Remaking a living: Surviving the COVID-19 economy, a special edition of The Current – Part 1

Guests: Saly David, Jeremy Jestican, Chris Brewer

MATT GALLOWAY: There's nobody here. So we're walking through the underground city under the city of Toronto, it's called The Path. And normally at this time, 10:30 in the morning, there would literally be thousands and thousands of people here. I would be being pushed from one side to the other because there are so many people in this tiny, narrow little space. And there's nobody here. There is literally nobody in this space at all. It's ghostly. To be honest, I haven't come down here much since the pandemic hit, but we are here now because it's a good place to start. Our special show today, Remaking a living, surviving the COVID economy. Canadians are facing big challenges in how they live, work and spend their money. Some are adapting, even thriving. Some are struggling to expand fast enough to meet demand. And many are just struggling to get by and worried about what the future holds. Throughout the next 90 minutes, we will hear from people across this country with a range of experiences beginning here where hordes of people used to work and used to shop. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

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MG: I have gloves, I can open anything. Hi.

VOICE: How are you?

MG: Matt.

VOICE: My name is on Omgard Michel, I'm the owner of International News, I bought it in December 2019, and since then we have been struggling a lot to just keep it open.

MG: What are the last few months been like for you?

VOICE: We are doing like maybe 10 to 15 percent business of what it used to be before. Since the lockdown is like, we are just opening it so that we don't have to throw the stuff in garbage because everything has a expiry date for you can see like this. The things we are selling, you can see two for one. So we are just trying to push out as many things as we can. And most of the people are coming from lottery.

MG: So most people are just buying lottery tickets.

VOICE: They are just buying lottery tickets. So we get like two, three percent on that field that. It is not for profit anymore.

MG: So when your business is only 10 percent of what it normally would be, what does that mean in terms of just even keeping the lights on? I mean, wouldn't it? How do you make the decision to not just close the doors and just get rid of things?

VOICE: So like we purchased this franchise last year. So we paid a hefty price for poacher's in this store. Have to franchisee fees. We have a bank loan. We have 25 percent rent subsidy. And the condition is we have to open the store every day. So we are just hoping one day it will everything will be back to normal so that we can start recovering those costs. So that's the only hope. Yes.

MG: How long can you keep going on with only making 10 percent of the money that you would normally make?

VOICE: I honestly don't know. Every month we hope that, okay, now situation will have improved, now the food court will open. We have no idea like we are not doing break even. There are many calls like bank. They are asking for money after three month. They said you have to pay full principal and interest. Then there are insurance expenses we have to keep because of bank loan. Then security, internet, all those expenses. The government is only subsidising rent, but all of that expenses we have to pay out of my pocket. Luckily, my wife has a job at the bank, so that's how we are running of our house. This place we like, my dad helps me out, but he have to pay his Go train ticket by his own pocket. I can not even dream [unintelligible] for that much, but it's just like if we close it, we will lose all the money that we invested in. That's why we are just keeping it open.

MG: Can I ask you how much the rent is?

VOICE: Rent is around 7500.

MG: 7500.

VOICE: Yes. We are like being equal to premium rent for this location, but probably more than people who are on street. But the bad thing is this pop network closes after 8:00 and since April, every weekend this is closed. So during summer month, we used to get tourist, but that all that has gone. So I don't know when it will be open again on weekends.

MG: And when did you buy the franchise?

VOICE: We bought in December 2019.

MG: So not long before it's happened.

VOICE: We like restocked everything. We paid all the fees and right on time when we started, we'll hope to get make some money. This thing came up and since then it's just like we are counting days when this get more wet and we are back to business.

MG: What happens if this continues? I mean, if people, were hearing people are working from home more and they're not coming into work, what happens?

VOICE: That's what I was discussing with one of my friends would be like, what if it is happening is just I think only government has to come to do something otherwise, I don't know. I don't want to use the word. But then we have to probably declare bankruptcy because we have laws and have to learn on this thing. I took that line of equity on my house to buy this thing, but I don't see any light as of now.

MG: What would you want to see from the government to help you out?

VOICE: At least they can do like they make sure that we are breaking even. And then yea, if we can get like at least a minimum wage salary, that, that would even be better. So as of now, people who are making minimum wage, they are making more money than we are sitting here on day.

MG: It was a huge thing for you to buy this.

VOICE: It was when I came like when we were planning to buy just locations, it was like any busy mall. There are so many people. They were coming. This food court was full in the lunchtime. You wouldn't get space to sit and- yes. When we bought we thought something goes. But the reality is very different right now.

MG: What's it just like the toll on you. I mean do you like sleepless nights.

VOICE: Oh yes. Many sleepless nights I have like kids and only like we are hanging by a string.

MG: You never know. You buy this and it's December.

VOICE: I had a good job. And when I bought shoes I wanted to do like something on my own so that I can focus on my end to finish up dream. But then yes. Looks like it was very good on timing. So.

MG: Good luck. Yes.

VOICE: Thanks so much.

MG: The economic impacts of COVID-19 go far. Be on The Path. Canada's unemployment rate stood at around nine percent in September, down from a peak of almost 14 percent in May. Now, a recovery has been happening, but it's also been uneven. Consumer spending on travel has been decimated. Young people remain disproportionately out of work and many businesses are only keeping afloat with the help of federal rent her wage subsidies. The impacts on Canadians are deeply personal and have left many questioning their futures. Chris Brewer is a flight attendant with WestJet. He was laid off in March. He's in Vancouver. Saly Davis is the co-owner of LSD, Le Salon Dieppe near Moncton. And Jeremy Jestican lost his job as a scaffolder on an offshore oil rig in Newfoundland this spring. Good morning to you all.

JEREMY JESTICAN: Good morning.

SALY DAVID: Good morning.

MG: Chris. Do you remember the moment in which everything changed for your career?

CHRIS BREWER: Yes. Is around March 13th, and I was fly in from Vancouver down to Los Angeles. And we were scheduled to go with about one hundred and fifty people. And then word started getting around around the airport that the prime minister had said any Canadians that were abroad, it was time to come home. And as you can imagine, people weren't out of Los Angeles or for Disneyland, go for vacations and go down there and go to the United States. And then one hundred and thirty plus people booked off the flight and we left with about 18. And then that was kind of the moment that I was like, OK, something is happening here. Something is definitely going on.

MG: About three quarters of West Jet's flight attendants were let go. How much seniority did you have?

CHRIS BREWER: I have currently 13 years seniority and still not back to work yet. So it's not looking good.

MG: Saly, tell us what your situation, your salon was closed for, what, 75 days during the lockdown earlier this year.

SALY DAVID: And recently another two weeks.

MG: Yes. So tell me about the first one. What did that first shutdown mean for you?

MG: Oh, that is a large question. It was a common thought that we don't know what is going on. We don't know what is going to happen. So the first thought was, are we safe? Are we going to all get sick? Our loved ones going to pass? These were the primary questions. So the initial lockdown wasn't so much about business. And then for me, on a personal level, I was going through a bit of a crisis myself. I had emergency surgery and lost a baby on March 1st.

MG: Oh. I'm sorry.

SALY DAVID: So we went from that to immediately going thrown into a pandemic. And it was just a lot of uncertainty and there was no way to anticipate. There was no thought process because we had no idea what was going to happen.

MG: So then you get back to work. But then there's another two week shutdown, as you mentioned earlier this month, because of rising case numbers. You described that as infuriating.

SALY DAVID: It wasn't the shutdown that was infuriating. We will gladly take a risk and bite a bullet for a greater good. What was infuriating was the lack of understanding of our industry was lack of admission that this really wasn't about health, because if it was certain, other industries that were left open would absolutely be closed.

MG: Industries like what?

SALY DAVID: Bars, adult entertainment, restaurants in our industry, in the beauty industry, the cosmetology industry, as well as in the industry of piercing and tattoo, is at no point were we to remove our masks during the service in any condition. And so in our particular business, we actually were licenced to serve alcohol and we would serve food and beverage. So we let that go. And so all of a sudden, bars are open where at the actual bar, when they're sitting at the actual bar, no one is obligated to wear a mask as long as they're drinking a beverage. And those with the beverage and food licences were open and we were forced shut.

MG: Jeremy, what about for you? We know that the oil industry was going through a rough patch even before this pandemic hit in the spring. Tell me about losing your job.

JEREMY JESTICAN: I remember the day well, we had a mass meeting in the platform I work on. It's very confined space and there's approximately 270 people on board. And we had a meeting and they discussed downsizing, having less people in client space. So they said this possibility of sending people in. And the next day at lunchtime, we got [unintelligible] like Vietnam. Helicopters come instead in calling people home. So we went home and not knowing what the future would be with getting call-backs and oil war between Saudi Arabia and Russia had a great impact on us. And Newfoundland is definitely not looking good right now in terms of where the economy is very poor and job opportunities are limited. So leaving a lot of people wonder in the future whether or not stay here, move away and look for work and with COVID on the go. I mean, it's not as easy as it was one time.

MG: Does this feel different than 2008 when the floor fell out back then?

JEREMY JESTICAN: It does very much a. That was an Alberta in the oil field then and just felt like a little bump in the road then. But this year is not looking promising now.

MG: What are you doing to make ends meet?

JEREMY JESTICAN: Receiving EI and looking for jobs here and there? I've had a couple of jobs over Class One driver's licence as well. Most of those seasonal instruction and there's not much of that going on anymore. So I just recently got laid off again.

MG: Now, what about for you, Chris? What are you doing to make ends meet now?

CHRIS BREWER: Well, recently, not knowing when I'd go back to work, so I get a job as a driver for FedEx.

MG: As a delivery driver for FedEx.

CHRIS BREWER: Yes. Because everyone's buying everything online. So you got to ship it somehow.

MG: And what's that been like?

CHRIS BREWER: Alright. I work with a great [unintelligible] a little bit. Been OK. So far, I mean, it's making ends meet, but it's not the airline job.

MG: But you do what you need to do, I suppose.

CHRIS BREWER: Yes. You got to do what you need to do. I got an eight year old daughter, I got a bottle of gloves a mortgage, got [unintelligible] to pay. So I got to do what I got to do.

MG: What about you? What about for you, Sally? I mean, again, with a small business and it ends up on the shelf. How are you managing to pay the bills?

SALY DAVID: First, I want to say that Jeremy and Chris, my heart really goes out to you because I have a team and I employ them. And my biggest fear is letting them down. And so my heart really goes out to the two of you. And I'm glad that you're having opportunity and support in other directions. And I hope you continue to find that. But as a small business, I can safely say that we really feel - and I'm saying we as small businesses, because we speak a lot amongst ourselves. We've really been abandoned during this pandemic. The public at first was really excited to shop local, but local can't compete with Amazon prices and Amazon delivery schedules. We had to reinvent and think out of the box and create an online store and watch that on store. So have to be price gouged compared to Amazon and da da da. The mental effort to find a solution to this problem by ourselves as small businesses is incredibly exhausting. There has been no true concrete guidance in our particular sector. I feel that nobody is trying to understand the magnitude of the importance of health and sanitation in our field. Yes, those are great options given to small businesses. But the large amounts of money were going to large corporations, not to small businesses.

MG: We know that within this pandemic. I mean, you know, everybody's been hit by the economic crisis. But we've talked about when people have called the she-cession, where women in particular have found themselves particularly, you say absolutely. I can say they have found themselves particularly hard hit by this. Tell me a little bit about that and why you'd agree with that.

SALY DAVID: Well, I've referred to many things as a tax on women as the war on women and because, well, my primary employees or hands on staff is female. Many of them being single mothers. It's just unbelievable the cost of childcare and childcare support needed for a woman to be able to go to work and the pressure of a woman having to go to work with children at home. Trusting somebody else to raise their children, but then also being slapped on the hand and being told, well, you actually can't go to work right now. And we have the most hurdles.

MG: Jeremy, you talked about how you worked out in the oil patch a little bit in Alberta. Would you consider moving back there, given the way that you describe that uncertain future in Newfoundland?

JEREMY JESTICAN: It's crossed my mind is a very tough decision. I got two small kids here, six and three year old, and leaving them. I mean, there's no more fly in fly out jobs really right now, like there used to be. So I pretty much have to move away and come back whenever possible. I guess I would be super financially hurt.

MG: And emotionally hard, too. I mean, all of this there's a financial piece to this, but emotionally, this must weigh on you as well.

JEREMY JESTICAN: Oh, my God. Yes. There's another thing we're talking about guys are workers. And there's a big concern about mental health right now here amongst the workers that work offshore. I've spoken to guys that run mental health first aid clinics. Yes, he's told me the phone calls he's gotten. He's scared.

MG: Are you scared?

JEREMY JESTICAN: Yes, definitely. I mean, I try not to dwell on it too much and keep myself busy. But in the back of your mind, you're always wondering what going to do. What am I going to do, you know?

MG: What about for you, Chris? I mean, it's hard to predict what's going to happen, but if you were to pull a crystal ball and look five years in the future, do you think that that you'd have a job as a flight attendant, given the fact that we're not really flying now and who knows when we're going to be back on planes again?

CHRIS BREWER: Well, the travel industry has been decimated. We can't go anywhere, we can't travel out the country unless you do got to come back and quarantine for two weeks. How is anybody can afford to travel? Right. I hope in five years, we will be blocked and everything will be back to normal. So, yes, if had a crystal ball, I'd predict all the numbers and not worry about it.

MG: Sally, what's plan B for you?

SALY DAVID: Well, when the pandemic first struck New Brunswick, I was recovering from surgery and I went to the grocery store and I saw a bit of panic. And I went home and I said to my husband, I'm going to plant a garden and grow some plants and raise chickens and you're going to go get your hunting. And it's funny that you say plan B, because I've been in survival mode for years. Everything in my life was never a plan A or Plan B, but it was what was the best thing to do to survive. And I think I can speak safely for most business owners, especially small businesses, that this is the way we have to think. We have to think outside of the box. Everything is always plan B. There is never a plan A. It's just taking it one day at a time, hoping we don't lose our home, hoping we don't lose our business, and hoping that we don't cause our team members to lose their homes. I can't say that I can plan a plan B truly, because just like you were saying earlier with Chris, I don't have a crystal ball. I can't predict what's going to happen and plan a plan B, I don't know which sectors are going to remain after this. I would just like to see our leaders step out of their box and look at the people truly impacted at the bottom. And instead of forcing them to come up with Plan Bs on their own, probably guide them as a nation so that nobody has to come up with a Plan B. Just ensure that they have the lights on in their home on the doorstep of winter.

MG: So just before I let you go then and we'll do this briefly, I mean, there's this idea that we're all in the same season, but we're in different boats, that we're all in this thing, but we're all being affected by it in different ways. What would you say to each other, as you think about the situation that you're all in. Sally.

SALY DAVID: I am a mom personality who just wants to open up my arms and take Chris and his family in and Jeremy and his family and just be able to promise that I can protect everyone, because that is the kind of boat that I choose to be on. I choose to be on a big they can boat with as much space as possible and pick up the people that I find on my way. And it's a great statement that you make that we're all in different boats. Well, you know what? The people in yachts don't need help. It's the people who are not in boats at all that need our help first. And then it's the people who are going to sink next that need our help. And we need to prioritise it this way.

MG: Chris, from boats to aeroplanes, what would you say to your fellow guests here who find themselves, as I say, in equally uncertain situations?

CHRIS BREWER: Well, well, first off, Sally, I'll see you as a small business owner. I think that's just got me insanely tough with like you're saying what's the big box stores and the Amazons and stuff like that, just trying to compete with sites. We're trying to keep those people employed. Your employees just try to keep them afloat as well. Jeremy, as well. You're totally right. What what is your option to work in the oil industry and move back to Alberta. But I mean, like I remember, it used to be Friday night flights, from Alberta, [unintelligible]. Those don't exist anymore. So I can't even imagine what it'd be like if you were away from your family for multiple weeks on end. So my heart goes on to you as well. Yes. Like Jeremy said earlier mental health is ahuge issue that's going on with this pandemic. Lots of uncertainty, lots of bills being paid and that stress just builds up. So I try not to dwell too much on it like Jeremy, but I just got to get through it.

MG: Jeremy, you've been through this a couple of times already. Any words of advice for other folks who find themselves in this situation?

JEREMY JESTICAN: No, I would say there's lots of help out there. I mean, talk to people if you're struggling mentally, there's so much support, so many support systems. People aren't aware of it. And, yes, just definitely you got to talk about it and everyone to get through it, I figure.

MG: I wish you all the best of luck. And I really appreciate you joining us this morning. Thanks so much and be well.

JEREMY JESTICAN: Thanks for having me.

CHRIS BREWER: Take care. Take care.

SALY DAVID: Good luck everyone.

SALY DAVID: Good luck, everyone. Yes.

MG: Chris Brewer's last shift as a WestJet employee was in March. He was in Vancouver. Saly Davis CO owns LSD, Le Salon Dieppe near Monkton and Jeremy Jestican is a scaffolder based near St. John's. We want to hear your stories of how you are remaking a living. You can send us an email. Better yet, because this is radio, we'd love to hear your own voice. So send us a voice memo recorded on your phone and then email it to thecurrent@cbc.ca and tell us how you are remaking a living. The CBC News is next. And then finding success in the midst of all this change. Here, a conversation with a Canadian tech giant who is helping to shape the future of work and why he thinks the traditional office may never come back. I'm Matt Galloway you're listening to a special edition of The Current: Remaking a Living, Surviving the COVID Economy.

Remaking a living: Surviving the COVID-19 economy, a special edition of The Current - Part 2

Guests: Stewart Butterfield

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to a special edition of The Current: Remaking a Living, Surviving the COVID Economy.

[Sound: Piano]

MG: And Back in the Path, it's an underground network connecting transit and stores and office towers in downtown Toronto. This is the piano staircase that leads to Roy Thompson Hall, home of the trauma symphony. The staircase is decorated to look like the black and white keys of a piano. Each time you step, it sounds a note. Normally, this is a cacophony. Today, quite marantic, isn't it? Before the pandemic hit, something like 200,000 people travelled through the path every single day. About forty six hundred people worked here. But since the pandemic hit, it's been nearly deserted. Many storefronts and restaurants are locked shut and the few that are open-- Well, here's what the merchants say.

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VOICE 1: We are dying, literally. We are dying because of these people working from home. And still, we don't know when they're coming back.

VOICE 2: We've started building on that and then COVID, which is, I'm sure what everybody says.

MG: Yes, it pretty much is.

VOICE 2: COVID.

MG: That says it all. Really.

MG: My next stop is pistil flowers, and its owner is Yvonne Yang.

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MG: Hi, how are you? It smells great in here. How would you describe what the last few months have been like for your business?

YVONNE: It's been challenging. I think that's the general word. Kind of unbelievable. But we are figuring out how to realistically and safely kind of work with the situation and see where we can find alternative solutions to sell our products and our services. Yes. So it's been altered universe for the last six months.

MG: In the normal universe, describe how busy this place around us would normally be.

YVONNE: Usually, I mean, morning time, lunchtime, it's packed. Down here, there's people commuting. You don't know where people are going. But they're all going somewhere to a destination. The food court area. You can see a lot of people are sitting having their lunch. It's very noisy.

MG: How big of a hit has your business taken in the last few months?

YVONNE: It's been huge. This location was actually closed until September, end of September. So it wasn't even open. So we just recently reopened it. And it's just been really, really slow. But it's been like maybe 20 percent business at best, 20 percent this year.

MG: And so how can you keep a business open if it's only 20 percent business?

YVONNE: We've obviously modified our opening hours, so it's only up until 3:00. And, you know, we're using government funding that's been provided to us and working with the landlord, which has been helpful. But, you know, I mean, come January, I mean, we have to get back. You know.

MG: What will happen in January?

YVONNE: You know, January. We're hoping that we get a little bit more increased because after that, I'm not sure if we can sustain being open for another year in this kind of climate. But luckily, we do have a lot of floral holidays ahead and workshops that we are providing virtual workshops. So we're trying to find other ways to sustain and do small events.

MG: And what have you seen in terms of the change in how people spend money? I mean, this is a floral shop. Are people still buying flowers?

YVONNE: Yes. Yes, to our surprise. You know, there's birthdays are still going on, anniversaries, funerals. So people are, you know, celebrating all these life vacations. And because they can't go see their loved ones, they are ordering flowers. So that part has been great.

MG: It's a huge thing to open a small business.

YVONNE: It is, in the best of times.

MG: What has this taught you about to just how fine that line is between success and the other side.

YVONNE: It is a fine line, I think, as a business owner, especially in the creative field. Maybe I'm being a little bit too optimistic, but this kind of situation does forced you to be more creative and come up with more creative solutions. So that part of it has been great. And we've actually had the time to sit down and plan a new project or a new line that we wouldn't have been able to do when we're really busy constantly. So, I mean, you can look at a few different ways, but we've, for example, really updated our Web site and focussed on that. And we wouldn't have had time to do that otherwise. And it's been a huge success for us.

MG: You're really optimistic. But it's amazing. What is the idea about the glass half full, not half empty? What does that do for you?

YVONNE: I think first of all, I'm just generally like that. But secondly, you know, I mean, we've made it through. I mean, you have to kind of think about what you have accomplished, not just about what could fail. And we've made it through eight months like this. So, I mean, we have to celebrate that and kind of keep going on that trajectory.

MG: It's like walking through here. There are so many businesses that are closed. Do you worry about what this will all look like on the other side when I do.

YVONNE: I do. I mean, I worry, but it's kind of like a worry that's kind of back here. It's not in the forefront. And I, like I said, I hope that although a lot of people are working from home, that some businesses will come back. And, you know, I think the building in itself will have to also reinvent itself. You know, we're kind of all on survivor mode. So I believe we will all survive together.

MG: How exhausting is it being in survival mode?

YVONNE: I think that's just how humans are built. You just kick into it, right? It's amazing. But I have a great team and we all support each other. And, yeah, we're just going day to day and doing everything we can.

MG: Good luck. Thank you very much.

YVONNE: Thank you.

MG: That's Yvonne Yang, the owner of Pistil Flowers in Toronto's Path system. This shift to working from home hasn't been easy for companies or workers either. One of the people making it possible, though, is my next guest. He's the CEO of Slack, the wildly popular messaging system. And since Colvard struck, the company has expanded significantly. Stewart Butterfield is originally from British Columbia. He's now based in San Francisco. Stewart. Good morning.

STEWWART BUTTERFIELD: Hello. Thanks for having me.

MG: Thanks for joining us. Take me back to March, when it seemed like everything changed in the space of a couple of days when the world got turned upside down and inside out. What were those early days like at Slack?

STEWWART BUTTERFIELD: There were two tracks going on and one was kind of in conversation with other executives, either friends or partners. And, you know, the initial conversations, where are you taking this seriously? And then what do you think? Actually, close the office? And then there was the internal conversations with employees, and it both changed very quickly. First of all, people start to get serious about closing the office. We had our big global sales offsite events like 800 people flying into Phoenix, and that was going to start in four days. And we cancelled it. And we had an employee who was contacted by the CDC because they had been exposed. They'd been on one of the cruise ships and thankfully, they didn't contract COVID. But because of that, we closed down the office. This is a Thursday afternoon. We decided we'll close the office on Friday. We'll do this big, deep clean. They have people come and spray stuff. But by Monday, it was apparent that we were just shutting down. So it really was planet 72 hours from, you know, curiosity. And is this something we should take seriously, to the world has completely changed.

MG: When did you realise that it wasn't just you that was shutting down the office, but people all around the world? And that would mean that a service like yours would become even more important than it had been in the days and weeks before San Francisco.

STEWWART BUTTERFIELD: And then the tech companies and in particular were a little bit earlier and deciding voluntarily that they were going to close their doors and have employees work from home. And it was probably a week after we shut our doors that we really realised the growth that was happening because it started in Asia. And then if you remember, Italy was hit pretty hard. So we started a lot more usage and a lot more new customer signing up in Italy. And then I think March 11th, we had our earnings call the next day and the night of March 11th was Tom Hanks saying that he had it. It was the NBA cancelling the season and it was Trump announcing the travel ban. And the mood really shifted like. In the space of three hours. I think it became a much bigger issue and a lot scarier for a lot of people. And that week, from March 12th to 19th, we saw more people signing up for Slack than we had in the probably the previous six months combined.

MG: For people who've never used Slack, can you just give like that, you know, Slack 101, like, what makes it different than other ways that people could communicate and collaborate?

STEWWART BUTTERFIELD: Sure. It's so it's a messaging app and in some sense familiar to people. And this is more or less every human in the world now who have used WhatsApp or message or as Mass or Facebook Messenger or Instagram. The difference is that you addressed messages typically to what we call channels, and a channel can be created for anything. Anyone can create one. And what ends up happening is a channel gets created for every topic across the company, and that could be every customer, every project, every feature, every team, office, location, business unit, whatever. And when the conversations happen in channels, instead, there's a bunch of things that you get for free. So one is people can see across the organisation, they can see what their colleagues are working on. They can search and they search over, you know, a much bigger range of messages than they would otherwise have. In contrast to email, if e-mail is the principal means a connexion. You join the company and you have zero messages in your inbox. You're completely cut off from the history. And there might have been tens of millions or hundreds of millions or even billions of messages sent before you got there. None of that with talk. You have all that history and that it ends up creating a situation where people know where to go to ask their question. They know where to go to give their update. They know where to go to get caught up on something. And that can be really transformative. So I think it's deceptively simple. The last thing I would say, it also integrates with thousands and thousands of third party applications from Google Drive to Salesforce, Workday, get Hub and the teams end up working on a set number of channels. They have their tools that they work with every day integrated, and that gives that centre of gravity that focus.

MG: There are people who swear by it. That was actually that was fantastic. But it should be from the CEO. But there are people who swear by Slack. But you've hinted at this. There are things that we miss as well that we couldn't get even from a service like yours in terms of the interactions that we have at the office. The casual conversations I walk by, somebody is off as I say something. It turns into something larger and then it turns into something even larger. What have you learnt in the last few months about how to make that work and how to find those little bits of connective tissue that that make the office what it is?

STEWWART BUTTERFIELD: It's a great question, and I think we're very much still learning. So there's some work that we're doing which has the side effect of also creating more opportunities for the serendipitous conversations or the spontaneous conversations. This will sound a little bananas to people at first, potentially, but something very much like Instagram stories married to that concept of a channel, because if you've a channel for the team of people you work with most closely are the projects that are going on. If you can record a short video update of what's happening, people might be familiar with like the daily stand up meeting wherever and get together for fifteen minutes and talks about what they're working on. This, as a replacement for it, you go from a position where you're sick of looking at this person's face on a video call to watching them on video. But in a mode where you're not on camera yourself when you can hit the pause button and walk away from it and come back. And it really dramatically shifts the experience. But more to your question. One of the things we're working on is internally, we call them Huddle's, but that's not going to be a name that we use. But like always on audio, where the call never stops or starts. You never have to call you when people can just enter and leave as they want. And if you're in there, you typically have your speakers on. And if someone says something, you'll hear it. So this is not something you would do if thousands of people or, you know, or company wide, but with a team of people you're working with most closely. There's a threshold for scheduling a call. You're sending out a calendar invite, which is very, very high. And then there's a threshold for calling someone. You might be interrupting them and forcing them to answer the call right now to just saying something in them, hearing you and you ask one question or maybe there's a little bit, you know, 15 seconds of back and forth and then it's over. And it wouldn't have been worth calling them for that so people wouldn't do it. And so you don't get that contact and you don't get the serendipity of other people overhearing. And we want to create opportunities for that. So I think that, you know, as a company, we're facing all the same challenges that are that our customers are facing. And as a product, we're trying to move as quickly as we can to address them. But there's obviously this just explosion of new tools and services and new approaches, which is pretty exciting. And I think that over the next or the next year or so, we'll see a lot of exciting developments, not just from Slack, but I think from the industry on a whole, to try to get the best of what we had in the office and make it available in this digital form.

MG: What do you miss about being in the office?

STEWWART BUTTERFIELD: Well, it's funny when you think about the various purposes that having the office serves for us. Part of it, you know, it's a projection of power. We have this big building and have a logo on the side. It says, like, we're important to the world. It's a cultural touchstone. You know, the way it's designed and the interactions the people have there. It's a space for onboarding new employees and meeting recruits and hosting customers and learning and development and all hands and social interactions. And then the last thing on that list, and if you think about it in the terms I just describe, probably the least important, but the one that takes up the most square footage is like factory farm battery, housing for people to sit at their computers and not talk to each other. You know, often with their headphones on and that part, you might as well do anywhere. So the part that you miss. Not that I miss waiting for the elevator, but the kind of spontaneous meetings that you would have with people that you're waiting for the elevator and you're in line to get some coffee or you're swinging by the snack room to get a drink or whatever. And the ability just to walk past someone's desk and say hello or even just smile and wave. So when we think about the future that we want to come back to. I think there's more and more organisations that are saying we know where to go from having desks for 100 percent of employees to maybe 20 or 30 percent because a large number of people will just work elsewhere permanently. And of the people who are working out of the office, the vast majority want to come in one or two days a week instead of five days a week. And I think that could be really workable, I think. Teams can get together, whether it's once every other week for a couple of days or once a week for a day or whatever the combination ends up being. And that time is much more social. You're reinforcing the relationships. You're building some trust, but you're also doing the more creative work and planning and brainstorming. And then when you just have a bunch of work to do, you can do that anywhere. Like you could do that at your favourite coffee shop when that's possible. Again, you can do that from your home. You could do that from a coworking space. And you think about the commute that some people face. There's people you think about the way that is impacting employees. There's some who have a comfortable house that they like. They like spending time with their family. They used to have a 90 minute commute each way, every day. They don't have anymore. And they're actually kind of. Better off and happier the other end of the spectrum, there's people who are single parents and don't have any childcare and are in really an impossible situation. And there's other groups like you, especially younger people, for whom work is a bigger percentage of their social life. Who got a tiny apartment in the middle of the city? Because that's what they could afford. And they didn't think they would be spending 24 hours a day there who are just you know, they're really unhappy. They're cut off from social interactions, which they enjoy. They cut off from their friends. And they're in a physical environment that wasn't intended to be one that's occupied. So it's very uneven. And that's an interesting thing to take account of when we think about how we work today.

MG: Do you worry about the ripple effects of people moving away from office work? I mean, I'm sure it's the same around your building. But I was walking through that, you know, the underground malls of Toronto under the office towers, the businesses evaporated because there were two hundred thousand people that walked through that mall and suddenly there's nobody that walks through the mall. Do you worry about that? I mean, would you have advice in some ways for people like that who've been relying on the office workers in some ways for their living?

STEWWART BUTTERFIELD: Yes. Two sides to that as well, because I don't mean to suggest that this is as important. But for a lot of people, the amenities of normal life, like the ability to go get a massage or get your haircut or get a manicure or, you know, enjoy any of the services that those people are providing, that's also evaporated. But, I mean, I'm a person who, you know, anytime you drive past or walk past a restaurant that closed, it's to me, it's always tragic pre pandemic because no one opens a restaurant because they're, you know, a greedy, rapacious business person. They want to make a bunch of money because restaurants are notoriously difficult. They do it because they have an idea that they want to put out in the world or they like their mum's cooking and they want to bring it to a greater audience or they have a vision for this third place they want to create. I think the same thing is true for almost every small business. So, you know, it is really heartbreaking to see the impact on small businesses. I think if you're looking at it from the coldly rational economics point of view, I think an equal number of opportunities will open up potentially in different environments or different areas because people are still going to want the same amount of stuff. But along the way, there's just going to be this destruction. And it is really- it's tough.

MG: The last point is just about opportunities. This seems like an opportunity to think big. And so if you're able to do that, what are the big opportunities that this pandemic will force us to consider when it comes to the way that we work in the way that we make a living?

STEWWART BUTTERFIELD: Yes. If there's one challenge that's come into every kind of organisation and I mean like NGO, Academic Research, Government, Corporation, whatever, is creating a sufficient degree of alignment amongst the people that the effort that people put in results in the most impact. And that's obviously good for the organisation, but is also good for the individual because nothing is more frustrating than feeling like what you do doesn't matter and won't have an impact because the organisation is too disorganised or chaotic to have the result that you hoped for.

MG: Do you get Zoom fatigue like the rest of us?

STEWWART BUTTERFIELD: Absolutely. And part of the solution is making some things audio only. I think the bigger part is, listen, even though it feels more daunting is to work with a little bit more of a concentrated effort on creating artefacts because then you didn't have to be in the meeting. Time to give your input. You didn't have to be in the meeting to receive the update. Slack is obviously a good way to do that, but there's a million ways to do that. And forcing us to take advantage of some of those, I think we'll have a positive impact, not just in mitigating against the negative effects of what's going on now, but actually pushing us to a better way of working than what we had before.

MG: I do miss people, though. I miss people face to face.

STEWWART BUTTERFIELD: Absolutely. Me too.

MG: Stewart, it's great to talk to you this. I really appreciate your time. Thank you.

STEWWART BUTTERFIELD: Yes, that was great. Thank you.

MG: Stewart Butterfield is the CEO of Slack, as we're hearing in the midst of this seismic economic shift. Some businesses are, in fact, growing. This entrepreneur opened a store in downtown Winnipeg to sell personal protective equipment to clients face to face. Welcome to Exchange PPE.

SOUNDCLIP

JOSH: So it's pretty simple. On off switch set to disinfect. My name is Josh Giesbrecht and I'm the president and co-founder of Exchange PPE. And so what you'd want to do it, this is aim at your high touch points. Your light switches, your door knobs, anything where there are different people coming. Big sellers in our store floggers and on alcohol disinfectants. One of the primary reasons why that's really been our hottest product is that the disinfectants we were able to find that are approved by Canada and the FDA not only can kill it on surfaces, but they also can deal with black mould by preventing it and killing it. And so that's a big problem in a lot of reserves. And so we are constantly trying to look for dual products that could, you know, actually address some long term issues. The biggest order to date would be to a conglomerate of Saskatchewan First Nations. It was just over a million dollars. So these neoprene ones are more fashionable than most, our cloth mass. Also on which we're comfortable. How does it feel to be in this kind of business upswing in the middle of a pandemic? And my answer is, it feels like a public service because where we are half percent first nation owned. That is our primary focus. You know, we know it. First nation reserves are up against because not a lot of people have experienced that yet. They haven't known somebody that actually, you know, passed away from this virus. I thought in the first wave and yeah, it was definitely sobering even in my young lifetime. I don't think we'll see an economic shift this big. That being said, though, there especially what I would call the post-COVID economy, there will be significant opportunities for people with literally zero, which will let people be starting off with. There's a lot of industries that are going through a renaissance. For example, the freight industry, whether you're flying planes, truck and truck or even driving a car for door to door delivery, that that's an industry that's exploding. I think you'll see a lot of start-ups come out of that. You know, it is concerning what's going on with our dollar and the economy. But there are still big opportunities out there.

MG: From Winnipeg. We had to Kamloops, B.C., when Mar Robitaille lost his job as a miner. He found a way to make the most of this moment. He started LMB designs.

[sc].

MARC: It's a repurposed wine barrel that we salvaged from wineries throughout the Okanagan. Then we turn them into these beautiful creations, wine barrel fire tables and a line of wine, barrel furniture and other unique woodwork. Because I was laid off in March due to the Colvard, I was supposed to be just a temporary layoff turned into a lot longer than temporary. Woodworking is always been a hobby of mine. I went, bought some lumber and I all the kids were out a school. So I created these birdhouses with pre drilled holes and had some of the neighbourhood kids over to keep them occupied. And it sparked something in my creative juices that I buried for a long time. I got involved in industry and worked out of town and in industrial type settings. And so my artistic side kind of got put on the backburner. So with the COVID coming, it actually it woke that up in me again and turned out to be a really great thing. So I think I was ready for a change. I was just afraid financially, too, to take that leap. And. And here we are now, an initial investment. I actually had to borrow the first hundred fifty dollars to buy my first wine barrel. And now when I purchase barrels, I'm buying 30 or 40 at a time. We're at the point now we're looking at possibly expanding to a bigger location and hopefully taking on an employer to here in the near future. Help us out with these orders. I know no business plan because I had no income at the time. I just rolled with it. And we'll probably surpass what I made working out of town. So I'm going to open this up. It might fall towards you, but the in the inside of this, barely, you're going to see saturated sugar and wine that's been sitting in here for many, many years. So this is the very first time that this barrel has been opened since it was made. That's my favourite part. There it is, just wonderful aroma and beautiful wood.

MG: You can almost smell that. Well, coming up after your regional update, we're hearing more creative ways that Canadians are coping with this new economic reality, including one that draws on an old idea. It's called Susu, and it's getting more popular in the midst of this pandemic. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to a special edition of The Current: Remaking a Living, Surviving the COVID.

How an old tradition is helping people weather the pandemic's financial storm

Guests: Ginelle Skerritt, Floydeen Charles Fridal, Debbie Nicholls Skerrit, Anita McGahan, Millie Acuna

SOUNDCLIP

MG: I'll ask a security person. Hi. Do you know where the Stitchit is?

VOICE: Stitchit?

MG: Yes, it's like a tailor down here.

VOICE: You go straight, you see a Fido, it's gonna be beside it.

MG: Great. How often do people ask you where they're going? I mean, ever you get so everyone gets lost in the path all the time. Thank you.

MG: Finding my way around The Path again underground in downtown Toronto. It's the easiest place in the city to get lost. I'm Matt Galloway you're listening to a special edition of The Current Remaking a Living, Surviving the COVID Economy.

SOUNDCLIP

MG: Yes, this way.

JENNIFER: How are you?

MG: How are you?

JENNIFER: Good. Great.

MG: Good.

JENNIFER: Are you guys OK, for distancing and putting masks on?

MG: Yes. Yes.

JENNIFER: So my name's Jennifer Baird, one of the owners of Stichit Canada's Tailor. We've been around for 30 plus years now doing clothing alterations, making people look and feel great in their clothes.

MG: Normally, as we say, in the before times, if you were to look at the door here, how busy would this area be?

JENNIFER: Packed. I've never seen it this quiet.

MG: What is that meant for business?

JENNIFER: We are doing 10 percent of our sales from last year, which is completely unsustainable, especially in this location. We have 60 locations across Canada, so some malls are doing OK. But in the city centre, we're reliant on the towers and the people that are coming to work, most of which are working from home now.

MG: So how many people would come into the shop on a daily basis now?

JENNIFER: Now, five a day, maybe 10. This is our manager, Nicky.

NICKY: Hi.

MG: Hi. How are you.

JENNIFER: You've been with us for 20 years.

NICKY: Yes.

JENNIFER: 10 customer, sometimes five.

NICKY: Depend. If they have a meeting in the company, then they coming back. They will bring it for me.

JENNIFER: We've been blessed with loyal customers. However, it's just not the same volume. I mean, 10 percent of sales, that's you. You just can't sustain that.

MG: When you say that it's unsustainable, what does that mean in terms of the operation of your business?

JENNIFER: Well, we'll likely be talking to the landlord about either going dark or reducing our hours. Luckily, we are a large company, we're Canadian company. So we have other locations. Overall, our business is doing about 50 percent of last year's some locations that are doing well. But this one is not built for this kind of pandemic, would it?

MG: I mean, this sounds like an obvious question in a alteration in a tailor shop, but when people aren't working, what does that mean in terms of the money they aren't spending?

JENNIFER: I think the people that are working are the 10 percent that are coming in. So you still need to look good depending how your body is built. Sometimes you cannot buy off the rack and still important for those things to look at. There's also a lot more repairs during these times of pandemic. So maybe you're not buying as many things new. There is a large push towards recycling garments for using garments. During hard times, we generally see that our business changes to that. I know Nike has a coat in the back right now where someone's getting their lining redone. So as opposed to going and buying a new 500, 100 dollar coat. They're spending 150 to do to redo the lining. So I think people are start to look for more affordable options, which again, we absolutely can help with. We also are doing dry cleaning. So we're still very accessible. There just isn't anybody here.

MG: Is there anything else from government that you would want that could help you try to keep the lights on?

JENNIFER: I'll be perfectly honest. I am happy with what the government has done for everybody. I imagine there is going to be a large situation we're all going to be dealing with for years to come. Having had to pay for the support we've gotten, we're so thankful for the support. I don't think we can ask for more from the government. I do think maybe there are some more opportunities for landlords to try and find ways to support. Certainly some of it falls to the retailers. So for our part, masks, we're selling masks. We made them in-house. They're made in Canada. We've pivoted to gowns. We're doing everything we can to support ourselves. We're grateful for the governments. I do think in some cases, the landlords are probably the ones that are having the hardest time. And I understand they have bills to pay as well. But, you know, it's not cheap to do business in here. If this was our only store, we would not be open.

MG: What is it that, you know, in the middle of the night that you wake up at two o'clock in the morning worrying about?

JENNIFER: When's it going to be over? What does new normal look like? I'm very nervous for a second wave. I think, again, we've done everything we can to support every but a lot of economy through the first one. It's not a live in a mean amount of money in support that you can get. So I'm very nervous about a second wave and a full shutdown again. That's pretty scary.

MG: And the activity is really important for being able to suddenly switch to something. Absolutely.

JENNIFER: And every retailer is looking at how to do that right now.

MG: Good luck.

JENNIFER: Thanks for coming.

MG: Jennifer Baird, one of the owners of stitched a chain of tailor shops and his businesses struggle and money gets tight, some people are turning to an old idea to help weather the financial storm. It's called Susu. It's like a club for saving money together. If you're from an African or a Caribbean background, maybe your mom or her friends were part of one. My next guests are helping keep that tradition alive today. Ganille Skerritt is a banker lady for eight Susu groups. She's also a VIP at the Neighbourhood Group, a social service agency in Toronto. Ginelle, good morning.

GINELLE SKERRITT: Good morning.

MG: For people who have never heard of Susu, explain how this works.

GINELLE SKERRITT: Well, it is just as you describe, it's a group of people coming together to save money together. It's a mutual support group. It's a social group. It's a way that we can meet our goals financially as a community. And a lot of things happen in a Susu that are sometimes unexpected ways that women in particular, who are the main people involved in Susu, support each other over time. It really has many different ways of manifesting positive things for our communities.

MG: Walk me through how it operates. If somebody has money, where does that money go and what happens with the money?

GINELLE SKERRITT: We've landed on a magical number of 10. So we run our Susus over 20 weeks and there are ten hands and a hand is a payout. So, for example, I would be coming to the Susu with 100 dollars every two weeks and I would put my money in. And the way we would do it has evolved from normally the bank lady would collect all the money and then disseminate it on the date chosen by the Susu members. Now, how we do it is we use the electronic banking system so people still choose their dates over that 20 week period. For example, the Susu we just ran Brand from around the end of May till October 2nd, and I picked an early date this year. So I got the firsthand because I wanted to buy lawn furniture that had been 10 years in the planning and I just never got it together. So it was more of a loan to me from the rest of those in the susu. And I was able to enjoy my furniture all summer and that I just paid it off. For some, it's like a loan. For some it's just a way of supporting other people to get money when they need it. And for some, they just want to save for a particular goal.

MG: And you put the money away. Do you get interest from the money or you just stash the money?

GINELLE SKERRITT: It's not a money making thing. The motivation for getting involved is to save money or to support each other, to get a lump sum of money that would be otherwise hard to put together on your own and put it toward something.

MG: Where did the interest in this come from for you?

GINELLE SKERRITT: I just have always known it all my life. And when my mom migrated to Canada, it was Susu money that was put together for the airfare. And when she bought her first house, it was Susu money that was put together by a group of women that she worked with. Each of them, one by one, helped each other by the Susu to put together the funds for a down payment. So it's just a way of pooling their savings and helping each other out.

MG: And it's, again, the advantage of something like this. You talked about trust and you've talked to a community. The advantage is something like this over traditional banking or using a loan from a bank is what, as you understand it?

GINELLE SKERRITT: Well, things have changed a bit. But at the time that my mom was looking to put together a mortgage for the house, you had to have your husband sign with you or you couldn't. So it was a kind of a way that women could pool money independently of their male spouses who were usually the breadwinners. And when I grew up to the other thing that I always saw was that my grandmother or my mom would be the ones to go to if something unexpected occurred. And you needed money because they always had stash. I know people talk about the money under the mattress or that or in the cookie jar. And so Susu money was kind of a way to ensure that there was a little bit of insurance that was dependent on our community. And then there is, of course, the spectre of racism that was experienced in the banking system. And so this was a way of empowering our communities to move and to do things with money. It's a form of resilience and resistance as well.

MG: Have you seen interest in your Susu groups grow since COVID arrive and since the pandemic began?

GINELLE SKERRITT: Well, that was very strange, actually, because I thought that what we would see is that people would not be signing up. But when COVID. It came about and I put out the call. I moved to four groups and then I saw, oh, OK, five groups. Oh, that's incredible. And two days before the Susu was supposed to start, I had a mother say to me, I'd really like my son to get started on the Susu. So can you open another group? And I thought, open in a group and fill it with nine other people in two days. Like, I don't know if I could do that. And lo and behold, by the Friday - that was the Wednesday - by Friday, we had our sixth group. And the response was incredible. And I think people really got the sense that we needed to be independent, we needed to do things for each other, build trust in our community and savings in these times.

MG: Stay on the line. I want to bring a couple of members of your Susu group into this conversation. Debbie Nicholls Skerrit, no relation, is an artist and a wellness professional. Floydeen Charles Fridal works in Social Services, has a business called Pure Authentic, which sells African cloth, jewellery, oils and chea butters. Good morning to you both. Floyd. And what do you like about Susu?

FLOYDEEN CHARLES FRIDAL: What I like most about the Susu is being part of something that helps somebody else accomplish a goal.

MG: What is it to you that's so powerful about that?

FLOYDEEN CHARLES FRIDAL: It's powerful because the whole idea of identify, as a person of African descent and understanding the importance of community and the village, for me, supporting that concept through all aspects of my life. So when somebody is in the susu who has a need for a specific thing to be part of helping them accomplish, that is very much parallel to highlight. I choose to live my life, and that is very much a reflection of that. And the whole idea of building trust and support for each other is a natural outcome or benefit from being part of this. So it's kind of like a family, really.

MG: And is this something you grew up with?

FLOYDEEN CHARLES FRIDAL: All my life, really my entire life, interestingly enough, the Susu that my mother was in as a child. I grew up ending up being in that same susu as an adult, along with one of my other siblings.

MG: What about for you, Debbie? What do you what do you like about managing money in this way?

DEBBIE NICHOLLS SKERRIT: For me is, of course, the nostalgic connexion as well, because like the others, I have also known about who. So all my life and growing up as a little girl and my mom driving saying, oh yes, I have to go to a.. so-and-so and to drop off my hand or pick up my hands. It's been a thing. And still going on those journeys for the individuals that have Susus that are not via e transfer. It's still a task to go in and pick up the hand or drop off the hand and that sort of thing. So the community support the community trust, which really dispels of myths that circulate sometimes in our community that we cannot work together, we cannot trust each other, which is totally a lie. So it also reinforces especially the susu that we were a part of. It's always said with love, you know, encouragement, like we are pouring into your vision as you are pouring into ours. I love the way this part of my pocket money or change is being utilised it's the energy that's circulated with love and trust and abundance.

MG: Do you see a heightened need for that in this pandemic where there are a lot of people who are worried about money and they're thinking about how when we have to re-evaluate everything that we sort of took for granted, we need to look out for each other in different ways. There's this idea, you know, we're all in it together. So does something like Susu, is it amplified in a time like this time?

DEBBIE NICHOLLS SKERRIT: Oh, absolutely. And I mean, it just brings back the concept of the old saying. And there's so many proverbs that you can draw from the continent and from the Caribbean, one which would say if you want to do something, you do it alone. But if you want to go far, you do it with community. Swabian, as you know, you could probably help me out with this, but it ultimately reinforces the fact that it's the community that we fall back on to help us all propel where we need to go, as opposed to just kind of navigating these waters by ourselves.

MG: I can hear you both in the background, Floydeen. That's right along lines with what you're thinking?

FLOYDEEN CHARLES FRIDAL: Oh, yes, absolutely. And I think for me, one lesson I learnt the hard way. I recall having to go to the bank to get some money out as they kind of looked at me and said, did you call for it? And I said, for what? Well, we have to order your money in. I'm like Excuse me. I put the money in the bank. I expected to be there.

MG: It's my money.

FLOYDEEN CHARLES FRIDAL: It's my money. That's how I learnt that the banks are not really set up for us to have that kind of support? So in an emergency, say, I'm forced to get the second or third hand, but somebody is supposed to get the 10 tan has an emergency. It's nothing to say. Well, let's just switch you if you need this now. That's what I like about this flexibility. It's not, you know, as it's purported to be these days, a Ponzi scheme or anything like that. It's a tried and true and tested and solid system. Through my work and through a social service agency I've been trying to build the idea of not for profit, looking at a few things, fund development, because in this time of COVID it, I was reflecting on that. Had we done something like that, we would have been many of us organisations would have been a better position to help our clients. I just love the idea of how we can control our finances and manage them and plan for them. And it doesn't matter what your socioeconomic status is. I'm in a susu for 25 dollars. Oh. Had just the support other people who are just learning about it. And I live my life that way. I'm in four of them.

MG: Ginelle, let me ask you just a couple of quick things finally. As the banker lady, one is about the issue of trust. This is a time where trust gets eroded and people in difficult times can be trying to figure out ways to cheat that trust or work that trust for their own advantage. How do you keep trust in difficult times?

GINELLE SKERRITT: Well, it's the critical time for trust right now because we need each other. And I think that's been the lesson of COVID, that we are not independent bodies out there. We need each other. And what happens to one can influence or impact the rest. And so I think trust is essential. And within the system, family, that's a critical part.

MG: What about just finally the lesson that that others might take from this, whether it's in starting around susu or as we talk about money in the midst of a pandemic, how to think about an economy? What's the lesson that people could take from what it is that you're doing?

GINELLE SKERRITT: Well, I think some of the things that Floydeen touched on, the idea of support, the idea of understanding each other, encouraging each other, we are here to support each other, to reach each other's schools or to reach goals together. And money is just a way to get there.

MG: Thank you all. It's great to speak with you all about this.

GUESTS: Thank you, Matt. Take care. Bye bye.

MG: Ginelle Skerritt is a banker lady. Yes. That's the term that's used within susus, for eight Suza groups in the Toronto area. Floydeen Charles Fridal and Debbie Nicholls Skerrit are both members of that susu. While many Canadians have figured out ways to get by, this pandemic is also making things much worse for people already living in poverty. Millie Acuna is one of the people trying to help. She's a manager with supporting employment and economic development, or SEED Winnipeg, as it's also known. This fall, they, along with two other agencies in that city, started a financial help line for residents in need. During the pandemic warning, any financial help line.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Hi. This is Janet speaking. How can I help you?

MILLIE ACUNA: Emotionally what I'm hearing on the help line are two things. Number one is crisis. They are really in a mode of tell me what to do because I don't know where to go next.

VOICE: OK, let me just go through the eligibility with you here.

MILLIE ACUNA: But the other side of it is as critical as it may seem. They're very thankful and grateful that they're speaking to someone that they can trust.

VOICE: So you are paying into EI at that time?

MILLIE ACUNA: We are seeing homelessness folks that have already been evicted. We're seeing food insecurity. Where can I get groceries for me and my family?

VOICE: And you're not applying for or receiving the Canada recovery sickness benefit.

MILLIE ACUNA: There's also just that ability for speaking to someone for mental health reasons. A lot of folks who are quarantine or fear of going outdoors, they're looking for someone to talk to. Just to connect with and not feel alone during the pandemic. But yes, they are looking primarily at, ah, their financial questions about, well, how can I get by? What do I expect for the next three to six months. What does this look for me long term. And am I going to be fined. Am I going to jail. I've heard the word fraud. Those are questions, legitimate questions from community members saying I'm scared. I don't know what to do.

VOICE: So for the Canada recovery benefit will have to be also looking for work.

MILLIE ACUNA: For employment, they find that is very difficult to find employment, number one. Number two, they are asking for part time hours, but very limited hours. We're talking five to 10 hours a week and then hoping that they qualify for the new emergency response benefits.

VOICE: It looks on here that you're eligible. So you've got a pen handy?

MILLIE ACUNA: And so. It is just filling that void and showing that there is hope that there are things out there that we just need to communicate and walked him through knowing that they're not alone during this pandemic. The fear of just getting sick, of course, is number one. But the other half of this is how do I keep myself sustainable through all of this?

VOICE: OK, well, good talking to you. Take care, bye bye.

MG: It has been a tough seven months for many people. My next guest spends a lot of time thinking about where this all might be going. Anita McGahan is a professor of strategic management and global affairs at the University of Toronto. Anita, good morning.

ANITA MCGAHAN: Good morning.

MG: We're calling this remaking a living. When you take a look at the changes that are going on right now, there are a lot of people who are struggling. People have become reliant on government aid, on food banks, on social services. How much of a long-term change do you think this is all going to be?

ANITA MCGAHAN: Well, the pandemic will end, you know, but there's no going back to the way we were. So there are really three drivers of change that we have to consider. The first is that we have to get each other through this, which is what we've been talking about over the last few minutes with your wonderful guests. The second is that we have a number of long overdue changes that were previously blocked by various types of obstacles that we ought to undertake now. And they include changes to the financial system, in my view, by the way. And then we have opportunities that we have yet to get traction, but which will be important in the future.

MG: What are those overdue changes? Just briefly run us through some of the things that you think could change that we haven't had the opportunity or we haven't had the ability to change.

ANITA MCGAHAN: Sure. So my list, you know, includes, for example, responsible consumption, not wasting money on things that aren't important to us anymore. And that discussion that you were having about the susu groups really illustrated that for me, especially. The second, I think, is climate action. We know that we have to stop wasting resources in various ways. There are lots of opportunities to improve the financial system, to reduce the cost of credit, to lend money better. Internet provisions should be more widely available. Child care we need to address, elder care, Black lives matter, Indigenous experience. There are a lot of things that we've been working on for a long time that have been exposed as, you know, really important agenda items for Canadians. And there's no lame excuses anymore. We really have to make progress on these things.

MG: We've been talking about, and part of this is, you know, it highlights those things that get exposed -- working from home. People who don't need to go into the office anymore. That creates this whole threat to the ecosystem around the office and people who are, you know, serving food, who are cleaning offices, who work in transit, for example. What does the future hold for some of those office towers and the economies that exist around them?

ANITA MCGAHAN: Well, the choices that we make now are going to have a big impact on the outcome there. You know, we could be looking at a dystopian Margaret Atwood environment, Handmaid's Tale environment, or we could work toward rebuilding a vibrant, creative, culturally exciting artistic environment. We know that there's going to be a lot of changes to the downtown core. We have to think about, you know, repurposing high rises and office space after the pandemic. We know that a lot of companies are not going to be sending workers back into these buildings. There's there has to be a reconfiguration of retail space to deliver more services, such as the tailor services that you were talking with about with Jennifer Baird about a few minutes ago. We have to think about changes in the use of public spaces. I mean, think about traffic and the way that we use cars in Toronto right now. It's going to be very difficult to go back to the way we were simply because the way we're doing things now is in some ways better than the way things were. Using our homes as offices and the implications for our family life is also a really big problem that we need to think through and get right.

MG: We were speaking with the CEO of Slack and I mean, he's helped facilitate working from home. But as he even admits, we lose some of that social contact. We're social beings and we exist in a lot of different spaces. But some of those are common spaces. What happens if if that social aspect on those common spaces are threatened?

ANITA MCGAHAN: Well, here is where our public space is especially important because I couldn't agree more. Unstructured interactions amongst people at work are what keep us close. They're what build community. They cultivate trust in each other and trust in our society and ability to get through things together. It also supports innovation. I mean, what I miss most about being at the university is running into people from other disciplines that were working on different problems that I can learn from. I miss my students. I miss learning things about them that I don't yet know. And those kinds of opportunities have been really reduced during the pandemic.

MG: So how do we, you hear this phrase: build back better. What is the opportunity in the big picture, in the last little bit that we have, to build back better a vision for, you know, an equitable long-term recovery?

ANITA MCGAHAN: Well, there are a lot of small things that will add up to a great deal of change if we get them right. So I think each one of us has an opportunity to think about, OK, what do we really value, and what do we really want to be spending our time and our money and our energy on? What do we think is important? And to make sure that we're retraining ourselves to be oriented toward that, that we're using our resources in ways that are really aligned with our values. The second and it's a sort of a more kind of collective opportunity is to start to think about what have we learnt about how we want to use public resources, how do we want to restructure the way that that that we work together? Just as we've been describing; work from home, work from places like Slack, how do we want to pay for everything that we've gone through? We want to make sure that we don't inflate our way out of this because inflation is a tax on the poor. We have to think about how we're going to recover economic vitality. And that means, you know, really investing in innovation in pretty much every business, including in digital technology and using, you know, A.I. and so on, in humane and responsible and fair ways. And that's a big challenge.

MG: Just in a word or two, are you optimistic that we'll seize on those opportunities?

ANITA MCGAHAN: I'm optimistic about Canada. I'm less optimistic about the United States.

MG: We'll leave it there because there's lots more to talk about, I'm sure. Particularly given the U.S. election and where will all go from here in the meantime. Anita, I appreciate you joining us this morning. Thank you.

ANITA MCGAHAN: Thanks so much.

MG: Anita McGann, professor of strategic management and global affairs at the University of Toronto. And that will wrap up our special programme this morning. The Current Remaking a Living, Surviving the COVID economy. We want to hear from you about how you're surviving in these changes. What worries you? What changes have you had to make? Send us an e-mail or a voice memo and you can send it to thecurrent@cbc.ca. We look forward to hearing from you. In the meantime, I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. Take care. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

The Current Transcript for October 29, 2020

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Remaking a living: Surviving the COVID-19 economy, a special edition of The Current – Part 1

Remaking a living: Surviving the COVID-19 economy, a special edition of The Current - Part 2

How an old tradition is helping people weather the pandemic's financial storm

Thursday October 29, 2020 Full Transcript

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