N.S. shooting rampage highlights public threat of domestic violence: victim advocates

Guests: Tom Murphy, Jenny Wright, Rachel Collins

MG: On Friday, people in Nova Scotia and right across this country came together to pay tribute to the 22 people killed in the worst mass shooting in this country's history.

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VOICE 1: Our collective hearts are aching, are broken and for some, shattered beyond repair.

VOICE 2: We just wanted to say, we want to show our support for what happened in Nova Scotia. The deaths of that RCMP officer and those families, what they're going through. So my wife lights her tree up every night just to show her support, our support for you.

VOICE 3: We love you.

MG: The sounds of solidarity and grief to some of the voices of many Canadians expressing their support for Nova Scotians. Police continue to investigate this horrific tragedy. It is a complex case, multiple crime scenes across several communities. And as police piece together what happened, our CBC journalists are also combing through what is known. Joining me now is CBC Nova Scotia co-anchor Tom Murphy. Tom, good morning.

TOM MURPHY: Good morning, Matt.

MG: We learned at the end of last week some further details about what unfolded last weekend in the RCMP says that these killings began with the gunman assaulting and confining his girlfriend. Specifically, what do we know about this initial incident?

TOM MURPHY: Yes. So, I mean, obviously, they've responded to what they thought was a weapons complaint. We learned later that there was an issue of domestic assault in this as well, a component to this for sure. His girlfriend had come out of the woods about 12 hours after all of this started to report that she had been abused by him and that, you know, she had information about what he was wearing, that he had another police car and those kinds of details. Now, she has been recovering and police have had some time with her and she is cooperating with police. They haven't had as much time as they want. They want to talk to her more. Obviously, she is a key witness because in the words of the police herself, could very well have been the catalyst that started the chain of events. You know, and she will also unlock some secrets, we hope, about any potential past history of violence. We know he had, did not have rather a criminal record, but that he did assault someone back in 2001 and received a conditional discharge, that he had a few desktops over some property issues. One resulted in a civil matter in 2004. And we know he had a temper, that he was ordered to take anger management in the past, but beyond that, we don't know a lot about his past.

MG: We also know that the RCMP is reporting that he had something like four police cars? Where would he have got these cars?

TOM MURPHY: Well, that's interesting and key because when they first arrived at the scene, they were able to account for three police cars and they thought that was the extent of his fleet of cars. But he did have that fourth car. An his girlfriend is the one that told them about that. You know, you can get the old police cars at auctions. You know, you sometimes probably sat in a cab in a city someplace that looked like an old police car. They do buy them up. You can buy similar new models, of course, off a car lot, but police know a few details. They know where he got the light bar. They found the decal manufacturer, although they're not sure where those decal, those RCMP decals on car were printed. The uniform, at least in part that he was wearing was authentic and may have been some RCMP discarded clothing, but part of the uniform was from another police force. So it's a bit of a grab bag there. But he also had weapons and they're really trying to trace that down. You know, he had a handgun and a long gun that he used that night. Police traced one of those back to Canada, but believe the others may have been obtained in the United States.

MG: In the conversations that we had last week with people in the communities where this violence unfolded, one of the questions that they continued to ask is why the emergency alert system was not activated. How is the RCMP responded to that?

TOM MURPHY: Yeah, that's been a bone of contention for a lot of people. Basically, the situation is described by the police on Friday where they went into this scene. It was a very chaotic scene. There are a number of buildings burning at the time in Portapique. They discovered 13 dead bodies. So they were very busy containing that scene and they believe they had that area contained. So they did not issue any alert at that time, even though they did learn from a gentleman who stumbled out at the scene early on that he had been shot by someone that he says he thought was driving a police car, so that was sort of their first inkling of what was happening. Then, as they say, his girlfriend came out of the woods in the morning and confirmed that there was, in fact, a fourth police guard and still, the police, they notified other police agencies at that time, but not the public. And later in the morning, as this rampage continued through central Nova Scotia, the province went to the RCMP and said, we can put out an emergency alert, if you like. They chose not to. The RCMP did not.

MG: There was an alert, Tom, that was used this week. What do we know about that? Tom? Oh, I think we lost Tom. Tom Murphy, co-anchor with the CBC News in Nova Scotia. He was in Halifax this morning. There are many, many questions, as Tom mentioned, still being asked about what unfolded in those horrible hours and how perhaps people could have been able to think differently about this, given some of the questions that are being raised. Rachel Collins is a criminologist at St. Mary's University in Halifax. She studies the risk factors for mass shooters. Rachel, good morning to you. Rachel are you there? We had Rachel Collins on the line with us. We'll try and get her back on the line shortly. These are questions that in part are being asked in light of what's going on when it comes to has not just a history of violence, but questions as well around bringing back some of the discussions around domestic violence. There are, as Tom mentioned, a number of questions coming up, specifically because the shooter, RCMP believe, kicked off this rampage in Halifax with an assault on his girlfriend. That girlfriend has become something of a hero because she hid in the forest in the wake of that assault for hours overnight, only came out as the light broke to speak with police about what she had seen, but also was able to give them some sense as to where perhaps the shooter had gone and how they could begin to address some of the issues that were unfolding. Telling the police about his pension for policing itself also concerns around the fact that he had these vehicles that he was using and a uniform that would allow him to seem as though he was a police officer. She has become somebody who has been a key witness in this, as I mentioned, but also because of that initial assault. There are many questions being asked around a longer history, perhaps, of domestic violence. Rachel Collins, as I mentioned, a criminologist at St. Mary's University in Halifax, joins us now. Rachel, good morning to you.

RACHEL COLLINS: Good morning, Matt. Thank you.

MG: Thank you for joining us. When you see the details that we're learning about the gunman in this case, what goes through your mind as somebody who, as I mentioned, studies the risk factors for mass shooters?

RACHEL COLLINS: Yes. Well, I think I think what we can definitely see with this is that he held some very strong pattern that we see very often, we're sure. And one of the big ones is this history and a very long history of anger. And so angry people, you know, over time actually have a tendency to lose almost everything in their life. If you've ever been around an angry person, it's it's palpable. Right. And so they do tend to lose family, friends, lovers, job opportunities, anything else like this, because nobody really wants to be around this angry person, let alone an angry person with power. So all of this loss does tend to increase anger. Now, eventually what we do see is that a person has to develop some sort of coping skills, this coping mechanism to deal with all of this anger and all of this hate because they're spiralling out of control. And for some people, this coping mechanism is drugs or alcohol. However, for others, this coping mechanism can actually become the externalization of blame. So what happens is that absolutely nothing in their life is their fault, that all of their failures, all of their losses are now attributed to somebody else, something else. And so, of course, what happens is this increases anger. And so what they wind up doing is through this. They wind up turning themselves into victims. So they have and they carry with them an extraordinarily high amount of personal victimization, which, of course, makes everything worse. So we have this toxic mix of behaviours that actually leads to rage and rage is the fuel that you that you need for an event like this.

MG: What does it say to you when the vast majority of mass shooters are men, particularly white men?

RACHEL COLLINS: Well, there's a few factors that point to that. One is sort of this hyper masculinization, this toxic masculinity and the loss of power and the loss of control. Right? When we do have a mass shooter or these are people that have been spinning out of control for years. This is not a last minute event. This is a complete and total loss of control and loss of power that may have been going on for some of them for 20 years, 20-25 years. This is why we usually see a lot of mass shooters that are older. And so a lot of them tend to gravitate to things that might give them a sense of power. We see a lot of mass shooters that have fascinations with guns and other foreign cars, especially to right that sort of hyper masculinization of power. And a lot of them do dress up in paramilitary fatigues and some of them have dressed as police officers in the past, just sort of have a sense of gaining control. A lot of other factors point to the compounding was sort of compacting trauma and the way that men have often historically dealt with loss. They don't necessarily get help and they don't necessarily ask for help, especially with issues of loss of power.

MG: The other issue here and we're going to speak about this more in just a moment is, is that's the first person he attacked was his girlfriend. What should we read into this, that this begins with domestic violence?

RACHEL COLLINS: Well, I think as I spoke before, this history of anger, this history of of problems, that they actually begin to deal with this loss of control. And when you have somebody who has this much anger, they will take it out on absolutely everybody. And so what we're looking at is if there is a history of abuse with any shooter or all of these shooters, it's actually not surprising because they have been angry for so long and this anger is taken out on individuals that are closest to them. A lot of times because, of course, they may blame them for anything in their lives. Right?

MG: You're somebody who has spent your career studying mass shootings. Now, there is one so close to home in Nova Scotia. What has it been like to have one there that is is not removed. It's not in another country. It's in many ways in your backyard.

RACHEL COLLINS: It's actually been extremely, extremely difficult. And I don't actually think I've even begun to process it. It's a very different, it's I don't even know how to explain it. It was shocking and just I haven't actually truly dealt with it yet because, of course, when this happened, I wrote an article for the university and I've been speaking to a lot of people who are, of course, extremely afraid and they're confused and they don't actually know what's been going on. So as a result, I haven't really actually been able to sit down and process it myself.

MG: Rachel, it's good to speak with you about this. Thank you.

RACHEL COLLINS: Thank you.

MG: Rachel Collins teaches criminology at St. Mary's University in Halifax. One of the things we do know about the perpetrator, as we were saying, is that he began his violence with an attack on his girlfriend. She survived, but she's still recovering from her injuries after an incredibly traumatic and awful moment. People who work on issues around domestic violence warned that we cannot just ignore how often this comes up, particularly when it comes to accounts of mass shootings, that this is something that people have seen before in previous incidents. Jenny Wright is an expert panellist with the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability. She works in both Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Jenny, good morning to you.

JENNY WRIGHT: Good morning, Matt. Thank you for having me.

MG: Thank you for joining us. You tweeted early on and all of this on Monday that the motive of the gunman wasn't a mystery. You wrote and this is a quotation, "It's about power. Perceived rejection by a woman or women will be the root. It happens in rural communities. There will have been signs. This is male violence." Why did you tweet that?

JENNY WRIGHT: Because I think those of us research advocates and who people have lived experience clearly know that there is a pattern behind much of this violence prophecy. We continue to kind of couch it in this real harmful narrative that these mass shootings are can't be traded by a lone gunman who simply one day snapped. But what's missing from our collective conversation is that the research shows that the common trait among the majority of of these perpetrators and that is a deep seeded hatred of women, because we keep ignoring the head, acknowledging that we're not addressing the real issues. And what we see is there's a very clear indicators, very clear predictors. Patterns of behaviours that we see over and over again. And that is a history of violence against women. It's stalking, harassment, domestic violence. Second, an obsession with power and authority, like an obsession with police, the military and weapons. And finally, a bill that could have a deep seated sense of entitlement, a belief that the world owes them something that doesn't happen. They have feelings of humiliation and rage. Details unfold. It's really clear, not surprisingly, that he very clearly fits this profile.

MG: People will often talk about the language that's used. And there has been commentary in the last couple of days about language. When people say that this is a senseless killing, how could we have known what was going to happen? What do you make of the language and how important is the language in what you've been saying in describing what happened and describing some of the root causes?

JENNY WRIGHT: Language is vital because if we don't acknowledge it for what it is, that we're never going to be able to address it. I think if so many of us in the face of a horrific tragedy to say has one off this, this can't be part of our culture. But in fact, it is. Violence against women is a huge issue here in Canada. We've had mass shootings within our within our country and they have similar traits. They are rooted violence, misogyny, and they're often perpetrated by white males. So we need to start focussing on what the research is, what the patterns are, what the real factors are behind this and all of this, you know, just a random thing. And it probably will never happen again.

MG: Why isn't that being done? If it's as clear as you say, why isn't that research being acknowledged and why aren't those factors being discussed?

JENNY WRIGHT: I think because it's much easier to think it's just a load one off to think that we actually live in a culture that glorifies male violence where we, you know, have huge gender equalities bill entitled where we see our justice systems and systems, our education systems having a real will to make the extensive changes that we're gonna have to do in order to turn this around. And there has to be a political will there in order for us to make the changes that we want to have. We simply can't do it on our own.

MG: There will be people who would say that it's really impossible to predict these sorts of events or prevent them, that if someone is determined to carry these actions out, they're going to do that. What would you say to those people?

JENNY WRIGHT: Violence against women is absolutely preventable and the predictors of a mass shooting are clear. I mean, the research is robust, but what happens is we we every time we have a mass shooting like this, we start to have conversations, we begin to have dialogue, and then we just leave it alone. We acknowledge it for what it is and then say we are going to make concrete changes within our society so that this doesn't happen again. We let it go. We see it as a one continuum of acts against women, starting harassment, stalking, domestic violence to read up into mass shootings. We don't take domestic violence or violence against women very seriously. We see this within our courts and we see this often within victim blaming so less. We want to, as a country, have a hard look at the evidence. Have a hard look at the factors behind these mass shootings, specifically environment misogyny. It's never going to change.

MG: Is your sense, we only have about a minute or so left, but is your sense that that now in having this conversation and in the RCMP acknowledging that this started with an incident of domestic violence, that is an opportunity to change that conversation?

JENNY WRIGHT: I'm going to argue that this incident didn't start with domestic violence. I'm going to argue that this was a premeditated, very intentional event and that's one of the mistakes that we do. By couching this in, you know. What we've been doing, I've been hearing this, you know, saying that, you know, she or the incident with her was the catalyst. In fact, that wasn't the catalyst. He's the catalyst. You know violent hatred of women is was the catalyst for this mass shooting and if we don't start to change that kind of language, we're going to continue these same kind of real harmful narratives.

MG: Jenny, it's important to speak with you about this. Thank you.

JENNY WRIGHT: Thank you for taking.

MG: Jenny Wright is an expert panellist with the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability. She works in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Apologies for the quality of the phone line there, but it is an important discussion to have. The CBC News is next and then we head to Montreal, a city that has been one of the hardest hit centres of this pandemic across this country. They Quebec premier believes so-called herd immunity could be the key to turning things around. We'll get a better sense today as to how Quebec wants to reopen. How does it do that in the face of what's unfolding in the city of Montreal? We'll find out, coming up. My name's Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in about six minutes time. Don't go anywhere.

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Montreal faces more COVID-19 cases than any other city in Canada

Guests: Aaron Derfel, Dale Langille, Erin Strumpf

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

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MG: Still to come, the global threat of COVID-19 may only truly subside once there's actually a vaccine against this virus and that has some people who oppose vaccines rethinking their beliefs. We'll take a look at whether this pandemic is giving the anti-vaxxer movement an identity crisis. But first, what's happening in Montreal? That city's battle against COVID.

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VOICE: When I worked in this one particular place and I don't want to say where, but when I did work there, every night that I came home, I cried because I cried from the elderly people being in a desperate situation, but I also cried looking at I've seen nurses cry because they're all alone on a floor where there are 12, 13, 15 elderly people that need a lot of attention. I've seen just people, you know, when you look at someone in their eyes and they're just like, help me? I've seen it in both the patients and the people that are working.

MG: That's Montreal's Nancy Falaise is describing her experience cleaning rooms at a long-term care home in that city. She took the job to make ends meet while her hair salon is shut down. She's now in quarantine herself after showing symptoms of COVID-19 and her experiences right in line with the reality in Montreal now, one of the cities hardest hit by the coronavirus in this country. It has more than 11,000 cases of COVID-19 and the island of Montreal alone has more cases than every province apart from Ontario. Long term care facilities are being ravaged while hospitals are trying to contain their own outbreaks. Emergency rooms are full. Staffing is running short. Aaron Derfel is the Montreal Gazette's health reporter. Aaron, good morning.

AARON DERFEL: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What does it look like in hospitals in your city right now?

AARON DERFEL: Well, that's a great question, because initially and it's still the case that the pandemic has been concentrated in the nursing homes, but we're beginning to see evidence that it is spreading to acute care hospitals. So there are 8 hospitals that have been hit with outbreaks in the city, 8 out of 17 in Montreal. And one hospital saw more than two dozen patients have been infected. Some some of them are cancer patients. Others are dialysis patients. This is a hospital and so it's pretty serious at the hospital. They've had to outsource their geriatrics and orthopedics because they're overwhelmed. They're testing all the staff and all the patients.

MG: You have been writing about what's been going on in those hospitals. What stories are you hearing from the nurses and doctors who are right there on the front lines?

AARON DERFEL: Well, if you know, the concern is that, you know, that they're being conscripted to work in the long term care centres for periods of two weeks. So the concern is that if there is, they're not adequately protected and some aren't. And even if they are, there's always a risk that they can contract, cosied and then come back to the to their hospitals and then spread the virus in a hospital setting. There are people who are unnecessarily. They're not. They might be speech therapists. They might be physiotherapists. And they don't feel that they're being properly trained. They're being given perhaps two hours of training to work in these long term care centres. There's a lot of fear and panic.

MG: They have to do that because of the situation in those long term care homes. What's the latest on what's happening in in those homes?

AARON DERFEL: Yes. So this is really the issue in the long-term care homes is spoken to the public consciousness across the country after that report that you heard, there was a mass desertion where a lot of the staff just left. And and in Quebec, a few days ago, the premier said there were 9600 health workers missing from the system. So in this context, they have no choice but to conscript the, you know, the acute care workers in hospitals and in other facilities. And I know, for example, that the director of the University Health Centre in Montreal, he visited one of these long-term care centres and to his surprise, he found that there was only one original worker left. So in that context, why the premier has called on Ottawa to send a thousand soldiers. This is in addition to I think there are 125 medics who had come. So it is truly dire.

MG: Is there a sense, I mean, from your reporting as to why this is happening in Montreal? What's going on in that city that has led to it being an epicentre?

AARON DERFEL: There are various factors. There's a you know, our spring break is two weeks earlier. Our spring break ends two weeks, our March break ends two weeks earlier than other provinces. So and there were many cases in France. People returning from France. There's a strong connection between Montreal and New York. And as you know, New York is the epicentre. So that's probably the easiest, simplest explanation. There are other reasons. As you know, the health authorities were not asking people returning from Italy or all of China to self-isolate for 14 days and the tests for 14 days. So, you know, that lack of screening might have introduced extra cases into the city. That's the best, probably as best as I could figure out.

MG: In the midst of that and as these crises and it's not just one but yours you're talking about in hospitals and long term care as they continue. The premier from while ago is talking about opening the province back up and there will be a plan or further details of that plan to be unveiled in the hours to come. As you understand it, what is that plan?

AARON DERFEL: Well, the premier at his daily briefings, he's using the word repeatedly this will be done gradually. You know, if one of them, able to gather from from listening in on the hearings every day is he's going to do it probably outside the island of Montreal, first in areas where, you know, the instance of COVID-19 is very low and either might be stalling or dropping and doing it at the same time in various types of industries where you can maintain social distancing. So I believe he mentioned that the restaurant industry would be among the last to reopen. And as far as schools, again, this is something that he said if parents to do not want to send their children to schools, it's their choice. But I sensed last week, he was he wanted to reopen schools. This is very controversial, as is this theory, you know, this approach, the strategy he's floated, which is herd immunity, which is, you know, trying to allow people in community to younger people perhaps contracting COVID developing enough immunity. If the population is 70, 60, 70, 80 percent of the population becomes immune, you could stop the pandemic in its tracks, but it's a controversial strategy because it requires a lot of testing and testing in Quebec in recent days has gone down a little bit.

MG: Just before I let you go, the premier was very popular in Quebec before this pandemic appeared and has been receiving a lot of praise for how open and empathetic he has been in his communication at least early on. Is that continuing? Is that praise still coming his way?

AARON DERFEL: You're absolutely right. At the beginning, there was a lot of praise, but I think after the tragedy at the Herron, it would be stretching it to say that public opinion has turned against him. It's more like the news media as well as members of the public have begun to be more critical of his approach. At one point, the chief public health officer said that, you know, it's working. We're flattening the curve, we're flattening curve. Well, that was not in retrospect, that was not true. So as a result, you know, people are beginning to question the government's strategy and people are noting that, for example, British Columbia has done much better. British Columbia, as you recall, had the first outbreak in the country in the Lynn Valley care centre, the first coronavirus death. British Columbia appeared to have attacked the problem in the long-term care centres in a much more focused way. And British Columbia has much better as some of the other provinces. So people are more critical than they have been. They're still supportive, but I think the shift is critical as well.

MG: Aaron, good to speak with you. Take care. Thank you.

AARON DERFEL: Pleasure.

MG: Aaron Derfel is the Montreal Gazette's health reporter. Hospitals in Montreal, as Aaron said, like many other hospitals across this country, are filling up and they are short staffed. Dale Langille left his job as a financial adviser when the pandemic started. Traded in his shirt and tie for scrubs and a mask and is now a practical nurse treating patients in Montreal. Dale, good morning to you.

DALE LANGILLE: Good morning.

MG: Why did you make that decision to go back to nursing? You really working in the financial sector?

DALE LANGILLE: Yeah. Well, honestly, I was sitting at home and my wife had sent me a link for the Quebec government asking for people to offer their assistance. They were looking for ex-health care workers to come back into the system. I wasn't sure if it was such a good idea to do, but I thought about it for a little while and my family supported me. So I said I should go back to work and help it where I can.

MG: That's an amazing gesture and an incredibly generous thing to do. Tell us where you've ended up and what it's like working in a hospital right now in a city that is in many ways an epicentre of this pandemic in this country?

DALE LANGILLE: Well, I did start off training in a hospital and did a couple of days on an actual COVID-19 floor, which was quite intense. And then once the focus shifted from the hospitals to the long term care centres, I got transferred to one centre. And after a couple of days there, they transferred me to another centre that needed even more help. So, yeah and that centrein the island of Montreal. It has been hit hard by the COVID since the beginning. So yeah, that's where I'm at now.

MG: And what is it like? I mean, how are you holding up in the midst of all of that? It sounds as though you're being like it's almost like being a firefighter moved from one hotspot to another to another.

DALE LANGILLE: Yeah, it's a little bit difficult, especially since, you know, coming back to the profession. So, you know, my skills aren't up to up to par where they should be for doing this. I mean, things are fine and there is some support in place. The nurses are great and the preposes great also, but yeah, it's a little bit tough to jump around when you're not used to something.

MG: What's the most difficult part of what you're doing right now?

DALE LANGILLE: The most difficult part really is dealing with the day to day changes. You're not always working with the same staff because as you heard, there's a lot of regular staff that aren't coming to work. So in our centre we have some of the Army guys and the girls that are there, which they're amazing. They're a great help. You point to my direction and tell them what to do and they get it done. No complaints. And they're polite. They're courteous. They're great with the with the residents. But when you don't know who you're working with every day and I'm working on a mental health flaw. So you're not just dealing with elderly, you're dealing with a whole range of issues and different problems. So that's probably the hardest thing right now.

MG: What does that mean in terms of the care you can offer to patients? When things are changing that much and you don't know, to your point who you're going to be working with day in and day out?

DALE LANGILLE: Yeah. So for me personally, it doesn't really change very much because my role is pretty autonomous. I, you know pass out the medications and check on the welfare, vital signs, these kind of things. So it's a routine that you establish. But the biggest issue is really with the PBS, the orderlies, because they're used to being safe for on the floor. Then one day they're three on the floor. The next day they're two on the floor. So the the time that it takes them to help the residents get up in the morning, get washed, get their breakfast is I mean, they make the breakfast as they serve. The breakfast is they clean the patients, they wash them. They're doing the bedding. So the timing is off for everybody.

MG: How has that affected morale of the health workers? How would you describe how people are feeling?

DALE LANGILLE: You know, you have your regular staff that's there all the time and and they're just burnt. You see it, you know, on any given day, there's one or two or three or four or ten that are calling in sick just because they need a break.

MG: Do you understand that? Do you understand why they're calling in sick?

DALE LANGILLE: You know, it's difficult. Everybody's different. For the people who do this every single day, the changes that they're going through now and the extra time that it takes to do the work and the extra controls that are placed on the system and the you know, the forced overtimes because of lack of staff is really hard on them. I totally understand it. At the same time, you know, you signed up for a profession where you're supposed to be there in the most drastic times. So, you know, we kind of got to pull up our bootstraps and get to work.

MG: What do you want to see from the government to try to address the situation you're describing? It doesn't sound like, I mean, if this continues, it doesn't sound like it's a situation that can be tenable that the strain that's on those workers is not something that that can be sustained.

DALE LANGILLE: Yeah, exactly. You know, what the COVID has done is it's really just highlighted the issues that were there before. The preposes, I worked in both the private and public sector when I was nursing years ago. And both cases, even in the public sector where they're paid better, the preposes are always the bottom of the barrel and never treated properly by administration. And this is really coming to late. Now you're asking them to basically put their lives and their families lives on risk for, you know, the worst pay in the building. So this has to change. I know Premier Legault is talking about making sure that the pay equity comes up for them in early and I hope he follows through, but that's not going to affect the private sector, right? He can only affect the public sector. And the private sector I was working with preposes who were doing the same job for, you know, $13 an hour or less when they start. And it's just not, it's just not feasible.

MG: It's a really important insight into what you're seeing right now, but I'll start or I'll finish with where I started, which is thank you for the work that you're doing. You didn't need to do this, but you answered that call and changed your career and there you are. Dale, thank you and stay well.

DALE LANGILLE: Thank you.

MG: Dale Langille is a practical nurse working in Montreal, was working in the financial sector when this pandemic started. Left that job and is now working, as you heard, in hospitals and in long term care facilities in that city. Studying how the virus is hitting Montreal can help cities across this country. Health economist Erin Strumpf is an associate professor of economics and of epidemiology at McGill University. Erin, good morning to you.

ERIN STRUMPF: Good morning.

MG: What's going on in Montreal? Why is it that that city has more COVID-19 cases than, as I said, every province in this country except Ontario?

ERIN STRUMPF: Yes, I think I would point to the point that Aaron made earlier about the timing of our spring break, which I think made a big difference here. Also, again, very connected to, you know, Italy, France, Florida, New York, you know, places that have very high end epidemics. And we're we're connected and travelling to those places and coming home. Last point I would make is that, you know, we are testing more and in Quebec than in in Ontario for sure. So if you compare the GTA and Toronto has about 28 percent fewer cases than Montreal does, but Ontario is also testing at a almost 40 percent lower rate than Quebec at the moment. So all those things combined.

MG: So Is part of this just about the Quebec knows more about what's happening? I mean, maybe, you know, it's getting a bad rep by doing a good thing in terms of the number of tests that are being done out there.

ERIN STRUMPF: Yeah. There in turn, when you look at a number of cases, that testing is certainly part of that story. You know, the other big part of the story, right, is the number of deaths and the number of deaths that are happening in Long-Term Care Homes. So that's not just, you know, we're looking too much more clearly, perhaps the jurisdiction in Canada that's facing the brunt of the infection at the moment and the brunt of the impact on the health care system. And I think there is good news and bad news stories there. I mean, we did put a lot of focus on preparing our hospitals and our icy use for what we expected to be was a wave of people that we've didn't quite materialize, in part because of the social distancing. And up to this point, the hospitals have been doing a reasonably good job at managing the cases. So I think the rest of the country can can think about looking to what health care institutions in Montreal did. Right. What the innovations were, how staff, you know, figured out new ways of organising and doing things potentially to learn for that second wave. At the same time, we're seeing that that focus on the acute care hospitals led to this kind of blind spot in thinking about long term care homes in particular, you know, potentially homeless, prison populations, other places where people, vulnerable, people are living together. So I think we're gonna have to learn as a country about what we know Montreal did right or wrong in that context as well.

MG: In the meantime, you hear Dale Langille about what life is like as a practical nurse. And I mean it again, it doesn't sound, the situation that he's describing does not sound sustainable.

ERIN STRUMPF: Yeah. Again, I think that the situation in the long term care homes is certainly different, more acute than hospitals. And it'll be very interesting to see if we can think about, you know, innovations in the way we staff, in the way health care, human resources are organised. I mean, obviously, low pay that needs to be remedied. But this idea of just having too few staff to deal with the situation. People getting burnt out, people not, you know, whether they're actively infected or not feeling well, whatever it is, you know, the reasons that people aren't showing up to work, all of that needs to be looked at. And we need a critical eye on why weren't, you know, putting our our vulnerable elders in these situations where the staff and resources, the PPE, all of those things are are not in place. That has to change and the hope is that this kind of crisis will help us get there.

MG: Is there anything that the province could do now that it isn't doing when it comes to addressing the outbreak in your city?

ERIN STRUMPF: Yeah. So while we're testing more than many other provinces, there's, I think, concern as we're starting to think about reopening schools and certain sectors of the economy that we're still not really test. Doing enough to manage that in a proactive and real time sort of way. So I think that in the next steps, as we hear more this week about the government's plan to reopen that sort of increase in testing and tracking case tracking, contact tracing is going to be very, very important to manage going forward and not see ourselves in a bad situation again in a few weeks.

MG: Well, in the meantime, the premier has talked about reopening parts of the economy, including schools. How and I ask you this, as you know, somebody who works in the Department of Epidemiology, how do you start to think about that if the crisis is still raging within, in particular, long term care homes?

ERIN STRUMPF: Yeah. So, I mean, part of it is this idea that we let younger people back out, so to speak, interacting in schools and in the workplace, but still needing to do a lot to protect older people and more vulnerable individuals. You know, not everybody gets to go back out and interact. So, again, how we think about taking care of those people who remain inside and isolated is going to be really important.

MG: Can you do that? I mean, it seems as though I mean and I get that he's talking about targeted reopening, but is it possible to even start to think about that reopening if Montreal is still at that phase?

ERIN STRUMPF: Well, again, we've we've sort of plateaued at a relatively high number of new cases every day, but it has plateaued over the last several weeks. So the reasoning is that we have the situation under control, with the exception, let's say, of all of the long term care facilities. We're able to to manage reasonably well at this level. And the point is to try to get people back out who if they do contract the disease, they don't have serious symptoms and may or may not even need to access any health care services.

MG: This idea of herd immunity is something else that's part of that and that's been very controversial and it's been raised. Is that a non-starter or is it something worth exploring?

ERIN STRUMPF: Well, my own opinion is not that we start thinking about herd immunity, how do we get 70 or 80 percent of the population to have been infected? We're far from that and it's a big ask. But I think making decisions about when and how and where to reopen, taking into account both minimising the health risks and maximizing the potential economic returns, that sort of striking that balance. Right? So that means getting the people back out who are more robust, more able to deal with an infection better, but it also means opening in places where you can maintain physical distance and where people can wash their hands and where those adjustments are able to be made. So it'll be a big challenge and nothing like nothing we've ever tried to do before.

MG: Which feels like the story of this pandemic in many ways, like nothing we've ever had to do before. Erin, thank you.

ERIN STRUMPF: Thank you.

MG: Erin Strumpf is an associate professor in the Department of Economics and the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University. Coming up in about 90 seconds time, we'll speak about the threat of this pandemic, the quest for a vaccine and what it means for those people who don't trust vaccines. Some are wavering in their resolve, others more hesitant than ever. And when a vaccine to many people is the only way that will truly get out of this situation, where does that leave us? I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in 90 seconds.

[Music]

North Korea stays quiet amidst Kim Jong-un disapperance

Guests: Tom Power, Jewel

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come on the program, schools are shut and so learning math at home can come with some challenges. Are you struggling? We're going to get some tutoring from one of the best mathematician and author, John Mighton. He's on his way. But first, has anyone seen the leader of North Korea?

[Music: Theme]

MG: In non-COVID-19 news, one of the biggest questions facing the world right now is where is the leader of North Korea? Kim Jong-un hasn't been seen in public for weeks, leading to all sorts of speculation about his health. And reporters asked the U.S. president, Donald Trump, about this last week.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: So you haven't made any contact though, just to make sure?

VOICE 2: With who?

VOICE 1: The North Koreans.

VOICE 2: I don't want to say. I won't say that. We have a good relationship with North Korea, as good as you can have. I mean, we have a good relationship with North Korea. I have a good relationship with Kim Jong-un. And I hope he's OK. As somebody, oh, that's terrible. No, it's not terrible. I hope he's OK. And I think it was a fake report.

MG: Is it a fake report? Sung-Yoon Lee is a professor of Korean studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. Professor, good morning.

SUNG-YOON LEE: Thank you for having me.

MG: What exactly do we know about Kim Jong-un's whereabouts and well-being right now?

SUNG-YOON LEE: Well, we don't know exactly where he is, what kind of condition it is at this moment. What we do know is the North Korean tyrant, the current one, his predecessors. They have been known to stay out of public view for days and weeks on occasion and then pop up again. So it may very well be that Kim Jong-un is doing just fine, but there are some clues that are somewhat unusual. For example, April 15th, the day of the birthday of the founder and grandfather of the North Korean state, the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong-un, for the first time since inheriting power more than eight years ago, skipped that commemorative occasion, which is unusual. And there have been rumours swirling around that he is unwell. He's had heart surgery, which didn't go very well. And we do know for a fact that he is not very healthy. He is apparently obese. He has been seen and heard huffing, panting, breathing hard at his summit meetings with the South Korean leader, with Putin last year with Donald Trump after walking a short distance of about a hundred meters. So we know him to be a hard drinking, chain smoking diabetic with a history of heart disease in his family. Both his father and grandfather died of cardiac arrest. So it is plausible that he's not healthy at this moment.

MG: But to your point, we don't actually know and that in part is, is there a political design behind that for the North Koreans to not be transparent about his health?

SUNG-YOON LEE: Well, North Korea, when it comes to North Korea, it's really an information black hole. North Korea has done a great job in blocking information into its own country, as well as blocking information from spilling out of this out of their country as well. So it's it's sort of a guest game. And when the founder died in 1994, no one outside North Korea and very few inside North Korea knew of it until the state officially announced it two days later, saying with Kim Jong il, the father, when he died on December 17th, 2011, no one, the CIA or any intelligence agency agency had a clue until North Korea announced it some 50 days, 50 hours after the death itself. So we'll just have to wait and see. But even in thinking about the possibility, the implications of a post, Kim Jong un's future is not unwarranted. Because death will have his day. And Kim is the leading candidate when it comes to heads of state for a premature exit from the political stage. What happens next?

MG: What happens next? Who would take over?

SUNG-YOON LEE: Well, the only credible, available, viable heir apparent is the sister. And this is because the entire fake ideological foundation of this state is based on this purported supernatural quazi divine nature of the family, of the royal family. And Kim Jong-un has an older brother who has no acumen, interest in politics. And then there's the sister who has been for the past four years, at least physically, the number two person in the North Korean hierarchy.

MG: Who is she? Kim Yo-jong. Who is she?

SUNG-YOON LEE: Well, she's in her early 30s. She with her brother, studied in Switzerland when she was a girl. She is the head of the Department of Propaganda and Agitation, which is a key institution. And recently, she has been appointed the head of the Department of organisation and Guidance. That's the control tower, the central locus of power, which makes all the key personnel decisions related to the party, the military, the bureaucracy. And she has elevated her stature in recent weeks. In March, for example, for the first time under her own name, she issued a statement slamming the South Korean president, calling him a scared dog, an idiot. And then later in the month, she issued another statement snubbing Trump, telling the world that Donald Trump had sent a cordial letter to her brother, offering aid if necessary, with respect to containing the crew and the virus situation and they said, no, thank you, we're going to go our own way. So that suggests that her position within the North Korean political structure is unsailable. She is the number two person.

MG: It's a small country. It's a country that is incredibly poor, has nuclear weapons, which doesn't mean it changes the equation in many different ways. What would the change in leadership mean in that country for the rest of the world, do you think?

SUNG-YOON LEE: Well, in the short term, it might even be good news for Kim Jong-un, because as Shakespeare's Cassius says, observing the fall of Caesar, he that cuts of 20 years of life cuts off 20 years of fearing death. So Kim Jong-un can take some comfort in the recipe of not having to be paranoid about assassination. For Kim Yo-jong, she certainly would not be appointed, would not have been appointed the leader hasn't brought it in, you know, around. So it will change things. She is a woman. She brings a softer, feminine image to the very terrible, brutal reality that is the North Korean totalitarian state that gives her a strategic advantage, especially in North Korea's post provocation or post provocation diplomacy. North Korea goes through cycles of relentless threats and provocation and then dramatically changes the tune and comes out beaming smiles and says, let's talk and everyone takes the bait because nobody wants to escalate in North Korea.

MG: We think that just because she's a woman, she would be a different image, a different leader? You really believe her?

SUNG-YOON LEE: Well, when Kim Jong-un, you know, inherited the throne in 2011, many people were sceptical that this 27-year-old inexperienced young man would be able to keep things together. Many pontificated that by virtue solely of having lived in Switzerland, then having been exposed to European cosmopolitanism, that he would be a reformer. We have this natural tendency to patronize North Korea and apply our own understanding, our own help low on a system that is very different. She will have to be ruthless. She may very well prove to be more tyrannical than her brother or their father or grandfather, because regime preservation in such a brutal totalitarian system demands it, demands ruthlessness.

MG: We will wait and see and presumably you'll be watching very closely as well for some indication as to what exactly is going on in that what people often call the Hermit Kingdom. Sung-Yoon Lee, good to speak with you. Thank you.

SUNG-YOON LEE: Thank you.

MG: Sung-Yoon Lee is a professor of Korean studies with the Kim Koo Korea Foundation at Tufts University in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Math teaching timps from JUMP Math founder John Mighton

Guests: John Mighton

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of child during a math lesson]

MG: That's eight-year-old Evan Simpson in North Vancouver, and as luck would have it, Evan's grandma is a retired teacher in Kamloops and she is doing daily face time maths lessons with Evan and his twin brother, Drew.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of child learning math]

MG: That's confusing. I understand it, Evan. No worries. Drew, maybe not such a big fan of these daily kitchen table lessons now.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of child's dislike for math]

MG: Roadblocks is super popular kids gaming app. Grandma clearly has some tough competition in terms of the homeschooling and the maths lessons. For those of you who don't have a teacher grandma on hand and you're struggling maybe to homeschool your kids through this pandemic, help is on the way. John Mighton believes that everyone can be good at maths and that it can even be fun. You might want to tell that to Drew. John Mighton is the founder of JUMP Math. It's a Toronto based charitable organization. It promotes maths literacy. And if you have kids at home, you may want to get them a piece of paper and a pencil and crank up the radio because in a minute you'll be able to play along as John leads some other kids in a lesson about number patterns. In the meantime, John Mighton, good morning.

JOHN MIGHTON: Good morning.

MG: What sort of things have you been hearing from parents in the midst of this pandemic?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, it's very hard for parents to teach their own kids. And I think they're also beginning to really deeply appreciate the role that teachers play and can appreciate teachers much more.

MG: Why is it so difficult? We're going to hear a lesson in a moment. Why is it so difficult for parents to teach kids maths? If parents learned it way back when and they might think, well, I have some grounding in mathematics, why is it so difficult to transfer that to to the kids?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, there to begin with, there's some principles of teaching that are based on cognitive science that are easy to apply, and that could make parents' lives less frustrating, their interactions more positive, but most people don't know both those principles.

MG: And so that leads the parents to not have that foundation even to start the teaching?

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah, I mean, I could give you an example of a parent hands their child a ruler and says measure something, that sounds like a simple request. But, you know, there are vertical lines on the ruler that mark 0 1 2. And when kids measure, they should be counting the distance between the lines of the space. But studies have shown that young kids naturally count or tend to count the lines themselves. And so they get the wrong answer or they don't line up the object correctly. And so one principle of good teaching is just make sure your student or your child has the background knowledge they need to understand what you're saying or do what you're asking. And you can assess that with some simple questions. You can take them back to where they need to start. And if you don't do that, really, it's your fault, not your child's fault if they don't understand what you're saying or can't do what you're asking them.

MG: It's something worth remembering if parents are getting frustrated as as the lesson unfolds. We're going to play a little bit of a lesson that you gave over video chat last week. Tell me about the kids that you were speaking with.

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, they're kids that I've never taught before in grade five, and they live in my building, so I asked the parents of they'd like to try a lesson.

MG: And you decided to do this, why?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, I've never taught by before. It was an interesting experience. I learned a lot from it.

MG: Let's have a listen. If you're home, we should mention and you have a pencil and paper, you can play along. Right?

SOUNDCLIP

[John Mighton's math lesson with children over video chat]

MG: That's John Mighton speaking with Max and Isabella, both grade 5 students. What was that like for you, John, doing the Zoom lesson for the first time?

JOHN MIGHTON: It was interesting. I violated a lot of the principles that you know, I talked about. I went too fast sometimes, but I was amazed with the kids there, they really stuck with it. And we got into some really interesting problems, some applications of maths quite quickly. And afterwards they said it was quite fun, so that was nice.

MG: You said and you talked about this before, but you said that it's your fault if the kids aren't getting it. Why is it important that parents acknowledge?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well because, you know, research in cognitive science shows that novice learners really need things broken into more manageable chunks. We have very poor working memories. We can only handle so much new information that time and a lot of learners spend their time, even adults in the state of cognitive overload. We we need time to consolidate concepts and practise. We need guidance in seeing things. And that doesn't mean it has to be rote learning or speaking spoon feeding. Like when you guide people, they can get very excited about making discoveries. But but we sometimes overestimate learners or underestimate how hard things can be when you see them for the first time.

MG: That was a lesson in learning patterns. What is the value in learning about patterns in mathematics?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well later in the lesson, I ask the kids to draw two dots, join them with a line and three dots join them with lines. Four dots with all the connect, all the dots. And they counted the number of edges and they saw a pattern. And you know, it starts to dodge has one line, three does three lines, four dots have six lines and so on. And they saw the gap between the numbers was going up by one every time. And so then they were able to predict four fifteen dots when they discovered that pattern coming dots. They would need. And then we talked about if those dots were cities and the lines were airline routes, you know, if they wanted if they've got 20 cities, that would take them forever to draw the picture. But once they've discovered the pattern, they can quickly figure out how many how many routes there would be. And they can do all kinds of other things, like calculate how much fuel would be needed to do the average length for older students. So so within one less than you can get even very young kids thing. Not only does it's fun to discover these things, but the power of the applications of mathematics.

MG: Those are two different things. One is the fun piece. And you heard that even in that little clip with Max and Isabella that they got excited when they were able to figure things out. Why is it important to show how fun math can be?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well you know, I think people don't have enough respect to science now. We know that science makes our lives more comfortable, but most people have forgotten that science helps us stay alive. In the 1800s our life expectancy was only 40 years and we've seen with the present crisis how vulnerable we are. And you know nature doesn't care much about humans and the only way we can survive and thrive is if we understand nature and listen to scientists rather than politicians. We have other crises like global warming, and if we don't sort of let go some of our arrogance and greed will be in very serious trouble and mathematical thinking is the basis really for all rational thinking and evidence based thinking.

MG: Is it easy to explain that to people? The last time you were on this program, the response that we got was overwhelming. People were so excited by how you talked about maths and how you were able to get people, including myself, excited about something that they might have thought was overwhelming or thought that it was difficult when you were able to do that. What happens when you're able to unlock that sense of excitement?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, it's just magical, especially when you do it in a group, when everyone can experience success together and experience discoveries together or problem solve together. And people who struggle with maths once they think they're smart in maths are capable of maths that can change the way they think of themselves in general. It can make them much better problem solvers, faster learners and so on.

MG: What advice, then, would you have for parents who now find themselves in this new reality with their at home? They're juggling a million different things, one of which is home schooling. And they're not teachers and they're thrust into a new role. And as you said, have new admiration and respect for the teachers, but they have a role to play in this as well. So what advice would you give parents who want to help their kids learn some math at home?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, you can make maths discussions part of everyday life, whether you're measuring cooking, you can talk numbers and but also games are a fantastic way to learn. So for young kids, things like snakes and ladders, anything that involves ordered on a line monopoly for older kids. I'll give an example of the game in our teachers. The resources you make a grid with squares five by five and then put along the bottom layers A, B, C, D and alongside one, two, three, four, five. And you say I've hidden some treasure somewhere on that map and the child has to give you a co-ordinate and then you tell them how far away guesses from the actual square. And they learn not only how to use the co-ordinate system, but they learn systematic thinking, strategy and so on. So it's a version of Battleship for younger kids. And so through games like that, kids can effortlessly learn some of these concepts without really knowing that they're they're being taught. And if you apply the principle of teaching, which are don't over load kids teach through questions that the child should be doing and thinking not, you know, make sure you assess the background knowledge if you use those principles in your teaching that make the games much more, much more fun and interesting too.

MG: What about for parents who feel like maybe they aren't very good at maths themselves? We have and we've talked about this before, this math phobia. That we would never, you know, celebrate in some ways if it was about literacy, we wouldn't say, oh, I'm not very good at reading, but we'll say that when it comes to math. If there are parents who feel overwhelmed or intimidated by this, what can they do in this new role that they're in?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, because we're a charity, we've made a lot of resources during this crisis available for free or they were available for free before that on our website. So in our Twitter feed, we're constantly sending in those activities and games. Parents can do our resources that are the parents can understand. We have essential sample packs of the lessons from the last half of the year that have student materials and teachers guide lessons. Some people think just that's just the kind of non-consensual work program. But the lesson plans themselves are the most important part. They show teachers how to teach them through deeply through questions, your problem solving. Some adventurous parents have taught themselves a bit of maths by reading them. You could read the introduction to our Teachers Guide, which has teaching tips and mental maths exercises. But I wouldn't want to get too frustrated that the lessons are fairly deep and detailed, and they're mainly written for four teachers, but they can dip into into our resources and and definitely check out all the resources that we're posting every day.

MG: Just before I let you go, there are some parents who are very concerned that not being in the classroom is going to leave their kids behind at some point in time, that they're going to fall, you know, into a maths ditch because of this extended break from school. Should those parents be worried?

JOHN MIGHTON: It is somewhat worrisome because, you know, once kids are falling behind, they can lose their confidence. And so that's why we posted the essential lessons and that's why I recommend parents play games involving numbers and make not really fun. And part of their life that I think teachers are also going to step up to the plate and I think the school system will adapt and try and make sure that those gaps are filled.

MG: You still believe that anyone can learn math?

JOHN MIGHTON: Yes, I do. I mean unless they have exceptional challenges, and I've seen it with thousands of people of all ages. And the research in cognitive science really says if you look into it, that at every level maths is accessible to every brain. It's just we make it difficult and threatening because we don't follow those principles of teaching that I talked about. And we don't follow research. We don't look at the research on how people learn and embed that into the way we talk to kids, into the way we interact with them, we teach them at school.

MG: The enthusiam that you have is is really powerful. We've seen that before and we'll send people to the website to get some of those resources. John, thank you very much.

JOHN MIGHTON: Thanks so much.

MG: John Mighto, creator of JUMP Math. We'll post a link to some of those teaching resources on our website. Go to cbc.ca/thecurrent. And while you're there, let us know what you're doing to homeschool your kids during quarantine. It's a tricky thing to be thrust into. Coming up in 90 seconds, we'll talk about antibody tests. Could be what helps get us back to normal. Lots of questions around them. Stay tuned. I'm Matt Galloway. This is an extended edition of The Current.

[Music]

Public health ethicist cautions that antibody testing could lead to unintended consequences

Guests: Aenor Sawyer, Michael Silverman, Alison Thompson

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Testing to find out who has the virus has been a critical tool in this fight against COVID-19 thus far. But as we look to reopen our society, a different kind of test may be just as important, a test to figure out who has had the virus. The hope is that serology testing or antibody tests will show who has the antibodies to the virus and then might be immune to getting it again. This testing is still in its very early stages, but in the village of Bolinas, in California, they're at the forefront of this research. The entire population of that village, about 1600 people has just been given antibody tests. Dr. Aenor Sawyer is the is the University of California, San Francisco orthopedist. She lives in that town, has been volunteering her time for the study. Doctor, good morning.

AENOR SAWYER: Good morning.

MG: How is it possible that everyone in this community has been tested so far?

AENOR SAWYER: Well, we made a strong effort to do a community wide survey, and we wanted to include to test the PCR swab test to see if viral infection was present in individual and also the antibody test, which was a serology or a small amount of blood collected for that test.

MG: And so how do you go about doing this? This is done as a drive through or something.

AENOR SAWYER: Yes, we we did a drive sort of testing site, but across four days and we did really boots on the ground recruitment. So we had announcements in our local newspapers called the Heresay News. We put out flyers. We did walking through town and walking through all the rural dirt roads that we have around town. We've tried to reach everyone and we have a wide socioeconomic diversity in our town. We have people who have homes and no homes and live in their cars or otherwise. And so we really made a big effort to reach everyone, take down the barriers such as information, language, mobility. Anyone who wanted to have a test, we wanted them to be tested. We even included a test day after the four day drive through so that we could reach out and test people who were unable to leave their homes for whatever reason. Usually physical reasons were homebound. So we reached out and tried to make it available to everyone. We set it up as a drive through because that's really the safest in terms of exposure and the most efficient in terms of flow. But we also accommodated walk up or bike up or skateboard up, which we had all of, so we wanted to make sure no one was left out.

MG: Tell me a little bit about why you wanted to do this. We've been hearing about the science when it comes to antibody testing and the belief that this could be a key step to reopening our society. What was the motivation, as you understand it?

AENOR SAWYER: Well, the motivation really is that the experts have been calling for community wide testing as the only safe way through this epidemic to understand the footprint of how this virus exists or moves or is transmitted through the community. We're seeing and understanding by testing people who come, become very ill, go to the hospital. And sadly, many of them die. We're understanding it at its most extremes, but we're not understanding how it moves through a community, particularly because we know now that people can be asymptomatic, have no symptoms and yet still be infected and be infectious or transmit the disease. So to understand the movement of this virus, we need to have community wide testing. So the experts are calling for it, but our governments weren't stepping up with funding or infrastructure very quickly. And so what we were trying to do is fill a gap and really start the community testing in our region by filling that gap, by grassroots organizing and partnering with an academic medical centre to add the rigour and the making sure that the data could could be used in the most meaningful way possible. And I think what's happening now is we are starting to see the government stepping in. The State of California has been quite proactive with our governor stepping up on many fronts and now we're working hard with the county and the state to reproduce this model, so we can have a ripple effect across counties.

MG: Do we know yet definitively whether having the antibodies means that a person is protected or immune from getting COVID-19 again?

AENOR SAWYER: We don't. The importance for us for adding the antibody test was that we really feel like without doing more and more of the tests, we aren't going to understand what is the best in class or the best tests, but only a few have actually gone through the FDA process. There are over 100 tests out there that are being sold and use that didn't go through the FDA route. So validating the test is really important. That means actually doing the tests on a lot of people. All. So we need what does it mean if you have a positive antibody test, which antibody is it? What phase is that antibody rise in in terms of the post illness window? And then also, what does that mean in terms of immunity? The W.H.O. even is as recent as Friday, said there isn't evidence that that positive antibody confers immunity and if it does, there's no indication of how long you would you would benefit from that. So we have a lot to learn. But the only way we can get to that is by doing the testing and then watching the pattern of of illness or wellness after that.

MG: When you get results, will the individuals get their own results from the tests or are you just looking at the big picture here?

AENOR SAWYER: The individuals who will get their own results for both the PCR viral infection test and the antibody test. They will get them securely privately. And then we will also be putting out in aggregate in a de-identified way the the overall picture, as I say, the footprint of the coronavirus in our community. And it's important to understand that because we have taken to heart the measures, the public health advisory measures and have implemented them well in this community. So it'll give an indication of whether that's working well. We're also rural and off the beaten path. So there's an opportunity to understand what our exposures are and how they may have affected us. Anyone who has a positive PCR test will then that gets reported to the county. They'll get a personal phone call from UCSF as well as from the county, and then they'll be guided as to quarantine Isolation and contact tracing will follow, which is a key piece of understanding the movement of the virus and that will be implemented by Marin County.

MG: Just briefly, is this initiative, this grassroots effort where you have volunteers, people who are raising money to fund this testing, is this something that you think other cities across your country, here in Canada should be looking to follow?

AENOR SAWYER: I think it is, although I would say that it's a model, the seed funding. We were fortunate to have a couple of individuals who are able to jumpstart this with some seed funding. And then we did grassroots funding on top of that, which most of our donations came in between $10, five or ten dollars all the way up to six hundred. That's the bulk of our funding. But we did get a little bit of seed funding to get it going from some nice donors. That is because they were filling a gap the government wasn't funding. So we do need the government to step up, allocate resources and provide infrastructure so that you're not re-creating the model over and over and over. And I see our the county of Marín is absolutely embracing that. And in fact, pivoting now to underserved communities, testing sites and also, we just had long calls yesterday about adding wall-to-wall testing in congregate aging living centres or what we call nursing homes in some parts of the country.

MG: Really interesting to hear what you're doing in your community, Doctor. Thank you.

AENOR SAWYER: Absolutely. If we can help in any way, please reach out. I think I've looked at thee stats for Canada and so far it seems like you're working very hard to contain this and we're all very, very optimistic there'll be a vaccine and some solid therapeutics coming.

MG: Doctor, thank you.

AENOR SAWYER: Thank you.

MG: Dr. Aenor Sawyer is an orthopedist at the University of California, San Francisco, talking about that grassroots effort that they're doing in her community when it comes to antibody testing. In this country, health officials are taking a slower wait and see approach to antibody tests than in some other parts of the world. Dr. Michael Silverman is an infectious disease specialist at London Health Sciences Centre in London, Ontario, also works with St. Joseph's Hospital in London. He's part of the team that's about to start antibody tests on local health care workers in that city. Doctor, good morning to you.

MICHAEL SILVERMAN: Good morning.

MG: When you hear what's happening in Bolinas, California, is that something you'd like to see in your city? The entire population tested for COVID-19 antibodies?

MICHAEL SILVERMAN: We would like to see this done. The important thing is that things are done properly so that the importance of doing antibody testing is clear. We need to roll out antibody testing, but it's also important, as your previous speaker mentioned, that we understand what antibody testing can do and what it can't do. So it it can give information about what the status is in the community. The difficulty is when people try to say antibody testing will give me an answer about myself, how whether I am immune to do so, the to tell about how things are going in the community, antibody testing can be very, very helpful to tell about the individual that, oh, you're fine, you don't need to worry. You can go without a mask and be exposed because you're immune that it can't do.

MG: That distinction is important, in part because we're at a stage in this pandemic where people are looking for the exit door. How worried are you that people might invest themselves too much in antibody testing to try and find that exit before it's appropriate?

MICHAEL SILVERMAN: So, yeah, it is a big concern because there's so many things that are unknown about antibody testing. So, for instance, we do not know if having antibodies protect you. We don't know even if it does protect you against getting reinfected. How long that protection lasts. It may only last for three months. It may last for for less than that. So these are questions that are totally unclear and which antibodies protect you. So there are many parts of the virus. So there's the people may have heard of the spike protein, which is often the one that is is is is looked for because that's the easiest one to find antibodies to. But we don't know if those antibodies to that protein protect you, whether you need what level of antibody you need, whether you need a lot of antibody, whether a little bit is enough to protect you vote, that's unclear. And even whether anybody testing at all is the issue, because there's many other parts of the immune system besides producing antibodies. The immune system has what's called cellular immunity. So there's there's specific cells, what's called T-cells that can kill virus. And we don't know if they're the ones that are actually critical in protecting you or the antibodies are critical. And in some diseases, it's the antibodies that are critical in some diseases, it's T-cells. And then there's different kinds of antibody, some antibody, you know when we're doing these tests, we're testing for anybody in the blood. But it may be what you really need is antibodies in the mucus, in your nose and in your throat to protect you. And those are different antibodies. And it may be that those are the ones we have to test for. So this is an important research initiative. It's important for us to get to where we understand the test better. But we're not at the point where people can say, my tests showed this, so I can go to that.

MG: We also aren't at the point in this country where these tests are being used widely. There are other jurisdictions, as I mentioned, where they are being more aggressive, if I can put it that way, in antibody testing to agree with with the Canadian approach to go a bit slower.

AENOR SAWYER: I do, because the problem is misinterpretation. So people say, well, I have a right to the information and so I should be able to be tested. But the problem is.

MG: Doctor, are you there?

AENOR SAWYER: Using it in a way that could put their health at risk, then that is harmful. Like in all cancers, the you know, even where these tests are, why are being more widely used, the health authorities are recommending that this not be used for making decisions about individual patient's care or individual people's exposure risk. So in that situation, it is inappropriate for, you know, for us to just roll these out widely where it can be used and give information that is misleading.

MG: What are you hoping to learn through the work that you're doing with health care workers in London?

MICHAEL SILVERMAN: So we would like to know, firstly, how many health care workers have possibly been exposed. So the antibody tests, as I said, are not good for individual decisions, but can give you an idea of how widely the exposure has been. We'd like to know whether specific groups of health care workers might be at higher risk, in which case we might try to improve or change how helpful the kinds of personal protective equipment those health care workers are using. And health care workers are exposed to the virus both in the community and they're exposed to the virus through work. And so they would given up through, you know, an upward confidence bound enough, an upper limit as to how many people in the community might have been exposed.

MG: What would you say in the midst of all of this conversation to people? I mean, we're already seeing and we're gonna have a conversation in just a moment about the so-called immunity passports in Chile, for example, starting to give out immunity passports based on antibody tests. What would you say to people who are desperate for some sort of hope? They're looking for that light at the end of the tunnel. And they've heard this, they knew nothing about antibody tests six weeks ago, now they've invested a lot of hope into it.

MICHAEL SILVERMAN: Right. And I anticipate we will get there. We will be able to identify who is and who isn't immune. And the hope is is well-placed. The problem is we're not there yet. I mean, we have a lot of hope of a vaccine. We're just not there yet. And to act earlier could put these people at serious risk. If we did this antibody passport and told someone, oh, you're fine. And then they'd go and put themselves in harm's way feeling that, oh, I'm immune and got sick, well, then by making this widely available prior to our knowing how to use it properly, we might actually cause more harm than good.

MG: Patience is difficult in these times.

MICHAEL SILVERMAN: Absolutely. Because, you know, all of us want this to be over. And no one more than the health care sector. But we have to deal with the reality that we have a lot of unknowns at this time, and even the companies that produce these tests do not make claims that they can be used for that purposes for that purpose. So so for us to then say, well, you know, it just because I think hypothetically could have a benefit, it doesn't mean that we can use it in healthcare until it's been shown to actually have a benefit.

MG: I hope we check back in to hear more about the work that you're doing with health care workers in London. In the meantime, doctor, thank you.

MICHAEL SILVERMAN: Thank you for your attention.

MG: Dr. Michael Silverman is an infectious disease specialist with London Health Sciences Centre in London, Ontario. There are a lot of people who believe and the doctor is one of them, down the road that antibody testing might be one of the keys to the future, especially if we can figure out definitively that having antibodies means you are immune to a new infection. This is something that the World Health organisation has warned. We are not at all anywhere clear on yet. It may also create a new set of problems, though, for society if we start dividing people into groups of the immune and the non-immune. Alison Thompson is a professor of public health ethics at the University of Toronto, a specialist in pandemic ethics in particular. Alison, good morning to you.

ALISON THOMPSON: Good morning, Matt.

MG: We talk about these covered passports that could come out of antibody testing at some point in time. What are these passports supposed to be?

ALISON THOMPSON: Well, I think that, you know, at this point, it's still somewhat hypothetical, but the idea would be that you would get a green light if you miss your freedom of movement and freedom of assembly and your ability to go back to work. If you could detect the antibodies in any meaningful way, that would signal that you were immune to the virus.

MG: Ethically, what concerns you around this idea?

ALISON THOMPSON: And well, how long do you have? There's a lot of concerns regarding this and some of them are regulatory around, you know, how how on earth would this work? How would we prevent counterfeit or fake passports from being made or created sold on the black market? So there's some obviously a lot of science problems. There's a lot of regulatory problems. And then there are some really profound ethical issues to do with civil liberties, but also to do with this idea that we're creating some kind of antibody apartheid in society.

MG: Antibody apartheid?

ALISON THOMPSON: Yeah. So, you know, we're creating two tiers of citizens, really like when one that has the right to move around and to go back to work. You know, they sacrifice their privacy, but, you know, they get to go back back out into the world. And then you've got this other group that's not immune and stuck at home in observing social and physical distancing.

MG: And so for those who are able to go out, I mean, the speculation is, well, I have antibodies and I have the passports and you don't. And so I can go out. I could live my life. I could take your job, for example, and you would be, is that realistic?

ALISON THOMPSON: Well, I don't think we have to look very far back in history to see what happens when we create, you know, different class of citizens based on biology. It's really, you know, there's a pretty dark past there. And although this seems kind of alarmist, I don't think it's that farfetched that that we will see. You know, I keep thinking about that Dr. Seuss book about the star bellied sneakers. You know that when there were these birdlike creatures, they've got these stars on their bellies and they look down on the ones that don't have them until the ones that don't have them figure out how to actually get them as well. They get the stars. And then when the stars said they're not so great anymore. So, you know, there's there's a stigmatization that would happen, potential discrimination. But then there's also this incentive that's built into this kind of a system where people who are economically disadvantaged would have a huge incentive to go out and get infected so that they could return to work. And it wouldn't even be unreasonable for them to do that, because they are they're just treating one form of suffering for another.

MG: The sign that I saw on my trip into work this morning said we're all in this together. Would something like this jeopardize that period that we've seen in the last several weeks of people pulling together, of people being being gathered together in this same fight?

ALISON THOMPSON: Absolutely. And I think that's the most profound ethical concern, is that this would undermine the solidarity that we have seen in Canada, which, you know, globally as well, but I think that's the one ray of hope that people are clinging to. You know, having people in Italy hanging there their windows and singing the pot banging for the healthcare workers, these are remarkable things that you would be really undermining with a system that allowed certain people to go back to work and to move around freely again.

MG: But there are a lot of people who say that we're past the point of people, you know, singing opera on their balconies, that people are now despondent. People, not all, obviously, everyone, but some people are wondering how long this is going to go on for and they're looking, as I said earlier, with the doctor for the exit door. Is it inevitable that we'll get to a point where we'll have to make those ethical considerations around something like an immunity passport?

ALISON THOMPSON: I think we need to engage in your collective imagination exercise here, where we imagine a time where we are back to whatever sense of normalcy we had before. But I think that hinging it all on a scientific fix is just going to be the wrong, the wrong road to take. We need to have a collective discussion about what society is going to look like because this isn't going to be the last pandemic that we see as we heard earlier in your program. The science is really far from being where we need it to be right now to even contemplate introducing this kind of a measure. So what does it look like when we have a society where there are large numbers of people who are vulnerable? You it's not you know, we have it now. We have a lot of people who live precariously in vulnerably and we're seeing those conditions being exacerbated by this fire. So we need to think about inequities broadly in health, but also tied to how they're tied to wealth.

MG: In some jurisdictions that are perhaps ahead of us in this pandemic curve, you think of in China, this country starting to be opened up and people have a health code that's a QR code on their phone. You are a red, which means you're staying home. Yellow, maybe you can do some things and green and means you can go wherever you want according to your virus risk level. Is that a way forward?

ALISON THOMPSON: Well, it is a way forward. I think that it's very problematic. It's scientifically it's not clear what the basis for that is. And the problem, Matt, is that along with that kind of green light, red light system, pens, a massive surveillance apparatus that has to be in place, which, you know, it entails a huge violation of people's privacy and a collection of data about where you're going, who you're meeting with, that's all enabled through an app on your phone. And these are private companies that that have created these apps. And so it raises all kinds of questions about who's going to own this data. What are they going to do with it? Is it the government's role to collect that data? Is it private industries? Is it some kind of partnership? And how on Earth do we make sure that people are not using that for nefarious purposes?

MG: We have some hard decisions in front of us as we continue down this road. Alison, we'll check back in with you as we continue. In the meantime, thank you.

ALISON THOMPSON: Thank you.

MG: Alison Thompson, a professor of public health ethics at the University of Toronto. We are, on The Current, trying a bit of a pandemic experiment of our own. We're hoping that you would be inspired to take part in it. Since creative writing and self-expression can be liberating things in stressful times. We have the beginning of a story and we want you to finish it. Have a listen to Michael Lista, poet and critic who is teaching a writing course at what's being known as Pandemic University. This is how our story begins.

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VOICE: The girl threw the cup with the string attached to the neighbour boy. She'd made a telephone that was just for them and had a cup of her own that she could talk to the boy through the cup, landed on the boy's bedroom window sill. Their parents had grounded them both, but she could still see him in his blue room with his Mickey Mouse clock on the wall. And she would wave and he would wave back. Sometimes he would dress up as Superman just for himself, and the girl would see him in his blue suit and his red cape and thought that he looked sad and brave. They used to play in the willow tree on their street, swinging from its long sweep branches and laughing until the street lights would come on and their moms would call them home. The cup landed with a thump. The boy opened his window and put the cup to his ear. The girl pulled the line tight, almost tugging him out onto the laneway. Her voice travelled like a song over the string. I want to tell you something, she said.

MG: I love it. That's Michael Lista and the beginning of the story. Your task is to pick up where he left off, with a one minute middle and end. Not a lot of time, but you have one minute to tell the rest of the story. It can be young, can be old. Your tale can be happy. It can be sad, funny or serious, although we'd like something that will put a smile on our faces. If you want to hear the beginning again, it's on our Twitter feed. Go to Twitter @TheCurrentCBC. You don't need to have an account. You can just plug in @TheCurrentCBC through your search engine and you'll find it there. And then, write the rest of the story. I want to tell you something she said. That's what Michael has left you with. You have the job of finishing that story in a minute or less. You can email it to us in writing. If you're able to send us an audio recording, even better. You will find our e-mail address in the contact section of our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. We want your one minute conclusion to that story and we will share our favourites on the program. The deadline is end of day Wednesday. cbc.ca/thecurrent has all of the information. A little bit of task for you in the midst of this pandemic. You have a bit of time. you can work on that. Coming up in about six minutes time, we're going to talk about working from home in a very different way, when you're controlling something on Mars. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

[Music]

'That NASA can-do spirit': Engineers keep Curiosity roving on Mars from home

Guests: Carrie Bridge

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come.

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[Sounds from the Calgary Stampede]

MG: That's the roar, the Chuckwagon race. A fan favourite at the Calgary Stampede. You will not hear that this year, though. We'll hear what the Calgary Stampedes cancellation means for that city and the province of Alberta. But first, what social distancing means for space exploration.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Is the laptop at the right height? Do we have enough toner in the printer? Am I going to get Zoom-bombed? Making the switch from the office to the home has come with some compromises. Let's face i, though, not all challenges of working from home are equal. Some workers have been trying to figure out how to best pilot a robot about 150 million kilometres away from the comfort of their own homes. Engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are continuing to look for life on Mars with Curiosity Rover. Here is how it went on the first day they commanded the robot from a home.

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VOICE: In our operations, evem when we're local, in order to drill a hole in rock and then take the dust that's created from that, in order to do that there's several days that it takes to do that. And we had already done some of the precursors, Day 0 and Day 1, .where we choose the target and made sure it was safe to do. So it just so happens that that very first day was drill hole day. And ultimately we drilled a hole come Enburrow and we learned about that over that weekend, it wasn't without issues. Some of the same ones you'd probably experience where connectivity can be off, but it went smoothly.

MG: Stakes probably a little bit different when you're trying to control a robot on Mars. That was Alicia Allbaugh with the Mars Science Laboratory Project. Carrie Bridge is the science operations team chief and it's her job to orchestrate Curiosity Rover's journey on the Red Planet while its operators are at home. She is in Pasadena, California. Carrie, good morning.

CARRIE BRIDGE: Good morning.

MG: There are many of us who, when our colleagues or we were told that we would be working from home, perhaps were excited, they don't have to dress up for the office, but they know of the challenges that they're going to be facing. What was your reaction when you found out that the Mars Rover team would be working from home?

CARRIE BRIDGE: Well, that was interesting. I mean, NASA is known for making sure we have redundant systems and contingency plans and that sort of thing. But this was something — a pandemic — that we had never planned for. So it was it was a little bit of a surprise for us, but the team kind of adopted that NASA can do spirit and worked really hard to get the rover to be remotely operated. Well, we're always remote, but now we're a few more miles away.

MG: Even more remote.

CARRIE BRIDGE: Yes.

MG: Take us into the control room. On a typical day what does it look like there?

CARRIE BRIDGE: So before the pandemic, what I would do is I would talk to the international science team. And we did this over video conferencing. So we kind of had a good template of how to go fully remote. Many of our science team members are all over the world, some in Canada. And so we would get together and we would look at the new images that just came down from the rover and we'd map out what observations that we wanted to do. So we would look at where we wanted to fire the laser, where we wanted to deploy the arm and of course, where we wanted to drive the rover next. So I would physically then take that information from the science team, since my role is to bridge the gap between the engineers and the scientists, and I would go and sit physically down with the rover drivers and work with them on their screens to say, we want to drive over here, but we need to go around this rock. We'd like to deploy the arm here. And they would give me feedback as to whether or not that was safe for the rover to do. But now, however, things have changed. And all those key physical interactions that I would have with the JPL engineers had to go remote.

MG: So how does it work now?

CARRIE BRIDGE: So now the beginning of the day starts the same. I work with the external science team. We figure out what we want to do and all those physical interactions have turned into video conferences. So now my workstation at home, I'm monitoring about five video conferences at the same time and around 15 chat channels. So it's a lot more intense. I've had to multitask a lot more and learn to filter out because I'm listening to multiple conversations at the same time.

MG: I know not of controlling robots on other planets, but I would assume that you can't just do this from your laptop at home, that you need to bring home some pretty high-powered equipment for you and for the engineers.

CARRIE BRIDGE: Yeah. So that was an adjustment for us. I think predominantly was the rover drivers. They typically use very sophisticated goggles to see the three dimensions in the terrain to know whether or not there's a dip in the in the terrain or, you know, we need to avoid that sharp rock. And so that that hardware is typically linked to their high-performance computers, kind of like gaming computers. And we couldn't take physically those home because there's more rover drivers because we do shift work. Then there are those machines. So we had to think of a new way to get around that. And so one of the things we did was we we're actually just using three 3-D glasses that you can think of the red and blue glasses. And that's been pretty effective, actually.

MG: How does this work? I mean, the assumption that some people might have is that there's some sort of joystick that, you know, controls Curiosity as it steers or Mars. That's not the way that it works, right?

CARRIE BRIDGE: No, that's the first thing people think is that we operate it with a joystick like a videogame. But we can't do that because it effectively takes anywhere from four to 22 minutes for a signal to travel between Earth and Mars each way. So what we do is we typically will plan a set of commands for one, two up to three days, sometimes even longer if we need to. So then we'll set we'll sequence those set of commands and then we run simulations on them before we send the commands up to the rover.

MG: Was there a point, I mean, again, doing this in a lab with everybody around you and all of the, you know, expensive equipment in front of you would be complicated enough. Was there ever a point in the pandemic as it started to unfold where you thought, you know, this is just too difficult? We're gonna put the rover on pause for a few weeks and we'll get back to this when we can get back together in the lab?

CARRIE BRIDGE: Yeah, that was definitely a consideration because JPL has been very great about, you know, it's people's health first and of course, also the safety of the spacecrafts. So that was kind of more like our Plan C, which was we typically when we reach a period of conjunction, which is when the sun is in between Earth and Mars and we can't communicate, we will send up several weeks of commands to just tell the rover to hang out and it stays safe. We knew we had that as a backup plan, but again, that sort of NASA can do spirit; we wanted to tackle the problem and see if we could overcome it. So we had a good Plan C.. Plan B was to do remote observations, but at a slightly more reduced complexity. But so far it's been pretty successful. We're quite pleased.

MG: I was going to say has everything gone well? You know that working from home can be complicated enough. And we've seen some of the horror shows appear through social media when people are video chatting and perhaps somebody wanders around in the background or what have you and they didn't know that the video conference is happening. Is everything gone well?

CARRIE BRIDGE: Yeah. So I would say that we're basically taking another one to two hours per day to make all the sequences and commands for a single sol plan, for example. That's one day on Mars assault. But, you know, we have the same challenges that everybody else does, that the people coming in the background or the dogs barking and that sort of thing. Pets around, you know, that that those challenges just like everyone else.

MG: Where are you at in terms of the exploration? Tell us what the Rover is doing these days.

CARRIE BRIDGE: Yes. So as you heard Alicia mentioned, we had the first day we went remote, we drilled a hole on Mars and then we'd take sample from that that drill hole. We put it into the body of the rover where we have two instruments that look for organics or signatures of organics. So we wrapped up that drill campaign and the rover recently, just drove off of the green pediment and now we're back into the clay unit. And so we're actually now hunting for another spot to drill. Clays are known to preserve organics and so that's what we're looking for.

MG: And so in the drilling, what will you extract?

CARRIE BRIDGE: So basically, we drill into the rock kind of like just a regular drill bit from Home Depot in many ways. Andthe finds from the drilling get pulled up through the feed and then we actually will take those finds and put them into some of our instruments, ChemCamp and Sam, and they will analyze them and look for signatures of organics.

MG: And what are we learning?

CARRIE BRIDGE: So one of the things that Curiosity is trying to learn is, was Mars habitable for life? We definitely have found evidence of liquid water in previous drill samples. And just from looking at the terrain itself, we can see signatures of water. So we know that at one time Mars had water and that water we could drink if we were happened to be there at that time. So the purpose of curiosity is to look for the signatures of and the building blocks that could have allowed life to flourish on Mars.

MG: There are a couple of things through this experience that stand out. One is just how adaptable people are and how we have been able to in the midst of a crisis. You see this with manufacturers and they're suddenly retooling. They were making, you know, hockey sticks and now suddenly they're making personal protective equipment. Does it surprise you that in the midst of this, you're able to take work that would be done in a large laboratory and suddenly there you are back in people's homes to do this?

CARRIE BRIDGE: Yeah, I think it's amazing and I think it just it goes to it speaks, I think, to the human spirit to push forward and and continue to help and explore no matter what's in in our way.

MG: The other part of this is does it ever, I mean this is your work,b but do you ever stop to think we're controlling a thing on Mars? You know, 150 million kilometres away from people's homes?

CARRIE BRIDGE: You know, I have to stop myself every once in a while and just remember that because you can get bogged down just like everyone else in the very fine details of your job. And so I do have to take a step back and just appreciate what amazing things I'm able to do everyday and how lucky I am.

MG: It's remarkable. Carrie, thank you for telling us about it.

CARRIE BRIDGE: Oh, happy to be there.

MG: Carrie Bridge is the science operation's team chief for the Mars Science Laboratory Project, helping to pilot the Curiosity Rover on Mars from her home in California. She's in Pasadena.

What the cancellation of the Stampede means for Calgary

Guests: George Brookman

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. And now fallout from COVID-19, much closer to home.

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VOICE: This one's tough. I remember standing at this podium seven years ago and talking about how even though we only had two weeks, come hell or high water, the Calgary Stampede would go on. It was really important for our community to have that piece of yeah, we're gonna be OK. But this is different. The best way to show our community spirit and our togetherness is to be apart.

MG: That's the mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi, remembering how the city came together for the Stampede just days after the devastating 2013 floods. As you heard, that will not be the case this year. The Calgary Stampede has been cancelled for the first time since it began almost 100 years ago. George Brookman is a former president of the Stampede, also a regular commentator for CBC Calgary. George, good morning.

GEORGE BROOKMAN: Good morning. Good morning. It's a beautiful blue sky, Rocky Mountain morning in Calgary today. And I love that woman's interview. Man, she's got an attitude that is wonderful, isn't she?

MG: Well, it's that can do thing. And I mean, even the blue skies, you take the little positives from the moments that you can find them in the midst of a really difficult situation.

GEORGE BROOKMAN: No question about it, Matt.

MG: What went through your mind when you learned that the Stampede would be cancelled?

GEORGE BROOKMAN: Well, I think those of us that have been involved with the stampede for years and I'm no longer on the board, but I think we all knew that it was coming. It seemed inevitable. And yet somehow it just seemed impossible. And the thing about the Calgary Stampede, you know, I used to always use the expression it's not an event, it's a culture and it is a culture of can do, like that lady said, and it's positiveness and it's getting together. And so we all sort of hope that this year's stampede would be a positive after what we've been through for the last three or four years. It just seemed like something we could all hang our hats on. And so it was a very moment of real disappointment, but it was the right decision. And there's no doubt in any of our minds that the board didn't make the right call.

MG: What is the Stampede mean to your city?

GEORGE BROOKMAN: Well, Matt, you know, aside from probably $500 million worth of business of various types, small business people who have hot dog stands all the way up to chuckwagon drivers and rodeo cowboys and everything else. It is a vibrancy that is very hard to describe. And, you know, I've been known you know, I love Toronto, by the way. I had an office there for years, but I've been to Toronto when the CNE is on. I've been to Vancouver when the PNE is on. And unless you actually go to the site, you wouldn't know. Well, you would be impossible to be in Calgary and not know that the Calgary Stampede is on. It permeates every part of our business world. It permeates our day to day lives all the time. But for ten days, you're immersed in it. And you think of the lunches and the breakfasts and the pancakes and the community breakfasts. It's an amazing thing. And to lose it is it's you know, it's definitely a blow to a city that's had enough blows over the last three or four years. But I think that it will we will come through it as like lady said, can do spirit. And I suspect there's going to be some things happening. We're already talking about the fact that all of us are going to wear Western for ten days no matter what. Even if I'm to stay in my own place, I'll wear a Western. So we're starting to think already about what we can do to make up for the loss of what's really our iconic event.

MG: But as you said, it's a lot of money too. A $500 million hits to the economy. How important is it for local businesses?

GEORGE BROOKMAN: Oh, huge. You know, every business. But I think that the specific ones I think about are the hotels, the restaurants, the taxi drivers, for example, who just it's like Christmas in July for the taxi industry. And and then it goes to the bars and restaurants, but it goes to Alberta Boot who sells hundreds of pairs of boots during that period. It goes to all the other areas of our city that are touched by tourism. And I don't know if you've been to the stampede, but, you know, for example, every morning we have Chuck regens downtown and the people are eating pancakes off the back of them. But then those people turn around and go and buy Western wear at at the Western stores. And those are all going to be impacted you know, hugely this year by this loss of business.

MG: And as you said, I mean, the province, Calgary in particular, has already been hit hard with an economy that's sagging. And you talk about the vacancies that are there in the big office towers, but also just the general sense that people don't know what's coming down the road. What does this mean, this additional hit to them?

GEORGE BROOKMAN: Well, as I said, you know, Calgary, I was born here in Calgary, is a city that has a tremendous enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and what have you. And I believe Calgary will come back out of this thing stronger than what people may think today. This is a tough one. There's no doubt about that. When you drive down the streets of Calgary right now, it's empty. And they were already pretty quiet with the amount of vacancy we've had in the office space. But, you know, the pipelines are getting built. The oil is going to flow. We will have new renewable energy sources coming in. Alberta is working on those. You know, even agriculture right now with this virus. Our big plant at High River is closed, but so the cattle are building up in the fields. You know, Calgary has, Alberta has energy, agriculture and tourism and every one of those areas happens to be getting beat up at the moment, but they will come back. And I think, for example, in tourism, I see Alberta as a great drive to place Banff, Lake Louise, the mountains. It's a great drive to place when people maybe will say, I don't think I want to fly on a plane for a little while longer.

MG: We heard the mayor at the beginning talking about 2013. What did it mean and he's, you know, come hell or high water, after the floods, when the Stampede was still there. What did it mean to the city?

GEORGE BROOKMAN: Oh, you can't describe you can't describe the mood of accomplishment that Calgarians had because, you know, there was four feet of mud and water and everything else on Stampede Park two weeks before the stampede. And they worked and worked and that stampede came off. Now, we all know that behind the scenes, somebody was held together with masking tape and binder twine. But the reality is they pulled off a terrific stampede. And I remember Bob Thompson was the president and he just shook his head. Is that I can't believe we did it. It was a fantastic stampede. And people had a spirit that there is nothing we can't accomplish. And we'll we'll get there again. Believe me, it's it's in there. It's in our DNA. But I have to admit that the last couple of years has been, it seems like body blow after body blow.

MG: Well, and you're seeing this across the country. I mean, there are huge events in in cities and towns across the country, from Canada Day celebrations in Ottawa to the Carribana in Toronto and pride parades and what have you, that have all been put on the shelf for this year. And I just mean events, cities aren't events and they're not, you know, just defined by their events, but the events are a huge part of what happens in the cities and towns.

GEORGE BROOKMAN: Well, and I think we tend to forget sometimes how much those events, whether it's the Ctampede or whatever, contribute to the ability of somebody to go out and buy a new car or redo their basement or or, you know, whatever. It's all part of the economy that has been built up over 100 years. And when you take that piece out, you can't ignore the impact it will have. But I you know, I'm a really positive person when it comes to the city of Calgary. I think we will come back very strong. And it's just going to take some time to lick these wounds and keep going.

MG: How are people feeling in your city right now?

GEORGE BROOKMAN: I think there's well, interestingly enough. Well, first of all, you can't see a lot of people right now. So that's part of the problem.

MG: You talk to them on the phone.

GEORGE BROOKMAN: You can wave at them from the street.

MG: But, you know, there's no question the city's been hit hard. Like all cities in Canada have been hit. And this Ctampede thing was a bit of downer, to say the least, because it was something to look forward to. But I really believe that people are starting to feel OK, we're going to get through this. We're going to make it. We're gonna do it right. And we're going to bring the city back to what it's always been, which is, you know, a real business oriented powerhouse. And that's what I'd like to see it become.

MG: Wax poetic. What's your favourite memory from the Calgary Stampede?

GEORGE BROOKMAN: Oh, I did a thing when I was president. When we did Stampede Pink, we called it. 30 hours of tough. And parade day everyone wore pink shirts. I got on my horse, rode up up the street and it was like a sea of pink. One fella called it Georgias Candyfloss Parade. We gave $586,000 to the Breast Cancer Foundation. And I can tell you of Matt, I had tears in my eyes. It was an unbelievable thing. I think Wrangler sold 18,000 or 28,000 shirts in less than a week, all pink and GM gave us a pink truck and we delivered pink cupcakes to CBC and everywhere else. It was an amazing moment. And that's definitely one of the highlights for me.

MG: These are difficult times. The optimism and the sense of positivity that you have in the midst of that I think will carry some people through a difficult day. Enjoy that mountain sunshine.

GEORGE BROOKMAN: Thank you, Matt. Thank you for this. I really appreciate.

MG: Great to talk to you.

GEORGE BROOKMAN: Take care.

MG: George Brookman, former president of the Calgary Stampede.

[Song: "Hurtin' Albertan" by Corb Lund]

MG: Mr. Corb Lund, "Hurtin' Alberton." For listeners in Newfoundland and Labrador, Cross-talk is up next. For everyone else, we're back in 90 seconds with a look at what's happening in Montreal, an epicentre of this outbreak. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

[Music]

The Current Transcript for April 27, 2020

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

N.S. shooting rampage highlights public threat of domestic violence: victim advocates

Montreal faces more COVID-19 cases than any other city in Canada

How one younger is learning about birds from his own backyard

A COVID-19 vaccine could ease immunization hesitancy, or be hindered by the same mistrust: expert

Tom Power in conversation with Jim Parsons

North Korea stays quiet amidst Kim Jong-un disapperance

Math teaching timps from JUMP Math founder John Mighton

Public health ethicist cautions that antibody testing could lead to unintended consequences

'That NASA can-do spirit': Engineers keep Curiosity roving on Mars from home

What the cancellation of the Stampede means for Calgary

Apr. 27, 2020 episode transcript

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