? Should I put the chicken nuggets now? And what time are they going to leave them in the toaster oven? Or are they going to burn because I'm busy doing this work over here? It was. It's it's a lot balls in the air.

MG: You can laugh, but you can laugh about it now. But I mean, it just sounds like, as you said, it's more than juggling.

MELISSA GORECKI: Yeah, you laugh or cry, right?

MG: Ramona is your sense. I mean, you were doing a lot of juggling as well is your sense that employers understand the circumstances that you were in as a single mom?

RAMONA GNANAPRAGASAM: It was hard at first. They were where I always gave them a heads up like we will come up with a schedule plan that works best for both of us, depending on which, like which employer. But they were pretty much understanding as long as we became 50-50 and what the needs are for both ends. It's a risk because some employers don't want to hear that right. It's just excuses. So we worry, yeah, you're OK with it. But if what if, what if they find a replacement because they can't keep up with what they promised me, or I'm not able to make my 35 to 40 hours per week just to get, you know, put food on the table so you never know. And especially they're not full time jobs. They're part time. So you're literally gambling with their trust or like everyone's replaceable, right?

MG: Kelley, you talked about what you were trying to work out for your 10 year old son and the concerns you had around leaving him alone. Tell me more about that and the impact that that had on him.

KELLEY: Yeah, I mean, it's, in the moment you make the decisions that you think are the best, you know, for me it was it seemed like survival for the family. It's like, OK, I need to do whatever I can to bring in money to pay for rent and the bills and food and all that. But I did that for a couple of months, but over those couple months, my son's mental health was seriously went downhill because, you know, understandably. A 10 year old is left home alone with a lot of responsibilities that even as adults, we have a hard time managing keeping ourselves fed, keeping up with whatever work we may need to do during the day. And he was alone totally during the day.

MG: What did you notice in him in terms of changes?

KELLEY: His moods. You know, he had a lot of mood swings. He seemed down a lot more. He just couldn't keep up with school during the day. It was frustrating. This specific teacher wasn't that supportive, and I was also getting pressure from them as well to kind of make him engage more. And you know, that was a little tricky to navigate. You know, but it was after a couple of months that I was at work and I got a test, a text from him saying like, I can't do this anymore. You know, he shared that he was feeling suicidal and it's like, Oh, my goodness. Holy crap. You know, as a mom trying to, trying to survive it and, you know, make your family survive in one way. It really is that, in fact you had to change your tack. I've never been in a position like that very much. Work. Put your nose to the grindstone and make things happen. And it was a huge, difficult moment for me to kind of be like actually doing that, you know, working hard and fighting for what I thought the family was in one way was actually, I had to give up and surrender and just say, like, I can't keep working because, you know, actually fighting for us as a family is letting go.

MG: It's really hard. I mean, it almost feels like it's out of your control in some ways.

KELLEY: Yeah. And you know, it's like, Gosh, I got this midday. And it's kind of like, what? What do I do, you know? And so fortunately, I got permission from the apartment to let someone come in to support him for a couple of days that it took me to quit my job and totally commit to staying at home and just hope and trust that whatever was coming in through various supports would be enough.

MG: How's he doing now?

KELLEY: He's doing really good.

MG: Great.

KELLEY: Yeah, he's doing really good.

MG: Ramona, I mentioned that that you went back to school. Tell me about that and what was in that decision to go and and retrain yourself and go on a new adventure when it came to work?

RAMONA GNANAPRAGASAM: So I was always working in the retirement home or elderly care setting before maternity, I worked at a retirement home and I was just a dining room server, so I had the choice of just being a part of you at that time when the Ford government announced that they were going to do this surge of hiring and training [unintelliglbe]. I took advantage of that. It's a good time that I actually go back to school, and it's been so long since I graduated high school and it worked out and it took me a very long time to get into the programme. I've tried everywhere in the GTA, but I managed to get into a school up in Ste. Sault Marie and it was about a six month programme. I actually just finished it and it was hard at first because my son Kawai, he was born again in March. The programme started me, so he went- I was able to get him a spot in day-care and I was able to put him in right away. So he's been in there for a very long time. But just the motivation of me being in the BPA studies skills just because I already had that background and can only be working in retail doesn't pay the bills.

MG: What about for you, Melissa? Again, if you're sending clients somewhere else because it's difficult to juggle everything, all at the same time that has an impact on your finances as well.

MELISSA GORECKI: Yeah, dramatically. You know, before the pandemic, I was doing really well. I had paid off a lot of my debts, if not most. I was getting ready to buy a house. And then when the first lockdowns happened in March 2020, I started having to dip into savings, going into debt, maxing out credit cards. Before the pandemic, I was. You're seeing five to eight clients a day on average, and for the past two years it's been zero three. You know, I try to walk off time, maybe for dinner, at least with the kids, just to face time with them. And then I put them to bed and I'm assuming the clients at 8:30 at night just to try to fit somebody in so that I can keep up with my what I need very minimum, you know.

MG: Given the experience that you've described and I'll start with you. Melissa, what would you want politicians to know about your lived experience when they talk about helping people recover from this economically? When we get out of this, what do they need to know?

MELISSA GORECKI: Well, I would say probably two things like I'm really big on mental health and you guys are discussing a little bit earlier, but you know, people say you're doing so good, you're such a good mom. We're getting through this, but we're really not. And the children are still impacted by this and we're still trying to keep them above water. And while we're still barely holding on to light jacket as well, and I feel like there needs to be some mental health support, you know, I was eligible for therapy during my when I was pregnant and it's it's covered until you're six months postpartum. But that ended, I think especially with the pandemic, like they should have had some kind of additional support before you get to a crisis. I mean, there was emergency essential worker camps for children of from parents that worked in an essential field for child care. Yes, but single parents and guardians like we didn't have any of that. I tell people like, Yeah, I'm doing the best I can, but I don't really have a choice, and it was really hard to see my 5-year-old depressed. You know, he's drawing faces on balloons because he didn't have a friend, you know, and no access to family or friends or anything. It was really hard. And it's still hard. We definitely needed and still need, I think the supports come out of that. It's going to take years to recover from it. Also, of course, as a single parent, you're kind of working, you know, two incomes, right? You're trying, you're making up for the other income, especially over here in the GTA. It's high cost of living, and the CRB just was barely enough to cover the bare minimum. And you, I feel like there should have been some more attention to specific scenarios.

MG: What about for you, Kelley? What would you want politicians to understand about what what you have been through in terms of the decisions they make going forward?

KELLEY: For me and this this doesn't relate to the job that I worked when I got laid off immediately, but after I got recalled and was working in a job that was incredibly toxic in consulting people, they would say Yes, that is wrong or that what is happening is illegal. But it was up to me as an individual to then hire a lawyer and pursue action. But as a single mom, you know, that would take a lot of time and money and. And so for me, some, I would encourage them to look at some of the employment acts with the lens for single moms, for people who are in a position to hire a lawyer and go up against big companies, you know, especially if they're not represented by a union, you're kind of on your own.

MG: Ramona, do you think people in charge have paid enough attention to how hard this pandemic has been on Single Moms?

RAMONA GNANAPRAGASAM: I want to say no. It usually opted towards families, families, those families that sort of families, but single parent families are not really accounted for. So, yeah, no, they haven't done much for us, single moms.

MG: You've all been very generous in sharing your stories. And I wondered just before I let you go briefly, if there's a word that you have for each other, you have shared experiences and similar experiences in different parts of this country. Ramona, what would you say to Kelley and Melissa.

RAMONA GNANAPRAGASAM: That you're never alone. I'm always here. You can always reach out to me. I'm always open to find new friends and just finding support. And for all mothers out there, especially and for all mothers and your health as well as my mental health is not at top tier level. It's going to affect my children and the way I can show love so they can be happy if that makes sense. And we, as mothers need to stick together, support one another, no matter what it is, and never let yourself go. I know it gets crazy, but we always pull through.

MG: Kelley, a word to Ramona and Melissa.

KELLEY: Yeah, I think all I can think of is that our children are watching us and they're seeing us go through incredibly difficult times. But they are seeing us come out of it in a way that. I think will encourage them as humans to fight and to be creative in solutions and to try and be a little bit more open to different ways of being. And I think that's a really great strength and for our kids to see us fighting for ourselves and for our kids, to see us fighting for our families as well. I think we'll just create stronger bonds in amongst us in the future to come.

MG: Melissa, what would you say to the other single moms on the line and who are listening?

MELISSA GORECKI: One of the biggest struggles for me during the last two years of. Having people that relate to my situation, a lot of my friends are married or they have a lot of family support, and so it's really nice to hear that there are these stories that there's people that relate. It's like you sound like you're never alone. There's people that are going through it to make you feel heard because 90 percent and nine percent of the time you're not. And so, yeah, I just hope I hope everything gets OK soon. I hope that comes in for us.

MG: It's really important to hear from all of you, and I'm grateful that you would be willing to share the experiences that you've been through. Thanks so much and take good care.

MELISSA GORECKI: Thank you.

KELLEY: Thank you. Bye bye.

MG: Three single moms Melissa Gorecki, Ramona Gnanapragasam and a woman were calling Kelly to protect her child's privacy. They are part of a bigger story in this pandemic. The losses that working women have faced working women have been laid off in greater numbers faced a bigger burden when it comes to juggling work and kids, and in some cases they've been forced out of the workforce altogether. Next week on our series Work in progress, we'll dig deeper into what it will take from governments and employers to recoup some of those losses and to achieve what the federal government has promised, which is a feminist economic recovery. In the meantime, we'd love to hear from you on this if those stories sound familiar. In terms of the toll that this pandemic has taken on you, your family and your career, get in touch. You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca or send us a tweet @TheCurrentCBC. Well, coming up after your regional update, scientists in the UK created just about enough energy to boil 60 kettles of water this week. If that sounds a little underwhelming, it isn't because of how they made that energy in 90 seconds. More on the breakthrough that people are saying happened in nuclear fusion. We'll also head to P.E.I. and sing along with Posty Connolly, who's bringing music to seniors even if he can't be with them in person. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current. Stay with us.

Back To Top »

Scientists hail a step forward in harnessing nuclear fusion

Guest: Dennis Whyte

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

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Explosion]

MG: It's not your radio acting up. The signal is fine. You're listening to nuclear fusion. The thing that powers the sun and the moon shot that could one day provide limitless clean energy. This week, scientists at the Joint European Tourist Lab announced a breakthrough. They created a mini star that burned for about five seconds, creating nuclear fusion a huge step forward. They're saying in that field. Dennis Whyte is the director of Plasma Science and Fusion Centre at MIT in Boston. Dennis. Good morning.

DENNIS WHYTE: Good morning.

MG: This has been kind of like a holy grail when it comes to power generation for a long time. The joke is that that fusion is just 30 years away, but people have been saying that for 30 years. We'll talk about what these scientists did, but why do you think this is being framed as such a step forward?

DENNIS WHYTE: Right. So what the scientists did was recreate the conditions, which are very similar to those that occur in the centre of stars and our own sun. And when you achieve these very high temperatures, the hydrogen fuel which is contained within it, start to produce fusion reactions. And this produces energy. And of course, this has been, as you stated, the holy grail of the idea of this is to bring the power of the stars down to Earth and to be able to recreate those conditions in such a way that it makes a significant amount of energy. And so what our colleagues at the jet lab produced was a very exciting more than doubling of the previous record for energy output from from fusion reactions. So this is why we're excited.

MG: So walk us through in language that we can understand what was happening in the machine that would produce that energy.

DENNIS WHYTE: Right. So we cannot directly recreate the conditions of a star because it takes something as large as a star. So on Earth. What we do is we create a containment system made with very strong magnetic fields. It's in the shape of a doughnut for four science reasons. So we create this magnetic cage, if you like, isolated from the the plasma fuel away from any terrestrial contact or heat it. And then the fusion reactions start to occur. And what the scientists did here in particular, was they were able to sustain those conditions for on the order of five to six seconds. And they were producing large amounts of fusion energy such that it was a record year, 60 million jewels of energy was created in around five to six seconds.

MG: That is enough, we're told, to boil a 60 kettles of water. It may not sound like a lot, but why is that a big deal?

DENNIS WHYTE: Yes. So the total amount of energy at this point is still, you know, not enough to obviously operate a standard commercial power plant. What was special about this is, of course, the fact that it was being done from fusion reactions and in the end, fusion is an energy source. So the more energy that you produce, the more viable it is becoming that it also has to do with the fact of how much how much energy was being produced per unit time, which is the power. And the fact that this was at around 10 million watts of power means that this is getting closer to the scales that you would imagine for a commercial uses of fusion, for example, that was directly converted into electricity that would be enough for about 10000 people. So you can see what that's significant.

MG: So in some ways, this is proof of concept.

DENNIS WHYTE: Yes. And so we've had our handle for for a while on the physical conditions needed and the science of what would make fusion reactions occur. Because also, the exciting thing about what's happened to the jet was that their improvement on the previous record came through innovations and improvements in the underlying technology, which are themselves going to be key to providing practical power plants.

MG: Should we be concerned with how much energy the machine needs to put in in order to generate that energy?

DENNIS WHYTE: Right, so right. So this is the next step in this. And so this is an extremely affirming aspect of the science of fusion and moving forward and using this particular figuration of the magnetic cage that we call a tokamak. The next step will be in fact, producing more energy than the heat, which is required to keep it hot. So right now, the the experiments suggest that they reported that while they were producing large amounts of fusion power, they're actually using more heat than than that fusion power to keep it hot. So the next step, which is coming in two experiments one of them here in Boston and one in the south of France will seek to in fact go past that threshold, which is which is which will be a key for net energy production and obviously for commercial fusion.

MG: The thing with the holy grail is that it's very difficult to get your hands on the holy grail. Why has it been so difficult to harness this energy source?

DENNIS WHYTE: Right. So first of all, was the need for a the science understanding of how you recreate the these extraordinary temperatures and in confinement on Earth. So this is non-trivial. This is these temperatures are on the order of 100 million degrees Celsius. So that was gained over decades of hard fought, you know, research around the world. And what this result shows is that it largely this the science is in hand. The other challenge has been the scale and the expense of creating these devices, which would be able to reproduce these conditions. This is also where there's very exciting news and is that around the world and including here in our own effort at MIT with ah, with a commercial start up, we have actually saltiness even advancing the technology such that the size, complexity and cost of the objects that are are required to recreate these conditions are decreasing. So it's sort of good news on both fronts.

MG: What's the promise here? What is being tangled in front of us?

DENNIS WHYTE: So what's been dangled in front of us is that the science of fusion a big because it uses a fuel which is effectively inexhaustible and available to everyone because it just comes out of water and it has a scalability which which looks like it could. If we meet the full science, technological and economic promise of fusion, it can literally supply the power demands of humanity forever. That's been the promise forever of a fusion. So it is you say this is this is the holy grail. It's been hard to grasp, but it seems to be getting closer.

MG: How close is it? Again, I go back to the, you know, it's 30 years away for 30 years and 30 years before that. How far off is this, do you think?

DENNIS WHYTE: Well, honestly, we I think we we stagnated for for a little while. One of the impetus of this now is that and why there's so many more efforts going on is about climate change and understanding. It can't just be forever away. We need to have a timeline such that it is appropriate for tackling this extremely difficult problem of decarbonising. So. So how close is this always the question that we get I. Our own effort here at MIT and with Commonwealth Fusion says that we believe we can get sooner if we if we come up with the right sets of strategies about coupling scientific and technological innovations. We bring the private sector in in more to it and earlier on for thinking about commercialisation. And honestly, the other part of it is to get incentives for the Canadian audience. More shots on goal, like get the shots on goal, have more attempts at this across the board, both in the public and in the private sector, then that that ecosystem will probably give us a much better chance of pulling fusion closer. So our hope is in, you know, in the next decade. And we have a very aggressive timescale and others think that it's more like, you know, 20 or 25 years away, but the whole world is pressing. The whole fusion research world is pressing to try to reduce the time scale because of the urgency of climate change.

MG: This is before you in this world, we're just about out of time, but there is real excitement in this like this. This is this is the unravelling of an incredibly complex question.

DENNIS WHYTE: Exactly. And so I started my fusion career started over 30 years ago as a graduate student in Canada. So I've seen a lot evolve and I have never personally been more excited for fusion, but also the 20 somethings that are coming in as our students to places like MIT have never been more motivated towards pursuing the solution. So it's really hard not to be excited by that.

MG: The graduate work in Canada would perhaps explain the hockey analogy as well. Denis, great to talk to you about this. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

DENNIS WHYTE: Thank you. Thank you for your questions.

MG: Dennis Whyte is the director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Centre at M.I.T., and we reached him in Boston.

[Music]

Back To Top »

P.E.I. piano player makes karaoke videos on YouTube for isolated seniors

Guests: Postie Connolly, John Connolly

MG: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway, in many ways, it's surreal to think back to our lives in early March of 2020. On this programme, we were actually in the final stages of planning a large public event at a nursing home in Halifax. And one of the last field recordings that we did before the pandemic hit was at a nursing home. There, residents with dementia gathered around a guitar and sang pretty much every single word of each old song that their music therapist, Sarah Condren, played and provided. And you can always hear these signals. For many Canadians, March four, 2020 feels a bit like the day that the music died in Charlottetown. Postie Connolly wants to bring the music back. Postie has spent a lifetime sitting at the piano, entertaining the people around him, whether it's at home or at local nursing homes. This winter, he is posting sing-along videos online with some of his favourite old tunes. His nephew, island musician John Connelly, is helping him out and they're both with me from Charlottetown and they are both, thankfully at the piano. Good morning, gentlemen.

POSTIE CONNOLLY: Good morning.

JOHN CONNOLLY: Good morning.

MG: We'll talk. But since you're there sitting at the piano, do you mind playing us something to get us rolling?

[Music]

MG: Well. Thank you very much. You're welcome. I mean, the thing with doing is on the radio there should be like a round of applause, but it's just me clapping in the studio, which sounds it's not the roar that you deserve. Postie, tell me about this online project that you're doing. I mentioned you're posting songs up online. Where did the idea for this come from?

POSTIE CONNOLLY: Well, John and I, we played together at various times, but we were chatting about the senior citizens because of the COVID, because of the restrictions, because of a lot of reasons, they haven't been able to be entertained. I've gone into seniors homes and played the piano and and do sing along with them since the COVID. I haven't been able to do that. I've been cancelled a number of times. I thought that the best way of trying to solve the issue would be something they'd be able to have themselves on a laptop or on a YouTube video so that they would have not only the music, but they'd also have the lyrics and the lyrics are on what you saw already. Matt Don, embrace the idea, OK, and follow it up by saying, Hey, listen, let's give it a go and see. So his home is all about 30 minutes from Charlottetown. He's got a really nice upright piano, which I enjoy playing. And so he said, Listen, maybe we'll do both. We'll put the lyrics out there, tape some singalong songs, which I'm familiar with and with seniors are familiar and and that was the end product.

MG: It's a bit like karaoke. As you mentioned, the lyrics are right there on the screen as you're playing.

POSTIE CONNOLLY: Yeah, that's right. Exactly like karaoke, except there's nobody that nobody's doing it for seniors. And so this is filling a major void there.

MG: John, tell me about the void that you think it's filling.

JOHN CONNOLLY: Well, you know, Postie is like a walking party mass all my life. You know, our family parties were posted at the piano and everybody gathered around. And when my grandfather was around, he'd be playing harmonica and, you know, Postie, he just brings out everywhere he goes, whether it's, you know, I've seen it hundreds of times, whether it's a hotel lobby or, you know, a long term care home or somebody's home. He brings that beautiful energy and music is the elixir of life, and Postie is a great exemplification of that. So we see when we go, we actually- Postie's uncle, my my great Uncle Cliff, we go and visit him. And when that song starts, his eyes get as wide as teacups, and he sings along with Postie. Postie knows all the songs that he wants to hear. So suddenly, Cliff, who is not at his best, is actually, you know, probably, you know, he's fading actually right now. So but when the music starts, it just takes him right back. He's right there with us. So there's an immediacy and a connection. And these videos have been a point of connexion for a lot of people. We've been thrilled by the response.

MG: Postie, you're happy to be called a walking party?

POSTIE CONNOLLY: Yeah, I'm 77 years old, so walking party is not a bad compliment.

MG: Yeah, but before the pandemic turned things upside down, what was the response like to your music when you were playing in nursing homes?

POSTIE CONNOLLY: Over the years, I've played a I used to play at a piano bar. I used to play with bands and stuff like that. But but the reaction from senior citizens, be they Alzheimer's, you know, whoever and the seniors homes, they know the words. For those same songs that I did sing along 50 years ago, they still are familiar with those sounds like the war songs and and seniors love to sing along.

MG: What do you think's going on there? What is it that music does you mean having played music your whole life? What do you think that music is unlocking in those people?

POSTIE CONNOLLY: I think there's a sense of belonging for seniors. You know, they have the very, very quiet locations where there's not a lot of fun. Sometimes they're pretty lonely, and singing just brings a togetherness, whether they know the words or not. They enjoy the piano playing. And as as as John was saying earlier, they move closer to the piano and then there's more. And then my uncle Cliff will go out and say, Come on in here. There's something really special going on. Get in here. And anyway, my Uncle Cliff is as close to the end, and one of the caregivers called me to say that he took the songs in on his laptop, played them for him and he sang along every single word, OK. And I mean, it's inspirational just to hear that story. Sing alongs are therapeutic. Music is therapeutic.

JOHN CONNOLLY: Yeah, it's a great healer. And you know, I've often thought about the fact that, you know, at the beginning of, you know, somebody is about to play some new. Sick. It's just a room full of people. But think at the end there's a there's a unity, it's become a community.

MG: Do you miss that? John, I mean, you've played all over and you, you've been that conduit. You've been the one at the at the front of the room with a bunch of strangers that you don't know who have this shared experience. And that experience has been lost over the course of the pandemic, where we can't get together in many ways like we used to. Do you miss that yourself hugely?

JOHN CONNOLLY: You know, I sit down and I play every day and I have a two year old son and he at first things that he wants is to get the ukulele and get the foot stomping. And so the concerts have taken on a different tone. But there's something about a room full of people and breaking down that barrier and that point of connection. There's an intangible that can't be recreated online. And I think we're all missing that live human experience. Music, again, is that elixir of life that, you know, everything flows through that. And I do miss that and I look forward to it returning

MG: postie as well. I mean, you must really be looking forward to. It's one thing to play online and have the videos go out. But as the walking party, you want people around you when you sit down at a party and start playing the piano.

POSTIE CONNOLLY: a social animal. And I want to tell a story about our own upright piano at our house that a lot of people gathered around and sing sing songs anyway when we sold our home. I told the three- We have three boys and I told them that we're going to be selling the piano because it's just it's just too big to be taken into a smaller home. Anyway, Phil in Calgary and Andrew said, Hey, there's not a chance. And Tim called, Say God, you're not going to sell the piano for God's sake with all the history and the fun that we've had around the piano. I said, Well, what are we going to do? Phil said, Move it out here. And I said, you know, it might cost more to move the piano than the piano was worth. And they said, Hey, listen, it doesn't matter what it costs, we're going to ship it out anyway. So it didn't cost anything for the piano for them. But it's there in Calgary now. And when I go out there, which I'm going to do that in the next couple of months, hopefully we have sing alongs in Calgary on the piano that used to be in Charlottetown.

MG: It's fantastic. I mean, we really do miss it. We miss that, that that experience and these videos are providing that in in a way that we could have never imagined. You're going to play us another song to go out.

JOHN CONNOLLY: Sure.

[Music]

JOHN CONNOLLY: [Sings]

MG: Gentlemen. Perfect. Thank you very much. I love what you're doing, and we look forward to people seeing this live music back face to face sooner rather than later, thanks again.

JOHN CONNOLLY: OK, thank you very much, Matt.

POSTIE CONNOLLY: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Take care.

POSTIE CONNOLLY: You, too.

MG: Postie and John Connolly in Charlottetown. The videos they made are presented through the King's Playhouse. You can find them by Googling sing along with Posty posted like the person who delivers your mail. We'd love to hear from you if you have found a creative way to keep music in your life during this pandemic, especially if you live in a nursing home or you have a loved one who does? Shoot us an email thecurrent@cbc.ca or on Twitter at The Current CBC. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. Earlier this week, I spoke with Kathryn McWilliams. She's director of Super DARN Canada. It's part of an international organisation that studies the effect of space. Weather on the Earth's atmosphere might sound like a bit of science jargon, but our conversation had some magic, too.

SOUNDCLIP

There's a long history and a vast amount of traditional knowledge around them, and they're just such an inspiring thing. They basically are like a television screen in space or in the sky. Before that technology existed, that would seem to be fantastical.

MG: fantastical that television in the sky she was talking about the northern lights. Catherine McWilliams was just awarded an honorary fellowship from the Royal Astronomical Society of the United Kingdom for her work on the Aurora Borealis. We asked you to write in and tell us of some of your experiences with the Northern Lights. The Current senior producer Karin Marley is here to help read some of your mail. Karin, good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Good morning, Matt. There were a lot of early poetic letters on this and some fun ones, too. The first one is from Jud Jones in Churchill, Manitoba, which he says is right under the Aurora Belt. He said Last year I finally bought a camera and spent many nights chasing Aurora. I only need to drive 10 minutes out of town, but our biggest challenge is polar bears safety in the summer and fall, then battling extreme cold during the long, dark winter. For Aurora photography, I always carry a shotgun with bangers and ammunition noisemakers. My two dogs on duty and keep my head on a swivel. The frozen ponds are great for catching reflections of aurora, but can be so slippery in the wind. I find myself crawling on hands and knees, lugging my tripod across the ice. But the aurora is so thrilling. Watching the colours swirl into mysterious shapes overhead gives me such a powerful sense of well-being and true joy. The same high as drinking eight espresso coffees.

MG: I will trust you on the eight espressos. I don't know what one would feel like after that. It vibrate like the northern lights, perhaps. This note is from Yvonne Zarowny. She writes, I've had the good fortune of being awed by the northern lights in Kimberley, B.C. and the Northwest Territories. I have been mesmerised by the magic of the dancing shades of green and white ones. However, my most intense mystical experience of them was in the Yukon. One night there was this amazing electrical music. We looked up and there they were. Only this time there were shades of pink and purple mixed in with the green and white, and that cosmic music? It was absolutely transporting.

KARIN MARLEY: Yvonne wasn't the only one who talk specifically about the sound the northern lights make, and this next writer says she had her own soundtrack going. Kathy Harris is in Nelson, B.C., and she writes, We were having a summer party out on our patio here in the mountains. At one point, a couple of friends and I gave an impromptu concert singing some bluegrass tunes from the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack they sing and I harmonised with my whistling, which is pretty good. I must say, as we did, the northern lights started in the sky over us, pulsating to the music. The lights continued to dance in time with the music through the night. I'll never forget that experience.

MG: I feel cheated, having not heard Cathy's whistling. This is from Roberta Kennedy, who lived in Yellowknife for years, and Roberta writes, When it's cold, the lights paint the entire sky as far as your eye can see. I used to get a crick in my neck from looking up for so long. Every time I saw them, it felt like a show that was just for me when I told long time Yellowknife was this. They told me that they felt the same way.

KARIN MARLEY: And this last one is from much farther south, Josephine Herndler says. The first time my son saw them, he was delivering newspapers early in the morning in Newmarket, Ontario. He came running in and said, There's something wrong with the sky. I had to explain to him that it was just the northern lights.

MG: Fantastic. Thanks to everybody who wrote in, you can always reach us on Twitter. We're @TheCurrentCBC or send us an email thecurrent@cbc.ca, if you have stories about the aurora and your magical experiences with it. Send them our way. Whistling is welcome, Karen. Thank you. You're welcome. Karen Marly, senior producer of The Current Reader of the Mail as well. That is The Current for this Thursday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's q. Laverne Cox, you know, of course, from Orange is the New Black. She has a new show. It's called Inventing Anna. Based on the true story of the con artist and fake social. Lady Anna Delvey, this is a wild story, and I am very curious to see what it looks like on the small screen. Laverne Cox speaking with Tom Power, coming up in just a few moments on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see you tomorrow.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

Thursday February 10, 2022 Full Transcript

More Stories Like This