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The AIH Transcript for March 30, 2020

Hosts: Carol Off, Chris Howden and Ali Hassan

Prologue

CO: Compounding losses. In the Ontario town of Bobcaygeon, at least nine people at a nursing home have died from COVID-19. We reach a man whose father lives at that home.

CH: Hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. An Ontario doctor tells us about the protocol he developed for how hospitals will make life and death decisions if COVID-19 cases overwhelm the health care system.

CO: Get out of town. No Really, get out of town. A couple tries to escape the pandemic by moving to a remote First Nation in Yukon — and gets a frosty reception.

CH: He could have his cake and eat it, too. A baker in Quebec pays tribute to the province's director of public health by stress-baking a cake with his face on it. And people are eating it up.

CO: Disappearing act. Intrigue surrounds the disappearance of a former FBI agent who went to Iran 13 years ago and never came back. A reporter who has been following this story unpacks the latest twist.

CH: And... he's the bomb. Or rather, he's the guy who found an unexploded shell in his neighbour's garbage. Our daily dip into the As It Happens archives to satisfy your yearning for pre-pandemic problems, like explosives in your neighbour's garbage.

CH: As It Happens, the Monday Edition. Radio that appreciates a good blast from the past.

Part one: Bobcaygeon nursing home, Yukon arrivals, From Our Archives: Shell Guy

Bobcaygeon nursing home

Guest: Ian Handscomb

CH: Bobcaygeon is a small town — population just over three-thousand. So the news that nine people have died of COVID-19 is hitting the town hard. What's worse is all those deaths were at the Pinecrest Nursing Home. A couple of weeks ago, the home alerted families that three residents had tested positive for the virus. It's since spread to dozens of staff members and residents. Ian Handscomb's father, Bill Handscomb, lives at Pinecrest Nursing Home. We reached Ian in Bobcaygeon.

CO: Ian, first of all, how are you processing the fact that so many people at Pinecrest Nursing Home have now died of colvard 19?

IAN HANDSCOMB: [deep sigh] Emotionally, it's been a roller coaster. We found out about the positive cases on the 13th of March. And since then, my mom and I have pretty well been in isolation. We were originally getting some information from Pinecrest in terms of what their approach was. And most of our news now is coming through the media.

CO: Have you had any contact with your dad, with Bill?

IH: We do. We're able to do what we were calling window visits. We go and we can see him through the window. Before they went in complete isolation, we were able to talk to him on the telephone. He doesn't have his own phone. So he's in the four stages of Parkinson's and really can't manage a phone well on his own. So what we do is we go up and we sit outside his window. And we do it kind of through writing on signs. And we're able to kind of keep in contact through that way.

CO: How do you think he's doing?

IH: Physically, he is not exhibiting any symptoms. And his roommate is not exhibiting symptoms. Emotionally, I look in his eyes, and they're extremely lonely. They have... The only contact they're having with people are the lovely nurses and PSWs, who are working their hardest to manage their care. And his roommate. It's very sad.

CO: What effect is all this having on your mom?

IH: My mom is one of those people that were in there every day. She's spent pretty well from two o’clock in the afternoon till nine o'clock, when he went to bed, there every day. So many of the people there thought she worked there [slight chuckle]. And not being able to go in and to touch him and to just stroke his head or… You know, they had been married 53 years. And this is, you know, it was hard enough when he had to go into the nursing home in May. And now to have this where it's just really, really hard on our family.

CO: When did you get the sense that this virus was going to, or had hit, this nursing home so hard?

IH: I think it really hit home was when we heard how many staff were impacted. And that half of the staff was struggling with either being a positive case or with the symptoms that they were self-isolating at home. And that became very worrisome. You know, it's hard to manage these folks, even a full staff. There’s bathing that has to be done. There's toiletry. There's medications. So when everything just got pushed into the rooms. And last night, I was heartbroken. I looked down the hallway from the window, and I didn't see one person in the hall. I look in these nurse's eyes and, you know, I can see their exhaustion. I can see their heart broke. I can see their despair. And they’re just worked to the bone.

CO: How would you describe the way Pinecrest is handling the crisis?

IH: I think they're probably in crisis mode. You know, I think they're doing what they can. I'm really pleading with whoever I can that they need help. They need manpower.

CO: Ian, if you could put a question to the government, if you could ask for something, what would it be?

IH: We're not asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars. We're not asking for huge amounts of, you know, medicines and that. We're asking for people. We’re asking for people to help these poor PSWs and nurses care for these folks. Whether it be those folks that are going to make it through the virus or these folks that these are their last, you know, kind of days on this planet. They deserve the dignity to have the care that is expected of our seniors. And there's got to be a way that they can bring somebody in from the military or from, you know, nursing students or something to give these poor people that are going in day in, day out and working double and triple shifts to be able to manage these folks.

CO: Ian, just how concerned are you that your father might get it? Do you feel that he is isolated enough now?

IH: Unfortunately, in this situation that they're in, unless they took them out of the building, those people that aren't exhibiting symptoms, I think that would be the only way that they could isolate. I think they're isolating as much as possible under the circumstances. The way the home is designed, there isn't enough rooms. Because as most of our senior facilities are, they're at maximum capacity when this happened. And there isn't a spare room where you can put somebody and when you have 20 people exhibiting symptoms, you know, it's hard to isolate. The staff from what I've seen are completely geared out with their protective gear. So I don't think they're being negligent. And in doing that, it's just they don't have the space to be able to isolate as well as, you know, you would like. And and I don't know what the solution is for that, whether, you know, with the rooms that are now becoming available, you know, through this horrible tragedy and people being lost, whether they could be moving people into different rooms, that those people that are well and be self-isolating and in individual rooms, whether that's a possibility. They're doing their best, I think, with what they have.

CO: Ian, I really hope that your father is okay, and you’re able to just be able to hold him at some point, Gand you and your mom. And I appreciate that you’d speak with us. Thank you.

IH: Thank you so much.

CO: Take care.

IH: Bye-Bye.

CH: We reached Ian Handscomb in Bobcaygeon, Ontario. We received a statement from the Pinecrest Nursing home. It read, in part, "We actively monitor and screen our residents to determine if they are showing any of the related symptoms, and take necessary precautions if they do. We also actively screen all our team members every time they enter our building, and they are encouraged to self-monitor at home, and are not permitted to come to work if they are feeling unwell." For more on this story go to our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Light rock]

Yukon arrivals

Guest: Dana Tizya-Tramm

CO: Chief Tizya-Tramm, what did you think when this couple first arrived in Old Crow on Friday?

DANA TIZYA-TRAMM: Well, quite honestly, it was a little bit discombobulating as we're very busy in the office with creating financial assistance matrixes, doing budget forecasting, as well as creating the certainties around all of the variables that the COVID0-19 virus presents us as a community and a government. So to get a call in the morning from our emergency management officer saying that there was a couple he did not recognize in our local airport as he meets the plane every day. And in speaking with them that they did not even know where they were staying was a little bit offsetting. And it took me a moment to regain my balance, to apply really some quick solutions to this issue.

CO: Okay, what did they say about why they were there?

DTT: Well, I had spoken with them preliminarily at the airport via cell phone, and I had followed up with them just a couple of hours later, once they were escorted to the local co-op hotel. And there we had a bit of a chance to have a conversation via phone. You know, I could actually feel the fear from their side. And they relayed to me that they were very scared with Quebec requesting military assistance from the federal government. And they said that in conjunction with the spreading of the virus that they picked Old Crow off of a map and figured that this and our community would be the safest place in Canada to weather the COVID-19 storm.

CO: Okay, so they came from Quebec. How did they get to Old Crow? Did they fly? Did they drive? They can't drive the whole way. So how did they get there?

DTT: He had told me that they had sold everything that they owned in Quebec, driven across the country, and they grabbed the first flight they could out of Whitehorse, Yukon, 80 miles north above the Arctic Circle, to our small community — a fly-in-only community of 250 people.

CO: Why is this... Well, for many reasons. But why is this a big problem for Old Crow right now?

DTT: Well, actually, in doing so, and I can understand their basically irrational fear. But they actually endangered themselves and our community, as we have lower capacity to deal with a very critical outbreak of COVID in our community. We don't have a practicing doctor. We do have a practicing nurse who has some staff. And three RCMP officers. But also, about one-fifth of our population are elders with underlying medical issues. So we don't have the capacity to deal with this, and especially for themselves coming from one of the most affected provinces, driving right across the country and coming directly into our community. It's concerning.

CO: As people in Old Crow found out that this couple had come there, what was the reaction among them?

DTT: By the end of the day, you know, community members were very concerned and were very hospitable and generous people. But these are unprecedented times. And so I think the general feeling is it's almost as if instead of knocking on your front door, you come downstairs and find someone helping themself to your fridge.

CO: And how did they propose they were going to live in your community?

DTT: Well, that was the thing. They had first asked me if there was anything that they could help with. And I inquired further about what they had meant, and asked them, you know, what are your plans? And they said that basically, we're here to live. And that's when I had to inform them. You know, you have stepped onto the traditional territory of the Vuntut Gwitchin. It's not just, you know, we're a Nation, and we're a recognized, self-governing First Nation. And we own all the housing in our community. It's legal for an individual to own a piece of our land. We own all of it collectively. We are also in the midst of a housing crisis that this construction year was supposed to alleviate. So with the COVID-19, not only have we completely scaled down all construction and we have no housing to offer, not even enough for our own members. That's when they started sobering up to the actual reality of things. And he followed up with a question which was quite simply, well, what do I do now?

CO: And what did they do?

DTT: They had came to our community just on this past Friday, as our government was doing our first reading of legislation that will enact emergency powers for our government. But this was also on the same day that the Yukon government had enacted its Civil Emergency Act. So they were actually the first infraction within a few hours of its announcement. And having not self-isolated in Whitehorse, the capital city, before traveling to a rural community. They had actually broken the chief medical officers orders. So quite quickly, the gears of government started to process. And before I knew it, the RCMP had made contact with them and they were escorted to the next scheduled flight out of our community on the following Sunday.

CO: Wow, It's quite the story. [laughing] Quite the encounter with people just arriving in your community. Chief Tizya-Tramm, I'm glad you could tell us about it. Thank you.

DTT: No, I really appreciate the opportunity. And I wish them and the rest of the country all of the best. But I think this is a good touchpoint and learning opportunity that it's cool heads that prevail. And actually, the best place for people is where they are. And practice physical distancing and self-isolation.

CO: That’s a very good reminder. Thank you so much.

DTT: By standing together, we must stand apart at this time. [Speaking in an alternative language]

CO: [chuckle] Thank you. Take care.

CH: Dana Tizya-Tramm is the Chief of Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation. We reached him in Old Crow, Yukon.

[/sc]

CH: That was veteran BBC correspondent Fergal Keane sharing a poem that helped him through his PTSD. It was written by Irish poet John O'Donohue.

[Music: Ambient]

From Our Archives: Shell Guy

CH: There are pluses and minuses about walking around outside these days. One plus is that our polite physical distancing shows we still live in a society. One minus is that that excludes some dog owners in my neighbourhood — who are embracing pure nihilism. By which I mean they're not cleaning up after their pets. Another plus, though, is that if you're a garbage picker, you don't have to worry about someone judging you to your face. Instead, they'll be doing it from inside their houses. So you can take whatever you want. But if you find an explosive, please call 911. That's what Danny Vellow of London, Ontario, did when he stumbled on the unexploded ordnance at his neighbour's place. Not that he was garbage-picking, as you'll hear. He was just a conscientious citizen keeping an eye on the neighbourhood. A close eye. Today, we made another trip to the As It Happens archives for stories that have nothing to do with pandemics. And we came out with Carol's interview with Danny Vellow, which first aired on May 18th, 2018.

[sc]

CO: Danny, what did you see in your neighbour's garbage?

DANNY VELLOW: Well, I didn't see — I wasn't garbage picking I was just taking the path through the backyard and they threw all the stuff out there the day before, three days before. When I stepped over my fence I almost stepped on an artillery shell.

CO: Artillery shell with the garbage?

DV: Yes, three bags of garbage and an artillery shell. He should've phoned the police right off the bat.

CO: OK, but wait a second. Were you sure right away what you were looking at?

DV: Yeah, from ironworking I worked at the Lac la Biche bombing range many times because I've worked out 25 years in Edmonton as an iron worker all over Canada. So every year you go out to Lac la Biche bombing range, they teach you three hours of the most boring video about bombs. Well, when I seen that bomb I knew it was not an inert bomb. I didn't see no drill holes in it. It was solid brass and I knew it was old.

CO: OK, so you know it wasn't inert? Were you worried? Did you think maybe this could explode?

DV: Oh, yeah. Well I had a doctor's appointment to get my broken shoulder looked at, because I cracked my shoulder blade, and on the way I phoned the police I was 100 feet down from the bomb. By 500 feet from the bomb I figured ‘OK, I won't go to the doctor’s I’ll go back and talk to the police officer because I've got to show him the bomb, right.’ So anyways, I got a phone call, the second phone call, I was at the Beer Store, which was five to ten. And they said “What are you doing at the Beer Store?” I said “I'm not going to doctor’s, I'm going to stand there all day, I'm going to get some beer and I'll be right back there in ten minutes.” So I got back there okay, now the bomb is three feet from me and the police officer drove up with his car right up to me, “Are you Danny from the Beer Store?” “Yes” he says “Where is this bomb?” And I pointed down to it, which was right where his front tire was, two feet away. He backed up right away and he came over and took two pictures. Ten minutes later the bomb squad is here. Ten minutes later the bomb squad took a picture. Ten minutes later Wisconsin, USA phoned them and said “Hey, don't touch it, it's military and they're sending somebody out here.” And then we sat there for 12-14 hours until they picked it up.

CO: You sat out there where? I mean, how close were you to the bomb?

DV: Probably about 70 feet. I made sure there was a big tree in front of me and the police were all away on the other side of the intersection over there. And they sat there all day watching that bomb.

CO: Now do you have any theories as to why there was this artillery shell on your neighbour's garbage?

DV: The people that were renting that apartment, they told me they're brothers. Apparently they're not brothers. And anyways, they offered me some empties. I went over to pick up the empties, they were kicked out. I heard yelling the night before so they were kicked out and then they had new neighbours in there. So anyways, the next day it looked like somebody was sorting out — I think it was the landlord —the good stuff from the bad stuff, you know. These two brothers were nefarious. The truck they were driving had no door handles on either side, they said they were broken into, it was probably a stolen vehicle.

CO: OK just back to the shell. So you think that these brothers —who were not really brothers — may have put this out with the kind of trash? Why would they have an artillery shell from World War I?

DV: No kidding. How does a 100-year-old bomb make it from a hundred years ago till today without blowing up? Where the hell has that bombed been in a hundred years to get here? That’s a military shell that should have been found in Europe, that you dig up in the farmland somewhere, not here in Canada. Anyways, the police told me I broke two records. I found the biggest bomb by a civilian and I found the oldest bomb by a civilian, which was a World War I artillery shell. A 90-pound shell, two feet long. And they said it had dynamite power of 24 sticks, and it was very hot.

CO: And so this could have gone off? I mean, in the right conditions.

DV: If somebody mishandled it, yes. Imagine a 100-year-old bomb. There’s elderly guy here, that guy actually panicked. “That's an artillery shell.” He's trying to tell a police of an artillery shell, they said the bomb squad’s right there and they can't even touch it. Military wouldn't let them.

CO: But they did eventually take it away, right?

DV: Yeah, the military showed up and took it about seven o'clock or so.

CO: And do you think they took it and they blew it up?

DV: Well they took it to Borden and they blew it up there — they have facilities there. And the police told me, “Danny, you broke a record and that was a spectacular explosion.” No kidding. I wanted to make a lamp out of it. I dsid “Hey, can I get it back?” They said “Danny, we blew up this morning.” And the guy, he's been 20 some years in the force as a bomb explosion guy, which is my second time for a bomb in six years. Last time it was a hand grenade he said “Yeah, I remember you.”

CO: You found a hand grenade?

DV: Well I walked into a Money Mart and somebody tried to push a hand grenade underneath the glass and it got stuck in the tray and we were all locked in there by magnetic lock until a bomb squad showed up. So I said “Yeah, six years ago this happened,” he said “I remember that.” I said “I was the guy inside the building.” The cops took me out and they held me for three hours over that. I had nothing to do with it.

CO: Danny, we have to go. I could listen to you all day. Thank you for telling this story.

DV: Well, you have a beautiful day and happy belated Mother's Day to everybody.

CO: Thank you so much.

DV: Nobody got blewed up.

CO: Nobody got blewed up, and you got your beer. Take care, Danny.

DV: You have a beautiful day. Bye-bye.

CO: Bye.

[/sc]

CH:From our archives, Carol's conversation with Danny Vellow, of London, Ontario. That first aired in 2018.

[Music: Uptempo instrumental]

Part two: Triage rules, Levinson story

Triage rules

Guest: James Downar

CO: Dr. Downar, why was it important to create this plan for who will get beds and ventilators?

JAMES DOWNAR: So every jurisdiction in Canada has started to make preparations in anticipation of some of the challenges that will be posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Really, what we've seen is from the experience of other countries like Italy and now the United States, that this is really an unprecedented surge in demand for acute care, and in particular, critical care services. It's only sensible in that context to start preparing for situations where we would face the same problem. And that's that's why that happened.

CO: Okay, so how do you do this? How do you figure out the priorities for who will get treated if we reach capacity?

JD: Well, if we're talking about triage and resource allocation, this is an option of last resort, not first resort. You really need to do everything you can as part of a system. First of all, the surge up to try to make use of all existing resources, including extra ventilators, extra staff who could work in an ICU, find all the space you can, do whatever you have to do so that you do not have to get to the point of triaging. You have to make all reasonable attempts also to move patients around within your system to where you might still have some capacity to to accommodate them. Once that is done, though, and you're really hitting the limit of what you have, the first thing you need to do is you need to settle on what are your principles and what are your aims. So the aim of most triage protocols is try to maximize survival and the number of life years saved for all of the people involved.

CO: Okay, now just with that first one. What does that mean in plain English?

JD: So you're trying to make sure that the people who are getting the highest priority for resources are the people who have the greatest chance to benefit from them.

CO: You mean survive?

JD: Both in terms of short-term and in terms of long-term, right? So there are some people who, again, through no fault of their own, they have conditions where their likelihood of surviving an episode of critical illness is very low. Or even if they were to survive that episode of critical illness, they would not survive for very much longer due to an underlying condition. Those are maybe the situations where, you know, somebody might have not the same priority as somebody, for example, who has a much better chance of surviving their critical illness and living for a long time there afterwards.

CO: We have spoken with doctors in Italy who have had to make these extremely difficult decisions. They've never had to do it before, where they have to decide who's gonna get a ventilator, who's going to be taken off a ventilator? Is that what you're talking about?

JD: That is what we're talking about. So what you have to do is you have to sit down and decide what are your ethical principles that you're trying to follow here? And the protocols that are being developed in Canada generally are focusing on some aspects of what we call, first of all, utility. So that's what we're talking about. The people who are getting the resources? Are those who are in the position to best benefit from them, what we call proportionality. So you don't want to institute a more aggressive approach to triage than maybe you need. But also, you want to observe the principle of fairness, right? So you don't want to settle on very arbitrary, you know, criteria. For example, just looking at age, because if that's not a clinically relevant consideration in a situation, then somebody could turn around and say, well, look at that, are you really focusing on benefit here? And that's the question you want to ask.

CO: How do you keep that fairness? How do you ensure that you don't see people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, to people who are homeless, people who are Indigenous? How do you make sure that everyone is treated fairly in this way?

JD: Well, this is precisely the reason that you should have a very clear and explicit protocol, right? Now, the more you read things up to purely judgment, without guidelines, without anything explicitly written down, without transparency in the system, the more potentially you run the risk of having problems like the ones you're outlining. Again, nobody wants to enact a trash protocol. Nobody even wants to be talking about this. The idea, though, is that when you make a good triaged protocol like this, ultimately you will end up doing that less often than you would if you didn't have a protocol, right? If you if you just let decisions be made and let units fill up without having a plan for reallocating people and a rational approach to how you decide who is going to get critical care, you know, the more you use those protocols, the less likely you are to find yourself in the situation of having to make decisions and potentially deny people critical care resources that they would otherwise want and benefit from.

CO: The danger, as people are already pointing out because this is... You're not the only one who is. This is not the only jurisdiction trying to work this out. We know that in the United States, they are considering things like it’s been reported that in Alabama and Washington, they're considering whether people with intellectual disabilities may not be prioritized for treatment. Others are concerned that perhaps, if someone is homeless or or in or disabled, that they may be regarded as somebody who has less of a chance of surviving. That these kinds of choices can become very problematic, very ethically problematic, are they not?

JD: Yeah, well, and again, I can only just re-emphasize this is an argument in favour of developing explicit criteria and try to make those criteria as helpful and clinically focused as possible to try to preclude that from happening. We have to be very careful. And in times of strain on the health care system, people will be concerned that the types of things you're talking about might arise. The best way to address those concerns is to focus on clinical criteria, get multiple people involved in decision making and have a protocol where you explicitly do not list things like socioeconomic factors, age, etc. as criteria. And I think that as long as you are focusing on those clinical criteria, you're doing everything you can to to reduce the chance of seeing something like what you're describing.

CO: Right. So what you’re saying is that these decisions will be made blind of those kinds of characteristics of people that you're making decisions about, right?

JD: Well, and again, this is the kind of conversation that needs some detail and some context. That, you know, it's very easy to sit down and write a list, but people are sometimes very complicated. You know, their situations are unique to them. And you can't expect that everybody is going to look exactly like what you might have written on paper. And you need to take account for that. And again, the degree to which everybody can make these triage protocols available and visible to the public so people can see what they are and hopefully be reassured that they're not going to face a situation like what you're describing. I think that's the best way to deal with that.

CO: Dr. Downar, I hope that you don't ever have to use these protocols you're developing. And I really appreciate you talking to us. Thank you.

JD: You're most welcome.

AH: Dr. James Downar is the secretary of the Canadian Critical Care Society, and a critical care specialist at the Ottawa Hospital. He was in Ottawa. I am Ali Hassan, our regular co-host, Chris Howden, who you did hear at the beginning of the show, is working from his home. We're still working out the setup there. So I'll be with you for the rest of the program.

[Music: Folksy guitar]

For The Record: Donald Trump presser

AH: U.S. President Donald Trump would like reporters at his Covid-19 briefings to just...be nice. He's especially preoccupied with the niceness — or lack thereof — of PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor. Yesterday, during a briefing, Ms. Alcindor questioned the president about comments he made in a recent interview with Sean Hannity at Fox News — suggesting some states were requesting equipment they didn't actually require. Here's part of Yamiche Alcindor's exchange with Donald Trump, for the record.

[sc]

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: You've said repeatedly that you think that some of the equipment that governors are requesting they don't actually need. You said New York might not need 30,000....

DONALD TRUMP: I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that.

YA: You said it on Sean Hannity's Fox New. You said, you know, you might…

DT: Why don't you... Let me ask you something.

YA: You said...

DT: Why don't you act in a little more positive? It's always trying to get you, get you…

YA: My question...

DT: And you know what? That's why nobody trusts the media anymore.

YA: My question to you is how’s that going to impact…

DT: Excuse me, you didn’t hear me. That’s why you used to work for The Times and now you work for somebody else. Look, let me tell you something. Be nice.

YA: Mr. President, my question is…

DT: Don’t be threatening. Be nice. Go ahead.

YA: My question is how you fill these orders for ventilators or for masks? You're view is that it’s not going to impact you at all.

DT: We’ve got a tremendous number of ventilators. We're doing a great job on it. Mike Pence, our vice president, has headed up the task force, which has been incredible, the job they've done. We have everybody in the White House working on it. We have everybody in the country is working on this in one way or the other. The fact is, we've done a great job of delivering. You've seen the biggest people in the business. I mean, there's nobody even close to this group of people. We had a meeting at three o’clock. It lasted for a long time. It was a great meeting with the generals and with everybody else. And they have done a fantastic job. I'm just saying this, if they're holding… Let me give you one example. We sent thousands of generators to New York. They were put into a warehouse, a New York warehouse that happened to be located, interestingly, in Edison, New Jersey. They were given to New York. And we then went to other places, also giving thousands of ventilators. The people in New York never distributed the generators. We said, why didn't you distribute them? Now, you have to understand, they have New York people working in those warehouses. They knew the atom. So we said, why didn't you distribute them? I hope they've distributed them now, but maybe they didn't need them so badly. But just so you know, we're all you, me, everybody, we're all on the same team. You know, when journalists get up, and you're a journalist, a fine journalist., when journalists get up and ask questions that are so threatening...

YA: I was quoting you directly from your interview with Sean Hannity.

DT: Take a look at my interview. What I want to do is if there is something wrong, we have to get to the bottom of it. When I hear facemasks go from 10,000 to 300,000, and they constantly need more. And the biggest man in the business is like shocked. He knows all about the virus, by the way. He's not surprised by that. He knows all about it. He shouldn't be surprised. He should say, well, that’s standard, because this is really a very tough disease. This is really a very tough virus to handle. Okay. Please, go ahead.

YA: Mr. President. My second question…

DT: Go ahead. That’s enough. That’s enough. Thank you very much.

YA: Mr. President, my second...

DT: Please, please. That's enough.

[/sc]

AH: That's U.S. President Donald Trump responding — sort of — to questions from PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor at a coronavirus task force briefing yesterday.

Levinson story

Guest: Barry Meier

CO: The Levinson family has always maintained that Robert Levinson was freelancing for the CIA when he disappeared. What do you understand he was actually doing there?

BM: My understanding is somewhat similar to that of the Levinson family. Bob did have a contract as a consultant with an analytical division of the CIA. That contract expired just before he left for Iran. But I've always believed that he went to Iran to try to recruit an American, a murderer that was living in Iran as a source for the CIA.

And this is Dawud Salahuddin, this African-American convert to Islam, who was in Iran at the time.

BM: Absolutely. And there's documentary evidence that I wrote about in “Missing Man” to show that Bob and Dawud were communicating through a third-party who knew both of them.

CO: But now it’s complicated, isn't it? I mean, that he was that Mr. Levinson working for the CIA, but not directly, not actually on assignment by the CIA. You have told the story, broke many parts of the story about him. Your story, “A Disappearing Spy: A Scandal At The CIA” was 2013. What do you actually know? What what was the CIA's rule actually in Mr. Levinson being in Iran?

BM: Well, I mean, I don't think they had any direct role. Bob had come to the end of his contract with the CIA at that point. And I believe that he was extremely eager to develop a larger working relationship with the CIA. You know, he had been an FBI agent all his life. Once he retired, he went into the private sector and made a living as a private investigator. But I think his real desire was to find a way back into government because he was more comfortable working for a federal agency than he was working for a corporate investigations firm.

CO: The family of Mr. Levinson, of course, points the finger and blames Iran, first of all, but has suggested that there are more players than just Iran involved in Mr. Levinson’s disappearance and his presumed death. Who do you blame? Who do you think is responsible for what happened to him?

BM: Well, you know, his story, you know, the story I sketched out in the book is, you know, it's basically a symphony of screwups from the very start. The CIA, when it became aware of his disappearance in Iran basically pretended they didn't know anything about him, and hid that information from the FBI. Once the FBI received it, it was very slow to investigate. I remember very early on when I was reporting about his case in 2007 and 2008. I had gotten emails showing kind of the chain of people that Bob had met with prior to leaving for Iran. And what I was shocked about is that when I called many of these individuals, I was the first person they had spoken to. They had never been contacted by the FBI. They had never been contacted by the CIA. There was something of a gross negligence on the part of the United States government to determine what had happened to Bob and how he could be helped.

CO: What does it say to you that it took U.S. intelligence this long to tell the Levinson family that they had this credible evidence of his death?

BM: There is no question in my mind that Bob was being held by a highly-disciplined unit attached to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. These are individuals whose fear of retribution for disclosing information about Bob outweighed the millions and eventually tens of millions of dollars in reward that the U.S. government was offering for information. So you were dealing one with a country, Iran, where the United States government did not have significant intelligence assets on the ground. And a group of individuals that were holding Bob that had no interest in disclosing any information about him.

CO: It's a tangled tale. And there's so much where we could ask you about this, Barry. I know you've been working on it for a long time, but we'll leave it there. And I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

BM: And best to you as well.

CO: Bye-bye.

BM: Thank you.

AH: Barry Meier reported on Robert Levinson's disappearance for the New York Times. We reached him today in New York City.

[Music: Jazz]

Quebec health director bread

CH: It's not just that Horacio Arruda is getting valuable information out to Quebeckers. Or that his signature round glasses are very cool. It's the way Quebec's public health director is getting his point across that has vaulted him to fame. During his daily press conferences, Dr. Arruda sternly tells people to stay home and to wash their hands — with passionate hand gestures illustrating how to flatten the curve. He also reminds everyone that to get through this difficult time, they should do something they love — like baking. And so Jean-François Dinelle did that. The Quebec bakery owner whipped up some bread with the beloved doctor's face on it. Here is Mr. Dinelle, owner of "Jeff le boulanger", telling CBC's Quebec AM about his masterpiece.

[sc]

JEAN-FRANCOIS DINELLE: Well, we'll just take maybe one pound and a half bread. And we put a stencil on it. And we throw some flour on it. Then we take that stencil off. And then there's the face of Mr. Arruda.

JULIE CARON: Why did you want to have fun now? And why did you want to put Dr. Arruda’s face on a loaf of bread?

JFD: Well, everybody loves Mr. Horacio. And I think there's time, too, you know, it's not fun right now. I feel in my boutique that my customers are not very happy and they're sad. ANd, well, I wanted to put a smile in their faces. That's what I wanted to make. And that's my job. I have a lot of fun doing my job, and I want to share my fun. So that's what I do. Horacio, he kind of man who, you know, I don't know how to say in English, but he’s calm. And he's got to make sure that you understand the situation. And he goes right to the point. And he give you order, you know? You don't have many choices, you go that way. And that's the good way, you know? And that's what I like about him. And the prime minister is doing a great job, too. So I kind of wanted to reflect that in my baking. And it’s gonna be all right. We’re gonna get through this situation altogether. And go behind me. I'm going that way. And just come with me, you'll see.

[/sc]

AH: That was Jean-François Dinelle speaking with Julie Caron, the host of Quebec AM, this morning.

Part three: PEI recovery, coral bleaching study, Toronto free meals

AH: Just one week into his 21-day addiction treatment program, Tony Doyle was discharged. But not because he wanted to be. The Provincial Addictions Treatment Facility on Prince Edward Island shut down last week, to free up space — as demand for hospital beds is expected to increase during the pandemic. The transition program usually runs for three weeks, and offers counselling and group therapy sessions to recovering addicts. Tony Doyle was looking forward to a fresh start after completing his stay. But now, he's back on the streets. We reached Mr. Doyle in Charlottetown.

CO: Tony, what was your reaction when you heard that you were going to be discharged so suddenly?

TONY DOYLE: Well, it was a shock to me. And kind of put me in a panic. And everybody else that was also in there, we didn't know we were going to have... Where we were going to sleep that night. And kind of just being thrown back on the streets and out to the wolves of basically our demons.

CO: And you weren't the only one, there were 17 of you who were told that you were not going to be in the program anymore, is that right?

TD That's correct. Like, they said they were closing that day. They just got word from their bosses above them that they were closing down the transition unit. And we just found at nine o'clock in the morning in our first group.

CO: Are you in touch with the others? Do you know how they're doing?

TD: I've been in contact with a few people. I know at least three of them that have relapsed already. And are in pretty bad shape. There are quite a few that haven't, but they're still having a hard time right now getting through this one day at a time.

CO: What kind of addiction are you dealing with?

TD: Me myself, I was dealing with crystal meth, heroin and opiates.

CO: And how helpful was that program? You were a week into it. What were your hopes for that?

TD: Well, it started off really good. There's a lot of things that teach you how to deal with, post-traumatic stress disorder and certain mental issues that would happen from early in life that may cause an addiction. They get you talking about it and talking to in a group. And everybody just talks about their issues and brings a lot out. And within that first week, I felt great. And I still am sober. It's hard when you're back on the streets and everything like that.

CO: How bad was your addiction before you got into the program?

TD: It was pretty bad. I was stealing cars, breaking into houses, stuff like that, stuff that I normally wouldn't do. It was hard on my health. I ended up in the hospital a couple times. I had actually contracted Hep C about a year ago.

CO: And you were in this program. What were your hopes about the weeks you would spend in that program and what they would do for you?

TD: Well, I was hoping it would get me into a longer-term treatment facility after that. It would teach me things that I didn't already know. And basically, I'm looking for long term sobriety this time around. Because this is my first time in transition, but it’s not my first time doing detox.

CO: So what you were hoping was that this was the beginning of getting to have a normal life?

TD: Exactly. Yeah.

CO: [deep sigh] Now, what have they told you as to when you might be able to get back into the program?

TD: Well, when they released us, they said that we would have the first dibs on the available beds in the unit when they reopened. But they said it could be two weeks. But it depends how long this COVID-19 thing lasts.

CO: Where are you staying now?

TD: Right now, tonight, I’ll stay at the Beacon House. But /from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., I'm basically out on the streets of downtown Charlottetown.

CO: I understand you got quite a dump of snow last night

TD: Yeah. And it's hard to find a place to go from 7 to 7 because nothing's open. So you basically kind of sit in the alleyways or sit in doorways, wherever we can try to get out of the wind.

CO: So not only is it cold and slushy, there's nothing open. You can't even get a cup of coffee, I guess?

TD: Well, you can get a cup of coffee, but you got to take it with you.

CO: Right.

TD: So you can't stay or do anything like that.

CO: And when you're at the shelter, the men's shelter. Can you do any physical distancing? Are you able to practice the things they tell us we're supposed to do?

TD: They try to enforce it, but it's like we're barely six feet apart when we’re sleeping kind of thing. Because there's two beds to a room, and there’s only six beds in the shelter. And once they’re full, you can’t get in.

CO: And you're struggling with this, you say some of the people, the others who had their their treatment terminated, they've actually relapsed. They've actually gone back into addiction.

TD: Yes, they lost hope after that kind of fell through. So they have nowhere else to turn. So they just turn back to what they know best, right?

CO: And are you aware that there are drugs on the street, that that business is actually functioning?

TD: Yeah, I know that we can still get if I wanted to get, But I just chose not to. I want to get my son back and be able to live a normal life, and doing that wouldn't do that.

CO: You have a boy, you have a child?

TD: Yeah, I have a 9-year-old son.

CO: And you're hoping to get reunited with him?

TD: Yes.

CO: The centre said that... The facility said that they only released people they felt were able to deal with being on the outside, that there are some patients that were not discharged, that they were sent to hospital instead. Is that reassuring that at least some of them were taken care of, and that they regard that you are actually capable of holding out, until they can get the program again?

TD: I think a lot of people are more vulnerable than they think. But there is like a place in Prince Edward Island that I was speaking with a lady that runs the recovery house. It's called Lennon House. And she said she has 14 available beds ready to go. But she needs the government approval in order to open it up. So I know there is places to go, just we need to get the government funding in order to go there.

CO: Well, Tony, I hope that you have someplace to go to get out of that cold and the wind today. And I hope you get back in your program. I really appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

TD: Oh, not a problem. Have a great day.

CO: You too. Take care.

TD: Bye.

AH: Tony Doyle is a recovering addict who was recently discharged from an addictions treatment facility in PEI. We reached him in Charlottetown.

AH: The world's largest coral reef is in hot water. Again. The Great Barrier Reef stretches for more than 1,700 kilometres off Australia's northeastern coast. Last month, the sea that engulfs the underwater ecosystem recorded its warmest temperatures on record. And last week, aerial surveys of the water confirmed reef watchers' worst fears. Mark Eakin is a coordinator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch. We reached him in Silver Spring, Maryland.

CO: Mark, what is the latest on the status of the coral and the Great Barrier Reef?

MARK EAKIN: So unfortunately, this year we've seen another huge bleaching event. There were massive bleaching events. They were especially severe in 2016 and 2017. And here we are in 2020 with another bleaching event, this one running from one end to the Great Barrier Reef to the other.

CO: This is what's described as the third mass bleaching event on the reef in the past five years. What does that actually mean?

ME: Yeah, let's break that down a little bit. The coral bleaching. To understand it, you have to know what corals are. And like the children's game “20 Questions,” corals are animal, vegetable and mineral. And so when the water gets too hot, the animal ejects these microscopic algae, the vegetable part, into the water. And those are what normally give them both their colour and their food. And so when they rejected the algae, you're seeing through the clear tissues to the white skeleton underneath. Now, when something goes on like what's been happening on the Great Barrier Reef, there's warm water from one end of the reef to the other, and it's long-lasting. This has been going on for close to two months now. And what that causes is a lot of bleaching to corals all over the reef. And that's why we refer to it as a mass bleaching event.

CO: Well, how does it compare with the ones you saw in 2016 and 2017, is exactly the same? Or are there variations?

ME: Oh, each one's a little different? 2016, most of the bleaching was at the far north end of the Great Barrier Reef. And it was really intense and a lot of corals died. The next year, in 2017, it was a little farther south. It was in the sort of the northern-to-central Great Barrier Reef. They lost another 22 per cent of the corals. This year, It's not quite as intense as either of those events. It's more of a coastal event rather than offshore. And it's going from one end to the Great Barrier Reef to the other. So each has its own look, its own feel. There's a difference between them. We know this one's more widespread. We're hoping that it won't be as severe.

CO: Right. What does it actually say as far as predictions that we may see the end of coral in the years to come? How far advanced is the prediction that we're actually going to lose the coral?

ME: Well, the thing that really concerns us about this here is there's no big El Nino. 2016/2017, There was an El Nino followed by a La Nina, a lot of tropical forcing. These are the big climate-changing events that happen every once in a while that really heat up the earth and especially heat up areas where a lot of corals are. This year, No El Nino. And despite that, we're looking at January of this year being the warmest January ever and February being the second warmest ever. So what we're really seeing is a bleaching event that's being driven by climate change instead of a particular event. And so that's that's frightening.

CO: Can Coral actually recover from these bleaching events?

ME: Fortunately, they can. You have two different things in terms of recovery. One is an individual coral can recover from bleaching if it has not died yet. So bleaching isn't death. The coral is sick, it's injured, it's starving, but it has the potential to recover if the event is short enough or mild enough. On the other hand, if the events long-lasting, the corals die, or if it's really intense, they die. When you have that much death of calls like we had in 2016 and 2017, that sort of thing takes a decade or longer for the corals to even start to recover. And then it's like losing a forest to a forest fire. But all you have, they've come back or the shrubs.

CO: And when you talk about it being like of forest fires, the best way to see to assess the damage, you fly over them and you can see what it looks like. You can't see them on the ground. When you fly over the Barrier Reef, what does it look like? Can you actually see the evidence of this coral burnout?

ME: Yes. And in fact, Terry Hughes, a researcher at James Cook University, has just been repeating the aerial overflights that he did in 2016 and 2017. And I've seen some of the imagery. It's just so obvious, you know? It's almost as though snow had fallen on the ground.

CO: You know, I'm sure you are hearing as we are, this idea that somehow these countrywide lockdowns because of the coronavirus may have muted some of the pollution that we're dealing with. It may have reduced the CO2 emissions for the time being. Is it possible, this is the only sort of hope we're thinking of coming out of this disaster, is it possible that that might mitigate some of the effects on the wildlife, on the oceans, at least temporarily?

ME: A little, but not really. But it does give me hope. And I'll tell you why. This event is causing reductions in the amount of CO2 that we're putting in the atmosphere, but it's not huge. All of the cutbacks that happened in China when they were locked down was about the amount of New York state's total CO2 production for a year. So we're not talking a small amount, but it's still insignificant compared to these events. Right now, of course, on the Great Barrier Reef, temperatures are getting cooler because, hey, the seasons are changing. But what we have seen is how people have responded to this event. People have responded to this COVID-19, by taking action, by changing their lives and by saying, you know, we could do this, we can work together. And my hope is through this event, people are going to say, you know what, climate change is just as big a problem as an existential threat to humans and to a lot of important ecosystems. We can do this. We can work together.

CO: Well, Mark, [laughing] I have to say, in the midst of all of these disastrous news stories we’re getting, it's good to talk to an optimist.

ME: [Deep laughing] Well, I have my optimistic times.

CO: Thank you very much for giving us that little glint of hope in the middle of all this [laughing]. And I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

ME: Thank you. It's great to be on the show.

CO: Bye-bye.

AH: Mark Eakin is a coordinator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch. We reached him in Silver Spring.

[Music: Elevator music]

Toronto free meals

Guest: Sri Selvarasa

CO: Sri, just how busy was your restaurant over the weekend?

SRI SELVARASA: It was... We are closed for the dine-in, and it is just for the takeout and delivery we're doing right now. And we are also giving out a free meals. We also get, here and there, those guys walking in, and we're giving out those free meals.

CO: What kinds of free meals are you giving out at this point?

SS: You know, people have options. They can ask if they want veggie or meat. But it comes with naan bread and rice of their choice.

CO: Who's getting these meals?

SS: If someone has lost a job, or if someone cannot afford in this time. And lot of time, we have seen some customers, they’ve previously been our customers. It's so sad, but they've been our customers, and now they are coming in, they're walking in and asking for a free meal. And that's how it actually started, too.

CO: And so then, since then, how many meals do you think you have given out to people who come to your restaurant?

SS: On an average, I would say 50, 50-plus every day on an average. Yesterday was a slow day for the free meals, but a day before yesterday, we went up to even 70.

CO: And sometimes, you're even giving to people who come back for seconds.

SS: Yes, initially when we started, we got a couple of guys coming in, and they were kind of hesitant, like we will pay because I know we had a second time here. And then we made an announcement on email and social media as well that, look, you know what, if we are doing it and you are hungry, you can come every day, twice a day. You can come. That's not a problem. If we're doing it, you can always come and grab a meal.

CO: Who are the people who are coming to your restaurant for the meal?

SS: We decided not to ask questions because, you know, initially we had this discussion like when we started it. We had this discussion that how are we going to find out what if people lie and take advantage of it? And then, at the same time, we thought through it. And we realized that, you know, if I don't want to use word broke, but it's you know, those people are already in a situation where if we ask more questions, it's about dignity and it's about respect. And we don't want to get into that. So we don't really ask questions. That's what we decided.

CO: You're not asking them, but are they telling you a bit about their stories?

SS: You know, we had like three or four stories. And the one that really touched was, so this was a girl, she was probably in her 20s. And she said that, you know, we gave her a meal, and then she was in tears. We ask, like, what happened? What's wrong? Do you want something else? And then she started, okay, I working as a waitress in some other restaurant. And she said she lost her job. And she said nothing wrong. It's just overwhelming. And I don't know how to thank you guys, but this is a great thing. And she came twice. That entire day, she didn't come. But she came second day as well. And we have another story, this was a gentleman. He is in the same situation, lost his job. And, you know, same thing that, you know, I want to stock things up. But how much to kind of, you know, buy, panic buying and all those things. So it was a whole thing he explained. But I don't want to say now. But those are types of stories that we're hearing, but we don't really ask.

CO: So, Sri, what's your story as to why you're doing this? What's the background to that?

SS: We do help our local charities a lot of time. But where it started, we have some you know, suddenly this dine-in thing. We had to close down. And that was 70 per cent of our business, dine-in. And when this stopped, we had to let like some of the guys from the front, the people, those who were working at the front, and tell them... It was hard decision, but we had to tell them like, okay, you know what? You can take some time off, and you're welcome to come back. Things gonna get better. We're gonna be back on track. And then about the customer, some customer walked in. They called first. And they said would you, you know, give me a free meal today or something. Would you treat me this and that? So then the story, he came up and we were like, oh, sure, why not? And he's like, I'm going to pay you guys after. And then we had this family discussion that, okay, you know what? This is the time we need to pay back. This is the community that helped us for 25 years. We existed because of these guys. And now it's time.

CO: You started your restaurant back in the 90s?

SS: '95, 1995.

CO: And so this is a community that's got you started, is this when your family came to Canada?

SS: Of course, yeah. So they're the one who gave us everything [bright laughter]. So whatever we are today, it's cause of them. And we have some customers coming like more than 20 years, they coming. They’re loyal. We have some customers like that. They've been eating the same place. And even for the free meals, we are getting some customers. You know, because we know their faces. And we had another customer yesterday. He gave us a painting. He’d been a customer, and he took a free meal. But those are type of stories people are coming up with.

CO: Sri, thank you. Thank you for what you're doing for the community. And thanks for telling us the story.

SS: Perfect. Thank you so much.

CO: All right. Take care. Bye. You too.

CH: Sri Selvarasa owns the restaurant "Little India" in Toronto. We reached him in Toronto.

Reverend Lowery obit

ME: Well, there's one these people, one of the men in Hanley who’s told the Birmingham Post that he's only going to go through the course to save some money. He didn't want to spend the money on the thing. He said he's going to walk out with the same views that he holds going in.

JL: He very well may. He's a demagogic leader, and he profits from exploiting the fears and emotions and ignorance. But, beside that point, there are others there whose minds may be opened up to new vistas of understanding and intellectual adventure. And they may... And spiritual experiences that may change their minds and change their heart.

[/sc]

AH: Reverend Joseph Lowery speaking to As It Happens in 1989. He died on Friday.

March 30, 2020 Episode Transcript

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