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The Current Transcript for September 3, 2024

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

DANIEL DAMATO: So, this is the the dorm room. So, our main living area here. We have a kitchen on the right. Gonna have to learn how to cook, which sucks. And all three bedrooms straight ahead.

MATT GALLOWAY: That is a familiar sound across the country right now.

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CARLA KELLY: These are, these were last minute groceries for Daniel. A hundred and fifty dollars. I didn't get you milk. Because I didn't think you had a pot, so.

DANIEL DAMATO: Well, I need it for my protein shakes and stuff.

CARLA KELLY: There's lots of stores in Charlottetown.

DANIEL DAMATO: Yeah, exactly.

MG: It is the college or the university drop off.

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DANIEL DAMATO: I am in charge of holding my clothes and my pillows for now, anyway, we got more to come for sure.

MG: Daniel Demato is moving into residence, starting his first year at UPEI.

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DANIEL DAMATO: Feeling is excitement. A little nervous, for sure. My family's here to help, so I'm very happy for that. And my friends are up there and it's going to be great, so I'm really excited.

MG: These kids are about to embark on a new chapter of their lives. The parents are trying to keep it all together.

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CARLA KELLY: I personally was feeling kind of sick, you know, with nerves and fear that a sort of grief would come on. It might. Yeah. It's, you know, just the missing him. But I feel good today.

MG: And then for parents like Daniel's mom, Carla Kelly, comes the drive off in a car that is noticeably emptier than when they arrived. On our drop off drive to Halifax with my daughter, the highways and rest stops were filled with overstuffed cars bearing license plates from across this country. It's good company to be in at a time of big change. It's also good reason to explore this country. So, we're making the drive back to the empty nest. A bit of a road trip. This week we will be coming to you from P.E.I., New Brunswick and Montreal. It's the kick-off to a new season that will see The Current heading across Canada to hear the stories of Canadians. Next week, we're as far west as you can go, at Haida Gwaii, where a landmark recognition of Haida title over the B.C. islands has instilled a new sense of possibility for what's already a magical place. We'll also be in Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, and hopefully your community too, in the months to come. But we begin this morning on the red soil of P.E.I. with stories of a health care crunch, Anne of Green Gables as a vampire and life in a community where everyone knows your business. Good morning from Charlottetown. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

P.E.I.’s controversial new medical school

Guests: Dr. Preston Smith, Dr. Krista Cassell

MG: Well, the building is going up. The deadline for the first round of applications has passed, and by this time next year, Charlottetown will be home to Prince Edward Island's first medical school. The hope is that young people they train will eventually help care for the almost 25 per cent of islanders who have no family doctor. People like Maggie Campbell of New Annan. She has three little kids and has been on a waiting list for primary care since her doctor retired two years ago.

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MAGGIE CAMPBELL: Our newest baby had RSV since seven weeks old, and there's no such thing as aftercare for him at all. If we need to take him to the emergency room, the care there is great. But afterwards there's weeks and weeks of, you know, lung troubles, breathing rashes, all kinds of fever, everything else, and there's nowhere to go. It's exhausting.

MG: That lack of access to primary care is something that many communities are struggling with right across the country. Getting medical school started up, though, is a big job, and there have been concerns that this could mean even more challenges for an overstretched health care system on the island. With me in studio is the dean of the medical school at the University of Prince Edward Island, Dr. Preston Smith. Good morning.

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Good morning.

MG: Glad to have you here. What has it been like for you watching this building go up?

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Oh, it's tremendously exciting. It changes every day. We do tours almost once a week with various people in the community, and the rapid progress is remarkable. The facilities are going to be quite phenomenal. And in many ways, way ahead of much larger medical schools in terms of the cutting edge technology and the capacity that we have to improve health care.

MG: First class is, what, 20 students or so?

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Twenty students. Yes.

MG: The application just closed. What sort of response did you get?

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Well, we don't see the response until we start selecting people for interviews, which will we will be doing come January. So, we don't yet have the exact count of the numbers, but we will be populating an admissions committee that will work with Memorial as we're starting out as a regional campus of Memorial's faculty of medicine. And that will unfold as the fall goes along.

MG: But is your sense that this was something --not just, and we'll talk about the need here on the island-- but your sense that there were students who were looking for something closer to home, perhaps. That they don't want to leave the island to go to med school.

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Absolutely. I've had many students tell me they're thrilled to be able to apply to medical school and be able to do all four years on Prince Edward Island. It's also important to note that this will double the access to medical school seats for students from Prince Edward Island.

MG: How is this possibly controversial? We're going to talk more about this in just a moment. But I think for people across the country, I said that the access to primary care, it doesn't matter where you go. Access to primary care is a real struggle. And what people will say is, I can't find a family doctor. The school will help create more family doctors. How could that possibly be controversial?

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Well, I think it's controversial because our whole health care systems in a crisis. We have shortages of manpower, which make it very, very difficult for all health care practitioners, and certainly for physicians to juggle all the demands on their time. Having said that, you can't solve a labour problem without improving the supply. And all across the country, we're seeing new medical schools and medical schools, existing medical schools expand. But there's also a short term advantage. We know that 80 per cent of graduates today want an academic component to their career. So, not only will we have new doctors in family medicine seven years from now, but we will have, I think, more people wanting to come to PEI because they can both practice and work at the medical school.

MG: When I asked how something like this could be possibly controversial, there was a wry smile that appeared on the face of the person sitting next to you. Her name is Dr. Krista Cassell. She is the president of the Medical Society of Prince Edward Island and represents the province's doctors. Good morning to you.

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: Good morning, Matt.

MG: So, in a situation where people can't find primary care, where we just heard, I mean, it's exhausting for this family, that we heard from, Maggie Campbell in New Annan, to try to figure out how to get the care they need. How could this possibly be a controversial idea? The idea that we're opening a new medical school.

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: I hear you, certainly. You know, Prince Edward Island is a small, rural health care system. We have somewhere in the range of 300 doctors on the ground. And in the next seven years, with the current plan in the medical school, we'll have half that many trainees to manage amongst the 300 doctors. So, that gives us a little pause. Although we certainly support the idea and we understand the need, we're a little worried about the manpower situation.

MG: Tell me more about this, because you represent the province's doctors, and many of those doctors said that they wanted they didn't want the idea of the school stopped. But there's this word pause. And that can mean a number of different things to a number of different people. But what were they worried about? What did you hear from those doctors?

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: Yes, and we've heard a variety of opinions. Certainly many doctors are very much in favour of this and are very excited about the potential for teaching, as Dr. Smith shares. And many others are just worried about how we get through our days with all of the demands from patient care. You know, as we've talked about, people don't have access to primary care, which means the entire system is further overloaded. The specialists are seeing primary care problems. The emergency rooms are overrun. We just don't know how we're going to fit the time in to do some teaching at the medical school as well as our own clinical practices.

MG: So, the previous head of the provincial health authority, Dr. Michael Gardam, resigned over this issue of the medical school. I want to play a little bit of what he told-- this was a very spicy conversation. What he told a legislative committee hearing earlier this year. Have a listen.

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DR. MICHAEL GARDAM: There's a lot of problems here, right? We don't have nearly enough doctors. And some of those doctors are going to have to teach. We've already seen it with the medical school. They've recruited several people from health P.E.I. They can do that because they offer 30 per cent more money than we can offer. So, it's very easy to recruit from us. So, if we're going to do this, how do we do it together so we don't rip the guts out of the health care system at the same time?

MG: Dr. Preston Smith-- rip the guts out of the health care system. Is that what's happening here? Michael Gardam said he didn't want to be party to this, and that's why he resigned.

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Well, I think P.E.I. was lucky to have such a talented infectious disease specialist to lead them through a pandemic. And I think that he did a wonderful job.

MG: He also left that job because he's worried that the system, as he says, is going to rip the guts out of the health care system.

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Yeah. And I do not believe that's going to happen. We have, you know, empiric evidence of new medical education programs starting across the country for the last 20 years. And often in very, very, resource poor areas. When I say resource, I mean health care resource, such as northern Ontario. People said, no way can anybody ever start a medical school in Northern Ontario. And now it's one of the most successful medical schools in the country. And people in northern Ontario can't imagine how much worse off their healthcare system would be if they didn't have the northern Ontario school.

MG: So, is he wrong?

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Well, I think that he was looking at things through the lens of post-pandemic health care crisis. I think that the evidence, as I said, is clear that other systems have been able to absorb the work of a medical school, been able to attract more doctors because there's a medical school there. And I believe we're well-positioned to do that, particularly with this new physician service agreement that the Medical Society of Prince Edward Island has negotiated with the Ministry of Health and Health, P.E.I.. I think we're incredibly well poised with an exciting new physician agreement, health P.E.I., that's absolutely committed to seeing the medical school succeed and a university that's committed to do the same thing.

MG: Dr. Cassell, is there actually evidence that shows in other jurisdictions where something like this has been tried that --again, I'll use Michael Gardam's phrase-- the guts have been ripped out of a health care system. It's very dramatic. And again, for patients, they don't want things to get worse. But is there any evidence that that's actually happened?

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: I think that that's the really interesting thing right now is that there's not a lot of evidence, and we are making things up as we go. But if there's one thing that P.E.I. is really good at, we're small, but we're quite agile and we can work together in very unusual ways that we don't see in other places. So, I am not without hope that this can be managed. As Dr. Smith mentioned, there are a number of pieces that are falling into place that are going to help make this a possibility here, including this new physician services agreement. And I would like to say that the one big thing that I do think that Michael Gardam got right there is that we have a real lack of physicians, and we need more on the ground here in P.E.I., and this new physician services agreement is expected to do just that.

MG: In that situation now where there is a lack of physicians, what does that mean for people in P.E.I.? Explain that to the rest of the country, what it's like to live in a province where, what did I say? Almost 25 per cent of islanders have no family doctor.

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: You know, so because there is a lack of primary care access, people are having to turn to other options such as virtual care, such as our emergency rooms, walk in clinics. And it's not the most robust care that people could receive. So, we know that. We feel that, as I've talked about, we feel that spill-over into our everyday practice as specialists are managing primary care issues. The patients are going to the emergency room who are also managing primary care issues.

MG: How are doctors doing in all of that? I mean, again, what we hear across the country is people are leaving primary care because it's exhausting. Right? You can go into other things. You can look at other fields because it's too much.

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: Yeah, it is too much. And so, part of our new physician services agreement has tried to address some of this. And so, we've tried to say, hey, look, the way that we pay doctors in this current day has to be different than what it was before, because we're working differently than we ever had before. So, this new agreement actually honours all of the time and energy spent trying to care for patients, even outside of the traditional transactional method.

MG: What's the sense from doctors as to how Dr. Smith is doing at listening to their concerns?

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: I think that...

MG: A bit awkward. He's sitting right next to you, but go ahead.

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: This is P.E.I. I think that certainly, doctors are very happy to have Dr. Smith on board. He has made some some big efforts with engaging the physician community since he arrived here on the island. And we're very pleased to have him at the helm of this project. We recognize that there is still much work to be done, and physicians do still need to understand how we'll be asked to engage with the medical school and what this will actually mean. But I think people are feeling fairly positive about his position.

MG: What do you need to do to make those doctors here feel like you're listening to them? Feel like they're being understood? Feel like they're not-- this is not just being done to them, but it's being done with them, if I can put it that way.

DR. PRESTON SMITH: So, I mean, first of all, listen, listen, listen. I mean, I'm reaching out on the individual basis. I'm going to town halls, I'm going to medical meetings and learning about the challenges they face in clinical practice every day. I think being seen to be helpful with recruitment is, will also be an important message that this evidence from other jurisdictions that have attracted more doctors because they've had a medical school. The medical school and me and my team have to be helpful in trying to recruit doctors and show them the advantages of coming to live on beautiful P.E.I. with a great deal for doctors and a medical school they can participate in and enjoy the pleasures of teaching and bringing next generation into medicine.

MG: How much can a medical school actually help in terms of addressing that need?

DR. PRESTON SMITH: So, I think, again, the emphasis on recruitment, the emphasis on, you know, just simply the joy of teaching.

MG: But it's going to be years before any of those doctors. I mean, we're just talking about the first cohort. The application just closed. It'll be years before they're practising.

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Yeah. So, there's evidence that shows that doctors that teach actually have greater career satisfaction and are more likely to stay in their communities. So, we will not only help recruit doctors, we as a-- being able to participate in a medical school will also retain doctors on P.E.I. and again, this is, you know, published evidence.

MG: How worried are you about that? I mean, there are many communities that are being very aggressive in trying to actively recruit doctors. You could use the word poach, and bring them from one community to another. Are you worried about that?

DR. PRESTON SMITH: So, I'm not worried about P.E.I. being able to recruit given this new physician services agreement and all the other changes that I've already alluded to.

MG: Do you think those doctors that graduate from the school will actually stay to practice on P.E.I.?

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Absolutely.

MG: Absolutely.

DR. PRESTON SMITH: The evidence is clear that in every jurisdiction across the country that have developed medical education programs, they've retained more of the, more doctors than they would have without those programs.

MG: Dr. Cassell, will they stay?

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: We've been very clear in our position on this that we not only have to have a medical school, but we have to have a medical school that's functioning very well. Where we've developed a centre of excellence for training, for education and then for practice. Because, as you learn, you have to be able to see yourself in that environment. To be able to want to stay in, it has to be working for you. So, we think that some of the other aspects such as the benefits offered, the competitive pay, the support in practice, the work is work. All of these components of our physician agreement, we think, will actually be very valuable.

MG: What makes it a good deal for somebody to stay here? I mean, it's a beautiful part of the country and that can help-- it really does--can help attract people. But beyond that, what needs to be done to ensure that those doctors see P.E.I. as a place that they want to be?

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: I think that what's happening right now with our new agreement is that we've really recognized family medicine as a specialty in its own right. And this is incredibly important right now. Our family medicine specialists have an incredibly challenging, difficult job. The patient population is becoming more complex as our population ages and grows in all of Canada. And it's a much tougher job. So, if that work is valued and supported with appropriate teams and resources, I think that will go a long way towards keeping people here on the island.

MG: How much of a strain has those who come from away and land here put on the health care system? I mean, we're going to be talking about education coming up a little bit later on. That's an issue that we're seeing across the country, but certainly in Atlantic Canada during the pandemic and after, where people were perhaps fleeing cities for the West and heading here. What does that done to the medical system?

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: It certainly has caused a much quicker growth than we had prepared for within the medical system. So, we are now reacting to some of this.

MG: Do you see that as well?

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Certainly. I think we see that across the country. And so, for the last two decades, we've been training far few doctors than the country needed. And so, now we're in this aggressive catch-up mode, with the rapid expansion in medical education I alluded to. One other aspect on P.E.I., and Dr. Cassell alluded to team-based care. Is the patient medical home and P.E.I. is further ahead in developing a team-base, collaborative model of primary care, that is called the Patient Medical Home on P.E.I. And the goal is to have, you know, 30 of these patient medical homes all across the island. Not only are they the type of primary care that graduates want to practice, which is team based care, but they're going to be a fabulous teaching environment. In fact, I think for third year, one of the best teaching environments in the country at modelling team-based primary care in a way that will make our graduates want to stay here and practice. And again, recruit more people to come to P.E.I. because of that patient medical home model that is so well developed.

MG: Can we just? We just have a couple of minutes left. Just spend the last bit of our conversation talking about-- it feels like part of the system is really broken. And Canadians will say that. We hold the health care in this country as one of our values that makes us different than perhaps other countries, and we celebrate it and champion it. But people can't find doctors. People can't get the care. And it's not just doctors, it's nurse practitioners. It's any form of primary care. They end up in the emergency department. Maybe that emergency department blows and so they have to go to a different emergency department. From your perspective, as we talk about the future of this system, how broken is this system as it exists right now? Dr. Cassell?

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: I think you're right to talk about all of the other players in the system. And I think that feeds very well into what Dr. Smith was saying, that we really are approaching that problem in that direction here on P.E.I. [MG: Team-based care.] And we're recognizing that teams are so important and that everyone can work to their own scope. And we're going to need all of the players doing just exactly what they do best in order to provide appropriate care. Gone are the days where the primary care physician has to be the quarterback and has to be the main contact for every physician. So, we're embracing that and developing that.

MG: And if we don't, are we at risk? People have said that we are at risk of losing that thing that we cherish.

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: Yeah, I think we are. I think we are. We certainly are not training enough doctors and we will have big needs in the future.

MG: Dr. Smith, last minute to you. I mean, when you look at that system, how wide are the cracks?

DR. PRESTON SMITH: So, certainly the cracks are wide and certainly practitioners are, you know, feel the pain of not being able to get the right resources to the patients when they need them. On the other hand, I was in a team meeting in a patient medical home just a few weeks ago. And I was inspired by the excellence in care that they were talking about, about the teamwork, and the knowledge that here in Canada, we have some of the best trained health care professionals in the world.

MG: And yet people can't access them.

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Well, they can't access-- certainly all can't access them. But it's the quality of care that they are striving for that leaves me hopeful that if we can just shore up their ranks, we will continue to be proud of Canadian health care.

MG: It's a very familiar story to people right across the country, but specific to what's happening here on the island. Good to have you both here. Thank you.

DR. KRISTA CASSELL: Thank you.

DR. PRESTON SMITH: Thank you.

MG: Dr. Preston Smith is the dean of the Faculty of Medicine at UPEI. It opens up in 2025. Dr. Krista Cassell is president of the Medical Society of Prince Edward Island. There are both with me here in studio in Charlottetown. Your CBC News is coming up next. And then, learning to read. It's hard.

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VOICE ONE: Pete is on a bug.

VOICE TWO: Suh... Suh... Just keep going. Keep going.

VOICE ONE: Suh-fa-ar? Safari.?

VOICE TWO: Safari!

[Music: Theme]

MG: Kids are going back to school. We're going to talk about learning how to read, coming up in six minutes here on The Current. Stay with us.

[Music: Fades up]

Rethinking how we teach kids to read

Guests: Alex Merrick, Jennifer Halliday, Jamie Metsala

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway in Charlottetown, P.E.I. and you're listening to The Current.

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ALEX MERRICK: Come sit with mom, okay. Come sit right here beside me and let's look.

MARTHA MERRICK: I like to read in French.

ALEX MERRICK: Yeah. We've been practising to read in French. Right? And we have to practice our sounds right, Martha? Okay. Do you want to practice these? We have five sounds here. La, lo, li, lo, and lu. Can you say this sound for me?

MARTHA MERRICK: La, li, le, lo, lu.

ALEX MERRICK: Good job.

MG: Those are Alex Merrick and her daughter, Martha, sounding out words at home. Martha and her twin brother Wesley start grade two today at a public school in Toronto.

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ALEX MERRICK: Can you read these words in the last column for me, please?

MARTHA MERRICK: Li e lam en. La.

ALEX MERRICK: La salade. What word?

MARTHA MERRICK: Salade...

ALEX MERRICK: Do you want to pick a sentence to read?

WESLEY MERRICK: The shortest one.

ALEX MERRICK: Good job.

MG: You listen closely there, and you can hear the twins spelling out the sound of each letter using an approach called phonics. Maybe that's how you learned how to read. For years now, teachers have used a different method, something called the whole language approach, using repetition, guessing, and exposure to teach kids how to read. Well, now a number of provinces, including Ontario, Alberta, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are bringing back phonics. In 2022, the Ontario Human Rights Commission's Right to Read report said Ontario's public education system was failing students by not using evidence-based approaches to teach those students how to read, and that led Ontario and several other provinces to revamp the reading curriculum. Ontario brought in the new curriculum last year for grades one and up. It'll roll it out in kindergarten next year. Alex Merrick has witnessed the rollout of what Ontario is calling Back to Basics curriculum firsthand. Alex, good morning.

ALEX MERRICK: Good morning.

MG: It's the first day of school. How are you feeling?

ALEX MERRICK: I'm okay. I've done hair. Full outfits.

MG: Mornings are busy on the first day of school, so I appreciate you carving out time to talk.

ALEX MERRICK: Yeah. No worries. I'm always happy to talk about literacy. So happy to be here.

MG: You have a couple of kids. Tell us about what the young readers in your household generally have gone through in terms of their experience of learning to read it.

ALEX MERRICK: Sure. Yeah. So, I have three kids. Martha and Wesley are seven. They're going into grade two, and my eldest is Freya. She's going into grade five this year. And certainly I, with Freya, when she went into grade one, I think that was the first year of the pandemic. And during her sort of, I guess, reading journey, I'll call it, we were, we kept being told to kind of wait and see, wait and see what happens with regards to her reading, like waiting for it to click. And it kind of didn't. And so, you know, with the virtual learning and whatnot, I could kind of see how she was being taught to read. And I should share that I was a teacher, a primary school teacher in a former life, and did some training around teaching kids to read, as well. And so, you know, working with Freya, like, through the pandemic, we sort of figured out that, she had a couple learning disabilities and was dyslexic. So, it's been an interesting journey seeing, like, navigating the school system with her in particular and trying to work with educators to support her reading. So, when Martha and Wes were going into grade one, and Ontario was rolling off that new curriculum with the recommendations of the right to read and it, I was really excited. I thought, okay, this is we're going to have a smoother journey here. So...

MG: How did that work out? Was it as expected?

ALEX MERRICK: No, I have to share that, you know, it's been really frustrating, in particular trying to advocate and get support for my eldest with her learning disabilities. That the school is doing what they can with the resources that they have. But I think the problem is there is a, there is a huge need in schools right now in terms of supporting students and certainly those kids who were, you know, in those early grades where, as we know, it's absolutely crucial to sort of cement a lot of those sounds, in terms of that like, phonemic awareness, understanding phonics, knowing how to decode. And if you kind of don't get that, it can be a little bit of a journey upward, yeah, trying to figure it out. So, we heard with Martha in Wes. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

MG: I was just going to say, we heard a little bit of you-- you're doing this at home as well, right? [ALEX: Yeah.] How much of how much of the support are you are you providing at home in terms of the reading education?

ALEX MERRICK: Yeah. So, just to like, with regards to Martha and Wesley, we're very fortunate at our school that we actually have an educator who is sort of leading the charge and has kind of brought on other teachers who sort of opted into working with her in their planning collaboratively. And, and they've picked up the science of reading. They've picked up sort of this phonics instruction with regards to sort of systematically working through sounds and building that awareness for students. And so, even though Martha and West were in different classes, we were getting the same homework coming home, which was a lot of, it was basically like, here's a list of sounds, and a list of sort of sight words. So, words you want to be able to recognize. And they would just ask us to read with our kids every, every single night. Which is a lot. It's actually, it was not necessarily doable every night for us. We certainly tried to have Reading Club here and there. But the days are long and they're little. And, you know, Martha is tracking to have sort of similar challenges to Freya along the, like, dyslexic lines. So, it can be a bit of a slog. But I was really heartened to see that these teachers were working together. But I know for a fact that's not the case across the school. Yeah.

MG: I'll let you get back to the first day of school prep. But let me just ask you, I know that you had the chance to speak with the former education minister, Stephen Leitch. He was still in that job. What did you tell him about, specifically around literacy and reading?

ALEX MERRICK: Yeah. So, I got to speak to Stephen Leitch, as a part of the Toronto Schools Caregiver Coalition, which is an advocacy group that I have been working with over the past year. And I got to chat with him basically just to share some deep concerns around funding, because I do think that while this new curriculum, you know, it is needed and necessary in order to support, you know, young readers and young kids learning how to read, the rollout in terms of money coming and funding and appropriate training for teachers did not come with it. And so, you know, I could see the strain and stress. And I'm quite close with a lot of the educators at our school. And I know for a fact, like one of them had to run a PD session for 450 other educators over six hours. But the types of training needed to roll out this type of program for teachers to be able to effectively, like, instruct in this way and then do the types of remediation or intervention, it's just not there. So, he-- I had said to him, I was so excited for this curriculum and then, but where's the training? And he said, you know, these things take time. And I said, I understand that, but if early intervention is key, like, what does that mean for my kids who are moving through the system now and not necessarily getting what they need?

MG: Alex, I'm really glad to talk to you. I wish you and your kids all the best on the first day of school. Thank you for being here.

ALEX MERRICK: Thanks so much, Matt. Thanks for having me.

MG: Alex Merrick is the mother to three children in the Ontario school system. We did contact the Ministry of Education in that province, and it sent us a statement addressing concerns about the new literacy curriculum rollout. It said, in part, that the ministry is committed to providing teachers supports to ensure the successful implementation of the elementary language curriculum and changes to early reading. Also noted, the ministry partnered with experts to provide teachers and principals with resources, including webinars and learning modules, and introduced mandatory professional activity days devoted to literacy and curriculum implementation, which will continue in this school year. That's in Ontario. New Brunswick also rolled out new curriculum last fall, introducing an approach called the Science of Reading, which includes phonics, to students from kindergarten through grade two. That province has long struggled with low literacy rates two years ago, but 40 per cent of grade four students in New Brunswick did not meet literacy standards. Rebecca Halliday was an early adopter of a phonics centred approach called Structured Literacy. Now a champion of this method, she runs a private school for grades one through eight in Riverview, New Brunswick, just outside of Moncton, and we've reached her there on the first day of school. Rebecca, good morning to you.

REBECCA HALLIDAY: Good morning.

MG: Tell me about, I mean, there's a lot of words used to describe this method of teaching. How would you, in a word or two, describe what you teach and what it's about at its core?

REBECCA HALLIDAY: Hmhm. I would say the word that comes to mind is transformational. It's really critical and it's really important that we understand that it's also just not just phonics. And with this change over to structured literacy, I think a lot of people in the science of reading community have been doing this for a while, are really concerned that it's just going to be a phonics focus and what we know for kids to become good readers, they need to have much more than just phonics awareness, which is, you know, their ability to decode and read words. They really need robust knowledge building in the curriculum as well as becoming really strong word readers. So, it's been a complicated shift over because we want to make sure we're doing it right. And we know that structured literacy in the science of reading has been around for a really long time. The key is, how are we going to do it the right way?

MG: You've said, I mean, when it comes to that whole language approach of repetition, guessing and exposure, the kids were essentially being taught to become guessers, not readers. What did you mean by that?

REBECCA HALLIDAY: So, what the levelled books, so many of us have a deep knowledge of what those little levelled readers look like. You could only pick from the A bin or the B bin, and those levels were created by a company, right? They, if you go to the library and you say, could I have a level B book? The librarian would say, I don't know what you mean. So, those levels were kind of created by a company that wanted you to buy their books. And so, what that looked like is little kids looking like they were readers. So, we did this thing where we said, okay, we're going to practice looking like readers, and you could have a kindergarten kid with the book upside down, looking like a reader being quiet and having no clue what they were reading. And then what that looks like further is that these levelled readers contained all kinds of words that they haven't directly and explicitly been taught yet. So, you had kids memorizing, but memorizing isn't reading. If you look at sight words, those were those popcorn words that come home. Okay, memorize this list of words. These are really important words you need to know. Memorizing isn't reading.

MG: What are the problems that that leads to? I mean, it sounds obvious, but what are the problems that that leads to down the line?

REBECCA HALLIDAY: So, a lot of times kids get missed as struggling readers because they are looking like readers. I'm putting air quotes up here in my classroom. They are looking like readers and then boom, grade three hits and oh my goodness, Johnny's struggling a bit more because the words have gotten a lot harder and he doesn't have the word attack skills or the decoding skills, to... So, what happens is kids get missed and we know the older kids are, just like Alex was saying, early intervention is so critical. That's great. Kindergarten, grade one, grade two. We know when kids are struggling to read. These kids were looking like readers, and then they were in grade three and four, and I know as spending the last 15 years working with struggling readers, that when you get a kid in grade three and four who's already frustrated, overwhelmed, feels a sense of failure because everybody learns to read, that's what you go to school to do. When you don't do that, you get a lot of pushback. You get low self-esteem. So, not reading is not just about not reading. It's about the whole child and what that does to them as a person.

MG: So, give me the snapshot of what structured literacy looks like in your classroom.

REBECCA HALLIDAY: So, structured literacy components-- it's the five components of reading. So, that's phonics, genomic awareness, vocabulary fluency and comprehension. So, you can have a kid who unlocks the code of learning to read words. But if they don't have robust background knowledge with a big, beautiful curriculum that teaches them wonderful concepts in the non-fiction space science, social studies, and you stay on these topics for a long time. So, in my classroom, every single day, we are doing sound warmups. We are doing phonemic awareness drills with letters. We are building our vocabulary. So my-- we call my classroom the Reading Lab. We are getting nerdy and geeky about words, so my kids end up thinking that they are word scientists. Well, where did that word come from? Where's the prefix... what's the prefix pre mean? So, we talk about Greek and Latin roots starting in kindergarten in my school, grade one. We are a very vocabulary rich environment because, so if we're reading a book, we're going to put up all the words that we don't know up on a big, huge whiteboard. And we're going to use those words for a long time in our speaking and writing, because we know that kids also don't just need to read words, they need to have a robust vocabulary, because the point of reading is to understand what we read. We have lots of kids that can read words and you'll see it. They read through a text and they have no idea what they read. So, reading is not just word reading, it's also background knowledge, it's so important.

MG: Let me just, before I let you go. Very quickly. This is, it's the first day of school for many students across the country. Some are already in school. And it's a moment of great possibility, but also stress for those parents and those students who were worried about what you were talking about, that they may not learn how to read, or may not learn how to read at the pace of their peers. Just very briefly, what would you say to those parents who are worried about how and when their kid will read?

REBECCA HALLIDAY: I would say, Alex had mentioned that her child went through the wait and see rhetoric at school, wait and see how catch up. I would say to parents, you fight for your child to get what they need in terms of their reading instruction, and don't just sit by because I think parents assume-- I'm sending my child to school. Of course they're going to learn to read. We have been teaching reading wrong for so long that as parents and community, we need-- literacy is a social justice issue. We need to fight for these kids to learn to read.

MG: I mean, the Supreme Court in 2012 said that learning to read is a right. It's not a privilege.

REBECCA HALLIDAY: It is absolutely a right. Think of what our communities are like with illiterate and non-reading people in our communities. Think of what that does to the trajectory of a child's life. So, my goal to parents is learn about the science of reading, learn about structured literacy. They shouldn't have to. But that's-- it's not right for parents to have to, but fight to make sure your child is being taught, using structured literacy and ask at schools, are you using balanced literacy? Are you using levelled readers? We should know as a nation that that is no longer the appropriate way to teach reading and ask those questions at your child's school.

MG: Rebecca, thank you very much.

REBECCA HALLIDAY: Thank you so much.

MG: Rebecca Halliday is director and head teacher of Riverbend Community School in Riverview, New Brunswick. Jamie Metsala is professor of education at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax and the Gail and Stephen Jaroslovsky Chair in Learning Disabilities. Also an advisor on the Ontario Human Rights Commission's Right to Read report that we mentioned earlier. Jamie, hello to you.

JAMIE METSALA: Hello. Good morning.

MG: How well-- Rebecca says that we've been failing kids and teaching reading wrong in this country. How well are schools doing when it comes to teaching kids to read across Canada?

JAMIE METSALA: Well, I think that since education is provincially governed, we see different methods towards teaching students to read across the country. And so, we can think of the balanced literacy approach, which really was and is dominant in many places. And it does teach students to integrate queuing systems and to predict what words are going to be, rather than explicitly focused on teaching the code of the written language. And we know that many more students will learn to read if we explicitly teach them the code. There are many components to learning to read and teaching these foundational word reading and spelling skills is a very important component to do well and to do early so that kids can get off to a good trajectory at being able to decode the words and texts. It means kids will enjoy reading more and look to read more. And as well, it's important for spelling. And so, as the entire Human Rights Commission did conclude, and as you read, we are failing far too many students early in their school trajectory.

MG: Why did we move away from phonics? If that's how, I mean, I think there are a lot of people who are listening thinking, well, that's how I learned how to read. Why did we move away from that?

JAMIE METSALA: Well, there were competing theories at the time, and I think we're talking around the 1980s, beginning of the 1990s, when Ontario, where I was at the time, moved to teaching more in this balanced literacy, whole language approach. And the competing theories had merit. However, we also started showing around the same time in research that children don't become better readers by integrating these cuing systems. In fact, what adults do is we do look at every word, and we do recognize words very quickly and accurately, and we can do that outside of context. I can read a list of words very quickly, just as I can do it within a story. So, this notion that we use language to kind of more guess and predict words and that we just have to scan the text, those notions that really are balanced in whole literacy were shown in research not to be correct. Another thing that was shown, which is even more important, is that when we teach children the code explicitly, many more students will learn to read. When we do not teach explicitly, children don't read. So, that instructional research is what we should be basing our practices on. So, we moved away kind of based on a very romantic notion of what reading is. Immerse children in wonderful books and they will learn to read. However, the reality is that far too many children will be failed if we teach that way.

MG: And if they do fail, if they are not establishing those foundational skills early on, what are you most concerned about as the years progress?

JAMIE METSALA: Well, we know that those foundational word reading and spelling skills, as well as oral language understanding and communication, those are really foundational to everything a child is going to do throughout the years. So, we can't be successful in science or social studies. How do we read those textbooks? How do we interact and know those more complex words if we can't do those foundational skills? So, just as your last speaker was saying, if we fail early on, that really has a devastating impact, not only on the academic trajectory of students, but also on social emotional well-being. Students know that reading is their main job to learn how to read when they're little and in those classrooms and they see their fellow peers taking off. And so, it really does, students begin to doubt themselves. Parents are devastated when students self-esteem plummets. When students start getting depressed, start not wanting to go to school. So, it's a huge snowball of the negative consequences that can happen. And children come to school, you know, with many different pre-reading skills and levels of pre-reading skills. And it really is the job of the school to teach all students to be able to read and to do that in the best way that we know how.

MG: Let me just in the remaining seconds that we have ask you the question that I asked Rebecca, which is on that first day of school for so many students across this country, what would you say to those parents who are anxious, who are nervous, who might be worried right now about the reading ability of their children?

JAMIE METSALA: Well, I think close communication with teachers is key. There has been teacher movements across the country to bring us back to to teaching in a way that is aligned with evidence in these foundational word reading and spelling skills and vocabulary and language...

MG: Which is what you would expect from education, to teach in line with evidence.

JAMIE METSALA: You would, although education is a large field and often kind of philosophies take over rather than evidence. So, teaching is really an art and a science together. And sometimes we've lost that science background of how we best team teach across, different subjects. So, I would say to parents, close communication with teachers, I think screening measures are being used in many jurisdictions, and that will really help teachers and parents communicate. It will help to get students into interventions very early, which need to dovetail with the really good classroom instruction that's happening. So, I think that many, students and teachers are going to get off to a great start this year, and we're going to learn from each other.

MG: Jamie, we'll leave it there. Great to talk to you. Thank you very much.

JAMIE METSALA: Thank you.

MG: Jamie Metsala, professor of education at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, the Gail and Stephen Jaroslovsky Chair in Learning Disabilities. Your thoughts on this, welcome. You can email us. What is the the route to learning how to read been like in your home? Maybe you're a teacher and you have some thoughts on the different strategies as well. Email us: thecurrent@cbc.ca. My name is Matt Galloway. I'm in Charlottetown today. So, extraordinary culture here on P.E.I. Let's play a little bit of P.E.I. music. The East Pointers won to Juno for their first album. Latest was named Album of the Year in 2024 by P.E.I. music. One of the band's three members, Koady Chaisson, died from heart aneurysm a couple of years ago, but his bandmates continue to create in his memory. This is Wintergreen by the East Pointers, featuring the late Koady Chaisson on banjo. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music: 'Wintergreen' by The East Pointers]

MG: Music from P.E.I.. It's Wintergreen. Tune by The East Pointers. Coming up after-- should say it... Wintergreen. It doesn't feel like winter at all here in Charlottetown. Beautiful, beautiful weather here over the last couple of days as we get into September. Coming up after your regional update, let's talk about living in a small community. The comedian Patrick Ledwell will be here, and you can't be on P.E.I. without talking about Anne of Green Gables... with a twist. It's coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway in Charlottetown. You're listening to The Current. Stay with us.

[Music: Fades up]

Why people still love Anne of Green Gables

Guests: Judith Graves, Linda Lowther

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway in Charlottetown. You're listening to The Current. We were just talking about how kids across Canada are learning to read. One of the classics of children's literature, of course, is set right here on Prince Edward Island.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE ONE: What is your name?

VOICE TWO: Anne Shirley, Anne spelled with an 'E.'.

MG: Very few Canadians haven't heard of the red spirited orphan Anne with-an-E-Shirley. Just whatever you do, don't call her 'carrots.'.

[sc].

VOICE ONE: Hey, carrots.

VOICE TWO: How dare you!

VOICE THREE: Anne Shirley, what is the meaning of this?

VOICE ONE: It was my fault, sir. I was teasing her.

[/sc].

MG: Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery has been adapted for the screen more than two dozen times. It's sold more than 50 million copies, translated into 20 languages. This year, it would have been Lucy Maud Montgomery's 150th birthday. And so, as you can imagine, P.E.I. is celebrating. I'm joined now by two Anne-thusiasts. See what I did there? Linda Lowther is with the committee responsible for Anne of Green Gables Tourism in Cavendish, P.E.I. Judith Graves is a compiling editor and co-author of ANNEthology. It is a book of spin-off Anne stories, and they're both here in Charlottetown. Good morning to you both.

LINDA LOWTHER: Good morning.

JUDITH GRAVES: Morning.

MG: Linda, it's interesting because stories and characters in those stories come and go over time. It is rare that something sticks around for generations. It's rare that those later generations still have an attachment that perhaps the earlier generations might. What do you think it is about Anne of Green Gables that continues to make her so beloved?

LINDA LOWTHER: Well, I think it's two things. One is her feistiness and good story, feel good, you know, conquers all kind of person. The other thing is, is that people are getting to know Montgomery more and more all the time. And now that we know more about the author, I think people are starting to make links about what makes her books timeless as some of her life and what she wrote about.

MG: I'm going to come back to that in a moment. Judith, what about for you? You've called yourself an Anne fangirl.

JUDITH GRAVES: Totally, yes.

MG: What do you love about her?

JUDITH GRAVES: Everything, I would say everything. Everything about Anne is absolutely top notch. She is feisty, smart. She stands her ground, you know, but she's vulnerable and she's trying to find her place and everyone can identify with that.

MG: What do you remember about first reading her?

JUDITH GRAVES: Junior high. Braces. Glasses. Not fitting in. Dad's in the forces, so we're moving all the time. And then there's this mini series that comes on and I'm glued to the TV. And we used to live in Summerside when I was a kid, so I was like, Oh my gosh, I have to, you know, dive into L.M. Montgomery's. So yeah, that's essentially how it started for me. Was the link from television back to book and then writing.

MG: Linda, I think that probably sounds familiar to a lot of people.

LINDA LOWTHER: I think so. Even with me, I first came to P.E.I. visiting relatives, didn't speak English very much, went back to Montreal and found an English library and said, what's this Anne of Green Gables thing all about? And fell totally in love.

MG: What is this Anne of Green Gables thing all about? Which is a question now that I mean, this opens up a whole new universe to you.

LINDA LOWTHER: Totally. It really opens up different themes, different things to talk about nowadays that we might not have talked about 20 years ago or 30 years ago. Anne with an E, for example, the CBC production brought out some new ways of looking at Anne, but it's universal, really.

MG: As you mentioned, one of the reasons you say that people still find an attraction to Anne is because they're learning more about the author. The celebrations I mentioned, 150th anniversary of Montgomery's birth are about more than Anne of Green Gables. Tell us a bit more about what we should know about her.

LINDA LOWTHER: So, for example, one of the things that people don't know about her as she was a fabulous photographer. We have her photo exhibit of some of the photos that she took, but we also asked P.E.I. photographers to take some of her quotes and be inspired by those, and go out throughout P.E.I. through the summer and take some photos. And we have an exhibit of those. We have a gentleman who's also doing a photo tour, talking about the types of tips that she would give in her journals, or to some of her readers about how to take great photos. So, that's one of the things that people don't know about her. The other thing that people don't know about her, she was a fashion maven. She loved fashion. She loved anything to do with crafts. She was a great scrapbooker. She loved flowers and of course, she loved nature more than than most people do. She really talked a lot about nature. And when we look at what people come to P.E.I. for, quite often it is about the scenery that we have. So, it's a lot more than just her writing.

MG: Is it true she's still the world's bestselling children's author?

LINDA LOWTHER: Apparently so. So I'm told.

MG: That's amazing when you think about it.

LINDA LOWTHER: Yeah.

MG: Yeah. Judith, what you have done with this anthology, it's out in this particular anniversary year. If I were to call it a departure from the traditional Anne stories, I think that might be underselling it a little bit. I spent some time this weekend reading some of these stories. Can you just describe the brief? What did you ask the authors who contributed to this to do so?

JUDITH GRAVES: So, essentially, I said, are you willing to take Anne on a different adventure? And who is Anne to you? And if you could interpret that story in any setting, the character could be any sex, any gender, any race, any creature. And in my case, like a cyborg. And most of them were just amazed at the opportunity to take a classic icon, like Anne, on new Adventures.

MG: Were there any limits at all that the authors had?

JUDITH GRAVES: The character had to be named Anne, had to have red hair or a reference to red hair, had to be an orphan, and the story had to in some way hearken back to the original themes of family, finding yourself, belonging, self-identity, self-worth.

MG: But other than that, it was wide open.

JUDITH GRAVES: Well, yes.

MG: I'd read that you'd specifically say that you were looking for shock value.

JUDITH GRAVES: I was, when I wrote my first story. I entered a contest and I took Anne on a spin, and it won the contest. And I really wanted to go for full shock value. At first I was thinking something with Anne and meat and potatoes, but then we went with Anne as a cyborg, AI unit instead. Sleeper assassin ascending on Avonlea.

MG: Why a cyborg of all the things? When you think of Anne of Green Gables, a cyborg is not perhaps the first thing that leaps to mind, right?

JUDITH GRAVES: I think because I wanted her to be kind of a warrior and have, you know, I really had that scene of her using her parasol to, like, stab an eye out. I just, it had to be in there.

MG: Had to be there.

JUDITH GRAVES: Had to be there. And I knew that was shocking. AI is really a scary thing right now. I mean, potentially great and potentially really horrifying. And the fusion of humanity and machine, you know, the whole Terminator thing, why not make Anne a terminator?

MG: And yet, if I might say, I mean, the cyborg is perhaps not the most shocking incarnation of Anne in this collection. What are some of the other incarnations of Anne in this book?

JUDITH GRAVES: Yes. The one that I was gobsmacked with is Susie Moloney's. I knew, like, she's a horror writer, a great Canadian horror writer. I knew she would take Anne in awesome places. And man, she went for it. So, she's the first story. And if you can survive that story, then the rest of them, you know, you'll settle in really well with the other stories. We really went hard with her. Did you read hers?

MG: I did, but I don't-- and want to spoil it too much, but just give people a sense as to what Susie did with this.

JUDITH GRAVES: Okay, so Anne is known for reading books. Anne reads a book. Anne becomes possessed. Yeah.

MG: Yeah. And then things happen.

JUDITH GRAVES: Oh, yes.

MG: I mean, Anne is also a vampire. Anne is also a boy.

JUDITH GRAVES: Which is really cool because, all of these authors used parts of their life experiences. Right? So, we have Paul Coccia with Anne who is a boy, a LGBTQ gay character who has identity, body identity issues and stuff. He's overweight. So, you have a young gay kid who's overweight. That's great. That's the equivalent of a red-headed girl in the 1800s or in the early turn of the century. So, there's that. And then there's, Matthew Dawkins' story. So, he's from the Caribbean, so we have a Black Anne who's trafficked. So, we go to some really interesting places. And then we have stories that will appeal more to the purist, more of the true Montgomery fans, with Deirdre Kessler's story. Very interesting. She takes Anne, who's a verbose character and makes her mute. It's very poetic. And then we have Shari Green, who is a poet. She writes novels in verse, and so she takes and to the Yukon, but it's all in verse. Yeah. It's just-- you'll have to cleanse your palate between each story. Go for a walk, you know.

MG: Down to the beach or something like that.

JUDITH GRAVES: Yeah. And then come back.

MG: You mentioned the purists. There are Anne purists. [JUDITH: Yes.] People have been outraged by the possibility of Anne's story being taken in different directions in past. And people people were wound up about and, you know, this word means a lot of things to a lot of different people. But there was concern over 'woke' Anne.

JUDITH GRAVES: Right.

MG: Have purists been offended by this?

JUDITH GRAVES: Sure. Yeah.

MG: You don't seem to mind.

JUDITH GRAVES: No I don't, because, our goal was to honour Montgomery's work and perhaps introduce Anne to a new generation of kids who might otherwise go, Yeah, it's a classic. Yeah. You know, do I really want to get into it? And we have these short stories that are really engaging and exciting, and then they can go back to the original with a bit more appreciation.

MG: So, your sense is that this would be kind of a gateway to the original stories for the...

JUDITH GRAVES: The gateway drug for Anne of Green Gables fans. Yes.

MG: Linda, I'm not saying that you're a purist, but what do you make of this idea?

LINDA LOWTHER: Oh, I'm kind of, I'm kind of the same way. Any time that you can have people pick up a book that celebrates Anne in some way shape or form, and then that maybe takes them to the original and maybe takes them to other Montgomery books, whether it's Emily or the Blue Castle or whatever, I'm all for it.

MG: What would you say to the purists who might-- I could imagine there are people who are listening who grew up reading Anne, and they're like, really? Do we need something like this? What would you say to them?

LINDA LOWTHER: Well, I'm not sure that we need it, but I think it's there. The people who do it are generally doing it as a celebration. So, I don't take offence to it at all. And if you're a purist and you want to stick to the real thing, you don't have to go read the other stuff.

MG: How big of a draw is Anne for tourists still today?

LINDA LOWTHER: Well, there's over a couple hundred thousand people a year that visit Green Gables Heritage Place and the site of Lucy Montgomery's Cavendish home.

MG: From all over the world.

LINDA LOWTHER: And they're from all over the world. And it's interesting, too, because since I've been on this committee, I've been at the visitor information centre probably two or three times a week. And I just stand there and listen to people asking questions, and it just amazes me and thrills me to see that people are asking questions, where can I see this? Or where can I see that? Or where was she born? And you know, what did she write about? And can I go see some of the places that she talked about, which is why we have the literary tours on P.E.I. now, so people can go and be inspired by the places that inspired her.

MG: What does that tell you?

LINDA LOWTHER: She's timeless. The writing is timeless. It still reaches people. And it I think it will continue to reach people for a long, long time.

MG: Judith, I'm cautious to ask this, but do you ever wonder whether people on the island get tired of being associated with Anne of Green Gables? I mean, P.E.I. is a gorgeous, gorgeous place for any number of different reasons.

JUDITH GRAVES: Yes it is, I call it Anne fatigue.

MG: Anne fatigue.

JUDITH GRAVES: Anne fatigue. Yes. So, my husband is a teacher here in high school, and I asked him out of curiosity, when I was thinking of pitching this idea, I said, just ask your kids how many have read Anne of Green Gables? And I think there was maybe one. But it's not because they wouldn't be interested. It's honestly because they're like, Dude, I'm not going anywhere near Anne of Green Gables, she's everywhere. So, there is that Anne fatigue, especially in the younger generation who, you know, grow up with it everywhere. It's all the touristy stuff. It's the raspberry cordial drinks in the store. It's, yes. She is prolifically embraced on the island as a tourist attraction as a Mecca. And I see both sides of it because I live here now, and I understand that aspect of it. But I also am a fan girl, so I'm like, bring it on, bring on the Anne.

MG: What do you make of that, Linda? Just finally, I mean, the fatigue, but also, it's a huge driver of, you know, tourism, of part of the economy, of people's, how people get attached to the island. This might be the gateway drug for them coming to P.E.I..

JUDITH GRAVES: Oh, absolutely. It is the gateway drug for a lot of people to get them to come to Prince Edward Island, for sure. And yes, you know, you get people who roll their eyes and so on. And that was kind of one of the subtle reasons why we really focused on Montgomery this year rather than Anne, because people, even Islanders, don't know Montgomery really, really well. They know a lot about the story of Anne, even if they've never read the book, they know a lot about her, but they don't know a whole lot about Montgomery. So yes, there is Anne fatigue, there's no doubt about it. But, you know, you go to Orlando and is there Disney fatigue? Probably. But it is what it is. And she is a very big economic driver for this province. And if we can get more people reading it, that would be wonderful.

MG: That's a great idea. I'm really glad to talk to you both about this. Thank you very much.

LINDA LOWTHER: Thanks for having us.

JUDITH GRAVES: Thank you.

MG: Judith Graves is the compiling editor and co-author of ANNEthology. Linda Lowther is on the committee responsible for Anne of Green Gables Tourism in Cavendish.

[Music: Theme]

Telling jokes in P.E.I., where everyone knows everyone

Guests: Patrick Ledwell

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. My name is Matt Galloway. In Charlottetown this morning with me in studio, one of the funniest people on P.E.I.. You might have heard him on Laugh Out Loud. He's also a regular on The Debaters. Patrick Ledwell, good morning.

PATRICK LEDWELL: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Good to have you here.

PATRICK LEDWELL: It's good to meet a new person. Yes.

MG: Is that a rare thing in your life?

PATRICK LEDWELL: Well, in person and not just through the radio. It depends on the time of year as we settle into fall on P.E.I., the chance to meet a new person, you know, just absolutely brand new, haven't seen them last week, does get a little bit rarer.

MG: This is a small place and everybody seems to know everybody else. I was saying yesterday, I was our for a walk with somebody yesterday, and we'd been walking for two minutes. We ran into her mother in law, somebody else were there hollering here, how many of the guests-- do you know Judith Graves and Linda Lowther?

PATRICK LEDWELL: Yeah. Linda Lowther, you know, we've crossed paths over the years. I did work at Green Gables House, but I also...

MG: We'll come back to that.

PATRICK LEDWELL: I also know her son. We played on a soccer team and we got billeted in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia a long time ago. I am 50 years old, and I remember that they had a brand new colour TV, and we were told not to have any apple juice around it. And unfortunately, Chris Lowther, her relative, up ended some apple juice into the television.

MG: The old days when television was the size of a small car.

PATRICK LEDWELL: Yeah, floor unit with grates on the back and the apple juice slowly tipped in there. And I thought we were going to be bagged up and found in Dartmouth. Years later, I know his cousin as a very good friend, and we're having dinner one night, and I told him this story and he said, well, I'm going to call him up. And he told him... well, he basically got him on the phone. He just said, had any apple juice in Dartmouth lately? And there was a long pause. And Chris said, on the other end of the phone, who are you talking to? So, every action has has a long set of pond ripples on P.E.I. we're connected.

MG: You worked in the Green Gables House?

PATRICK LEDWELL: I did.

MG: What was that like?

PATRICK LEDWELL: Well, at that time it wasn't Green Gables Heritage Place. People came directly off the coaches and came to a small farmhouse, and I was standing in polyester on the front stairs, and they asked the most natural question you would ask at a real house. So, this is where Anne lived? And my job was to say, Hello, Bonjour. No... 5000 times a day and then go into the explanation that ruined the reasons for coming and they didn't want at all, you know? And Green Gables was a fictional book found in a fiction. If you happen to look on the book cover fiction part of the library, you find the name Lucy Maud Montgomery. She didn't live here either. Womp womp. Mod lived with grandparents across the road and the house is not there. But if you happen to go, you can see the grassy hole where it used to be. Don't fall in. People have taped the warning from me and then just they're looking at you like-- I just came here to see...

MG: Get back on the bus.

PATRICK LEDWELL: They'd ask, you know, you know, where's Anne buried and as always on P.E.I., it's a small place with a world of details, and you have to decide how many of these does somebody actually want.

MG: What was it like for you? You were saying just as you came in, you lived away and you came back here. What was it like for you to come back to the island?

PATRICK LEDWELL: I think I came back knowing that this was home, and that I wanted to have some chance to see if home was going to be my home on a longer scale. And the first two years, I have to say that a lot of my comedy comes from the unfamiliarity of saying, is this what actually is after having de-familiarized by being away? You know, I started a new job and I just have something to do in province travel. And I'd slide across the desk at somebody and they'd have a look at it, you know, like a long look, and they'd say, you know, like--Ledwell. Now, who's your father? And I thought, I am just a young professional trying to get a travel claim through. I wasn't expecting to have to go all ancestory.ca. Yeah, just this morning, but, it is a place that, where family means something. Where it helps people to feel a connection to you. And so, sometimes the day has to have those graces.

MG: Privacy ends immediately.

PATRICK LEDWELL: That's right. Yeah. That's my coin is, P.E.I. stands for privacy and immediately. So, it's just I always think that, you know, what we do in the world here on P.E.I. is making the soup that we swim in. And you might be just, you know, I have a son who seniors called, busy with raised eyebrows. Oh, isn't he busy? I'm just trying to select something from the dairy section, and somebody might come up alongside me and say, Oh, just have the one? And I look at this person, I think, before we get into our family.

MG: You just met this person.

PATRICK LEDWELL: What is your name? I know, maybe we connected in the past. You came to a show at one point, but, let's just, for starters, establish who are you, before we talk about the number of children we've decided to have.

MG: What is it like being, I mean, you're kind of a big shot here. I mean, a celebrity.

PATRICK LEDWELL: Those are dangerous words, Matt, you know. I think the joy of, the joy of, having the chance to share stories on P.E.I. is knowing that they'll have those pond ripples that, if somebody enjoys the story and you see them the next day, you can enjoy that story as neighbours, rather than as, you know, as somebody might be signing an autograph or anything along those sides. Yeah. You know.

MG: Does it change the kind of comedy you can do? You have to be, do you have to be careful about some of the jokes that you make?

PATRICK LEDWELL: Just-- I find I just think about joking about the things that I actually love. It's like family humour. You're just kind of taking a bit of air out of the tires. You're not slashing anybody's tires, you know? For example, I found a topic that is, you know, that is ridiculous and joyous for people is rhubarb on P.E.I. because...

MG: I love rhubarb, but what, like... Apparently there's a dark side to it or something?

PATRICK LEDWELL: Well, you're only here for one day. If you told anybody on P.E.I.. Oh, I love rhubarb, there'll be a chord of it on your stoop like every weekend.

MG: What do you do with all the rhubarb?

PATRICK LEDWELL: Well, that's then your problem. They don't know what to do with it. They're just like, what did you-- it's your neighbour and they're living there and they're like, what did you do with all that rhubarb? And they don't know and you don't know. You have to chop it up and put it in the freezer until they move or die, because they're looking at you through the curtains and making sure that it comes to some happy purpose.

MG: What's he doing with that rhubarb? He's not burying it in the back or something like.

PATRICK LEDWELL: Putting it in the green card under cover of darkness. I mean, just every rhubarb recipe I've been given, you know, when I look at it, honestly, I think, would this be equally delicious without the rhubarb? And I've found that, you know, brown sugar and cinnamon are fine without their sour, stringy friend involved.

MG: There are a lot of people who are arriving here. I mean, like, we're going to be talking about this tomorrow. We're in New Brunswick, elsewhere in Atlantic Canada. Loads of people from elsewhere in this country and beyond have arrived because it's a beautiful place and they want to be here. What advice would you give to newcomers arriving on the island?

PATRICK LEDWELL: I think there's always been curiosity on P.E.I., partially because sometimes there's not a lot of movement. I had the chance as a younger person to live in some smaller communities, and I'm from P.E.I. and in February in the supermarket, I felt people were almost going to drop a jar of pickles, because who is this person who's not part of the the kind of community that I've known over the years? So, when you take people, you know, who have come here from Sri Lanka, or from India, and they're in those same communities, I think we have to go to that quality of curiosity of seeing people again and asking and building a bridge, to know more about where that person is coming from. There's no shortage of curiosity around P.E.I.. People will ask you about 17 personal questions in the first 90 seconds. So, if we can make that a way that opens the conversation to find out about the ways that our worlds and our communities are expanding, we'll be in in good shape.

MG: What do you love about being here?

PATRICK LEDWELL: I love that sometimes a connection that you make can grow and have a life in ways that you could never foresee. You know, a couple of years ago, I noticed something funny in the newspaper. There was a new supermarket being built, big thing in Charlottetown. And the newspaper, the business section said that this supermarket is across from the cinemas and down from slicks. Just full stop, no explanation. And Slick Rhynes is was the the longest running bootlegger in the history of Charlottetown. A person who didn't consume any of his own supply and was good hearted and it was just mentioned as point of fact that this supermarket, part of a national chain, was down from Slick's. And there was even a turning lane into Slick's place with his multiple horses in the front yard. Just, you know, a new turn lane, into Slick the bootleggers. That joke, you know, creates some warmth and create some enjoyment in the moment. And then I went on to have Slick and his wife Agnes come to a show, and we got a picture together, and it just ripples outwards. It's something that's delightful where you get to meet the people who are enfolded in that joke and laugh with, not at. And it lifts the tide of life around here. It means a lot.

MG: I'll let you go. But, I mean, you have anything coming up that you want to tell us about?

PATRICK LEDWELL: I have the chance to be part of what's called the Gullah Holla Festival.

MG: What?

PATRICK LEDWELL: Don't go for the dictionary. It's a made-up word. The Gullah Holla Festival happening in Rollo Bay, P.E.I., in the eastern end of the section, September the 27th and 28th. It's been started and inspired by The East Pointers, who you played earlier. Yeah. Unfortunately, they lost their third member, Koady Chasen, too soon in life. And Gullah Holla was his word for good times.

MG: It'll be a good time. A gullah holla. A word to use again in future. Patrick, thank you very much.

PATRICK LEDWELL: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Patrick Ledwell. Watch for him at a comedy club near you. And of course, at the Gullah Holla, as well. And what should you do with all that rhubarb? Maybe we could pass along suggestions to him if you email us thecurrent@cbc.ca. That is The Current for this Tuesday, the 3rd of September. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. We're going to leave you with another piece of music from here. The entertainer of the year, Lawrence Maxwell, joined forces with P.E.I. country artist Brooke McArthur. Here is their new single. It's called What You See in Me. I'm Matt Galloway in Charlottetown today. Going to get in the car, drive across the Confederation Bridge. We're heading to New Brunswick, and we will talk to you tomorrow from Fredericton as we continue our road trip through the Maritimes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

[Music: 'What You See in Me' by Lawrence Maxwell ft Brooke McArthur]

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Tuesday September 3, 2024 Full Transcript

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