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The Current Transcript for December 9, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Normally when you're sick or you had an operation, you trying to do a bit more each day, but I can do the stairs in our house three times in a day, and if I do it a fourth time, I can't get off the couch next day.

MATT GALLOWAY: They're called long-hauliers, not truckers, but people who tested positive for COVID-19 weeks or months ago and can't seem to shake the symptoms. As vaccine's approach, we'll hear what it's like to live with COVID for months on end. That is in an hour. Also this morning, you may not know his name, but chances are, you know, some of the landmark cases that Joseph Arvay worked on. From same sex marriage and assisted dying to enshrining the right to collective bargaining, the B.C. lawyers work helped shape the laws of this land. He died on Monday and a colleague and friend remembers him in an hour. And later.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of whales]

MG: Whales loom large in our collective imagination and not just because of their size. The science writer Rebecca Giggs is here in 30 minutes to explore our connexion to these mammals, their role in everything from the space race to protecting us from climate change and whether we'll need to save them again. We begin though in Alberta, where cases are surging and a lockdown of sorts has finally arrived in hopes of saving that province's health care system. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: theme]

Doctors discuss what to expect as Alberta goes into strict lockdown

Guests: Shazma Mithani, Yael Moussadji, Leslie Echino

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: If stronger action is not taken now, we know that hundreds, potentially thousands more Albertans could die. We cannot let that happen. We will not let that happen. We must act to protect lives and we must act to protect our hospitals, plus those who depend on them.

MG: As the premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney, announcing new strict lockdowns across his province yesterday afternoon. Bars and restaurants are shutting indoor dining done, all casinos and gyms closed, and all social gatherings indoors or out have been banned. The measures come as Alberta deals with soaring covid infection rates each day. This week, the province has recorded more than 17 hundred new infections, the highest per capita rate in Canada. We'll start this morning on the front lines in that province with two doctors. Dr. Shazma Mithani is an emergency room physician in Edmonton and Dr. Yael Moussadji is an emergency room physician in Calgary. And she has been involved in planning and preparation for dealing with the surge in cases. Good morning to you both.

YAEL MOUSSADJI: Good morning, Matt.

SHAZMA MITHANI: Good morning.

MG: Dr. Mithani, what went through your mind when you heard these measures announced by the premier yesterday afternoon?

SHAZMA MITHANI: To be honest, the first thing that went through my mind was that I was relieved that this is finally being taken seriously and that's the right thing was being done to protect our health care system and to protect Albertans.

MG: Finally being taken seriously, what do you mean by that?

SHAZMA MITHANI: It's been a long road of, you know, health care workers and of Albertans trying to advocate for our health care system and to try to convince those that make the rules that a lockdown is what's needed with this rapid rise in cases happening the last several weeks.

MG: Dr. Moussadji, to Shazma's point, there were doctors who have been calling for greater restrictions in your province for weeks now. Did these restrictions announced yesterday come soon enough?

YAEL MOUSSADJI: Well, I mean, I what Dr. Mithani said was my exact thought as well, my first reaction was overwhelmingly. You know, just speaking from my own personal opinion, I would have to say, no, I we haven't seen any impact of the restrictions that were brought in two weeks ago. And and as a result, we lost some ground there. So again, my own personal opinion is that I wish we had seen this earlier.

MG: What's the effect being of not seeing them earlier? I mean, again, what we heard from doctors was and this is weeks ago, you need to do something now or we are going to be overwhelmed. So from your perspective and we'll start with you, Dr. Moussadji what does what's the effect of these restrictions not coming in before mean to you?

YAEL MOUSSADJI: Well, you know a few things. One is that in terms of the system, I know that we're going to be able to absorb the impact, but it comes at a considerable strain. So what that means is that there's going to be more surgeries cancelled. There's going to be more outpatient visits and specialists that it's cancelled. So it's going to have an impact on the overall ability of Albertans to access services. You know, again, speaking of the front line, doc, I think we're going to see higher volumes of sicker people and unfortunately, more people dying.

MG: And are you seeing that already those higher volumes or are you worried? I mean, again, you know, for the last several days, it's been 1700 new infections. The belief from a lot of people is that the effect of that won't be seen for another couple of weeks. But are you already seeing the effect of that?

YAEL MOUSSADJI: Absolutely. I mean, you're absolutely right, what we're seeing now is reflective of the case count a few weeks ago, which were already concerning. But and Dr. Mithani will have more experience with volumes, concerning volumes because Edmonton certainly is in the unenviable position of being worse off in Calgary right now. And we're probably a week or two behind in terms of the volumes, but we are having much larger numbers of inpatient admissions and ICU admissions. So, yes, we're seeing a lot of volume.

MG: What are you seeing Dr. Mithani?

SHAZMA MITHANI: Yeah so as Dr. Moussadji mentioned, it's were unfortunately probably about two weeks ahead of where Calgary is right now, and we are seeing quite a rapid increase in the number of COVID-19 patients that we're seeing in the emergency department. Our ICUs are now almost full, if not full at some of the sites in our city. They're now overflowing on to other units in the hospital and that has an effect on everybody. So that has an effect on in patients in the hospital that are not in the ICU, that has an effect on patients who need ICU and that has an effect on patients in the emergency department as well. Because if things are full upstairs that trickles down to us in the E.R., which means that we can't bring people in from the waiting room who need to be brought in rapidly because there's no space to have them.

MG: Do you worry as well about patients who perhaps may not present to the E.R., not with COVID, but with other issues, and they're concerned about coming to a hospital because they don't want to get sick?

SHAZMA MITHANI: Absolutely, we saw this back in the spring where there was a slowdown for a period of probably about two or three months, and we kind of suspected that it was because people were scared to come into the E.R. The problem with that is that in June and July, when things start opening up again, those patients that were waiting at home were much sicker than if they had come in at the start. And we're starting to notice that phenomenon now as well. There's been a slight decrease in our volume over the last month or so. And I think it's likely because people are scared to come in. I want to reiterate that the emergency department is the safest place for people to come during a medical emergency. And we are very safe there. We practise our infection control guidelines very closely. And the worry, of course, is when people don't present to the E.R. when they need to, they continue to get sicker at home and that they come in worse off than if they had been at the beginning. And then unfortunately, that coincides with the big surge in covid cases coming into hospital. It could really break the system and overwhelm the system in a significant way.

MG: Dr. Moussadji, we had heard that Alberto was preparing for field hospitals to try and cope with perhaps the, you know, the overwhelming nature of the situation. Is that going to be needed, do you think, given what you've seen over the last several days?

YAEL MOUSSADJI: You know, I don't know the answer to that. That seems to be a pretty extreme scenario. I know from our own planning work in the Calgary zone, we can absorb a huge volume and we can through very creative means, you know, produce the best space required and also recruit the staff required. It's not easy. It's taking a lot of planning work, but we are going to be able to accommodate large numbers of patients. We have no connection with the field hospital planning that the government is undertaking, so I really have no knowledge of what their plans are.

MG: For weeks Dr. Mithani, Jason Kenney had talked about balancing lives and livelihood and was reluctant to bring in greater restrictions because and he talked about this yesterday in his press conference. For every restriction, he says, you know, there's a dream dashed and that people's hopes and dreams for the businesses that they started, he believes, would be shattered. Do you think he got that balance right between lives and livelihood?

SHAZMA MITHANI: I think it's a very tough balance to strike, and I can understand how that was a challenging decision for government to make. I am glad that now the lives of Albertans is being made the priority, that the health care system is being made the priority, because we've clearly shifted into a situation where the virus is is running unchecked and out of control. And that has an effect on the health of Albertans, but also on the economy. And I think people tend to forget that that's the worst impact the economy is letting the virus run unchecked. And so I am glad that this is being taken seriously and that that much stronger measures were put into place yesterday.

MG: And yet retail stores are still open at 15 percent capacity of their fire code occupancy levels. So could this have gone further, do you think?

SHAZMA MITHANI: I think there are a couple of things that were probably could have gone further. One thing that stuck out to me in particular is that places of worship were still allowed to be open at 15 percent capacity. And we have to remember that that could still be hundreds of people, depending on the size of the place of worship. I think that that one in particular is an easy one that could switch virtual for a period of time. I do understand that faith communities are a place where people really find a lot of support, but it is important for every Albertan to do the right thing right now. And for, you know, it's not forever for hopefully a brief period of time where we can get a handle on this virus.

MG: Dr. Moussadji, the premier yesterday claimed that these restrictions would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Legal experts said that he's wrong, that this is not violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But I'm wondering from your perspective what you make of the issue being framed this way.

YAEL MOUSSADJI: Yeah, I mean, again, I'm speaking just from my personal opinion and experience, but my thought is that that's incorrect and I would agree with the legal experts here. You know, when your rights and freedoms infringe on the health and life of your fellow Canadians, that's where they stop. So, you know, a provincial mask mandate with a long time in coming and it's the right thing to do.

MG: How are you holding up in all of this, Dr. Moussadji?

YAEL MOUSSADJI: Pretty well, I mean, I think most docs were we've been doing this now for nine months, everybody tired, we'd all like a vacation, but I think that's the case for everybody. We've got a lot of work to do in the next couple of months. And I think we're in the mindset where we're more comfortable with the work in terms of the actual care of covid patients. We know a lot more about this now than we did in the first wave. But, you know, we're nearing burnout and I think we just got to keep our heads down and get through this. And hopefully now, you know, with the restrictions that came in yesterday and then the news about the vaccine actually being released even before the end of the new year, that light at the tunnel has actually gotten a little bit brighter.

MG: Do you see that light? I mean, it's interesting. I was speaking with some of your colleagues across the country earlier this week, and they I mean, audibly, you could hear a smile in their voices and they felt as though there was light. You're saying that too.

YAEL MOUSSADJI: I feel that way. Yeah.

MG: What about you, Dr. Mithani?I mean, we've spoken a couple of times already and I know that it's been a long, what, eight, nine, ten months for you. How are you holding up in all of this?

SHAZMA MITHANI: Yeah, I would say I echo Dr. Moussadji's comments. It's been a long road, we are, you know, many of my colleagues and myself as well are nearing burnout. And, you know, the only thing I would add there is that I'm so glad about the restrictions yesterday. There is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccine. We just have to hang on a little bit longer and do the right thing for each other as Canadians. But we still we have to remember that the cases that we see today, the case that we saw yesterday or what we're going to see in hospital for the next two to three weeks. And so I'm certainly bracing myself kind of, you know, mentally and emotionally for that, because it's certainly going to get worse in the hospitals before it gets better.

MG: Do you two know each other?

YAEL MOUSSADJI: No.

SHAZMA MITHANI: We follow each other on Twitter.

MG: So but you're both right, they're like as they say at the coalface, you know, at the right at the front lines. What would you say to each other? Dr. Mithani, I mean, again, you're both as you say, you've both said that you're right on the edge of burnout. Is there a word of encouragement that you would give to Dr. Moussadji?

SHAZMA MITHANI: I would say to you, you're doing such a great job. Our jobs are hard, and I hope you're leaning on your friends and your colleagues to give you support. We're almost there. And hopefully we can both celebrate at the end of this when it's all over.

MG: What about back to you, Dr. Moussadji?

YAEL MOUSSADJI: Yeah, I would definitely echo that. And when this is all over, we're going to cross the divide between Calgary and Edmonton and go for a stiff drink.

MG: I think there's a lot of people who could use that and they will take the optimism that you see about a light at the end of the tunnel to heart. In the meantime, thanks for the work that you're doing, and I really appreciate speaking with you all this morning.

YAEL MOUSSADJI: Thank you for the opportunity, Matt.

SHAZMA MITHANI: Thank you Matt.

MG: Dr. Shazma Mithani and Dr. Yael Moussadji are emergency room physicians in Alberta. Many business owners have been watching Jason Kenney's announcements anxiously wondering if and when the day would come, when stronger restrictions would come in. Leslie Echino is amongst those business owners. She's the owner of Annabelle's Kitchen in Calgary. It has a couple of locations as well as a bar. She's also a board member of the Alberta Hospitality Association. Leslie, good morning to you.

LESLIE ECHINO: Good morning.

MG: What went through your mind when you heard Jason Kenney's announcement yesterday?

LESLIE ECHINO: I think it was obvious that this was coming down the line, so we've been preparing for this for weeks or months, probably since March, really, to be honest.

MG: Do you understand, it's interesting in hearing a couple of emergency room physicians talk about what they are up against, do you understand the need for restrictions like this?

LESLIE ECHINO: Oh, definitely. You know, my uncle is a surgeon in Germany and, you know, we talk every couple Sundays about the situation constantly. You know, being in business, you always have to be prepared for the worst. So this is something that I've been looking at honestly for months and planning it and really giving up heads up to all my staff and making sure I'm there to support them.

MG: What is business been like for you over the last few weeks? And I mean, how much, it's awkward to ask people about money, but how much has business been down given the restrictions that were in place even before yesterday?

LESLIE ECHINO: It's been absolutely brutal. You know, this summer, there was definitely some optimism, you know, being cautiously optimistic that safety precautions that we were taking and the, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars we've invested in protecting our staff and our customers. So, you know, things were looking up. You know, it was a beautiful summer and then October came. It was minus 20. Everybody goes inside, you know, and I saw limitations that were happening. And, you know, within the restaurant, we've make sure to, you know, make sure everybody is part of the same family, limit table size, you know, really abide by the rules. But we are a controlled environment. When people feel like they have to go home and hide and have these group outings or go to malls. That's the real dangerous point. And I think that for us, it was quite frustrating seeing that we were held to these high standards of safety and other places were not. So that was a really tough one to see for a long time.

MG: So in some ways, you feel as though, I mean, not that you're being targeted, but that the work that you did, the money that you put in to protect your staff and your patients wasn't being recognized.?

LESLIE ECHINO: Well, it was you know, for sure, you know, people felt safe and people were coming out and then but then you see pictures of malls, you know, where these restrictions are made for people to take matters in their own hand and be responsible and be safe when you see people really flouting these rules. It's disheartening because we were giving every opportunity to obey the rules and follow and protect each other and, you know, help the surge. And when people aren't doing that, you're putting people at risk, people's livelihoods at risk and their businesses at risk in your community. And that was really disheartening for sure to see.

MG: How much resistance are you hearing to these measures from other restaurant owners in the province?

LESLIE ECHINO: None. You know, like we just we want to do our part, you know, it's been really hard. And again, like when we see these other people not obeying the rules, this is the reason why businesses are closed. You know, it's because people aren't taking the safety precautions seriously. And this is now ruining my livelihood and my 40 or 50 employees. You know, I've had staff with me for 13 years, and I'm really concerned about their mental well-being. We have a blue collar job. We don't have the luxury of working from home. You know, I kind of wish I was a little bit smarter in school, instead of getting a job at 11, bussing tables, you know, otherwise maybe I'd be in a better position where I can work from home and still be able to maintain my career and make a salary. You know, right now I have no money coming in. You know, and I don't want government support. That's why I'm an entrepreneur. I want to create jobs and be there for other people.

MG: What worries you the most about the, you know, the long haul here? Because these restrictions are in place, but no one is entirely sure how long they will last and whether what's happening now will bring those numbers down in the foreseeable future. So when you, you know, kind of game it out, how long can you hang on?

LESLIE ECHINO: Well, you know, I guess we're always cautiously optimistic, you know, when challenges come up. The great thing about, you know, people in my industry and a lot of creative people in general is that we create opportunity and, you know, create other ways of how to generate revenue. The hard part is for me really is seeing all these employees that I have had benefits for, you know, like not many restaurants have benefits for their staff. And I've had that for all my employees. And now I have to stop that again. You know, I can't be there to provide for them and their families, you know? And so I think I can probably hold on definitely, you know, the rent subsidy does help and we can't forget that. But, you know, 65 percent of my rent subsidy, you know, now being 90 percent because we're in a forced closure, it isn't that much money when it comes to the operating costs of the business. You know, that's a very small part. And I just want to make sure that I am there to be able to provide you know, you hear about people working from home and sometimes I wish I could do that. But, you know, I'm very fortunate that I can be working and providing a service at the same time to kind of make people in my community happy.

MG: But it doesn't go without notice that you've also just talked about your employees a number of times and that you're really worried about them as well.

LESLIE ECHINO: Of course. You know, I have a good friend, he has a few restaurants. He's had two employees commit suicide in the last month and a half. You know, we're hearing these stories of a restaurant owner that's part of our group in Grand Prairie and he knows of five people that are close to him that have committed suicide. These are real numbers and, you know, these people have no money coming in and you don't want to be reliant on government either.

MG: Leslie, take care of yourself. I really appreciate speaking with you. And I wish you the best.

LESLIE ECHINO: You too. Have a good day.

MG: And you. Leslie Echino is the owner of Annabelle's Kitchen in Calgary and a board member of the Alberta Hospitality Association. We should mention that if you are feeling distress, the suicide hotline number is 1-833-456-4566. Again, 1-833-456-4566. We did request an interview this morning with the premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney, but he was not available to speak with us. Your CBC News is next. And then we are going to speak with Rebecca Giggs. She has written a beautiful new book about our relationship with whales. What can they teach us and what do we need to do to save them? You'll find out. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

[Music]

A gory 'pinata': Here's what happens when a whale dies in the ocean

Guests: Rebecca Giggs

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

[Music: theme]

MG: Still to come, what's being done to help those who had COVID-19 months ago and are still suffering from long lingering side effects? That's in 30 minutes. But first, a whale of a time.

[Music: theme]

MG: All right, we're going to play a little game, this is called Name That Sound.

SOUNDCLIP

[1949 recording of a Beluga whale]

MG: Do you know what that is? It is the sound of the beluga whale. Not just any beluga whale, though, that was recorded in the Saguenay River in Quebec in 1949. It is the oldest known recording of any whale anywhere. Since then, whale sounds have become a bit of a thing. People have mixed pop songs using whale music. There was a Canadian feature film based on the novel by Paul Corrington called Whale Music. And that music, those haunting sounds are all part of the allure of whales. It may be one of the reasons why whales were rescued from the brink of extinction in the 1980s, the result of a global effort to ban whaling. Rebecca Giggs is an Australian science writer who delves into the story of whales and what they tell us about the natural world and our impact on it as humans. All of this is in her excellent new book. It's called Fathoms: The World in the Whale. Rebecca joins me now from London, England. Rebecca, hello.

REBECCA GIGGS: Hello, Matt. Good to be with you.

MG: Great to have you here. Let's start with those whale sounds, the sound of a whale. I mean, it's huge like the whale itself. It's big. There'sa lot of scale to it. How far can whale sounds travel?

REBECCA GIGGS: They can travel across ocean basins. They can travel for thousands of miles, particularly the very large whales make use of a layer in the ocean called the sofa layer, which is a particular region where depth and salinity and pressure combine to make it exquisitely attuned for the carriage of whale sounds. So when whale voices are dropped into that part of the ocean, they can travel for so many, many miles.

MG: What is it that people understand now about why whales sing? And we'll say it's sing in quotation marks, but sing the way that they do?

REBECCA GIGGS: Well, different species of whales have different kinds of vocalisations. You just played the beluga, which is known in some Inuit communities as the sea canary. It has a very sort of sing song, chatty kind of voice. But of course, humpbacks are the great singers in the ocean.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of humpback whale]

REBECCA GIGGS: And humpback voices are the voices that most people will remember from the records in the 1980s. Whereas sperm whales merely click very loudly.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of sperm whales]

REBECCA GIGGS: Blue whales drone almost like one continuous, very, very low note, almost on the edge of the threshold of human hearing. So different kinds of whales make different kinds of sounds. And science is still debating why different to what ends different calls purposed. They think humpback whales sing as part of a mating display, a kind of courtship display, but that is still only a theory, whereas other whales sing to identify food that they're catching. And some even use a kind of bio sonar as well to help them navigate obstacles and identify schools of prey.

MG: Why did we put whale songs on that gold record that was sent into outer space, do you think?

REBECCA GIGGS: Yes, so this is the the famous Voyager probe where we came up with a time capsule of culture of the surface of the Earth and sent it out into space in the hopes of encountering an alien intelligence.

SOUNDCLIP

[Recording of sounds from Earth sent to space].

It was really intended to be a sample of the sonic world of Earth. But interestingly, the recording of the whale is put right up the beginning, along with the human voices. So you get an introduction from the head of the United Nations. You get statements from various world leaders. And then you have the whale, whereas sounds of nature sort of relegated to a different part of the record at the very end. And I think it sort of speaks to the ways in which we have imagined whale song to be cultural, to be a kind of animal language.

MG: You talk about this in the book around the charisma that we attach to whale songs. Tell me more about that and why we would care more about that charisma than perhaps the charisma of other animals.

REBECCA GIGGS: You know, I think that whales loom large in our culture for a lot of different reasons. And they're part of many great narratives. You know, from Moby Dick through to the biblical stories of the Leviathan, they seem to always appear as the letter W in the child's first alphabet book. There'll be an illustration of a whale. And in my mind, there's kind of two reasons that they are so charismatic. The first is that we have imagined them to be like us to some extent. They are mammals with brains that a partitioned into hemispheres. They seem to have the kinds of neurones that would imply they're capable of empathy and perhaps even love and social attachment. Then nurse their young. They're warm blooded, the social and sportive. And yet they're also utterly unlike us because they live in this dark aquatic environment. They live in this world that's defined by sound. Some of them seem to be able to apprehend the magnetic forces of the planet as well. But really, I think the main reason we think whales are charismatic animals is that we like to imagine that they come from a realm of nature that is untouched by human presence and that the evidence of the part of nature that is still sovereign and autonomous and doesn't know us. So we can feel kind of mystified by that. We can feel humble in the presence of a whale. And that's increasingly an emotion that's hard to locate in our environmental moment.

MG: You write that a whale warrants pause. What do you mean by that?

REBECCA GIGGS: I'm describing an encounter that I had with a whale in Australia, and that is that a humpback had stranded not far from my home in Perth on the west coast of Australia, and a huge crowd had gathered to see it. People had bought their children. They brought down the dogs. There was a kind of atmosphere of a carnival going on because not only were people encountering this sort of wondrous, stupendous, wild creature we rarely see from the open oceans and in this case from the Southern Ocean, the ocean around Antarctica. But also it was a tragic moment. It was a moment of witnessing its suffering. And I think there was this kind of pause. There was a kind of wonder in that moment, but it was a real, it was a scene of mixed emotions.

MG: People are really drawn to that scene. I mean, this scene has replicated itself around the world when when this happens. What do you think people are drawn to? I mean, you would think that in some ways people would run away from the idea of watching something die in an excruciating, really difficult way, but but there's something that draws us to it, what is that?

REBECCA GIGGS: You know, in this moment, I think that there was a vibe kind of on the beach front that day that had something to do with a feeling like here is a body that we can mourn. We were conscious of the fact that there's change taking place in the oceans. We've heard of the rising sea levels, the amount of litter that the oceans are absorbing. Perhaps some of us are aware of the chemical changes that are taking place, the marine acidification. But it seems like a really bodiless experience to imagine environmental change in the sea. And so when something as huge and mammalian as a whale is something that we can kind of empathise with arrives on the beach, then I think there is this moment of thinking, like here is something that we can kind of catalyze our grief through as well.

MG: A different experience in seeing the whale is going out on a whale watching expedition and you describe going out on one. Tell me a bit about that and what what the appeal of whale watching is for us.

REBECCA GIGGS: Yes. So this also was one of the earliest bits of research I did for this book was to head down to Eden, which is on the eastern coast of Australia and is historically an area where a lot of whaling took place in the 19th century. But now it's a hotspot for ecotourism. And for me, I was just hypnotized by this particular moment where a female humpback with her calf came very close to the boat. So she was travelling just underneath the skin of the water, just past the boat, only a matter of metres distance between us. And I wanted desperately to make eye contact with her. I wanted to fall into her eye line and be beheld by her, even as I was also beholding her. And I really, I felt like time stood still in that moment. This huge animal, this fleshly presence that's just so immense and was hypnotic.

MG: You call it tourism in proximity to extinction.

REBECCA GIGGS: Yes. And that's the other part of it, is that we come to see whales out of a sense that we want to encounter the things that we've saved. You know, it's whales were really pushed to the brink by industrial whaling in the 20th century. And by the time we were attempting to save them in the 70s and 80s, many populations were really down to perilous levels, something like two hundred and fifty humpbacks left coming to the east coast of Australia, which is just a minuscule number. So it's also about an encounter with our own benevolence, our own feeling of we acted as a global citizenry to save these animals, the largest animals on the face of the planet. Yeah, it's a good feeling, I suppose, to go out and see these creatures.

MG: What was behind that drive of whaling in the 19th and early part of the 20th century?

REBECCA GIGGS: You know, I thought that whaling really was a Victorian era industry. I figured it went the way of seance and leeches. And, you know, it was something that that really was an eighteen hundreds industry. But actually it carries through into the 20th century. So in the 19th century, whale oil and also the billions that are sort of like a fibrous substance that some whales have in their mouths, almost like a moustache inside your upper lip. These two products were used for multiple industrial purposes. Whale oil really goes into fuelling the late stages of the industrial revolution. It's a lubricant. It's used in machinery. It's used in eliminating certain lamps and candles. And then the by-lines are like the plastic of the era. You could steam them and you could put them in hot water and then remould them. They went into hula hoops, into the springs in wristwatches. Most memorably, they go into women's corsetry. So they become the reinforcing in women's corsetry. And then in the 20th century, we first see them used in products that are a cornerstone of the working class. So soap and margarine. But later they end up in luxury goods and perhaps most surprisingly to me was that they had a role in as a military product. They were used as a lubricant in ballistic missiles. There's even a very small amount of whale oil that went up to oil the shutters on cameras in satellites.

MG: What was it then, I mean, maybe it goes back to that idea that we were talking about earlier of charisma. But what was it that then got us? I mean, I think a lot of us who were kids in the 80s remember the Save the Whales movement that got us thinking that we could save the whales. What was behind that then?

REBECCA GIGGS: This is a moment where a lot of people were coming into the awareness that environmental problems were transnational in nature. And so you couldn't just have action that took place on the level of a country you needed to have forms of activism that crossed borders. So we had, you know, the hole in the ozone layer. Chernobyl had taken place. Even acid rain was top of mind as well. And whales were really a globalized zoological crisis. No single nation lays claim to the whale as exclusively its native species. So it was a form of activism that could cross borders. And it sort of dovetailed with some of those other environmental movements that weren't about animal welfare but were about cross-border environmental problems.

MG: You spend a lot of time in the book talking about the role of whales in the ocean ecosystem broadly. How important are whales to our fight against climate change, for example?

REBECCA GIGGS: Yes, this was some of the scientific research that blew me away as a non-scientist because I have thought of whales since forever as part of marine ecosystems. You know, they eat in ocean food webs and when they die, their whole bodies kind of descend down into the deeps to be picked up by this bewitching menagerie of strange organisms. But I had no idea until I started researching this book that whales were in some senses attached to the chemical composition of the atmosphere. And the reason for that is this. The largest animals on the face of the planet are, in a very fine tuned way, attached to the growth of some of the planet's smallest plants like organisms called plankton. So most whales feed at depth, they dive down into the deep sea. Down there, they're feeding on squid, or krill or other kinds of small organisms, but they don't defaecate down there because of the pressure. They come back up and they excrete these long faecal plumes, which are kind of bright orange in colour. And as foul as that sounds, this is the manure that really creates the conditions for the plankton to grow. Plankton are even more important than our rainforests in terms of their, the way that they trap carbon and the way that they emit oxygen. So the activity of a whale is actually has a measurable effect on the chemical composition of the air. There's research that shows that whales are really equivalent to about a thousand trees because of that activity. So there are some people who argue that whales really have a climate function as well.

MG: You also write about this concept of whale fall. What is that?

REBECCA GIGGS: Yes, so, as I mentioned a moment ago, when whales die in the deep sea, they fall down to a depth, in many cases far, far lower than any living whale will ever descend. And when they land in the deep sea, this body, they become this amazingly enriching ecosystem. It's almost like spring takes place. It's like the seasons have changed because you get this huge input of energy and all of these animals appear seemingly from nowhere. You get octopuses, you get strange kinds of worms that exist only on whale bones. They don't live anywhere else in the ocean, on the ocean floor. And they have these roots that extend into the marrow of the bones, which they consume. So it's almost as though this sort of very gory body becomes like a pinata. It's just full of all these amazing, yeah, creatures. And for me, that really, you know, a lot of this book is about the sadness we feel when we encounter wild animals affected by environmental change. But the whale fall stood for the fact that what looks like a tragedy to us can also be a kind of turning point for organisms as well.

MG: There's the whole idea of. I mean, you talked about Moby Dick a little bit, I mean, you know, in the belly of a whale and that becomes a cliche. But you document in the book the kinds of things that can actually end up inside the actual belly of an actual whale. What are those things?

REBECCA GIGGS: Yeah. So in 2013, a sperm whale washed up off the coast of Spain near Granada, and it had in its stomach this stupendous medley of synthetic objects, things like coathangers, bits of mattress stuffing, an ice cream tub. But most alarmingly to me was that they found a greenhouse, basically all the tarpaulins, the ropes, the flower pots bundled together into one mess that it somehow ended up getting between the whale in the world and then eventually being consumed by that whale. At the time, I thought to myself, if I were to put that in a novel. It wouldn't be believed because here is this icon of 1980s environmentalism, and it's literally consuming the metaphor that we've used to describe climate crisis like the greenhouse, the greenhouse effect. And it just seemed like such an uncanny moment.

MG: You give the story as well, or the example of the breast milk of Inuit women.

REBECCA GIGGS: Yes. So some whales are absorbing heavy metal pollution, a kind of chemical ballast that ends up in the ocean as a result of its use in pesticides and fertilizers. And it's important to note that these are, in some cases, legacy chemicals. They might have been banned now, but they were in use in the 70s and 80s. They've ended up lingering persistently in the ocean for decades. And the reason that they get into whales is that they all have this sort of envelope of blubber that goes around the outside of the animal, under the skin. And many of these heavy metal chemicals are what scientists call lipophilic. They are soluble in fat, but not in water. So they sort of pool on the surface of the sea and they're attracted to things that are fatty. And even in places where there's hardly any commercial activity, where industry is very large, there's very few shipping routes, we have found that traditional people who are eating whale meat as a cornerstone of their diet are actually also imbibing these heavy metal pollutants and they enter the breast tissue and become part of breast milk. So, yeah, it's a tragedy that these animals can become much more polluted than the environments they live in.

MG: You mentioned earlier that the eye of the whale. It seems like there's a particular fascination with looking into the eye of the whale. Do you still get that sense of wonder when you see a whale? I mean, I think if people don't live near an ocean and they go to an ocean and they happen to see a whale or they go out on a whale watching trip, there is that that raw sense of wonder. You've been around them and you've written this book about it. Do you still have that sense of wonder?

REBECCA GIGGS: I do, yeah. Yeah. I think the eye connection, coming eye to eye with a whale, you know, to some extent that was undone by some of the research for this book because I discovered that actually whale vision is not as sharp as I had imagined and that whilst I may have been putting meaningfulness on this moment of eye to eye connection, in fact the whale was very unlikely to have been able to behold me. But ultimately, a whale is not just a wonder because it's like the largest animal on the face of the planet, it also augments our moral capacity. It calls us to care for something that's outside of our sphere of action. Ordinarily, you know, we rarely encounter them, but it also brings us into a new kind of imagination of what it's like to live through environmental change, you know, what it's like to inhabit the world in a body that's got different kinds of sensitivities, different kinds of senses. And ultimately, I think that, you know, this form of caring for something that's remote and a bit mysterious and unknowable and unmet by us is a kind of political imagination that we need in this moment, because the environmental movement we're in, we're going to be called to extend our compassion to all of these people and organisms that we don't encounter, be that future generations or the people who live on the equator, who are facing, you know, the exigencies of climate change in its most extreme manifestations now. I think that going back and thinking about the 1980s and that moment of activism around the world gives us some hope for a form of moral imagination that can really help us in this moment, too.

MG: It's a fascinating book and I'm really delighted to have had the pleasure to talk to you. Rebecca, thank you.

REBECCA GIGGS: Thank you very much, Matt.

MG: Rebecca Giggs is the author of Fathoms: The World in the Whale. Your regional update is next. And then, they have come to be called long-haulerrs. People diagnosed with COVID months ago, but still suffering lingering effects. In a moment, we'll hear what that's like and we'll also speak about the work being done to help the COVID long-haulers. I'm Matt Galloway. The Current is back in 90 seconds. Stick around.

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Months after contracting the virus, COVID-19 long-haulers still suffering

Guests: Katy Mclean, Angela Cheung

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. The news of a COVID-19 vaccine has many people breathing a sigh of relief. But for some people recovering from COVID, just breathing is still a difficult task. According to researchers, as many as a third of people who had COVID still experience lingering effects, some four weeks, some four months. These people are being called COVID long haulers, and many are wondering just how long the haul will be. Katy Mclean is an office manager at a communications and urban planning firm in Vancouver. She was diagnosed with covid nearly four months ago. Katy, good morning.

KATY MCLEAN: Hi, thanks for having me, Matt.

MG: Thanks for joining us. How are you feeling?

KATY MCLEAN: I'm OK.

MG: You say that with a qualified OK, I think.

KATY MCLEAN: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would consider myself to still be very much recovering rather than recovered.

MG: You're, I hate to ask about age, you're in your early 40s?

KATY MCLEAN: Yeah, I'm 42.

MG: Not particularly in the high risk category at all. So take me back to when you were first diagnosed. What made you think that you actually had COVID?

KATY MCLEAN: Well, I was actually completely shocked to find out that I had covid because I had had very, very minimal exposure to public places and and people. But I developed a fatigue that seemed quite intense and then had that for about a week. And then I woke up with what seemed like a head cold and I thought, OK, you know, got a head cold. It at first did not seem unusual to me. However, I had seen my 92 year old grandma the day before and I thought, I better get a test just to be just to be sure. I definitely didn't expect it to come back positive, which it did.

MG: At the worst of it, how bad were your symptoms?

KATY MCLEAN: I was pretty much incapacitated and bedridden for about three and a half weeks during the acute phase. And, you know, then I started having some improvement from there. But what happened was it just plateaued. So I didn't recover. You know, normally I think when when we get sick, you know, you're feeling awful and then you kind of turn that corner and you start making your progress where you start getting stronger again and resume normal activity. So that corner just never happened.

MG: So four months down the line, what are the symptoms that are still hanging around for you?

KATY MCLEAN: So the main thing that's been really debilitating is I have what doctors call post-exertional malaise, which basically means that I can't do any physical activity without having some kind of relapse of my symptoms. And so, for instance, to give you an example, on the weekend, I tried to take a short walk with help. As a person who was previously very active, you know, I keep thinking, OK, I must be getting stronger, I can probably do this now, but I, you know, took a slow walk for 15 minutes with help, and it put me in bed for 24 hours with, you know, overwhelming peak chest pains, heart palpitations, shortness of breath.

MG: Wow. And does that fear of relapse, is that the kind of thing that's in the back of your mind? All the time?

KATY MCLEAN: All the time. So every time I think that I've gotten over a symptom, like, for instance, my cough, all it takes is, you know, for me to exhaust myself, which that happens so easily now, you know, it could be trying to do some light housework. It could be too much time on my computer or, you know, trying to do a doctor's appointment or something like that. And suddenly I'm coughing again. And so it's quite a phenomenon, really. I've never experienced anything like this virus. And I think it's important for people to understand that it's really a spectrum of how it can affect you and everyone's immune system is so different and you just don't know until you have it, you know, how it's going to play out in your body.

MG: You mentioned doctors appointments. What have doctors told you about your current symptoms and how long this could last?

KATY MCLEAN: Well, because this is a novel virus like nobody knows yet, so I'm really, really fortunate that I'm working with the Post-COVID Recovery Clinic at St. Paul's and they've been really helpful to give me guidance about how to manage my symptoms and avoid a flare up. And sorry, one of the things about COVID, it also affects you cognitively. So my short term memory is really bad. So I've already lost the question.

MG: Oh, it's fine. Don't worry about it. You're doing great. You mentioned the recovery programme at St. Paul's, the hospital in Vancouver, what are they saying to you about what you can do to to alleviate some of the symptoms? Is there anything I mean, aside from staying in bed, which you don't want to do, is there anything else that you can do?

KATY MCLEAN: So the main thing is, you know, most illnesses when you're recovering, the idea is to kind of exercise and get stronger. And this is actually the opposite of that. So the idea is you want to avoid a symptom flare up as much as you can. So that means you can't increase your activity to your threshold. You have to stay below that at all times. And mine is really low at this point. So, you know, I still am having trouble just functioning with basic tasks and need a lot of help. Basically, there's not really a prediction, there's still people from the first wave who are in my shoes, who are still dealing with ongoing symptoms.

MG: That's got to be incredibly frustrating.

KATY MCLEAN: It is and and, you know, I think that it's also scary because you just don't know if it's permanent or if it you know, maybe next year I'll be better and able to go for a walk or run or hike again or, you know, run errands by myself, go for groceries, that kind of thing. Like, I can't do any of that right now. So I miss just my old functionality pre-COVID.

MG: We're calling people like you long-haulers. And I know that there's a community of people who are in the same boat as you who are connecting in different ways. Are you connecting with them?

KATY MCLEAN: Yeah, I'm a part of a Canadian support group and also an international support group. And that's been amazing, especially for my mental health, because it's really hard for people to kind of understand who haven't had the lived experience. So I'm so grateful for for all of that work and also the patient advocacy and, you know, our numbers the way that they are right now. This is, you know, in each province, there's probably 100 to 200 people a day that are our long haul. So that's a lot. There's going to be a lot of us who are going to need specialized medical care and rehab and and different kinds of support to get better.

MG: Just before I let you go, having gone through what you have gone through, what would you say to people? Again, you're 42.

KATY MCLEAN: Yeah.

MG: People who would say, well, this isn't going to happen to me. I can take care of myself, don't worry about it, that it's another demographic that has to be worried about this. What would you say to them?

KATY MCLEAN: I mean, from what I'm seeing, especially from my groups, that's absolutely not true. And it's just a roll of the dice. So at this point, doctors don't know why some people end up with long haulers and why some people have critical illness and end up hospitaliaed with, you know, terrible outcomes. We just don't know. I think that that is a naive way to approach the virus and really that the public health measures are there to keep us safe and for less of us to have to go through this. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. So stay safe, you know, and and do what you can to avoid contracting this because it's just not worth it. And you don't know how it's going to be. It'll be mild or maybe you'll be asymptomatic and that would be amazing. Or maybe you'll be like me or other long haulers or worse. Right?

MG: Take care of yourself. It's important to talk to you. And I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

KATY MCLEAN: Thanks.

MG: Katy Mclean is an office manager at a communications and urban planning firm in Vancouver. She was diagnosed with COVID-19 nearly four months ago and she is still in the recovery process. Research on long hauliers is happening across this country. One of the people coordinating that work is Dr. Angela Cheung. She is the co-lead of the Canadian COVID-19 Prospective Cohort Study. Its goal is to assess the health outcomes for thousands of COVID patients over a one year period. Doctor, good morning to you.

ANGELA CHEUNG: Morning. Good morning, Matt.

MG: How typical is a story like Katy's where four months after she was diagnosed, she still I mean, she can't even go for a walk, as she was saying.

ANGELA CHEUNG: Yeah, there's a whole spectrum, as Katy was saying, from those who recovered without any symptoms to those who have residual symptoms. And so from the patients that we have been seeing, I would say that it's not an uncommon story.

MG: And this is I said in the introduction, as many as a third of COVID patients and perhaps having some long lingering symptoms?

ANGELA CHEUNG: So this is a very hard number to sort of try to gauge, especially in Canada. We are just beginning to sort of get a sense of how what the numbers are. In other published studies, up to 80 percent in hospitalized patients. I think the the hospitalized patients are a slightly different crowd because they were very sick. And, you know, some actually underwent like mechanical ventilation. And so, you know, it's not as unexpected that they are, you know, not totally recovered after two months, after three months, whereas actually the non hospitalized crowd, I think that's the, that's the more sort of surprising piece is that, you know, we still see people with symptoms even six, eight months out.

MG: You started investigating this back in March, which seems like a lifetime ago when this pandemic really took hold, but you and your colleagues were looking at the long term effects of COVID. What were you interested in and why did you think that patients who perhaps had seemingly recovered might actually struggle with those symptoms for a long time down the road?

ANGELA CHEUNG: Well, in March, we didn't really know a whole lot. And I would say that we're just beginning to understand some of the things with the long term symptoms, but we because of prior work around with my co-lead, Dr. Margaret Herridge, we were interested in looking at longer term outcomes.

MG: There are many long haulers who said that their doctors didn't initially believe them, that their concerns were dismissed as and not that fatigue is is, you know, a minor thing, but that the doctors would say this is just fatigue. Is that changing, do you think?

ANGELA CHEUNG: I think it's changing a bit. So as we are talking, there's actually an international forum called Long COVID Forum organized by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the UK groups. And so I think internationally we're coming together to try to understand this a bit more.

MG: What do we know now about why someone like Katy, four months later is still suffering these effects?

ANGELA CHEUNG: So I can tell you from the clinical standpoint, what we see is often these patients actually have normal tests. So, yeah, they may feel short of breath with doing some exercises, but when you actually test them, the oxygen saturation, the spine, the chest X-ray is fine. The pulmonary function tests, these are specialized breathing tests, are fine. And so there's a bit of a disconnect in terms of, you know, what doctors are testing objectively and what the patients are complaining of. And so I think we're just beginning to understand and usually, you know, like many things, we need to see a number of patients to get a better idea.

MG: What's the big question that you have? I mean, what's the mystery that you're trying to solve with this?

ANGELA CHEUNG: So I'll tell you that from what I'm seeing is it looks like an autonomic dysregulation issue. So usually we have controls in our bodies that will sort of say if you run, your heart rate will increase. If you if you get angry, your blood pressure will increase, but those things will settle. And what happens is that this is kind of like an exaggerated response and it's not under good control. And so people will feel extremely tired, not just a little tired. People will feel totally, you know, their heart racing from even, you know, not that strenuous exercise per say. And I think we need to learn a bit more in terms of how to regulate our autonomic system.

MG: Is there in the interim any treatment for people like Katy or the other long hauliers who weeks or months later are still suffering from the effects of COVID-19?

ANGELA CHEUNG: There are. We have been trying different things. So because these kinds of symptoms remind us of something called POTS, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome and other things, so we use similar strategies. So we will, you know, tell patients to make sure before they exercise or do more strenuous things to have adequate fluids and adequate salt. So salty things we will ask patients if they're they really are bothered by racing heart that maybe take a little bit of a medication called beta blocker. They are breathing exercises that I teach my patients for the symptoms of shortness of breath and to train the intercostal muscles and diaphragmatic muscles. And also it actually regulates your autonomic system as well.

MG: Do we have a sense as to how long these symptoms will last?

ANGELA CHEUNG: One thing is we do know that they will go away. So I've seen probably 130 patients post-COVID that, like in person and all over sort of, you know, six, nine months kind of timeframe. And they will go away and, you know, depending on the person and depending on the severity of the symptoms, there certainly are things that we can do to make people recover faster.

MG: Just finally, before I let you go, I mean, in some ways it sounds obvious this is a novel coronavirus. This is new. But what does this tell you about how little we actually know about what this thing can do?

ANGELA CHEUNG: Oh, I think we're just at the beginning. There are many things, so we're going to be running like tests, biomarkers and other things to try to understand a bit more about this and how much of this is immune mediated, meaning your immune system having problems and how much of it is like autonomic dysfunction. I think we're just beginning in this sort of road to understanding. And it is a partnership between patients and physicians and scientists working on this.

MG: Doctor, it's good to speak with you about this. Thank you for what you've been able to tell us.

ANGELA CHEUNG: Sure.

MG: Dr. Angela Cheung is the co-lead of the Canadian COVID-19 Prospective Cohort Study, senior scientist with the University Health Network in Toronto. Would love to hear from you on this. Are you what we've been calling a COVID long hauler? Perhaps diagnosed weeks or months ago and still as Katy was suffering from those lingering symptoms? You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca or tweet us @TheCurrentCBC.

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Joe Arvay’s passing is a loss for all Canadians, says former attorney general

Guests: Andrew Petter

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. It is not often that constitutional lawyers are considered rock stars of the legal world. Joe Arvay however, was the exception. He spent most of his life fighting to enhance the rights of millions of people and in so doing, changed their lives and many other lives as well. Joe Arvay died earlier this week from a heart attack. He was 71-years-old. Andrew Petter was a long time friend and former attorney general in British Columbia, and he joins me now. Andrew Petter, good morning.

ANDREW PETTER: Good morning, Matt.

MG: I'm sorry for your loss.

ANDREW PETTER: Well, it's a lot good for me. It's a loss for the country and for so many of his friends. And I think, in fact, the sense of loss has deepened as we reflect on just the extraordinary sweep of Joe's work and the contribution he made to this country and, of course, the contribution he made in his individual and personal life to all of his friends and colleagues.

MG: He's been described over the last couple of days as being fearless. Why is that a word that applies to Joe Arvay?

ANDREW PETTER: Because Joe Arvay never, never said no. He never thought a challenge that he believed was just was one that he wouldn't be prepared to take on. And I guess there's so many examples of that, but the two that come to mind is in two cases, he went to the Supreme Court of Canada and argued that the Supreme Court had been wrong in decisions it had made 20 years before. And he persuaded the court that they had been wrong and they changed their view. And as a result, he he advanced the rights of workers, he advanced the rights of those who require medical assistance in dying. But in so many other cases where people like me have said to Joe, Joe, this is not a case that can succeed, Joe said, just watch me. And he showed just what a difference an individual with commitment and talent and a fearlessness can in fact achieve in the courts and outside the courts as well in his advocacy.

MG: Where do you think that came from? I mean, personally, in terms of who he was, but also in that defence of the charter, where did that come from?

ANDREW PETTER: I think it came from a really a deep sense of empathy that Joe had. And maybe to some extent it was born out of his own experience. I mean, Joe was in a terrible car accident and became a paraplegic at age 21, and yet he never let that stand in the way of of him. I mean, he was fun. He was a person who would be first on the dance floor. He went skiing. He would go on motorcycle rides. But I think perhaps it contributed to an innate sense of empathy he already had towards others and the plight of those who are not being well served by society and the determination that his role, as a lawyer and as a human being was to make a difference and to make a positive difference in every way he could. And, my God, he did that. And so many of the cases he took, he didn't get paid for. He took them on what's called a pro bono basis because he believed the litigants would never get heard unless he was prepared to fight for them without cost.

MG: You take a look at the issues that he stood behind. I mean, from supervised injection sites to fighting against solitary confinement to enshrining the rights of those who needed to go through collective bargaining. And then you mentioned the Supreme Court, a couple of cases there, one in 95, when he won this landmark case at the Supreme Court, which established that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was prohibited. What impact did that court case have on Canadians lives?

ANDREW PETTER: I think it was hugely important in moving forward the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. It led to other decisions. Of course, he was involved in the litigation that struck down the law preventing same sex marriage. He brought challenges against school board successfully that tried to impose restrictions on access to literature that promoted tolerance and same sex relationships. I think it was a very important piece of the progress we've made as a country towards recognizing rights generally and particularly the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.

MG: Another one was, as you mentioned, this is at the Supreme Court as well, physician assisted death. This happened in 2014. Take a listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: And so it is very wrong for these strong willed, not vulnerable people to oppose a law that allows physician assisted dying on the basis that other disabled people are not as adaptable as them. It's wrong because it's the worst kind of patronization.

MG: What goes through your mind when you hear that?

ANDREW PETTER: Well, just hearing Joe's voice brings back a lot of emotions, obviously, but that was a case in which it really exemplified Joe. He had a personal relationship with Gloria Taylor, who was one of the key litigants in that case, and he felt passionately in her right to to take charge of her own life and her own death. And again, I believe that was a case that he took on a pro bono basis. And I think you hear in his voice that as much as the argument was legally framed and wonderfully delivered, the passion that underlay it was personal. It had to do with justice. It had to do with a belief he had that we could, through his efforts and those of others, helped to move this country forward in ways that would have lasting effect. And, my God, they have had lasting effect thanks to Joe.

MG: You are a former attorney general. Were there cases in which you and Joe found yourself on opposite sides?

ANDREW PETTER: Well, not cases so much, but I'm also a legal academic. And much of my work has been to cast doubt on the ability of courts and of the law to, in fact, effect social change. And that was an ongoing debate that Joe and I had. And he loved nothing better than winning a case not only to advance the cause, but to prove me wrong, as he so often did. And I must say that my admiration for Joe is all the greater, because I do think it's a real uphill struggle because of reasons, of course, because the nature of the charter and the way writes cut it is hard to use the charter and to use it to positive progressive ends. And Joe showed it could be done. He showed it time and again. And I so admire him because he did that in an environment that was not always easy and not always conducive to the to the claims he was making. But he somehow found a way through because of his brilliance, because of his tenacity, because of his passion.

MG: What sort of impact did he have on those who are coming up in the legal profession? Because he was also, he's also a teacher like yourself and worked with that next generation.

ANDREW PETTER: And he loved nothing better than to be in the classroom and to share the knowledge, because I think in many ways he saw his legacy not only as being the cases that he won and the rights that he advanced, but inspiring others and showing them the way. And in fact, he spent time in law schools as a as a visiting litigator and scholar. He would come into classrooms and after he had finished speaking to students, the students were transformed. They were inspired. And I think his legacy is very much going to be the fact that many in this country looking at Joe are very many young law students and others will see the opportunity to to exercise their capacities to advance social justice, seeing Joe as an example and as an exemplar.

MG: What are you going to remember about him? I mean, he lived this this active, vibrant life and it suddenly cut short and he had, you know, many challenges in front of him and many more years of living hopefully in front of him as well. What are you going to remember about him?

ANDREW PETTER: I'm going to remember so much, Matt, but I guess it's the personal side that I will particularly remember his irreverence. The fact that he, this was a guy who, you know, he was unlike the image of many lawyers, he did not look down on people. He valued everyone. He would talk to anyone. He as I say, you get on the dance floor before anyone. And he would love arguing, not only about cases but about issues. One of the last cases he's been fighting is on behalf of young people representing them to argue the charter should, in fact entitle them to an environmental future. And calling upon government to do more to to take on climate change. And for him, that was personal because he saw in that case the future of young people, as he did when he went into the classroom, as he did when he engaged with students in all the different ways he did.

MG: It was a lovely tribute for him at the Supreme Court yesterday in which they said that his legacy is outstanding. And I appreciate you offering some thoughts on that legacy. And again, I'm sorry for your loss, Andrew. Thank you.

ANDREW PETTER: Well, thank you very much. It is a huge loss, not just to me, but to his colleagues and to this country. But we should all be very grateful for what Joe Arvay achieved and what he's left for us all.

MG: Thanks again. Andrew Petter is a former B.C. attorney general and a friend of Joe Arvay. Joe Arvay, a constitutional lawyer, died earlier this week. He was 71-years-old. That is The Current for today. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q. One of this country's great directors, Deepa Mehta is on the program. She has a new film, adaptation of a fantastic novel by Shyam Selvadurai called, Funny Boy. Coming of age story of a young gay man in Sri Lanka. There is controversy that surrounds this adaptation and you'll hear all about it when Deepa speaks with Tom, coming up in just a few moments. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Take care and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Dec. 9, 2020 episode transcript

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