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The Current Transcript for January 6, 2025

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU: I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister. This country deserves a real choice in the next election. And it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election.

MATT GALLOWAY: That’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaking just minutes ago in Ottawa. In a moment, we'll get into what his resignation means for this country and what is next for a fractured liberal Party. Also this morning, if your holiday reflections included perhaps a resolution to cut down on booze and drink less or maybe stop drinking altogether, a different perspective.

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MAUREEN PALMER: I was convinced we had to fix this problem, fix it right now so he would never drink again. But if we view relapse as a failure, it's against the monolith of abstinence.

MG: For years, Maureen Palmer has seen the effects of alcohol abuse up close. Her partner, Mike Pond, is an alcoholic. Together, they have written about the language we use to talk about our relationship with alcohol, from abstinence and relapses to the myth of willpower and the influence of big business on our drinking habits. In an hour, why quitting didn't work for Mike and how a mostly sober lifestyle has benefited them both. Plus, as is tradition here, we kick off the new Year by meeting some extraordinary Canadians just named to the Order of Canada. But we begin with the country's leadership in limbo. Good morning and happy New Year. I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current.

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POLITICAL STRATEGISTS

Guests: Chad Rogers, Brad Lavigne, Susan Smith

MG: Justin Trudeau is stepping down as prime minister. Here he is minutes ago outside Rideau Cottage in Ottawa.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Since 2015, I've fought for this country for you. I'm a fighter and I will always be motivated by what is in the best interest of Canadians. And the fact is despite best efforts to work through it, Parliament has been paralyzed for months.

MG: Justin Trudeau has asked the Governor-General to prorogue Parliament until the 24th of March while the party finds a new leader. It is a remarkable moment in this country, and to make sense of it, we have a panel of political insiders here with us. Chad Rogers is a founding partner at Crestview Strategy, former conservative strategist. He's with me in our studio in Toronto. Brad Lavigne is a former national director of the New Democratic Party. He's now president of Council Public Affairs. And in Ottawa, Susan Smith, liberal commentator and co-founder and principal at Bluesky Strategy Group. Good morning, everyone.

ALL GUESTS: Good morning, Matt. Good morning.

MG: This is such an interesting moment, in part because of what the Prime Minister said and also what he did not say. I guess we should start with you, Susan. What did you make of what Justin Trudeau had to say?

SUSAN SMITH: Well, he said what we've all been waiting for. I think the country has been waiting for it. Certainly, members of the Liberal Party or his caucus had been waiting for it, is that he's stepping down as prime minister and stepping down as leader of the party once the party has had a robust national competitive process to choose a new leader. He listed some of the significant accomplishments, but not all of them, in his time in terms of fighting climate change, changing the conversation around reconciliation, free trade and other things, child poverty in particular. That was really important. And the other thing that I thought was very important is he thought that in the interest of Canadians and the well-being of democracy, that Canadians deserve a real choice in the next election, and that he owned up to the fact that he's not the best guy to go in and fight Poilievre, and he wants to make sure that the Liberal Party has the best person at the helm, well, the Liberals will choose that, and that the country has a real choice.

MG: Chad, what did you make of what Justin Trudeau said and what he didn't say?

CHAD ROGERS: Well, I thank him for his service. Tough to be prime minister. Tough to get kicked out of your job. I was shocked as a departing parliamentary leader, he didn't thank the people of Papineau who elected him five times, that he didn't, in fact, he blamed the House of Commons on his problems as opposed to thanking it as an institution. And he asked us all to respect the great institution of the Liberal Party and give it time to have a discussion about how it could better rule us. I thought it was a little tone deaf, frankly. I would have thought of a more humble and emotional speech from this guy on this day, but I think that's why he's going.

MG: You were also surprised that he didn't mention his father.

CHAD ROGERS: Very much. Historically, we've had very few dynastic families in Canadian politics. His father obviously had two interesting departures from the chair. And I would have thought that, you know, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes that there was a moment there. But, you know, I'm not going to try and psychoanalyze the PM.

MG: Brad Lavigne, what did you make of this? This is, as I said, it's a remarkable moment, but it's a moment that so many Canadians saw coming in some ways.

BRAD LAVIGNE: Yeah, it almost feels as though he was the last to know that his time was up and it took this long. I think most Canadians are saying, okay, so this is the day that we all knew was coming. Why now? What took you so long? What I found interesting with his resignation remarks was the notion that he placed the blame not as much on himself or lack of leadership that he was called upon to show, but internal divisions no longer made parliament work. And we have to understand that one of the reasons why parliament has been paralyzed for months, which he admitted, which I believe he has not done very often in the past, showing that Parliament has not gotten much done over the last number is due to Liberal scandal. And the second one is this notion that he is not a viable candidate to take on Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh in the next federal election. He for months has been signaling that he and only he would be the one to save the Liberal Party. So today, that admission after losing not only the country's support, being at all time lows in the public domain polls at like 16%, but also losing his caucus support and obviously in December, losing his deputy prime minister and minister of finance’s support. So this has been a shedding. He had no place left to turn to for support because it is all now dried up. So now, he's just as a lame duck prime minister for the next three months.

MG: What do you make of that, Susan? I mean, again, to Brad's point, Justin Trudeau said in this studio and just about everywhere else, that he was the person who would be taking on Pierre Poilievre, that he relished that opportunity and that it was his belief that Canadians perhaps weren't as dialed in to politics as others might, but when the time came, they would realize that he was the person. How difficult do you think it was for him to admit that he is not going to be the person?

SUSAN SMITH: I think that's a very difficult decision for any leader to make. They're human beings, and they step into these roles because they do believe that they can lead. Every leader, pick your stripe, feels that way. But I think, you know, his eyes were finally opened wide when he received the letters from caucus. I think the Freeland quitting set it up, but what he was hearing from his MPs was what they were hearing at the door. And in my conversations with MPs, what they're telling me is their constituents are saying, we're liberals, we like you, but you need a new leader. And he finally listened. And he spent some time in his news conference talking about Pierre Poilievre’s, you know, so-called vision. I guess he said if you call it that, and the need for a more ambitious, positive vision for the country going forward. So he did set up the juxtaposition of Poilievre and what a new liberal leader will bring forward. And I think that's a good thing, but tough for any leader to really sort of face some comeuppance. He's had to face it, and I think he's done the right thing.

MG: Who could that leader be and how will the party go about choosing?

SUSAN SMITH: Yeah, so there are many options for the leader. I think they're all really solid people, the names that are being bandied about at the moment. There's some outside folks like Christy Clark, former premier of BC, Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of Canada and former governor of the Bank of England as well. He's been in the world as investment bank and a former public servant. You're hearing names like Chrystia Freeland, of course, Dominic LeBlanc, potentially Karina Gould, who's the House leader. I see her more as a positioning thing. A little more quiet on the François-Philippe Champagne front and Mélanie Joly front and same with Anita Anand. Remains to be seen if they throw their names into the mix. But the people who were working the phones hard over the holidays, you know, we're told through news reports and through talking to people, Christy Clark, Chrystia Freeland, Mark Carney, are the ones that I think have their running shoes laced up and ready to go.

MG: Chad, who do you think Pierre Poilievre is most concerned about when it comes to those people that Susan has mentioned, that perhaps other names being tossed around as well as to who could be the next leader of the Liberal Party?

CHAD ROGERS: I think Pierre Poilievre is concerned about Monsieur Blanchette and the race for seats in Quebec.

MG: He doesn't seem to be running. Monsieur Blanchette does not seem to be in the running for the leader of the Liberal Party.

CHAD ROGERS: Well, I'm talking about leaders that are going to matter in the 2025 federal election. Who the pallbearers are at the funeral are never names I've ever remembered. The leader of the Liberal interregnum will go down with Blake as least significant Liberal leader in Canadian history.

MG: So it does not, from your perspective, it does not matter who the Liberals choose as their next leader in this election, whenever it happens to be.

CHAD ROGERS: Kim Campbell will have been more historically significant and interesting than the placeholder, insert name here, Liberal leader of Parliament in 2025.

SUSAN SMITH: I disagree with that. I disagree with that, Matt. I actually think Pierre Poilievre’s worst nightmare has come, almost come true. He wanted to run against Justin Trudeau. And the fact that there is now a Liberal leadership takes time, energy, Airwaves, print column inches away from Pierre Poilievre and his slogans and what he wants to do because people are going to be looking at maybe what the Liberals could be serving up. They haven't made up their mind yet about Poilievre, and because he doesn't know who the next leader will be on the Liberal side of things, he has to, they're going to have to adjust their game plan to a certain extent. If it's someone from inside, it's a bit easier. If it's someone from the outside, they're going to have to construct a new narrative, and Pierre Poilievre doesn't just get to blame it all on Trudeau going forward. And it will cause Canadians who haven't fully embraced Poilievre, who haven't fully made up their minds to step back, take a breath and say, who can best lead this country going forward?

MG: Chad, quickly.

CHAD ROGERS: Well, if the conservative campaign could point a camera and pay for a live stream of everything liberals say in the next three months and stand back and just let that happen, I think they would invest in that. I think the liberal bus crash that we're watching is meaningless in 2025. We have to prepare to deal with the US. We have to get ready to elect a new government that will be led by Pierre Poilievre, and we have to decide what the legacy of Justin Trudeau meant. Who the liberal leader is, meaningless.

MG: Brad, I want to bring you in, but I was just going to before that, read a statement put out by Jagmeet Singh, leader of the NDP, which says the problem is not just Justin Trudeau, it is every minister that's been calling the shots. It's every Liberal MP that looked down their nose at Canadians who are worried about high costs or crumbling health care. The Liberals do not deserve another chance, no matter who is the leader, which seems to put paid to the question I was going to ask you, which is would the NDP prop up somebody else other than Justin Trudeau?

BRAD LAVIGNE: No. I think that Mr. Singh will be speaking later today, and I think he will be emphatic that the Liberals’ time is up for any opportunity for the New Democrats to support whoever chooses, who's ever chosen to be the next leader, that they cannot count on NDP support when the House returns in the minority context sometime after March 24th. Now, when we take a look at leaders, and I think it's very important, I think there's two things to look for. Your question, Matt, you know, is is there somebody who can save the furniture here? Let's look at two criteria. One is with the unpopularity of Trudeau, so goes with him his legacy. And therefore, there needs to be the candidates who will do the best either among the membership or among the public domain polls, which are also important, even though they don't get, not every Canadian gets to vote on the leader, but I think liberal voters who will be participating in this look to those polls as some indication as to who they want to support, has to distance themselves from the Trudeau legacy. That will be uncomfortable for this sitting lame duck prime minister. The second point, if you take a look at the liberal, where liberals normally gain the most support in order for them to be competitive, we're talking the 905, which is Toronto and the surrounding suburbs, Montreal and the surrounding suburbs and the lower mainland. Let's take a look at the lower mainland of British Columbia, the metro Vancouver area. There's lots of federal seats there. Just the Langley byelection with Trudeau as leader, they got absolutely trounced. And if you take a look, no provincial support anymore. There is no Liberal Party in British Columbia anymore. It is a two-way Conservative, New Democrat province now. And I submit that the next leader is going to have to say, I can build support in the 905 in Toronto, in Montreal and in the metro Vancouver area. Those are the three areas If they want any possibility of coming back. I don't see it. I think people have made up their mind. We've seen that before in British Columbia history where once the electorate makes up their mind, they can change a leader multiple times, but they've moved on. And now, what they're talking about is what are the alternatives? Is it Mr. Poilievre or is it Mr. Singh?

SUSAN SMITH: Matt, can I just throw a little spanner into the works that we haven't talked about?

MG: Go ahead. Absolutely.

SUSAN SMITH: Because Brad's talked about the provinces. Something we haven't talked about today yet is Ontario and Doug Ford and the timing of a provincial election. Mr. Ford has a majority government in Ontario, but he can pull the trigger whenever he wants. And there's lots and lots of chatter of him pulling the trigger in January for a February election that would eat up voter or voter attention. It would also eat up donor funds and volunteer funds from the Conservative Party. It may and leave people tired at the end of it. Pierre Poilievre’s group draws a lot on Doug Ford's people to get out the vote and mobilize people. That could change the hurry up nature of things if a big voter chunk that includes a 905 that Brad is talking about has had election fatigue. So I think that's something I'm going to keep my eye on. But Brad is right when he says, you know, it will be uncomfortable for Mr. Trudeau because a new Liberal leader will have to put their own stake in the ground and have to do the kind of contrasts they need both with the Trudeau legacy, but as well with a Poilievre, quote unquote, vision for the country.

MG: The question, I suppose, is the context that this is unfolding and that you have a new Trump administration that's going to take over the White House in a couple of weeks time. There are these threats of tariffs that are looming over the heads of Canadians. And you wonder, Susan, whether if there is a long leadership contest, whether Canada weakens its bargaining position with Trump.

SUSAN SMITH: So a couple of things, Matt. I don't think there will be a long leadership contest. I think it will be that the Liberal Party will figure out a way to do the shortest, shortest competitive robust plan.

MG: And what is short?

SUSAN SMITH: I'm not the constitutional expert. I think, you know, between 60 and 90 days, we'll see what they can figure out. But the most important thing is…

CHAD ROGERS: Well, the prorogation only gives us 77 days.

SUSAN SMITH: Well, that's between 60 and 90, Chad, last I checked on my math. But the… not an economist, but that part I could count. But the other thing that's super important about Trump is Trump has said he's going to apply the tariffs no matter what. It does not matter which leader of which party is in on January 20th, Donald Trump's going to do what he's going to do. What does matter is the work that's been happening right now by the public service, by our political leaders, the prime minister and cabinet ministers, by premiers talking to governors, by mayors talking to mayors, by business leaders talking to business leaders. That work continues. And that's going to mitigate, hopefully, what Trump does with Canada as he gets a better understanding of if you put a tariff on Canadian refined petroleum products, it's going to cost Americans more to gas up their cars. So Trump, the Trump administration is going to be new finding the bathroom. They know a little bit where some of the bathrooms are, but not everybody will when they get to the White House. And there will be time for adjustment. And our public servants, our cabinet, our government will continue on working with the premiers and all of the people as we have in the past to do what's best to mitigate against Trump. But Trump will be Trump, make no mistake.

MG: Pierre Poilievre has been giving some interviews as to how he would approach a Trump administration. Have a listen to some of what he said on CTV's Your Morning.

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PIERRE POILIEVRE: We're not going to compromise anything to hurt our country's security or economy, period. And we shouldn't have to because our interests are aligned. What are the negotiating tools I have? Well, I can say, look, Mr. President, if you try to cripple our economy, obviously we would have to respond with counter-tariffs that will hurt on the American side. Your workers will lose jobs because they will no longer be able to upgrade our natural resources and higher gas prices will result, even though the president has promised to cut them in half.

MG: Chad, how different would Pierre Poilievre’s approach be in dealing with Donald Trump than what we see now? Or is Donald Trump, as Susan says, Trump's going to be Trump?

CHAD ROGERS: Yeah, I think a new prime minister with a fresh mandate is good at the table, number one. I think a new prime minister that doesn't believe a carbon economy is somehow toxic or inappropriate, and that there's a certain amount of appropriate and responsible extraction of resources that we should allow back in the market. We should remove the discount from the Canadian companies that extract that energy commodity that frankly, the US wants to buy and wants to see more of created in fortress North America. And the third is a partner that may want to responsibly invest in NATO and NORAD again, get us up over 2%, build submarines, make a stronger commitment to the border. I think security and energy are the secret sauce for a new conservative prime minister to strike a new deal with the White House.

MG: Pierre Poilievre did this interview with Jordan Peterson, 90-minute interview which got a lot of attention. What do you think Canadians learned? And I ask you this in part because people are trying to figure out who Pierre Poilievre is and what he might do as prime minister. What do you think Canadians learned from that conversation?

CHAD ROGERS: He's maybe more economically focussed than culture war focussed that he decided to do an interview with a guy that some people find distasteful, but who reaches the biggest audience of any podcast host in North America right now other than Joe Rogan. I mean, 45 million people have listened to it as of this morning. He decided to go where the people are. Much like Kamala Harris refused to do when she wouldn't go on Joe Rogan, he's decided to try and win. And Pierre Poilievre spent the last two years doing nothing but being on the road, doing town halls and talking to people. So I don't think he's scared to have a conversation about the plan. I think he, like everybody, looks at the economy and looks at the financial ruin the outgoing government may have left for him. And so his first year is going to be hard.

MG: Susan.

SUSAN SMITH: This is so mad. I'm one of the people that initially clicked on that interview and helped drive up those numbers. But as I was out walking my dog, I just couldn't get all the way to the end. I did hear Pierre Poilievre spew out a whole bunch of numbers, none of which were substantiated. In terms of negotiation, I don't know who he's negotiated with ever. So in terms of his approach with Pierre Poilievre, I'm not too sure He likes to speak in the public domain. So will he continue to negotiate in the public domain? I don't know. Going to Jordan Peterson, probably not a bad move. Put some things on the record. I question that Chad's comment on the culture wars. I heard Pierre, I stayed in the interview long enough to hear him say no more hyphenated Canadians. So if you're Indo Canadian, Italian Canadian, Chinese Canadian, Ukraine Canadian, Pierre Poilievre doesn’t want to hear about that part of it. And so I don't know how people are going to feel about that. He talked about in broad strokes things he wants to stop doing, printing the money. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I wonder what he would cut to be able to do what he wants to do. Where's the money going to come from for our border? Where's the money going to come from for increased defence spending? Does that mean cutting Canada child benefit, cutting pharmacare, cutting dental care, cutting school food programs? Those are the questions I have, and I didn't get those answers out of the Peterson interview.

MG: Brad, we're just about out of time. As you take a look at this day and the announcement from this day, what do you expect to see in the weeks following? I mean, it feels… it's only Monday. It's only the beginning of a new year. What are you expecting to see?

BRAD LAVIGNE: I'm expecting to see a bump in the liberal polls in the next 72 hours because of his resignation. I'm expecting to see press releases out announcing leadership races faster rather than slower. And I think that within a week's time, next Monday, Matt, on The Current, we're going to be talking about, you know, the first individuals who are running. I think those that get into the race the fastest have an advantage. Those that wait too long will have a disadvantage.

MG: Maybe we'll have you back next Monday. The door is always open. Thank you all for being here this morning.

BRAD LAVIGNE: Looking forward to it.

CHAD ROGERS: Thanks.

SUSAN SMITH: Thanks.

BRAD LAVIGNE: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Chad Rogers, founding partner, Crestview Strategy, former conservative strategist. He was in our Toronto studio. Brad Lavigne, former national director of the New Democratic Party. He's now president of Council Public Affairs. And Susan Smith, liberal commentator and co-founder and principal of the Bluesky Strategy Group. Your CBC News is next, and then.

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RUTH ABERNETHY: As a sculptor essentially in bronze, I'm working on projects and portraits that will be around in 10,000 years, which is rather an astonishing perspective.

MG: An astonishing perspective indeed. Ruth Abernethy is one of the newly appointees to the Order of Canada. We'll speak with her and other extraordinary Canadians coming up in six minutes right here on The Current. Stay tuned.

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ORDER OF CANADA

Guests: Barbara Perry, Valerie Tarasuk, Ruth Abernethy

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. You know, every day, there are Canadians achieving great things. And twice a year, the Governor General recognizes some of those people with our highest honour, the Order of Canada. The most recent announcements were made just before the new year started. And as is a New Year’s tradition on this program, this week, we're going to get to know a few of them. Joining me first is Barbara Perry, who is recognized as one of the world's foremost experts on hate crime. She's a professor at the Ontario Tech University, founding director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism. Barbara, good morning.

BARBARA PERRY: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Congratulations.

BARBARA PERRY: Well, thank you.

MG: How did you find out that you had been named to the Order of Canada?

BARBARA PERRY: Well, it was completely out of the blue, as you can imagine. I had an email that said something like, you know, exciting news about Order of Canada, please call. And of course, I Googled the name first because you can't be too careful, especially working in the space I work in. And I thought, oh my gosh, someone I know has been nominated and they want me to write a letter. But no, when I called, they said, you have been named to the Order of Canada.

MG: And you didn't know anything about this in the background, that kind of, you know, somebody nominates you and away it goes until they let you know that you have been named.

BARBARA PERRY: Absolutely. I had no idea. Came completely out of the blue.

MG: The citation says that you, as I mentioned in the introduction, are one of the world's foremost experts on hate crime. What do you, when you look at the work that you do, what do you see as the most important purpose of that work?

BARBARA PERRY: I think I'm going to say there are two. One is actually to give voice to those who have been affected by hate crime. So my work has involved a lot of interviews and focus groups with targeted communities. So it really is allowing them to tell their stories and then telling their stories and amplifying those voices. But then the second part of that is continuing to work with those communities to develop strategies to intervene either to enhance their resiliency or support victims and targets of hate crime, or to counter the kinds of narratives that give rise to hate crime.

MG: So blow your own horn. This is an opportunity for you to celebrate your own work. What are you most proud of in that work?

BARBARA PERRY: Oh, I'm not very good at this.

MG: But this is your chance. Go ahead.

BARBARA PERRY: I think it's exactly what I just said, and that is the ability, I think because I've worked in the area so long and I've developed, you know, a very strong reputation amongst policymakers that I've been able to influence change and influence policy in this area at the local level, but also, I would like to say at the federal level as well in terms of, you know, engagement around important policy shifts.

MG: Give me an example of that change, something concrete that you've seen that, again, this is an opportunity for you to be proud of the work that you've done can be traced back to that work.

BARBARA PERRY: I think maybe two. One is in sort of the private sector, and that is working with big tech and helping them to define, you know, what hateful narratives are, what hate groups are, and trying to identify those individuals and groups that might be then deplatformed. And the other is probably the work that I've done around things like the online harms bill and providing guidance there on the hate crime component specifically. So I think it is those sorts of interventions that really shift our understanding and the way that we express that understanding in policy.

MG: It's the beginning of a brand new year. What are you expecting in 2025?

BARBARA PERRY: Oh, nothing good, I'm afraid.

MG: Nothing good.

BARBARA PERRY: I'm usually very optimistic, but this is, I think, going to be a very trying year. We're on the heels of, you know, the Trump election, which already, we're seeing the impacts of that in terms of narratives here and this whole Maple MAGA movement in the Canadian context, which I think will only be further emboldened by what looks like a Canadian election coming up, and the extent to which that Maple MAGA will now rally around our election and, you know, spread the kind of disinformation and misinformation that they like to do and increase the polarization that we're seeing here. I think you add to that the conflicts and the challenges and the divisions that we're seeing around the Gaza war. And I think it's going to be another very challenging year for the communities that are affected, but also for those of us that work in this area.

MG: Can I go back to just what you were saying about here in Canada? I mean, one of the things we saw in the United States is a lot of people who got behind Donald Trump and supported him because they felt they were left out of a conversation. They felt that leadership had ignored them, whether it was economically or politically, and that this was their opportunity to say, you know what, we are here and we feel as though our goals and our ambitions have been ignored. How do you draw a line between people who are putting their position forward and the work and the concern that you have about misinformation and disinformation and what you call the Maple MAGA?

BARBARA PERRY: Yeah, I think part of it is the way that those sentiments are expressed and, you know, where the blame is allotted. You know, there's a tendency, I think what we've seen in Canada in the past few years is really to personalize it, that it's, you know, it's all Trudeau. It's all Trudeau. It's all Trudeau. Not just liberals, but Trudeau. And I think that we need to understand the broader structural patterns that are contributing to those narratives, but also contributing to the challenges that, you know, it's big business. It’s corporations that are really to blame for a lot of the problems that we're experiencing right now. But beyond that, I think there is a need also to listen to those voices because there is reality behind them, right? We are seeing, you know, unprecedented lack of affordable housing, unprecedented prices of groceries and just day to day living. So I think that to some extent, there's… not to some extent, to a great extent, you know, there is a real valid foundation for concern there. So I think it's the way that that's been exploited and manipulated by far right actors in particular.

MG: There are people who, because they're not doing the work that you're doing, can turn off that negativity and turn off that hate and steer clear of it. You, this is your job. And so you have to be in it as deep as possible, and that can take you to, I’m assuming, can take you to pretty dark places. How do you deal with that?

BARBARA PERRY: Well, you should see my wine collection to start with, I think. Yeah, I think it's hard to say. I'm asked that question a lot. I think I'm just generally a very positive, upbeat person. You know, even when I'm having these interviews and we're talking about dark spaces, I've usually got, oddly, a smile on my face. So I think that there's that. I've also learned late in life the importance of working in teams. You know, I spent much of the first part of my career doing, working as an individual doing, you know, I would travel and I would do these interviews. I remember, especially when I was working with Native Americans in the US, you know, I'd spend all day doing some really dark interviews, and then I go back to the hotel room by myself. And I've learned that it's much easier if we do this in teams and there's someone to sort of debrief with at the end of the day and to, you know, get out some of that emotion that I've taken in over the course of the day. So having a, you know, a strong network of people to rely on, to vent to, I think has been very, very important to me.

MG: Venting is good. It's a great honour and a real pleasure to talk to you about that honour. Barbara, thank you very much.

BARBARA PERRY: I thank you, Matt.

MG: Barbara Perry is the founding director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University, just named to the Order of Canada. Valerie Tarasuk is also a new appointee to the Order of Canada for her role as a leading researcher on food insecurity. She's a professor emerita of nutritional science at the University of Toronto, where she leads the research group called Proof. It works on policies to reduce household food insecurity in this country. Valerie, good morning to you.

VALERIE TARASUK: Good morning.

MG: Congratulations.

VALERIE TARASUK: Thank you.

MG: What does this mean to you to be named to the Order of Canada?

BARBARA PERRY: Oh, it's huge. It's a tremendous honour. And I mean, it's just a huge, huge affirmation of the work that we've done over these years. So yeah, it's absolutely wonderful.

MG: What got you into that work? I mean, we’ll talk and we'll speak in just a moment about what's happening now when it comes to food insecurity, but what was the path for you to begin this work?

BARBARA PERRY: Well, it goes back a long time. I came to Toronto in the 80s as a graduate student and in nutritional sciences, and my graduate, my master's thesis was looking at the food problems of what back then we called sole support mothers, low income, lone parent women in housing project in downtown Toronto. And at that time, things were just getting started in terms of food banking, right? So there was a flurry of activity of communities in Toronto and elsewhere mobilizing resources to get donated food to people and, you know, all under the guise of tackling hunger or fighting hunger in our community. And at the same time, there were some fairly significant changes to social assistance and, you know, cuts to our social safety net that were beginning back then. And I was as this young student, I was overwhelmed by all of that. And I guess I was bothered by the fact that nobody seemed to be on top of it, that everything was kind of happening by the seat of our pants. And, you know, it wasn't clear what the problem was that we were trying to solve and, you know, how these donations and this flurry of community activity was working. So when I finally garnered a faculty position at the University of Toronto, some years later, I started to make it my business to, you know, chip away at the questions and do more systematic research to ask, you know, what was this problem and where did it come from and whose problem was it really? And, you know, so that's the path.

MG: And so now, we live in a society. I mean, food banks were initially created as a stopgap. They are now embedded in our communities. The line-ups outside food banks are longer than ever, and the range of people who are in those line-ups is astonishing.

VALERIE TARASUK: Yeah.

MG: What worries you the most about this?

VALERIE TARASUK: Well, And it's not just food banks, Matt. I mean, what's happened now for probably 20 years or more in parallel to all that food bank data that you've just described is we've had systematic monitoring of food insecurity by Statistics Canada. So we've got very, very good data now on the scope and nature of this problem. And yeah, what worries me is exactly what, you know, what you see on the ground, that the number of people in Canada who are affected by food insecurity is higher than it's ever been. There's no end in sight. And despite the fact that we've got this extraordinary body of research now and this huge volume of monitoring data telling us that this problem is getting worse, plus, you know, food bank operators across the country exasperated and, you know, defeated really by these extraordinary, extraordinary demands on their, you know, scant donations. You know, with all of that, we don't have any intelligent policy moving forward. So yeah, I mean, this is a very bleak time. I have to say when I got the call, when I realized that I was going to receive this incredible honour, part of me thought, oh, for goodness sakes, like I haven't achieved anything. Look at the mess we're in. And yeah, it's a very, very concerning situation.

MG: What would be one thing that would get us out of this mess, do you think? I mean, again, to your point, the people know this. People know what's happening, and yet we aren't at a place where a wealthy country like ours can think of food as a right. So what do we have to do to get out of that?

VALERIE TARASUK: I think that we absolutely need to set targets now, that, you know, the federal government needs to commit to reducing food insecurity, put some numbers behind that commitment and then start to do it. I mean, one of the things that is troubling, you know, we're all well aware of the fact that we've got a problem, but we still don't seem to have anybody who's taking responsibility for fixing it. And if there's one thing that's obvious now is this problem isn't going to solve itself, right? So we absolutely need a commitment. And I think that commitment comes by saying, you know, we're going to reduce food insecurity by 50% by 2030. We're going to eliminate severe food insecurity and now let's start doing that, as opposed to what we're seeing currently, which is, you know, politicians both at the federal and provincial level, when asked, you know, about this terrible problem, they'll say something like, oh well, you know, we've got a… we're doing something. And they're doing something. You know, maybe it's, you know, job creation or it's the school food policy or in the case of the conservatives, they're talking, they’ve connected food insecurity to their platform to and the carbon tax. But, you know, these are ideas that have come from someplace else, right? Nobody sat down and said, okay, if we do this, it's going to do this to our food insecurity numbers. And that's what we need to see, is some connection, some accountability for policymaking in this country that says this is what we're going to fix and here's how we're going to go about it.

MG: You have achieved a lot. And one of the things you've achieved is that we are talking about this in a much more meaningful and pointed way. Congratulations on the work that you have done and on the recognition of that work, Valerie.

VALERIE TARASUK: Thank you.

MG: Valerie Tarasuk is a professor emerita of nutritional science at the University of Toronto and a new member of the Order of Canada. Ruth Abernethy was appointed to the Order of Canada for her decade’s long contribution to this country's cultural landscape. If you've ever been in downtown Toronto, right across from the sea and tower, perhaps wandered past the CBC Broadcasting Centre, you might have seen her bronze statue of the pianist Glenn Gould sitting on a bench outside. Maybe you sat down beside Glenn, maybe you had a rest or a photo beside him. That is one of Ruth's sculptures, so is the bronze Oscar Peterson sculpture at the Baby grand Piano outside the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, as well as statues of Margaret Atwood and Queen Elizabeth the Second. In fact, her art can be seen right across this country, from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia. Ruth, good morning.

RUTH ABERNETHY: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Congratulations to you.

RUTH ABERNETHY: Thank you. Thank you sincerely.

MG: What does it mean to you to get a recognition like this?

RUTH ABERNETHY: It's a moment's pause. Now, this is, I mean, I don't know that you can quite understand the profile that you and The Current hold in the studio where I have months and years of solitude doing work that ends up with a legacy I really cannot see from the studio. So to have that recognized as symbolic of in the sum of its parts is life affirming. It's a huge deal.

MG: I’m glad to be a companion in the studio with you.

RUTH ABERNETHY: Yes.

MG: How did this all start for you? Because you didn't start in sculpting.

RUTH ABERNETHY: No, not literally. No. I didn't, but I was always building things. And I come from a family tradition of building things. And, you know, from making music collaboratively as a family, we were on stage. I knew people backstage, and from that, I was hired to do summer theatre. And of course, I was terribly useful. I could do things, create things, find things, compile things that other people found difficult to do. So and I wanted to travel. You know, for whatever reason, my family had relatives scattered across the country. You know, what happened in one region was personal. We were not somehow isolated in a region. And in that respect, Canadian theatre technicians are very familiar with airports in the Trans-Canada Highway, and it was mine to explore. So I did build props for 20 years. I did nearly 15 seasons at the Stratford Festival where I arrived from Winnipeg. You know, it's just those oddities. And in fact, because I knew how to carve, it's the whole story of raising the tent, which is my very first bronze in front of the Stratford Festival where I had recreated a fundraising indicator for the theatre's renovation in 1996. And there was talk of doing it in bronze, which I honestly didn't take very seriously. But the fundraising went well, and everyone loved the installation concept and I recreated it. It was installed in 97.

MG: What do you see as in doing that work, what do you see as your role in helping to create a permanent kind of marker for culture in this country? The thing with, whether it's theatre or music is it comes in and then it's ephemeral and it can vanish off into the ether. But I mean, the Gould statue, the Oscar Peterson in front of Stratford, those are there forever. What do you see as your role in creating that permanent marker for culture in this country?

RUTH ABERNETHY: Well, that's it exactly. It's like the creation of bronze exists in a different timeline. And I think it's a perfect microcosm this morning to have Barbara and Valerie's immense contributions as immediate in your lap problems to be dealt with. And then the land of commemorations is it could be 10,000 years. I mean, it really does have that kind of timeline. And I think it's a microcosm for each of us. You know, every day, we are doing the moment in which we're sitting. But at some level, we're also doing 20 years from this moment in our own lives. We're always balancing the immediate with the long term. And you do one or compromise the other. I mean, it is a perpetual ongoing balance. And I have the luxury of looking at archives and reading about legacies and being introduced to remarkable individuals who made an impact in their time, either with the support of others in their time or without the support of others in their time. And I think, to be honest in looking at that, there is the reality of understanding the times in which people used to live, and that contrast illustrates our own time. I mean, what a luxury. That's a detailed, nuanced business.

MG: Do you watch how people interact with your work? I mean, I think of the people who sit beside that Glenn Gould sculpture outside the building that I'm sitting in right now, or me sitting beside Oscar Peterson in Ottawa. Do you watch how people interact with those pieces?

RUTH ABERNETHY: Yes and no. I often have people sending photos of themselves with whichever piece it is, and they are unabashedly staged so that people can do that. You know, I mean, the work I was doing was logically thought through based on my theatre years, right? We're looking at characters onstage who are there and are interesting to us because they're flawed characters. I mean, it's the same on television or film. You know, we're looking at people, we're not looking at them because they lead perfect error free lives, right? So it's the way they contend with their own shortcomings or the way they are moved by their own passions that makes them interesting to us, right? So in doing that, I want people to encounter them. And so I see my characters as permanent performances in the Canadian landscape. I don't think it's very Canadian to need 20 tons of stone. Okay, the Queen's an exception, and that was a requirement and a suitable one. But the others, to me, the thought that you can meet Glenn Gould or Oscar Peterson or Abraham Gessner, father of the petroleum industry, that you can actually be there and have this face-to-face moment, because they struggled through life primarily with the same senses that we have, the same five senses and extraordinary skill. But their skills did not make their lives easy or simple. And that face-to-face moment is the memorable bit. You know, that's what I get when I travel, figuring out what other cultures celebrate and how extraordinary to be able to put my thoughts to that.

MG: It's a real pleasure to talk to you. I mean, having interacted with your pieces over the years across this country, it's really neat to actually talk to the person who had their hands on making those pieces. Ruth, congratulations and thank you again.

RUTH ABERNETHY: Many thanks. Pleasure to be with you.

MG: Ruth Abernethy is a sculptor. She has a new book out. It's called “In Form: Life and Legacies in Bronze”, and she is a new member of the Order of Canada. We kick-off the beginning of the year every year on this program by meeting some of the extraordinary Canadians who are appointed to the Order of Canada, and we'll do more of that this week. If you have seen Ruth’s sculpture of Oscar Peterson at his piano outside the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, this will put you in the mood for a bit of his music. It's Oscar Peterson, Love For Sale.

[Music: “Love For Sale” by Oscar Peterson]

MG: A man who was able to make two hands sound like four. That's Oscar Peterson, Love For Sale. Coming up after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

EVAN WOOD: It's a huge problem in Canada. We do not have a functioning system of care for substance use disorder, particularly alcohol, but all substance use disorders. It's really shameful.

MG: The gap in care for problem drinkers and the provocative message that abstinence is not always the answer. As people work their way through dry January, we'll take a look at a mostly sober life coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

[music fades up and out]

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DRINKING

Guests: Maureen Palmer, Mike Pond, Evan Wood

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. It's January. A lot of people will look at this as dry January, a time when they think about drinking less. There are words that have come to define the way we think about problem drinking. Abstinence is often the goal for those who drink too much. A relapse signals a failure to meet that goal. Co-dependence is to be avoided at all costs, or you'll be accused of enabling a loved one who continued drinking, which could lead them to hit rock bottom. My next guests believe those words and the ideas behind them are doing some people more harm than good. Maureen Palmer is a journalist and author. Her new book is called “You Don't Have to Quit”. And in it, she offers 20 strategies backed up by science and research to help loved ones drink less. She has road tested these strategies herself in her relationship with her partner, Mike Pond. Mike himself has struggled with alcohol abuse for five decades. He is also a therapist who specializes in treating addiction, and they are both in our Victoria studio this morning. Good morning to you both.

MAUREEN PALMER: Good morning, Matt.

MIKE POND: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Mike, I want to get to your story in just a moment. But Maureen, you talk about the title of this book and admit that it can come off as a provocation to some people. Tell me about that idea, “You Don't Have to Quit”.

MAUREEN PALMER: I can see how some people would take it as a provocation, but I take it two ways. Number one is you don't have to quit to be the entry point into a healthier relationship with alcohol. Ultimately, you may end up quitting. And the science says a lot of people who begin the journey to drink less ultimately end up abstinence or mostly abstinent, as Mike and I say. The other thing is I'm writing primarily for the loved ones of drinkers, heavy drinkers. And I'm saying you don't have to quit on the relationship as well. If we learn new skills as loved ones, traditionally we've been thought, well, we're powerless. It's not true. And science has proven that. So and I've proven it in my own relationship.

MG: I want to come back to that idea of abstinence, because, again, there are a lot of people who get really stuck on that. But Mike, describe your relationship with alcohol, and if you don't mind, I mean, how it's impacted, how it's shaped part of your life.

MIKE POND: Well, it depends on how far you want to go back, Matt. It's been a part of my life since early adolescence. So I've always known I've had an alcohol problem. But, you know, in the more recent years, my drinking got so, so severe that I ended up losing my family, my home, my practice and homeless, penniless on the Downtown Eastside. And then from that experience, going through recovery houses and stay in the hospital and almost dying, eventually got sober, stopped drinking. I'd been abstinent for just over a year, and that's when I met Maureen on Plenty of Fish.

MAUREEN PALMER: Don’t say that part. My mother hates that.

[all laughing]

MIKE POND: And disclosed to her pretty openly about what my experience had been. I didn't hear from her for a few days. And then finally, I got a call from her and she says, I don't know if I want to date you, but do you want to write a book?

MG: It's quite an opening line.

MIKE POND: Yeah. And then within, you know, six months, I mean, she just couldn't resist me anymore and we developed a relationship. I got sober, and I stayed abstinent for five and a half years. And just when we started filming the Nature of Things documentary, I drank again. The timing was terrible. Through filming and writing the books and other things that we were doing, I was still struggling with drinking. And so occasionally, I would have an episode of Drinking Again. And through the relationship and the research that we were doing, we just came to this place that, you know, it's the loved ones that need help. It's the significant others that need to understand this problem. And they've been told that it's up to the drinker to solve the problem and there's nothing they can do and they need to detach with love, etc.

MG: Maureen, you're the significant other. I mean, how did Mike drinking again after five and a half years of being sober, how did that change how you thought about sobriety?

MAUREEN PALMER: First of all, I was shocked, which, you know, anybody who's been in a long-term relationship with someone who drinks would say, why were you shocked? This is… relapse is not an uncommon thing. I was convinced we had to fix this problem, fix it right now so he would never drink again. But the reality was there was a lot of unresolved trauma. And, you know, Mike got to a place where now, the drinking is once or twice a year. But there were a few years of real struggle where there was a bit more than once or twice a year. And I realized that how I interacted with Mike, because of the research we'd done, was really pivotal on whether he would drink 10 times a year or two.

MG: Tell me about that. I mean, and the word relapse is really important here, because as you write in the book, relapse can often be seen as a failure. And that, you say, is something that needs to be, at the very least, interrogated.

MAUREEN PALMER: Well, I think so because if we view relapse as a failure, it's against the monolith of abstinence. But if we actually look at what the research tells us, which is that a substance use disorder is a chronic relapsing condition like diabetes or heart disease, we don't shame or judge people who have a diabetic problem for a few weeks. We give them all the evidence-based treatment they need, and we set them back on the right track with no judgement. And with alcohol, we do the opposite. And I did the opposite. I doubled down. Why did you drink again? Do you know how much this is damaging our relationship? Don't you ever think of me? What about your sons? You've just rebuilt all these relationships. You know you're killing yourself. None of that is effective.

MG: Mike, what does that mean? You say you're in a place of mostly sobriety. What does that actually mean?

MIKE POND: Well, it’s usually maybe once, twice a year, and the episodes are usually like an evening.

MG: What does an episode include?

MIKE POND: I might drink, you know, what we call a mickey, right? Half, half a pint of hard liquor and that's it. And, you know, with my clients as well, is a way of viewing it is that if you have one drop, that's it. You know, down you go, right? You can't stop. Well, what we find is that you can. And so what happens is when you do drink is what can come into, You know, your thought process is what's been termed abstinence violation effect. So I've been abstinent. I’ve violated it. And the effect is there I go, I'm a loser. I'm an alcoholic.

MG: The clock is reset back to zero.

MIKE POND: Yeah, and I got to start all over again and it's a fail and I, you know, I might as well just keep drinking. Everybody’s going to be mad at me. And so that's the effect that can compel a person to just keep drinking and drinking.

MG: And so if you focus on positive change, what is the impact of that?

MIKE POND: Well, the consumption goes down. Like when doing work with my clients, I'm saying, okay, what we're looking for is for your consumption to start going down. We're not going to look at the goal of being you're going to be abstinent now. You're going to stop and you have to stop. I work with people and say, we're going to just have you monitor how much you're drinking and maybe include your partner in that. And over a period of time, over a month, we're going to look on a daily basis, how much had you actually drank, you drank less, when you did drink and the periods in between drinking got longer. People start to get a sense of success in that, right? You're starting to see that I'm making progress here.

MAUREEN PALMER: And my job, I think, is to reinforce the success. When Mike would go out and drink sometimes, sometimes he'd buy two or three mickeys or a whole bottle when he would just buy one and the episode was over and I'd help him through the next day and we would talk about pretty well everything but the drinking. Sometimes, I'd actually end up saying, thank you so much for just buying the one mickey. Like hearing something positive about that person's effort. We who don't have an alcohol problem have no comprehension of the willpower and effort required to not drink the 363 other days. So the more I reward the positive change, the more positive change I get.

MG: This is the reward progress, ignore setbacks piece that you write about in the book.

MAUREEN PALMER: Yes.

MG: What is the science that backs that up? I can imagine there are people who are listening who would think that that sounds good, but where's the evidence that shows, beyond your own experience, that that is something that can help people?

MAUREEN PALMER: So a couple of things. And this is mostly from the work of Dr. William Miller, who's a huge legend in the world of alcohol treatment and research, and he's the founder of motivational interviewing. He did a giant outcome study of treatment in America. One year later, 22 or 25% of people were totally abstinent. So that's in his mind, a complete remission. The other 75% had a dramatic reduction in drinking, 87% less drinking. He says in any other condition, the 25% total remission and the 87% reduction in drinking is a huge win, but only in the way we view abstinence do we consider that 75% that drank dramatically less a fail. He also did this major study of following people who wanted to moderate their drinking. And what he found was there was a subset of people who were early in their dependence who were able to moderate their drinking. But he found the vast majority who chose moderation ended up being abstinent or mostly abstinent.

MG: How have you seen, I mean, one of the things that you write about in the book is that we love to drink. As a society, we love to drink. How are those attitudes shaped and how does that influence the conversation we have around alcohol use, particularly now in the wake of the pandemic?

MAUREEN PALMER: I think number one, the alcohol industry shapes the conversation and rules how we think about alcohol. And all you have to do is look at anybody's Instagram feed who's as an alcohol influencer. There's millions and millions of people who follow these influencers. The alcohol industry, this is from Dr. Miller's research, has a vested interest in the abstinence movement because early on, they figured out if you could view those people over there, those poor unfortunates who can't hold their booze, those are the ones we have to hive off and tell them to never drink again. Those people need to be abstinence. The rest of us can enjoy our booze. Well, then the problem isn't the product, the alcohol. It's the humans. And the rest of us think that way still without realizing that one third of adult Americans drink too much, but you don't yet have a dependence and will suffer over 200 health effects. As long as we let the alcohol industry run the show, that kind of thinking is going to be pervasive.

MG: Is that why you have an issue with that phrase, the word enabler as well, That that takes the pressure off of the industry and puts it on the individual?

MAUREEN PALMER: And it's so unfair because I still think the treatment industry and the public health system when it comes to addiction is ridiculous.

MG: What do you mean?

MAUREEN PALMER: Well, in no other part of our health care system in Canada do we hive off a significant portion of treatment of a serious mental health condition to private industry. People with money can afford it. For the rest of people, there's a long wait. Who is left to navigate the system? Family members and loved ones with no resources, who are shamed and called co-dependent and enablers for fighting for the lives of people they love.

MG: Mike, in addition to your own personal experience, you have a therapy practice, and you work with people who are struggling with alcohol use. How has the way that you approached them changed since you became mostly sober?

MIKE POND: It's changed dramatically, Matt, and for a lot of reasons. But the main one is a kind of model openness and honesty. When I first started doing this work, if there was an episode right when I did drink, I wouldn't talk about it, of course, right? I wouldn't be open about it. And now, in the midst of starting to work with somebody, I will say, you know, well, I have slips too. I have episodes too of drinking. And there's something that happens then in the dynamic of the relationship, right? There's always a sense of relief. Oh, okay. Where before, I wouldn't feel free to do that, right, for obvious reasons. Historically, we get shamed, right?

MG: What do you get back from your clients when you're open and vulnerable like that?

MIKE POND: I get openness and vulnerability from them.

MAUREEN PALMER: And relief.

MIKE POND: And relief.

MG: That they don't feel like they are somehow unique or broken because you have gone through similar experiences yourself.

MIKE POND: Exactly. Exactly. So it's great that they can still, you know, see a professional that has the education, the experience, etc., and the credentials and then hear that person be open. Now, I would take a lot of criticism earlier from other professionals that, you know, there's this boundary thing that you need to be aware of where you're kind of up high, you know, higher on the pedestal than the client. When you change that dynamic, those individuals start to get a sense of hope. I can do this. And the secret is I need to be open.

MAUREEN PALMER: And empathetic.

MIKE POND: And empathetic.

MAUREEN PALMER: At the core, if we can engage with empathy with our loved ones, that opens the door to them trusting us, seeing us as allies and wanting to work with us.

MG: What do you see, Mike, as the promise of pharmaceutical treatments for alcohol use Disorder? I ask you this because in part, you went, what was it, like a decade ago or so, you went down to the States to get a drug to help you that you couldn't get here in Canada.

MIKE POND: Yeah, it was the injectable form of naltrexone that's long acting. And the injection and the medication lasts for months.

MG: Right.

MIKE POND: I found it extremely helpful. I noticed the effects within hours there was this kind of calming sense, and kind of the intrusive thoughts and the urge to drink had really diminished. So on working with clients, I say, here's a menu of options we have and start to introduce them to the different medications like naltrexone and gabapentin and some of the others. It's a part of the toolkit that we provide and there's lots of science behind it.

MG: Maureen, in that toolkit, abstinence still has extraordinary power and weight. And you can imagine there are people who are listening who perhaps have had their own experience themselves or with a loved one, and they've been told that abstinence, it's this entrenched kind of approach to dealing with alcohol use. What would you say to them if they question your questioning of abstinence?

MAUREEN PALMER: I think I would say to them that all of the evidence tells us that there are multiple pathways to having a much greater, healthier relationship with alcohol. And the more that we are open to those multiple pathways, just like in cancer, we have chemo, we have radiation, we have surgery, we have immunotherapy, we will move more people to drink less, and many of those people, the research says, will end up abstinent.

MG: I guess the fear from some people would be that you're, in saying you don't have to quit, back to the title of the book, but also just what we've been talking about, is that you open the door to somebody who has worked really hard to be sober, to say, you know what? Well, I don't have to quit. Maybe I could just have one.

MAUREEN PALMER: So I think that there's a couple of answers to that. Number one, I think we ignore the innate wisdom of most people who have had a drinking problem. Dr. William Miller's evidence again says that there are lots of people who claim to be totally abstinent who slip. They don't tell their AA meetings that, but they told Dr. Miller's research team that. So the evidence tells us the vast majority of those people, they had a drink or two or a night of drinking and then went on for long, sometimes years without drinking again. The evidence does not say or support if somebody says, oh, I can go out and have a party that they're going to have a catastrophic fail. It's the opposite.

MG: This is the time of the year when a lot of people are thinking about their alcohol consumption and maybe wanting to start fresh with a new approach. Just finally, Maureen, what would you say to them?

MAUREEN PALMER: I would say there are so many options for you to consider. And if the first place you could look was the new Canadian guidance on alcohol and health, it actually even instructs doctors to consider a harm reduction approach with their patients, and we need to support our loved ones who want to try to drink less.

MG: Mike.

MIKE POND: For me, it was always about the shame, right, and the secrecy. That is in my mind the number one problem. And once we can kind of allow people to be more open and honest about what their drinking is and have that communicated in a very open and effective way…

MG: And not feel stigmatized or shamed, I was going to say if you slip, but if you have another drink.

MAUREEN PALMER: Yeah.

MIKE POND: Yeah, it just opens, opens the door up, so to speak. Because let me tell you, I lived a life of secrecy and shame and hiding and strategizing and manipulating and doing whatever I could to have my drink yet not get caught, right?

MG: Thank you both for this. I mean, the fact that you have this long, intertwined relationship that is based around a lot of things, but that you've been willing to talk about this openly, I think is really quite powerful, and the book is the latest example of that. Maureen, thank you so much.

MAUREEN PALMER: Thanks for the opportunity, Matt.

MG: And Mike, Thank you.

MIKE POND: Yeah, thank you, Matt.

MG: Maureen Palmer is a journalist and author. Her new book is titled “You Don't Have to Quit: 20 Science Backed Strategies to Help Your Loved One Drink Less”. She had help writing that book with her partner, psychotherapist Mike Pond, who has alcohol use disorder. Dr. Evan Wood is an addiction medicine specialist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He is the co-author of Canada's first clinical guidelines for treating high risk drinking and alcohol Use Disorder. Those guidelines were published last year. He's in Vancouver. Dr. Wood, good morning to you.

EVAN WOOD: Good morning.

MG: What do you make of that idea of the message, you don't have to quit?

EVAN WOOD: Wow, it's just such a complex issue, this one. I think it's intentionally provocative, and I really like what Maureen said in that this is meant to be an entry point. Mike and Maureen would be the first to acknowledge this isn't a one size fits all illness, you know, coming from their perspective of the frustration of a sort of abstinence-oriented model that, as Mike says, does create a sense of shame and can push people away from care. You know, that's hugely, hugely problematic. At the same time, you know, for others, you know, abstinence is really important and has saved their lives. And so it's really complex. You know, I was thinking listening to the conversation, there's genetic underpinnings of addiction that some people will have these culprit genes and other people will not. And the strategies for family members I think is a really important part of the conversation. It's not something that I'm objecting to in any way, shape or form, but I do want to ensure that, you know, there is that sense of balance. There's many pathways to getting better for people that are struggling with alcohol problems.

MG: We don't talk a lot about harm reduction when it comes to alcohol use. We talk a lot about it currently when it comes to, for example, the overdose crisis. Why do you think harm reduction hasn't been more commonly used when treating alcohol use disorder?

EVAN WOOD: Yeah, there's probably historical sort of outdated models where, blessings to them, but the sort of founders of addiction medicine, many of them were individuals who were in recovery themselves, who had got better through 12 step models and really were emphasizing an abstinence only approach. Again, that has a critically important role. And so I don't want to diminish that. But then I think there is just the research showing that we need to be pragmatic. We need to be realistic for some people and acknowledge that cutting down on their alcohol use, and really, it can be a moving target for others. You know, somebody who drives a truck, a semi-trailer, you know, those types of things may be totally unrealistic. Again, just such a complex issue.

MG: As I mentioned, you are the co-author of the first clinical guidelines for treating high risk drinking and alcohol Use disorder. Until last year, these guidelines didn't exist. And when they came out, you said in the absence of effective care, people are being routinely prescribed potentially harmful medications that can, unknown to most prescribers, actually increase alcohol use in some patients. What are you talking about there?

EVAN WOOD: Yeah, well, Maureen really made the point that it's crazy that we have, you know, the burden of illness with substance use, including alcohol in Canada, and we don't have a functioning system of care. And so people will be struggling and looking for support. They might go to walk-in clinics or their family doctor or frankly, and I see this as a specialist physician, go to a specialist physician who is prescribing medications, usually anti-depressants, but also medications that get used off labels. Schizophrenia medications routinely get prescribed to people with alcohol use disorder. And actually, the double blind placebo controlled trials that tested those medications often found that people craved alcohol more or drank more alcohol. I think it's just a fascinating evidence-based medicine story and probably has a role of pharmaceutical industry influence, and that those trials were sort of buried in the archives of, you know, medical libraries and not discussed amongst prescribers and not evident in guidelines. And if you went into your average family doctor's office, and hopefully this is changing, and said, I'm trying to cut down on drinking. My mood is really low. The prescription pad will, you know, immediately come out in so many instances to prescribe a medication that can increase drinking and will do nothing to improve depression symptoms. And if you go back and see that family doctor in a week and say, you know, things aren't really better, what are they going to do? They're probably going to increase the dose of the medication that may actually be worsening the situation. So it's a huge problem in Canada. We do not have a functioning system of care for substance use disorder, particularly alcohol, but all substance use disorders. It's really shameful.

MG: I mean, Mike talked about how he travelled to the States to get pharmaceutical treatment that he says has helped in some ways that wasn't available here. What does that tell you?

EVAN WOOD: Well, it's no surprise to me because I work for the publicly funded large regional health authority in British Columbia that is actually in the city's renovated animal shelter, and we have people desperately looking for treatment who are routinely discharged from there to homeless shelters because there's nowhere for them to go.

MG: Just even that… stop there. Even that description that it's, I mean, the way that you described it sounds as though it's been pushed off to the side somewhere.

EVAN WOOD: It's an orphan discipline that has been sort of the unwanted stepchild within mental health. I'm an internal medicine specialist. I know what specialized health care environments look like. I've had family members who've had cancer. I've worked in those environments. And if you're struggling with a substance use disorder, you know, you might end up at the emergency room. And unlike everybody else that's there for a medical condition, in Canada, you're much, much less likely to be admitted. And, you know, there's very, very few resources for people out there to prevent them going to the emergency department in the first place. It's just a national shame, in my view.

MG: What is that about? Is that this idea that you do it to yourself and that there's less sympathy, perhaps, and because less sympathy, less, fewer resources are put into that? What else is going on?

EVAN WOOD: Yeah. Well, first of all, we all pay for it, so we should be clear about that. But there's structural issues, certainly, and one of them is stigma, but another is a lack of training for health care providers in this area, so they don't know what to do. And I've alluded to the consequences of that. There's historically been a lack of therapeutic guidelines. I'll give as an example, we've legalized cannabis in Canada, which, you know, I was an advocate for because I don't think criminalizing the use of drugs is helpful, but we don't have a therapeutic guideline for the treatment of cannabis use disorder when people struggle to cut down or reduce their use of cannabis. The same for stimulant. There's structural reasons for why we're in this mess, and there's a clear path to get out of it if policymakers are listening.

MG: How do you train that next generation of addiction specialists to deal with everything we've been talking about and make them equipped to truly treat people?

EVAN WOOD: I think that the majority of care can be provided within primary care, but there has to be an investment in training for individuals who are providing care, whether that's nurses, doctors, social workers, primary care physicians and specialists in evidence-based substance use disorder prevention, treatment and care, because, you know, we do a lot of things that place people at risk of substance use disorder in this country as well in terms of unsafe prescribing of pain medication or the easy availability of alcohol that's great for consumers, but does increase the prevalence of alcohol use disorder in our society. So there's many levers to pull out to have a healthier society, and we're not reaching for them in the way we should be.

MG: Evan Wood, we'll leave it there. It's good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

EVAN WOOD: Thank you so much.

MG: Dr. Evan Wood is an addiction medicine specialist and clinical scientist at UBC. As you've been listening to this, what has been going through your mind? Have you or perhaps a loved one struggled with alcohol abuse? This is that time of the year, as I said, when a lot of people are rethinking the relationship with alcohol. US Surgeon General just said that there should be warning labels on alcohol bottles to talk to people about the health effects of drinking. And as you're listening to that conversation in that context, what are you thinking about? What sort of approach have you tried? What's worked? What hasn't worked? You can email us. The email address is thecurrent@cbc.ca. That is The Current for this Monday, the 6th of January. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. Happy New Year. It's a brand new year. Glad to have you along with us. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. I'll see you tomorrow.

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Monday, January 6, 2025 Episode Transcript

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