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 May 25, 2022

Host: Nahlah Ayed

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Noise]

NAHLAH AYED: That was the sound and fury of a powerful storm that ripped through Ontario and Quebec, leaving ten people dead and hundreds of thousands without power. The messy aftermath has some questioning how prepared we are for more natural disasters as climate change gets worse. More on how people are coping and how infrastructure is being prepared for a rise in big storms coming up in 30 minutes. Also this morning.

SOUNDCLIP

You see this across all walks of life. It's depression. Anxiety is incredibly prevalent, especially now post-COVID. Depression rates have doubled since then.

NA: More people are being diagnosed with depression than ever before. And where there are gaps in the mental health care system, artificial intelligence is stepping in. In an hour, I'll speak with the founder of a company that uses video games to diagnose and monitor both depression and anxiety about what role technology can play in treating our mental health. But we begin this morning in Texas with another tragedy in yet another school. I'm Nahlah Ayed, sitting in for Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Mass shooting at Texas elementary school prompts anguished calls for gun control

Guests: Matt Houston, Taylor Pettaway

SOUNDCLIP

To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. There's a hollowness in your chest. You feel like you're being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out.

NA: U.S. President Joe Biden speaking last night after a gunman killed 21 people in Uvalde, Texas, 19 of them or elementary school children. It is the worst mass shooting in the United States this year. The second worst happened just 11 days ago in Buffalo. Now, Joe Biden and other Democrats are calling for gun control.

SOUNDCLIP

As a nation, we have to ask, when in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby, when in God's name? We do. We all know in our gut needs to be done. 3448 days. Ten years since I stood up at a grade school in Connecticut where another gunman massacred 26 people, including 20 first graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Since then, there have been over 900 incidents of gunfire as reported on school grounds. I am sick and tired. We have to act.

NA: Meanwhile, the town of Uvalde, a community of just over 16,000 people, is left trying to make sense of what happened. Matt Houston is a reporter at KENS 5. San Antonio and Taylor Pettaway reporter was with San Antonio Express-News are with me right now. They both join us from San Antonio. Good morning to you both.

TAYLOR PETTAWAY: Good morning.

MATT HOUSTON: Good morning, ma'am.

NA: Good morning. Taylor, if I could begin with you. What can you tell me about Rob Elementary School? Who are the students and teachers who. Who work and study there?

TAYLOR PETTAWAY: So Rob elementary school, you know, is is just a test. And I'm in an elementary school over and over there, Texas comprised mostly of, you know, second, third and fourth grade students. So we have a lot of young kids. Small school, though, only about 600 children attended. So, you know, very close knit community down there for sure.

NA: Matt, you arrived in Uvalde shortly after the shooting yesterday. What did you see?

MATT HOUSTON: Well, it was a pretty dramatic scene. I mean, and it's hard to get any other way around it. I think that you saw a lot of parents questioning whether their children were inside, not able to locate their children. Friends, neighbours, school staff, sort of outside the school, working on some with curiosity, some trying to figure out if their loved ones were inside and their condition. We were kind of all over the town yesterday, including at the school, as well as that at least one of the vigils that that they had in the area last night. And, you know, obviously unsettled is one word that I would use to describe it. And then, you know, a lot of sadness. We saw a lot of tears at one of the churches that we were at. And again, it's just I don't know that the trauma has quite set in because we had so many families yesterday, even well into the evening, who didn't know whether their kids or friends or family members had survived.

NA: When you say unsettled. Tell me more about that. What do you mean by that?

MATT HOUSTON: Well, I'll give you one example. As we were waiting at the church. Really the first vigil that we became aware of with the local Catholic Church there, a gentleman came up to us, sort of tears in his eyes, panicked and showed me a picture of his grandson who was inside the school. And he told me that he was in the hospital that night and they didn't know how he was going to do. Of course, he pulled it from his wallet like so many grandparents do. They keep those pictures, you know, as close to the vest as they can. He was clearly upset and for a reason. But then you went inside the church and you saw people. Almost everyone in that town is going to be affected by some way, in some way with this. And so you saw people who whether they had a personal relative inside the school or not, it was just a solemn, quiet atmosphere. And lots of people just bothered. And there's there's no other way about it. I mean, when you think about as many kids as were killed that we know now, you can certainly understand that emotion.

NA: Yeah. Taylor, I mentioned that Uvalde is not a very big community. What can you tell us about that community?

TAYLOR PETTAWAY: So it's a community, you know, it's it's about an hour from the Texas-Mexico border. So it's, you know, comprised of a lot of Hispanic families. You know, like what was just said it's a very small, close knit community. You know, it's not very big. Only around 16,000 people. And so I think, you know, something like this when it hits, you know, everybody knows everybody. Everybody has a connexion to somebody. You know, I mean, we're seeing reports of, you know, just of these things of back to school activities that have been going on. You know, you had high school students that were visiting the elementary school just the day prior, you know, to to advocate for the kids and show them, you know, that they could graduate high school in a few years. And, you know, now you have these kids that aren't able to do that anymore who have, you know, unfortunately perished. And, you know, so given it is just it's it really is just that small town, you know, everybody thinks of small town. America. It's really what it is.

NA: Small town America. How how would you say that this event, this tragic event is being seen in the wake of what happened in Buffalo last week.

TAYLOR PETTAWAY: I mean, I think it's just coming in complete horror and shock. I mean, we haven't even been able to, you know, bury a lot of the people who were involved in the last tragedy. And now we're dealing with something like this again. You know, I think there's a lot of people across the country right now that just can't wrap their heads around, you know, how something like this was able to happen again? Yeah.

NA: Matt, what do we know so far about who the shooter was?

MATT HOUSTON: Well, we've only gotten early reports on all of this from law enforcement, but we know that he was an 18 year old who at least lived recently in Uvalde. We know that law enforcement believes he shot his grandmother before he went to the school, crashed outside the school. Law enforcement got someone called 911 and told them that that someone had crashed and was waving a gun outside the campus. He made it into the school. And one DPS official, a state trooper in Texas, told me yesterday that once he made it inside, he shot everything in his way. And that's the way that the DPS trooper described that. So, you know, 18 years old, we're still learning more about him and sort of his family. But we know at least recently he was a local there, which just adds to the tragedy of all of this because just like, you know, everybody knows a victim, it's quite likely that lots of people knew him or his family members, too.

NA: Do we know anything about how he got his gun or guns that he used in this?

MATT HOUSTON: To my knowledge, no. In law enforcement at around 10 p.m. Texas time, last night was the last time I got an update from them. They were still trying to figure out how he got the weapons that he used. They say he was armed with a sort of a long rifle when he went inside, but they were still trying to figure out how he obtained them, exactly what kinds of weapon he used. All of that is going to come out, I'm sure, in the next coming in the next few days. But there's lots of work left to be done forensically inside the school and trying to piece together sort of the record of how he obtained those weapons and what kind they were. We've seen some reports that he may have posted about acquiring the guns, but I haven't seen those myself. I haven't seen those posts myself. So, again, lots of work for investigators still to do. And perhaps most importantly, we're not totally clear on motive at this point either. So, you know, we'll learn here in the next couple of days. Yeah.

NA: Taylor,President Biden, as we heard earlier, is saying we have to act. What are you hearing from people in response to that?

TAYLOR PETTAWAY: You know, I mean, I think we're hearing the typical, you know, post massacre dialogue that we usually do a lot of, you know, thoughts and prayers. A lot of. Yeah. I mean, just exactly that. We we need to act. We need to do something. Why does this keep happening. I think the problem becomes unfortunately. What happens after that sentiment ends. Clearly, as we've seen, you know, we haven't been able to come up with a solution as a country yet. You know, things like this keep happening. Even though, you know, we said the same thing after Buffalo. We said the same thing after Sandy Hook. And here we are still dealing with the tragedy like this.

NA: You know, you've been a crime and education reporter. How do people in Texas in general feel about gun control, especially in an education context?

TAYLOR PETTAWAY: You know, it's it's varied. Texas is a there are split state with its politics. So you will get a lot of people who, you know, are very pro-gun control, who believe that, you know, that's the solution that we that we should come up with. But then you'll have a lot of people on the opposite side who say, you know, we need to be arming the right people. Instead, we actually just the other week had another county in Texas, another school district, who voted to pass an initiative to have select teachers carry concealed weapons on campus in the event of an active shooting. That way, they're able to confront them a little bit quicker than police might. And so I think that's just, you know, a really great illustration of the divide in Texas of, you know, how people feel about gun control and education.

NA: Matt, I wonder what you think. You know, Texas has some of the most lenient gun control laws in the country. Do mass shootings actually move the needle on that? Does it change things?

MATT HOUSTON: I think we've got evidence for that. We've had, you know, countless mass shootings just in the last ten years, and they continue to happen. And not much has changed. And I think you you bring up a good point. The debate is renewed, but the debaters have not changed. And so I think it would be a bit naive to expect a different result out of this tragedy than out of Sandy Hook or El Paso or any of the other, you know, nominal and important mass shootings that have happened here in the last 10 to 15 years in the United States. Taylor's absolutely right about Texas. It's it's not a state of moderates. You are either a hard right Republican or a hard left Democrat with a few pockets, I suppose, of people who are a little more centre but staunchly divided. And of course, Texas is more Republican than it is Democrat. And so I think there's a sentiment against gun control throughout the state that sort of permeates debate. And we've seen that with the state legislature and other lawmakers who have decided that the solutions to these sorts of problems is, as Taylor said, arming the right people. And she makes a great point about, you know, school districts nearby San Antonio that that have elected to try and do that.

NA: Taylor, you mentioned that this is a primarily primarily Hispanic community. What are the opinions about gun control specifically in that community? Are they different?

TAYLOR PETTAWAY: Unfortunately, I can't speak to that. You know, prior to this incident, I didn't spend a ton of time involved here, but I would assume that it would probably be, you know, would reflect the entirety of Texas. You know, like Matt said, most likely there's, you know, some pretty far extremes on both sides with pockets of centres. But as to specifics, I couldn't speak to that.

NA: Matt, I understand that the National Rifle Association is meeting in Houston on Friday. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Senator Ted Cruz and former President Donald Trump are scheduled to speak. Given what Joe Biden is saying about standing up to the gun lobby, how do you think this shooting will influence what plays out there, if at all?

MATT HOUSTON: That's a good question. And, you know, I really don't know. I would be surprised if the governor and some of the invited guests choose not to attend. Based on their track record. I would imagine that the event will continue as scheduled, but I don't know that I suppose it is possible that that they move it or postpone it or something of that nature. But again, like we have evidence for lawmakers behaviour after mass shootings and we know that there's often a common public sentiment for changing laws, for doing something. As we heard the president say, and then very little is done or if there are changes that are implemented, they're not changes that go far enough to stop more mass shootings. And so, you know, obviously, Friday's meeting is going to be controversial. It's inherently political. But again, we've seen how lawmakers in Texas and across the nation behave after mass shootings. There's a lot of talk on both sides and then very little is actually accomplished. You know, when it all comes to comes to a head. So Friday's event will probably be one of the most watched or. Yeah, most watched in our events, I would imagine, of the year and probably of the last five or so years as well. But I would be surprised ifit does not continue as scheduled.

NA: Taylor, I was wonder if you could weigh in on that as well. The governor, Greg Abbott, said yesterday that politicians job was to try to make sure this never happens again. Is there any indication on what that means specifically in Texas in terms of any possible law changes?

TAYLOR PETTAWAY: You know, I think Matt has hit the nail on the head. You know, in Texas, especially when it comes to gun control, you know, we've seen it multiple times. We saw it with Sutherland Springs. You know, we have seen it across Texas where there have been shootings and mass shootings. Governor Abbott is very quick to, you know, be one of the first ones to say, you know, thoughts and prayers. We need change, things like that. But then very few things actually happen. I would be surprised. If this incident was any different. Like Matt said, I think, you know, I think Governor Greg Abbott is in a difficult position. You know, we are gearing up for our election year with a lot of our state and local officials. And so, you know, for them, this comes at a very difficult time. Should we say, you know, political but politically wise? Just because, you know, so many people will be looking at them right now, you know, looking at whether we keep them in office or not. And, you know, I think. With that, that translates that, you know, nobody wants big jump in politics. You know, nobody wants a harsh turnaround of the politics that, you know, everybody's been campaigning on for, you know, whether they're in office already or whether they're coming in new for this election. So, you know, it's hard to say, but, you know, I don't see a whole lot actually changing on a lawmaker level.

NA: Mm hmm. As you say, there are some primaries happening now for November's midterm elections. What do the results say so far? What can we glean about American voters in terms of their views of gun control? Is there anything at all, Taylor?

TAYLOR PETTAWAY: You know, I don't know if there is a simple answer to that. You know, I mean, so many candidates are running on so many different platforms. And right now we are just looking at our primary elections. So, you know, our our. Final elections don't come down to it. Don't come down until November. But I think so far with what we're seeing, I think Texas is pretty much tracking the same for our politics. You know, a lot of our primaries. There weren't a ton of upsets this year so far with the numbers that we've seen so far. And I think that's just really illustrating that we're just continuing in the direction that we've always been continuing in.

NA: Just as we end off here. Matt, I wanted to ask you, this shooting is, of course, all the more tragic because the victims were small children killed at a school, you know, right in broad daylight, in a place that should be safe for them. How do you go about as a reporter processing what your what you've seen there?

MATT HOUSTON: I'm still trying to figure that out myself. It's it's tough. I think all reporters have a bit of a switch that, you know, when we are presented with tragic situations, we go into work mode and then we go home and we deal with it. And some of us do that in different ways. I think in a situation like this, you've got to rely on friends and family. I'm fortunate to have a strong support system, and I hope that's the case for Taylor, too. But, you know, the sad reality of this is that these sorts of events, I think, are the expectation when you go into this business, as I'm sure you're aware, too.

NA: Yes.

MATT HOUSTON: You prepare yourself mentally, I think, for years at a time for a tragedy like this one. And unfortunately, in the United States, I would imagine there are a lot of reporters who have not covered mass shootings, who expect to cover mass shootings, whether it's in their current position in their current city or not. I do think that that is something we all kind of prepare ourselves for because they are just so common.

NA: Tragic. Very tragic. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Taylor. Matt Houston is a reporter at KENS 5 San Antonio, and Taylor Pettaway is a reporter with the San Antonio Express-News. The CBC News is next. Then the aftermath of the storm that pummelled Ontario and Quebec. At least ten people are dead. Power is still out in places and houses were destroyed. In six minutes. How Canada's most populous provinces are coping with storms that are becoming more frequent, more intense and less predictable. I'm Nahlah Ayed and you're listening to The Current.

Back To Top »

Upgrading Canada’s infrastructure to cope with extreme weather events

Guests: Joanna Eyquem, Mayor Mario Zanth

NA: Hello. Nahlah Ayed and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

NA: Still to come, the video game built to make sure you're doing okay. It is what happens when artificial intelligence meets the world of mental health care. In about 30 minutes, the high tech tools for the growing number of people suffering from depression and anxiety. But first, the aftermath of a storm that wreaked havoc on Quebec and Ontario.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: It's just wild. There's something coming here. Wow.

VOICE 2: Oh, my God. The tree fell down. Holly. No. This isn't good. If I'm right, it's on our hydro.

VOICE 1: Look at the tree.

VOICE 3: Oh, my God.

VOICE 1: Guys, we got to go downstairs. Downstairs now.

VOICE 2: Oh no.

NA: People panicking and taking shelter over the weekend as powerful storms swept through Ontario and Quebec. Ten people died. Homes were destroyed and hydro poles snapped in half. Hundreds of thousands were left without power, and many are still waiting for it to be restored. The mayor of Uxbridge, Ontario, where three people died, called a state of emergency. So did Mario Zanth, the mayor of Clarence-Rockland, just east of Ottawa. This is the third time the city has dealt with a natural disaster in the last five years. Mario Zanth. Good morning.

MAYOR MARIO ZANTH: Good morning.

NA: How are people doing in your community?

MAYOR MARIO ZANTH: Well, they're devastated, obviously, and they are, but they're coping the best that they can at this moment. I mean, we we've opened shelters to make sure that, you know, people can take hot showers and recharge their devices. We've we've been out in the community to to pass around information. Obviously, our networks were down as well. So communication was limited. But they they're standing strong. I've been in the community since since Saturday night. Every single day meeting citizens and making sure that they're okay. But their spirits are strong and their sense of humour is are surprisingly good.

NA: Take me back, Mayor, if you would, to the time of the storm. Describe for me what it was like as it ripped through your community.

MAYOR MARIO ZANTH: Well, it was so quick, right. As these storms usually are. It's a blur having to think back because it just it swept through. And then all of a sudden, I was it the damage was done. But the scariness and just, you know, listening to to that family, you know, before I spoke, is just heart wrenching.

NA: Yeah. What kind of damage did it do in the area? How many people lost their homes?

MAYOR MARIO ZANTH: So initial right now, we're still making sure that we're still counting everything up. But right now, it looks like between, I'd say, 15 and 20 homes right now who have either completely been destroyed or have lost their roofs, which is also a complete destruction as well. But some have actually been moved off of their foundations. I mean, it's so it's, it was quite devastating.

NA: What does it look like when you're driving through this, the town?

MAYOR MARIO ZANTH: It's very odd because there's certain parts of our city that are completely untouched. And then within. 50 feet of of a completely untouched area. You've got total devastation. So we have approximately 200 poles that are down and really heartwarming to see, you know, New Brunswick Hydro yesterday. And I've made sure I stopped off and thanked them. But they're they're out on our territory putting poles back up. And I believe the Talk Back is also helping, if not others as well. So Hydro One has some some really good help there to put everything back together.

NA: But I understand you also even had a tree fall in your own home.

MAYOR MARIO ZANTH: I did. I did. But when when I got out and I looked at it structurally, it was okay. I have the wooden fence I think seem to have taken the brunt of the blow. So the tree was essentially resting on our home, which is a lot different than other people as well. So I left it there and I said, there's no damage, nothing's leaking, nothing's broken, and we'll deal with that later.

NA: I can just imagine what it must have sounded like when it was happening.

MAYOR MARIO ZANTH: Yeah. But like I said the defence took the brunt of it, but we were, we were just, you know, trying to, to stay, you know, just to stay I guess away from any windows and that sort of thing. But my family was, was okay and they were, um, yeah, they were scared, but they were okay.

NA: So you're giving us a sense of what, of what it's like in the town. Why did you feel it was necessary to call a state of emergency?

MAYOR MARIO ZANTH: So a state of emergency provides us with a lot of tools. And these tools are not necessarily something that many people understand that come with a state of emergency. It provides us with the ability to be able to get additional funding from the province once we reach a certain threshold. And so those calculations will be done long after the state of emergency is lifted. But it also provides us with the ability to use staff in different roles. And as you know, there are unionised staff which you wouldn't be able to to change their their roles or ask them to do anything but their roles in a unionised environment. But this state of emergency allows us to do that. And so for example, we had since her daycares are closed, we had Day-Care staff helping out at the at the shelter. So that's one example of, of a few tools that we can use under State of Emergency.

NA: You've had a lot to deal with recently. You had two major floods in 2017 and 2019 and now this. How would you say you're managing overall?

MAYOR MARIO ZANTH: We're doing the best we can. You know, the world is changing. Technology changes, ways of communication changes. And and it's really it's difficult sometimes to try to keep up. The floods are very different because you could see the water coming. You could see it rising. And we would have regular reports on what the watershed look like upriver. We would be able to gauge which dams are controlling what. So you're able just as devastating, but you're able to plan it a little bit better than something like this. And so three storms in five years gives us a very indication of what the next five years are going to look like. And now we have to start planning for that. And if that means mandating the province to to provide grocery stores and gas stations with generators, that this becomes mandatory. Whether that means changing our internal policies here and or our building codes and that sort of thing to make sure that those things are included. And I think that we have a responsibility to do that. Had we had gas and grocery stores, it would have still been a horrible disaster, but we would have been able to, dare I say it, manage the situation a little better because we wouldn't have had to tell people that there was no gas for their generators. And there's a lot of, you know, retirement homes and long term care homes that run on generators. There are a lot of people with oxygen tanks that no longer had oxygen. So these are all things that we have to be able to plan. And so we've already started that discussion even in the middle of this disaster, to make sure that we're better prepared for next time.

NA: So that sounds like a lot of adaptation to these kinds of weather events, given, you know, the the factor that is climate change. What else do you think needs to be done to prevent this type of damage to the power system in the future? You know, you've had 200 power poles snap. How do you stop that from happening again?

MAYOR MARIO ZANTH: Well, that's really that's really difficult because even the metal and snap. Right. So, you know, if we remember the ice storm was was kind of in that same that same vein. But most of all, the new developments that are done, all of the wires are underground. Right. So you don't see that in new subdivisions. Everything is buried except for these older areas that are essentially bringing power from one end of the town to the other. So those ones are still up, as you know. That's a really good question. You know, those are things that we'd have to have conversations with the province. We'd have to have those conversations with Hydro One to say what are their plans on on on doing that? Because, I mean, we just, you know, prevent trees from growing near telephone poles or whatever the case is because a lot of them were brought down by trees as well. But that's a good question. Those are all things that we're going to be discussing in our plan, in our once this is all done.

NA: One last in the last 30 seconds, we have. What advice would you give to other small communities that will increasingly be seeing seeing events like this?

MAYOR MARIO ZANTH: Plan, plan, plan. I don't think we could actually say this enough. And even when you do plan, plan some more, because we have a plan. And it's situations like this where we go, okay, this this didn't work as well, but this worked really well. Our employees did an amazing job. They were out there until two, three, 4:00 in the morning chain sawing trees, making sure that the roadways were open for emergency reasons. And so it's certainly not from the lack of of amazing employees and the resilience of of citizens. But we do. My my advice would be to plan. And when you think you're done, start over.

NA: Mario Zanth, thank you very much for your time.

MAYOR MARIO ZANTH: Thank you so much.

NA: Mario Zanth is the mayor of the city of Clarence-Rockland, just east of Ottawa. Joanna Eyquem is managing director of Climate Resilient Infrastructure at the University of Waterloo's Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation. She joins me from Montreal. Joanna, good morning.

JOANNA EYQUEM: Good morning.

NA: On Monday, Hydro Ottawa called the level of damage from the weekend windstorm quote, beyond comprehension. What does that tell you about how prepared local distribution networks are to deal with extreme weather events?

JOANNA EYQUEM: Yeah, I think the thing for for us at the end tech centre is we actually have prepared a climate risk matrix looking specifically at electrical distribution and transmission and wind is obviously one of those key factors as we've just been discussing. But there's also other factors such as flooding, wildfires and ice loading that can also adversely affect energy systems. And I think the fact is, it is foreseeable and we have been foreseeing for a number of years now. And the challenge really is to maintain urgency, to actually take action before the next disaster. We often find that we are talking about these issues and there's a lot of emphasis during and immediately after these disasters happen. But we don't see as much action on the ground. And, you know, some utility companies like I know Toronto Hydro, for example, have done a climate risk assessment and others like Greater Quebec reporting under the Task Force for Climate Related Financial Disclosures, what their risks are. But there's no set requirement in Canada, so how the companies are tackling resilience is not transparent or consistent.

NA: Where would you say we are as a country when it comes to investing in adapting our infrastructure?

JOANNA EYQUEM: So historically, we have been spending much more time considering climate mitigation in Canada. So we had our emissions reduction plan was just issued a few weeks ago. But we really need to be paying equal attention to adaptation as well, because we need to do both. So even if we reduce greenhouse gases now, we are still going to see the impacts of climate change. And we need to prepare. And we have just kind of going through developing national adaptation strategy. This is our first strategy, whereas other countries are on, for example, the U.K. is on their third strategy. So we we we are all playing catch up. But there are ways to kind of accelerate our progress by kind of identifying really clear actions that we can take now. Mm hmm.

NA: One of the questions that comes up, of course, is who is responsible? So when we look at this past weekend, it was the power grid that took a beating. Who is accountable for investing in the grid so that it can take on an increasing amount of stress?

JOANNA EYQUEM: So I think a clear accountability is something that's lacking at the moment in Canada, even between federal or provincial governments, between different departments. And climate adaptation comes into several mandates of several kind of jurisdictions and departments within those jurisdictions. So it's very fragmented at the moment, and it's not really clear who is who is actually responsible. So, for example, one way of tackling it in the U.K., the government actually asks utility companies to provide adaptation reporting that is made public so that people can actually see that progress is happening and what people are being what is being done. So I think, you know, that might be something that we consider as we develop this national adaptation strategy.

NA: Yeah, we spoke with Francis Labbe from Hydro-Québec. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

We had an ice storm in 1998 that left more than a million and a half customers without electricity at this period. We learnt a lot from that episode, so we already started to adapt our grid and our transportation lines, our distribution grids to make sure it's more robust. And many people are analysing the the climate change and try to make sure that our grid and our production facilities will be able to face the upcoming climate changes that we foresee in the coming years.

NA: Now, he mentions the ice storm of 1998. Who can forget that? What was learnt from that event, Joanna?

JOANNA EYQUEM: So I think, you know, preparedness as I think that the mayor said previously. So there's a preparedness for dealing with the immediate emergency and this preparedness of making infrastructure kind of more robust, as Mr. Labbe just just mentioned. So, for example, for ice loads, you can actually have monitors that. Attacked by a floating, which is, you know, technology that can help monitor the eye floating so that you know, where you're going to have to intervene to stop things happening there. So, you know, technology can also help us in in some respects. So I think, you know, there we are improving in the in what approaches are available to us. But the challenge is really implementing those approaches.

NA: There was talk after the ice storm about burying hydro lines, for example. Why didn't that happen?

JOANNA EYQUEM: Yeah, this is an issue that comes up after every event. So it's really a you know, as I think they're also reference. So where we've already got hydro poles above ground, it's very expensive to to bury them. So it doesn't mean that because you've buried your lines, you're free from all risks, you know, cause you're going to have like stations and stuff above ground which are still subject to flooding, etc.. So it doesn't completely solve the problem and it's very expensive. So I know, you know, different jurisdictions have been looking at opportunities like when you're building new subdivisions or where there's already street work going on when you're restoring or renovating kind of a downtown area to bury the lines. But it's it's a very expensive undertaking. So it's kind of been trying to it's opportunistic in the way it's been done at the moment.

NA: Francis Labbe also said that Hydro-Quebec is analysing climate change to face the challenges it will present in the future. What do you see as the biggest challenges to our infrastructure cost across this country?

JOANNA EYQUEM: So across Canada, obviously, flooding is a huge challenge. So we have, you know, floods in Manitoba just this year. We had floods in B.C. last year. So that's definitely up there on the list. Wildfire as well as a key risk for Canada. And also freeze freezing rain in terms of where we're at. We're talking about the power grid. You know, we might see more freezing rain as we have warmer temperatures. So less snow, but possibly more conditions that lead to freezing rain and and extreme storms, as we've seen just now. Actually, these these kind of storms kind of cluster around higher temperatures. So we're going to we're going to see higher temperatures in Canada, whether it be in check centre, just launched an extreme heat report. And you know, those storms, they are also pushing northward as we get hotter. So we can expect more of that in the future. So I think those are key risks for us to deal with. And it's not just our built infrastructure that we need to be worried about. I think, you know, I think a storm demonstrated that, you know, trees took a big hit. And we're actively trying to manage our tree canopy and many of our cities to prevent against extreme heat. So we need to be thinking about resilience of both infrastructure and and actual infrastructure, too.

NA: Yeah. You know, people have been talking about adaptation, you know, analysing, as we just heard. Why do you think we're still playing catch up in this arena?

JOANNA EYQUEM: And I think. I think we we we need kind of a I think the national adaptation strategy that hopefully will galvanise action. We need we need to take it seriously. And we haven't really a sense of urgency of addressing. I think, you know, every every time we have a disaster, people are very concerned about it. But then we somehow get waylaid and the other priorities take precedence. So I think the key challenge in Canada is maintaining the urgency to act, to actually follow through before the next disaster.

NA: As you mentioned, there are all kinds of disasters that we have to deal with and other infrastructure needs as well. How do we prioritise what we need to do first, or do we really kind of need to do it all now?

JOANNA EYQUEM: I think that the key thing is to have a plan which has some short term actions. That's what we're kind of encouraging in the snapshot. Our national adaptation strategy is, you know, the things that we need to do that we can do now. And it's not necessarily just the government that can play a role. We actually all have a role to play in making our homes more resilient to climate risk also. So those things we can all do around the home to kind of limit flood risk, to limit wildfire risk, to limit extreme heat risk. So we actually all have a responsibility also to kind of see how we can reduce our own risks. But I don't think that is very well communicated at all, that that's a public perception of what people can do to reduce their carbon footprint, for example, by not how they can adapt to climate change themselves. It's kind of seen as the government will come in and sort out. So I think, you know, we all need to improve our understanding. And, you know, governments, provincial governments, local governments all have a role to play in helping people understand what they can do and what businesses can do and what infrastructure in its can do. It's really the whole of society that needs to get going on this. Yeah.

NA: What is it that you think you'd like to see happen in the short term to address all these challenges?

JOANNA EYQUEM: I think, you know, the kind of commitment in this national adaptation strategy will come out this year. I didn't want to see kind of short term actions of what we will do now that will actively reduce risk and kind of clear responsibilities as well to drive that forward. Because as as we've discussed, it's very fragmented between federal, provincial, local governments. So we really need a consolidated plan with with solid action and basically like performance targets and ways of measuring how we are progressing. Because often when we have a plan, sometimes it sounds good on paper, but if we don't deliver the actions, then we haven't achieved anything.

NA: Joanna, thank you so much for your time.

JOANNA EYQUEM: Thank you.

NA: Joanna Eyquem is Managing Director of Climate Resilient Infrastructure at the University of Waterloo's Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation. I'm Nahlah Ayed and you're listening to The Current. While storms and severe weather are front of mind people in parts of Ontario and Quebec, many residents in British Columbia are worried about a different kind of natural disaster as summer approaches wildfires. That's because devastating forest fires have swept across the province in three of the past five years, destroying homes, displacing tens of thousands of people and torching farms and ranchland. The CBC's Sarah Penton visited two communities in BC's interior earlier this month, including the small town of Logan Lake. Sarah will be on the programme in the coming days, but here's a preview of her conversation with Matt Galloway about what locals faced last year.

SOUNDCLIP

SARAH: Jean Finley and her husband Delbert live on the outskirts of Logan Lake. They've got a sprawling property, a couple of outbuildings, beautiful gardens, a firepit, a hot tub, lots of room for the dogs to run around. Behind the house, there's grass and forest. It's their dream home. And they know that dealing with fires is part of living there. But still leaving was hard. We had months before put our special keepsakes, like my mom and dad's ashes and that kind of stuff. We put them all in our trailer, so we were pretty prepared. But when we actually did, it's weird when we actually got the the note to evacuate. I remember looking out the window and all of a sudden there was hoses being strung and Delbert running and grabbing all the hoses and getting the sprinklers going and then the reality and driving down the driveway. It was really bizarre. Yeah, the firemen were just coming in because the fire was coming this way and they knew it was going to come right up to our house. So, yeah, yeah. It's hard to actually describe it. Like, as we heard, it's been months since. It's making me emotional thinking about it.

MATT: It seems like she got caught by that emotion that I mean, almost a year later, she was surprised by how emotional it is.

SARAH: Yeah, she was mad. It really did surprise her, but it really shows how tough it can be on people to live in areas that are so prone to wildfire. It was really traumatic and I actually we don't talk about it a lot, but bringing that up to you, it feels like it was like a week ago. Yeah, I remember exactly driving down and Delbert was ahead of me with the trailer and I'm driving out and I stopped and the firemen were all standing there waving and then I started bawling.

NA: Tune in to The Current in the coming days to learn what happened to Jean and Albert's dream home and how they're preparing for another wildfire season this summer. Coming up after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

If clinicians suspects you have depression, they'll ask you on a scale of one to five, how sad that you feel. Incredibly subjective. What we do is we actually measure it more objectively with numbers and with statistics.

NA: In 90 seconds, what happens when artificial intelligence meets mental health care? I'm Nahlah Ayed and you're listening to The Current.

Back To Top »

How a video game with artificial intelligence could help diagnose depression

Guests: Emilia Molimpakis, Dr. David Gratzer, Dr. Sean Kidd

NA: I'm Nahlah Ayed and you're listening to The Current. When someone's in the middle of a mental health crisis, it's hard not to think about what might have happened if they'd gotten help sooner. That's the motivation behind a new tech Start-Up in the U.K., which uses video games and artificial intelligence to help diagnose depression. The companies called Thymia is just one example of a growing field of technology aimed at mental health care. Emilia Molimpakis is the company's founder and CEO. We reached her in New York City. Good morning.

EMILIA MOLIMPAKIS: Good morning. Pleasure to be here.

NA: Thanks for being with us. That scenario that I just described is literally what motivated you to start this company. Can you explain how?

EMILIA MOLIMPAKIS: Yeah. So I was a researcher for about 12 years before founding Thymia. And my research was predominantly focussed on neuroscience and linguistics and interacting with patients from different patient groups, looking at basically how they use language as a measure for improvement based on treatment for cognitive decline, etc. I actually then had the very unfortunate event that my best friend, who was also an academic at the time, she developed depression and I kind of saw my best friend become one of the patients I had been looking at for those years in research. So I saw her, tried to get help in the UK healthcare system first, you know, with the NHS and then later privately. But unfortunately, like a lot of other people, she fell through the cracks in the system and ended up very quickly trying to take her own life. When that happened, I was actually the one who found her at her house. And of course, as you can imagine, this is a very traumatic experience for somebody who's, you know, somebody with a best friend who's suffering from depression. But I also felt a great sense of responsibility. Why didn't I see this coming when I actually got my head around that I actually just could not understand or fathom then why her psychiatrist couldn't actually see this coming. And he had actually just seen her two days before, which was quite shocking. And so in the end, I ended up talking to her psychiatrist in person and then a number of other psychiatrists around Europe and the US and everybody actually came back to me saying was, Well, we're not physical health clinicians, we don't have thermometers or blood pressure cuffs or blood tests for mental health, or we have our questions and our own observation skills. And unfortunately, that does not work most of the time.

NA: So it was your sense of responsibility that led to a burst of creativity, in other words, coming up with this idea. Can you explain what the idea behind Thymia is exactly?

EMILIA MOLIMPAKIS: Yeah, absolutely. So as I mentioned, I was a researcher for about 12 years before founding Thymia and I focussed predominantly on how people use language. So looking at the acoustics of their voice out, intonation, pitch, etc., but also the content of what they're saying. So that is actually one of the columns or pillars of technology, looking at voice. I ended up leaving academia in order to find somebody to help me build out the concept, Thymia. And then once I met my co-founder Stefano at an accelerator programme, we actually expanded the idea of Thymia further into essentially also looking at video. So looking at how people look at the screen in different ways, but also their facial expressions, etc.. And the best way we found to actually gather these data was through essentially video games. So basically the concept of Athena is these video games that we design. They are based entirely on classic experimental protocols that have been tested and validated in thousands of clinical trials and research trials for the past 20 to 30 years. So think of it as every game is basically a scientific experiment. And we've just put a very beautiful layer of graphics on top of it, and we get patients to engage with it in a lot better way.

NA: So so what is the evidence that you've been able to gather along the way that these indicators, as you say, the voice, the facial expression and that the air you using are in fact, able to accurately assess someone's mental state.

EMILIA MOLIMPAKIS: Well, we've actually gathered data from over 2000 people in the past few months, and those have been people split between those with a confirmed diagnosis of major depressive disorder, with a minimum of three years of having that diagnosis and who have actually responded well to depression treatment. And then we have a group of healthy controls who are matched in terms of age, gender education and a number of other variables affect results. So we've actually shown that when compared to a psychiatrist opinion, we can actually indeed distinguish between people with and without major depression based on that massive dataset that we've gathered. It's actually the largest multimodal depression dataset in existence, which is fantastic. I would just add here, basically, one of the things that distinguishes me from other companies in this field is that we don't simply look to make a diagnosis because ultimately clinicians don't actually need help with diagnosing. They need help with finding treatment. And what drives treatment decisions and actually reimbursement for clinicians in the US is symptoms. And so, Thymia, essentially because we have all of these different data streams, we have actually proven now we have several scientific publications out there showing that we can actually isolate all of the core symptoms of depression through all of the different data streams we're looking at. And that is what's more important for clinicians.

NA: What's important to the average person or for me anyway, as a layperson, is is kind of this idea that I could be better suited to suit, to detect someone's mood than a human being sitting face to face. What's the argument? If you were just making the elevator pitch, what is the argument for those of us who might be sceptical about that kind of assertion?

EMILIA MOLIMPAKIS: Of course, I think I should just add here, we don't intend to replace clinicians or clinicians opinion in any way. We're not saying we're better than the clinicians opinion in terms of understanding the human being that they're talking to. What we are doing is actually creating or. Clarifying more objectively those measures that clinicians inherently know are important. So a clinician will typically look and observe a person's speed of talking. They'll perceive if it's too slow or if it's too fast from their own kind of subjective opinion. They'll also look to see if the person is twitching or if they are unnecessarily tapping their foot or they're looking elsewhere, or if their expression on their face and what they're saying actually don't match each other. So say they're saying something really sad, but actually they're laughing at the same time in terms of their expression. Thymia here is just measuring those things in a lot more objective way and say, okay, this is the speech rate for this person. Let's compare it to how they were maybe a month ago. And this is their facial expressions in terms of a range of emotions. Let's see if this is different to what it was a few weeks ago. So you can see we're basically extending the clinician's observational capacity and creating more objective measures. On top of those, we also add the experiment protocols which typically clinicians don't have access to. So that's an added extra point. So as you can see, we're not trying to say we can do their job better. We are just trying to bolster their existing expertise with more objective metrics.

NA: And just as a side question to that is that's supposed to be in addition to other tools or a tool on its own by psychiatrists.

EMILIA MOLIMPAKIS: So psychiatrists, as I mentioned, they don't really have many existing tools other than these questionnaires that they typically use. So as an example, if a clinician expect suspects, you have depression. They may say, okay, on a scale of 1 to 4, can you tell me how suicidal you felt in the past two weeks? Which is quite a leading question. We come in as an additional tool to those questions. We don't expect them to completely replace the questionnaires with us. Hopefully in time we will. The other thing I would add is what a lot of companies don't actually do very well is they just throw artificial intelligence or machine learning at a complex data set and hope that the AI can pick up patterns and then they go based on that, which is it can be great in other fields, but particularly in medicine it can be quite problematic because most AI models become biased towards things like gender or age or race. What we do is actually using explainable or ethical A.I., which is a more recent advancement, which essentially understands why the model may be saying things, which means we can have a handle of whether there is bias being introduced and can correct it immediately.

NA: Emily I wanted to just to end off in the very short time we have left is how do you think an app like this might have helped your friend?

EMILIA MOLIMPAKIS: Well, I think it's hard to say in terms of, you know, the current tool that we have versus our vision for the tool. But I think at the very least, if this was being used by her psychiatrist, then. It would have been quite clear that there was a suicide attempt coming very shortly after. My. Our hope is that we can use this not just with psychiatrist, but also with general practitioners. So her situation would have been caught even sooner and the right treatment actually started sooner. So she could have even avoided all of those months of feeling horrible before the event itself.

NA: Amelia, thank you so much for sharing with us.

EMILIA MOLIMPAKIS: Amazing. Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure talking to you.

NA: Amelia Molimpakis is founder and ceo of Thyma. She's in new york city. Themis is just one example of tech meeting mental health. There are hundreds of thousands of other apps out there trying to meet a growing demand. The technology targets people who fall through the cracks of the mental health care system, stuck on long wait lists for care or living without insurance. I'm joined now by two people keeping a close eye on all of this. Dr. David Gratzer is a psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto with a special interest in tech and mental health. And Dr. Sean Kidd, a colleague at Cam H. Is a research scientist and clinical psychologist who has been developing an app to help patients with psychosis and schizophrenia. Good morning.

GUESTS: Good morning.

NA: Dr. Gratzer, let me start with you. What do you think of what Amelia and Olympic he was talking about specifically that technology can be more objective in monitoring how someone's mental health is going?

DR. DAVID GRATZER: Well, I think there's tremendous potential here. And of course, I'm not going to comment on that particular game that they've put together. I mean, because I have not had the opportunity to try nor review the publications they've made. But I think the sense that there could be more help for patients, particularly by drawing in passive and active data sets, has amazing potential. Passive how we might use our smartphone and just generate data active interacting specifically like with a video game as they've developed.

NA: Dr. Kidd How well do you think technology can really pick up on someone who may be on the verge of a mental health crisis?

DR. SEAN KIDD: Yeah, I think that I agree with Dr.. Great story. I think there's great potential. I think the potential comes in in sort of two forms. One is being able to pick up on those signals that a person's getting unwell and and then signalling that this challenge has arisen to the individual themselves because they might not fully recognise and appreciate that they're starting to struggle, but then also flag it for clinicians. But then also there's reach. We're in the situation where outpatient mental health services aren't as available as they ideally would be. So if a person has many weeks between visits with their care provider in that period, the technology in their hand has an opportunity to catch earlier when a challenge is coming up and flag for those that are caring for them that they need help right away.

NA: Now, the key, Dr. Gratzer, to this app is that it's supposed to be connected to the health provider rather than the actual patient and reporting back to the health provider, as you mentioned. How important is it that this is something that a health care provider is connected to and it's not something that people go off and do on their own?

DR. DAVID GRATZER: Well, I think that is something that makes perhaps this idea attractive. But I would emphasise and put in a couple of cautious notes perhaps this morning that consent is incredibly important. So it's not enough that the patient sign up for something that they understand their health provider is involved. It's important the health provider be aware that the health provider get the information in a thoughtful and intelligent way. So if the patient's doing less well and we're texting the health provider at 3 a.m., that's going to be less useful than if the information is provided. I think what we're looking at is experience here not to replace as health providers. I'm not enrolling in law school anytime soon, but maybe to augment our work. The analogy I'd give perhaps is and not just about this experiment, but other apps in the air space, the way some cars now can tell you if there's another car in your blind spot when you're about to make a turn or a car might tell you you're going too fast or that the conditions are slippery, you as the driver continue to drive the car, but you're helped along. Sometimes it would point out the car's wrong about another car being in that blind spot, which is why it's so important that we be cautious about these experiments.

NA: Dr. Kidd Speaking of all these other apps, you, you yourself are working on an app that you've been developing for patients with psychosis. What's the idea behind the app?

DR. SEAN KIDD: Yes. So the technology that we developed is called out for independence or a for AI. And in a lot of the similar themes come in that have been already discussed. And really what it boils down to is we need for people struggling with severe mental health challenges, ways in which they can be better connected with providers is be able to have wellness check ins, be able to provide short notes for a provider to do better than to be able to ask, How's your month been? How's the past month? And they get some some better information to have a more informed conversation with the person and then as well facilitating what we call illness self-management. You know, only a very small percentage of people with psychosis ever get, for example, individual or group in person cognitive. Xavier therapy for psychosis. So with that challenge of access. Tools like this can provide CBT based prompts and suggestions to the individual. And, and where this all came from really is, is for more severe mental health challenges. There's really not a lot out there, and that's out of my clinical work in research. We just saw a need there and that's why we we went in this direction.

NA: Just a quick question to both of you. Do you think we would be considering this kind of technology if there wasn't kind of this huge shortfall in the kind of resources available to people with mental health issues? Dr. Kidd.

DR. SEAN KIDD: Yeah, so I think that's a that's a great question and I think that the there might be somewhat less urgency, but I do think we would still be we would still be spending some time and effort in this area in a few domains. So one, as I mentioned, even even if a person did have access to an individual or group psychotherapy and frequent contact with a psychiatrist and perhaps a case manager, other providers, there still would be gaps and times in between those contacts when you would want to be knowing how a person's doing. And then the second thing is, is people need different levels of care at different times. And there would be times where it's really actually beneficial for the person to be managing their own illness as independently as possible. And digital health tools can facilitate that, effectively migrating them towards in-person contact and care when they need it. So I do think the need would still be there, but I think it might be slightly less pressing than as you have highlighted in our current system where we we lack resources.

NA: Dr.. Gratzer, you sounded a note of caution earlier about how these kinds of apps might be used. How concerned are you about specifically the privacy issues that arise when it comes to these kinds of technologies?

DR. DAVID GRATZER: I'm very concerned. I think that we tend to under appreciate privacy as a concern with apps. We don't with health records. If you come to the hospital, I work out, we take digital privacy incredibly seriously. Rancher Health Records, which of course we store in a computer and who has access and how we track that. Most people do think about that with an app, but hold on. If you've downloaded an app and you were populating answers, talking about some traumatic experience or something of the sort, that information is incredibly sensitive to you and incredibly important that privacy be respected. There's a paper published by a JAMA journal. Huck Vail is the first author. They looked at 33 apps helping people with depression and smoking cessation. The vast majority. So patient data to third parties. Wow. Hold on. This is an unregulated field. The promises are big. To be blunt. The patient need and it's sometimes desperation is great. We have to be cautious here. And again, I'm not criticising any of the work that Dr. Kidd is done or others, but in general, I think that just as we're concerned about patient privacy with health records, we need to think about apps and who's using them and when and what are the terms and conditions around privacy.

NA: Dr. Kidd I'm sure that this is an issue that's come up in your development of the app. How did you grapple with the ethics and the issues of privacy that arise?

DR. SEAN KIDD: Yeah, so in a few, a few ways and I completely agree with Dr. Gratzer is there's a need for rigour here. And, and this is this is largely, you know, kind of an unregulated space with a few exceptions. And so the way that we tackle that on the front end on the design and first off is we spend a lot of time in what's called co-design, so a lot of time with individuals, with psychotic illnesses, with their family members, with care providers on the design to find out what information people would be interested and comfortable sharing, how the app would work, how the platform would work, and being transparent all the way through about what kind of data is collected and how it's used. And I as well, going further than that is in our instance as a technology, we have our technology reviewed by the Privacy Office at [unintelligible]. We've had a third party privacy review done that have looked at the technology and our processes around that, and we've got several standards that we need to adhere to. And I think to be both ethical and successful in this space, we really do need to be, as Dr. Grazer, emphasise, incredibly careful with how we're handling and using patient data and that we are meeting the highest level of standards for all the reasons that he said.

NA: Dr. Great. So you say you have said it's important to distinguish a, quote, wellness app from an actual mental health app. How easy is it for the consumer to actually tell the difference?

DR. DAVID GRATZER: It's tough. There are many apps making bold promises. Some organisations like the American Psychiatric Association have come up with guidelines for for patients and their families to look at apps.

NA: And I think you've. Helped develop those?

DR. DAVID GRATZER: I've been one member of several in this committee. You know what we've suggested to people that they can look at, say, nine or so questions. You would find it on the American Psychiatric Association website, including looking at if there is a digital health policy around privacy and what that involves and what you might look for. I think the point here is there are a lot of opportunities for patients and their families to find apps and sometimes that can be transformative, helping them out, helping their clinicians out as well. But we need to be cautious. There are a lot of players involved. Some are interested, perhaps in a quick profit. Others are goodwill, but maybe not as rooted in evidence as we'd hoped. Be careful here. And if you are going to choose an app because you're going through some problems, choose one that's a good fit. If you have a major problem like depression, you're looking for evidence based things like cognitive behavioural therapy and mood tracking and not things around wellness like, you know, looking forward to good weather and so on.

NA: In the last couple of minutes that we have here. So I wanted to ask both of you how much you think the pandemic has pushed this whole field forward, you know, with people not just experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety and depression and aloneness, but also with people expanding their use of technology. Dr. Kidd.

DR. SEAN KIDD: Yeah, I think the pandemic has played a major role in, in a couple of ways. And in one way it's, it's probably sped up something that would have happened anyways. And that is people becoming more comfortable and used to using technology to engage providers and to support their wellbeing. So I think I think people became much more open to that idea and I think providers became more open as well on their end to using technology to facilitate those interactions. And then as well, of course, the pandemic and this has been an ongoing conversation. The pandemic has has caused increased challenge in many people's mental health. And so we have both a more greater openness to the use of technology, also meeting really strapped sectors in health, in mental health care and and greater need across many communities.

NA: Given that. Dr. Gratzer, do you have any final note of caution for us as this field kind of develops?

DR. DAVID GRATZER: I think, again, what we need to see is that patients consent, that privacy is respected, and, of course, that these apps are ultimately safe. What happens if somebody is going through a mental health crisis? What does the app do? Again, a note of caution. There was a big review published on apps aimed at people who are having suicidal thoughts. Some of those apps didn't even have the right one 800 number for people to call if they were in crisis. So that's that's not even an issue with A.I. that's an issue with typing. I think, again, tremendous potential health care provider. I'm looking forward to having more and better information for my patients so that we can make better decisions together. And some of that can be born of A.I. Great, but we need to be cautious.

NA: Dr. Gratzer. Dr. Kidd, thank you so much for your time.

DR. SEAN KIDD: Oh, thanks so much. It's been a pleaseure.

DR. DAVID GRATZER: Thank you.

NA: Dr. David Gratzer is a psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. And Dr. Sean Kidd is a research scientist and clinical psychologist at CAMH. That's our programme for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. Montreal producer Connor Seidel will join Tom Power to talk about 1969, his ode to the folk sounds coming out of Quebec in the late 1960s. They'll talk about why that era resonated so deeply with him and the artists who are featured on this new project. That's in a few minutes. And coming up next week on The Current, I'm here today because Matt Galloway is in Ottawa at Retail Hall to be specific, speaking with Governor General Mary Simon, she is, of course the first Indigenous person in that role. And Matt will talk to her about the royal visit. An apology from the pope and next steps for reconciliation. You'll get to hear that conversation in the next few days before we say goodbye. This morning, Texas is coping with unimaginable loss and tragedy. We will leave you with Amazing Grace. This is the legendary Mahalia Jackson. I'm Nahlah Ayed, in for Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song]

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

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

Wednesday May 25, 2022 Full Transcript

More Stories Like This