Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2022

The Current Transcript for January 4, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

DOUG FORD: [SOUNDCLIP: Ontario health modelling tells us we could be thousands of beds short in the coming weeks. We must do everything in our powers to protect our hospitals and to sure our frontline workers aren't overwhelmed.]

MATT GALLOWAY: What a difference a couple of months makes. Remember early November, when life seemed to be getting closer to normal? Now, COVID case counts break records. Every day, routine surgeries are again being postponed. The return to school has been delayed in most provinces, and health care workers are fearing the worst. And Canadians are exhausted. In an hour we head across this country to talk to health care workers about where we're at in this pandemic and what our goals should be in tackling Omicron. Also this morning, 135 Canadians were appointed to the Order of Canada last week. The indigenous trailblazer, Gail Cyr, was one of them.

GAIL CYR: Forty years later, people still call and they call with problems of whatever kind social, legal, violence if they are facing it. Where people say, I know how to get in touch with Gail.

MG: In 30 minutes. She's here along with another honouree, the disability activist and humorist David Roche, to talk about how they have helped make this country better. We start, though, in Antarctica and a shrinking glacier that has alarm bells ringing right around the world. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[MUSIC: Theme]

Sounding the alarms about a potential Thwaites Glacier collapse

Guest: Jeff Goodell

MG: Just a few weeks ago, a small group of very specialised scientists called a media conference, some of the biggest names in glaciology were in attendance. They had pictures and slides to explain to the world exactly what they had found over the past five years in studying the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. At the end of the presentation, they asked journalists for questions. This was the BBC's Jonathan Amos.

JOHNATHAN AMOS: [SOUNDCLIP: For better or worse, we've labelled this thing the "Doomsday Glacier", and you guys are talking about something happening that's really dramatic, you know, not 50 years from now, 100 years from now, but almost in the next five to 10 years. You're telling us that we're about to see a really quite dramatic change in one of the biggest glaciers in the Antarctic. Can you comment on that?

MALE SPEAKER: Yes, it's daunting. It's a bit unsettling, especially standing on the ice and looking onto the ice sheet and seeing that this huge area from one side of the horizon to the other is moving at you at about a mile every year and all by itself, this one glacier. It's big enough to impact sea level significantly.]

MG: The person who first called the Thwaites Glacier the "Doomsday Glacier" in an article in Rolling Stone magazine was Jeff Goodell, a journalist and author. Jeff Goodell is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of "The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities and the Remaking of the Civilised World". Jeff Goodell, Good morning.

JEFF GOODELL: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MG: Thank you for being here. What do you remember about the first time that you saw this glacier?

JEFF GOODELL: Well, it was quite an unforgettable moment. You know, the journey just to get to the glacier had taken two weeks in an icebreaker that left from Chile and went across Drake Passage, one of the roughest seas in the world. And there was a lot of anticipation about whether we would be able to get actually to the face of the glacier because of the amount of sea ice and a lot of other variables. But one morning we knew we were close and one morning the chief scientist kind of woke us all up at 5:30 a.m. and said, We're here and we all... There was about 30 of us on the ship and we all ran up onto the bridge of this icebreaker. And there it was, this giant wall of ice, a couple of hundred feet high, kind of looming right in front of us. And it was sort of a grey and kind of foggy morning. And the ice was this blue wall and it was like an encounter with something from another planet. It was so overwhelmingly strange and overwhelmingly foreign and overwhelmingly consequential.

MG: Why did you start to call it the "Doomsday Glacier'?

JEFF GOODELL: Well, that's funny. I mean, I wrote about this, the glacier, you know, first in 2017, and I had spent a lot of time reporting on the story and coming to understand why it's so worth paying attention to. And I was finishing the story up and you know, as one does you look for a tile when you think about it. And I just threw out 10 different titles and all of a sudden, just this idea of the "Doomsday Glacier" came to me only because it's, you know, it's suggestive of the fact that this is one of these what scientists call tipping points in the climate system that can really change our lives and how we think about our world and the world we live in in a very fundamental way. So and the name just sort of stuck.

MG: Why is this glacier a tipping point? I mean, we hear a lot about melting glaciers, and it becomes not something that happens in some ways in the background, but we understand that this is unfolding. Why is this one different?

JEFF GOODELL: Well, I think it's true. We do hear a lot about melting glaciers and melting ice, and we all know anyone who pays attention to this, that as our world warms up, you know, ice melts. But I think most of us, including myself, before I started thinking about Thwaites in Antarctica, think of ice melting the way you know, a popsicle melts on a summer sidewalk, you know, it just… it's melted to a puddle in the puddle runs off into the street. And, you know, more or less that is what's happening in northern Canada and the Arctic, Greenland, where you just have warmer temperatures that are literally melting the ice and causing it to run off. And that's why you see these big, you know, blue moulins of, kind of, meltwater flowing across the ice sheets. But what's happening in western Antarctica, not entirely Antarctica, but the western part of Antarctica is that you have these enormous glaciers, Thwaites is one of them, but it's connected to the larger West Antarctic ice sheet that is essentially a big ice sheet in a bowl. The continent has been depressed by the weight of the glacier for so many years, and it's sitting on what one scientist described to me as like a soup bowl. And what's happening is as the water warms around the glacier, just one or two degrees, it's getting underneath the glacier, it's not melting it from the surface is melting it from below. And as it melts it from below, it's destabilising the whole glacier itself. And the risk here is that as these ice sheets go away that are kind of buttressing the glacier, this whole glacier will begin to sort of tumble into the sea like a giant kind of bag of ice cubes just sort of fall into the sea all at once through this thing called marine ice cliff instability. And so it has the potential for very dramatic sea level rise in a relatively short amount of time.

MG: Is it an if or when?

JEFF GOODELL: Well, that's the big question. I mean, the title of this most recent piece is a quote from a scientist called The Fuse is Blown, and he's one of the best ice scientists in the world who basically has argued that this process is underway. Some scientists say we still have a very, very narrow window of time to slow or stop this before it begins to happen. And that's why cutting carbon emissions right now, today, tomorrow, this decade is so important that we have this narrow window. So there is some uncertainty about whether this process is underway, but there's certainly no uncertainty about the risks that this process could begin very quickly.

MG: If I'll use your terminology, I mean the bag of ice cubes tips into the sea. What happens? What does the world look like when this thing falls apart?

JEFF GOODELL: Well, I want to underscore that this is not a situation where you wake up in the morning and Vancouver is underwater. I mean, you know, we're talking about the difference between a high end of two or three feet of sea level rise by the end of this century versus six feet of sea level rise by the end of this century. And then continuing on after that, Thwaites itself has enough ice to raise sea levels about, you know, a little less than a metre. It's sort of like a cork to the whole ice sheet in West Antarctica, and if it goes that whole ice sheet will eventually go with it. So over a century, century and a half, two century, we could see as much as, you know, three metres or more of sea level rise just from Antarctica.

MG: What does that mean? Three metres of sea rise? What does that actually mean?

JEFF GOODELL: That means that every coastal city that you can name is underwater. It means that, you know, the border between land and sea that we think is sort of permanent. That is the world that we live in and have grown accustomed to is going to dramatically change. You know, some people say, Oh, well, that's, you know, a century from now. But you know, anybody who lives on the coast knows that even an acceleration from two feet to three feet or four feet is enormously consequential. You know, sea level rise is not just a problem when you have sharks swimming around in your living room. It's a problem when you have incremental changes because it changes the amount of flooding at high tides. When you have hurricanes, it changes that. And our whole world, as we've learned, is so dependent upon, you know, supply chains and things like that and the potential for even modest amounts of sea level rise to disrupt shipping patterns and things like that is really understated.

MG: Which is what you hint at in the title of this book, "The Remaking of the Civilised World". In some ways if you have not just those cities underwater, but everything that comes with that does force us to rethink what the world looks like.

JEFF GOODELL: It does force us to rethink what the world looks like, and it is going to force us to do that in ways even before the water actually comes. I mean, you're already seeing it in many regions in the United States and presumably Canada, too, of changing risk for real estate investment, changing costs for flood insurance. Virtually every coastal city in the world that's a low-lying city is beginning this process of thinking, OK, what the hell are we going to do because we know that this is coming. It's a question of how much, how fast? Do we build walls? Do we relocate? How do we think about freshwater drinking systems? Because one of the first things that happens is salt water begins to infiltrate into the drinking water systems. How do we think about storm surge barriers? How much are we willing to invest? Where are we going to build a new airport? Where are we going to put it? I mean, there's huge questions that we're just beginning to grapple with.

MG: Why is it so complicated to try to predict how this will unfold?

JEFF GOODELL: That's a really good question, and that's a really important question. I'll say two things. One is that as probably the greatest ice scientists of our time, a glaciologist at Penn State named Richard Alley said to me, we have no human analogue for this. This is not something that humans have ever witnessed before. It's not like a car crash or something where you can, you know, everyone's lived through it. You can run video of it. You can see how the car crumbles and how to build safe zones and things like that. Thwaites Glacier is something that we've never seen this kind of system, this kind of ice cliff collapse system in real time process. So we don't know really what it looks like until it happens. They understand the physics of it, but they don't know. They can't say, Oh, this crack means that. The other thing is that as I found out on my trip down there, it is just a... it's a place that is a long way away and it is, you know, we know more about the surface of Mars than we do what's underneath Thwaites Glacier.

MG: What do you mean by that?

JEFF GOODELL: Well, what's underneath Thwaites Glacier is, you know, it's floating on or it's sitting on a bed of land, right? I mean, that's what glaciers do. They're big hunks of ice on land. In this case, the land underneath Thwaites Glacier is on a downward slope like a bowl, as I mentioned. And one of the big issues about how fast this can all happen is what exactly is the consistency of that ground beneath the glacier? Is it sort of soggy, muddy stuff or is it like Hard Rock. And the difference between the consistency of the bad will have huge implications in how fast the glacier slides and collapses into the sea. As you can imagine, just like skiing right when you're skiing on a day when it's sort of wet, goopy snow, you have a hard time going down the hill. You go down that same hill on a day when it's, you know, freezing cold in a sheet of ice and you can't stop. And it's the exact same dynamic with glaciers and they don't really know what's underneath it. They're just beginning to understand this. I mean, it's really important too for I think anyone thinking about this to grasp is that up until 10 years ago or so, with the exception of a few kind of maverick scientists, everyone thought Antarctica was a very stable place. You know, you fly over it. There's no sign of melting. It's really cold. And then all of a sudden some scientists figured out, Oh, wait, the whole system here is different. And maybe this water that's getting a little bit warmer is getting under the ice sheets. And some maverick scientists started looking into this. And sure enough, that was what's happening. And so this press report that you just mentioned in the lead into this piece is the result of what is essentially a five year emergency research mission to figure out like what the hell is going on down there. And, you know, they're making a lot of progress, but it's still very complex.

MG: You used the phrase earlier, the fuse has been blown. I mean, that was used in 2015. So, yeah, now in 2022… have to get the year right in 2022, what does that mean for us now?

JEFF GOODELL: Well, I mean, you know, there's still controversy about that. I mean, that was... That phrase the fuse was blown was one that was coined by Eric Renaud, a very well-known ice scientist who based that on the changing slope of the ice sheet from satellite data. But you know, the more scientists understand, you know, as I mentioned, what's underneath the glacier, the quantity and quality of the bed of the glacier, they're looking at these fissures and cracks. You know, there's questions about, is it... How close to the edge are we really? Is it really blown? And if the fuse is blown, which I think most scientists would agree with, then the question is, well, how long is that fuse? How fast is this all going to play out?

MG: And can you extinguish the fuse or turn the clock back?

JEFF GOODELL: Well you can't turn the clock back, but can you slow it down? But one of the problems is that, you know, the reason that this is the idea that this fuse is blown is that what's causing this instability. Thwaites glacier is the warming of the ocean and it's just a change of a slight like literally one or two degrees of change in the southern ocean temperature that is causing this. And so even if we cut emissions tomorrow to zero, it takes a long time for those changes to be registered in the ocean because the ocean is like a big heat sink and it takes time for that to change. So that is really why it's really, really urgent that we think differently about the sort of timescales of emissions cutting and why it's important that we get to zero as quickly as possible. Because if there's anything that's going to save coastal cities in our world, it's that, it's taking this challenge seriously and hoping that this fuse in Antarctica is as long as possible.

MG: What do you have to do then? I mean, to try to prevent the worst case scenarios from coming to pass?

JEFF GOODELL: You have to pass a policy that basically, you know, gets us off fossil fuels as quickly as possible and understand that the, you know, the benefits of clean energy are enormous. You know, the transition to clean energy means, you know, a lot of jobs, a lot of prosperity, it's going to happen anyway. The question is how quickly it's going to happen. I think that, you know, you're even seeing a lot of oil companies now moving towards renewables. I think the sort of message is getting through. It's just not happening fast enough. And the Thweights is like a big flashing light saying move faster, move faster.

MG: How do you get people to pay attention to that big flashing light? I mean, as you say in the piece, it's a faraway sheet of ice populated by penguins. We're in the midst of this ongoing pandemic, which seems to present more bad news than good news. The United States is trying to deal with its own divisions right now and coming up to the anniversary of January 6th, the insurrection on the Capitol. There's a lot that occupies people's attention. How do you get people to pay attention to this?

JEFF GOODELL: Well, that's... that is the big question. You know, I've been a climate journalist for 20 years, and I don't know that I have a better understanding of that now than I did 20 years ago. I mean, I would hope that programmes like yours that are thoughtful, intelligent questions, you know, interviews, discussions about this issue matter. I do think that there's been a big social change that's happening. I do think that people are understanding this. I think that, you know, the fact that this is happening, you know, just outside of everyone's window, you know, I mean, these fires in Colorado, just the last few days where you have shopping malls, you know, essentially urban fires and in Colorado, in the end of December, these, you know, the heat wave that you had in British Columbia in the end of summer. You know, I mean, these kinds of events are beginning to make people pay attention. But the problem is there is such a lag time, you know the amount of time that it takes to reduce fossil fuels to get off fossil fuels. A lot of these changes are already happening and we're seeing them. We've only warmed our planet, you know, about one degree. And so when you imagine this playing out and you're doubling the warmth that we have already added and the consequences of that, it's pretty frightening.

MG: When you speak with scientists about what they're seeing. How do they cope with the reality of what's unfolding right now?

JEFF GOODELL: Well, I think, you know, first of all, I mean, this sounds obvious, but I think it's really important to underscore that scientists are human, right? I mean, they're thinking about this in the same way that you and I are thinking about this. And, you know, scientists are trained over, you know, in their careers to say what they know, to be careful, to not overstate things, to not say what they don't, you know, have strong facts for. I think that there has been, you know, a strong sense of being overwhelmed by this sort of fake news media in recent years. You know, who are questioning them and attacking them and things like that. But you have that changing now. You have a lot more scientists. I think really speaking out people like Michael Mann at Penn State and others who are really vocal in talking about, you know, what's at risk here. And but I really want to underscore that, you know, it's not like scientist's job. I mean, it's their job to tell us but, they've been telling us for 40 years. It's the political failure that is the problem. It is the power and influence of fossil fuel money on our political system that keeps our political leaders tone deaf to what's going on, or at least unwilling to publicly talk about the risks in the way that they need to be discussed. I think that's beginning to change, too, but that is where the problem is not with, you know, the scientists who are not speaking out bluntly enough.

MG: This is important to talk about, it's alarming, but as you say, important to give a good bit of discussion to and thoughtful discussion as well. Jeff, thank you very much.

JEFF GOODELL: Thank you for having me.

MG: Jeff Goodell is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the author of The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities and the Remaking of the Civilised World. Your CBC News is next. And then:

DAVID ROCHE: I was alone, I am no longer alone. I am part of a global community. And I also wonder, of course, as so many people who get this do, why me because I know so many people who make Canada a better place.

MG: David Roche is one of those Canadians making Canada a better place. He's one of the recipients of this year's Order of Canada, and we'll hear more from David about the work that he is being recognised for. That's coming up. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

Order of Canada honourees Gail Cyr and David Roche on how they’ve helped make the country better

Guests: Gail Cyr and David Roche

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

[MUSIC: Theme]

MG: Still to come from east to west, the Omicron variant has sent provinces into crisis mode, the top priority keeping health care systems running. Coming up, we'll hear from health care workers across this country on how they're holding up and what comes next. But first, a Canadian honour.

[MUSIC: Theme]

MG: Gail Cyr was surprised when she found out that she's being appointed to the Order of Canada, so surprised, in fact, that she had to sit down and actually write out a list to remind herself of all the accomplishments in her career. There are many. Gail Cyr is being honoured for her involvement in municipal politics and her advocacy work on behalf of missing and murdered indigenous women and victims of abuse. But her achievements stretch far beyond that. Gail grew up in Manitoba, but eventually made her way to Yellowknife, and that is where we have reached her this morning. Gail Cyr, good morning.

GAIL CYR: Morning.

MG: Congratulations.

GAIL CYR: Thank you very much.

MG: Did you have to sit down and write out this list of all the things that you had done?

GAIL CYR: Well, I was trying to sort of put it in order and and just kind of trying to remember because I lost my computer, it crashed and so my resume was on there. So then I have to sort of say, Oh, I better write some of this stuff out that I did otherwise I'll sort of appear like an idiot.

MG: How did it feel to be appointed to the Order of Canada?

GAIL CYR: Oh, it was. I was very honoured. Very, very honoured to be appointed. It felt really good. It still feels really good. And knowing about... knowing about it because we were notified by letter one month and a half before that, it was really hard to sort of... [laughter]

MG: To keep quiet and keep your lips sealed.

GAIL CYR: Yeah, keep my lips sealed.

MG: When you look at that list that you wrote out. What are you most proud of when it comes to your accomplishments?

GAIL CYR: I'm actually pretty proud of everything, but The Native Court Worker program that I started was a legal services program for people up here, and we had a full Aboriginal board and all staff were Aboriginal. They were all excellent. They were all kind of like advocates in your own right, in their communities. That's what I was looking for. So when I was talking to elders, they would ask them, I said I'm looking for somebody who has a feeling of justice or, you know, a good thing of just, a sense of fairness and is able to help somebody without losing their temper. And they always directed me to the right person. So I ended up having phenomenal staff.

MG: Can you tell... What was the need for something like that? I mean, where did the impetus for creating The Native Court Workers Association come from?

GAIL CYR: Well, the territories were still pretty young and there was a lot of legislation being passed and it was impacting people for their trapping and hunting and fishing rights. And then, of course, many other areas of the law like criminal law and of course, child welfare. And those were all impacting people fairly heavily. And it was noticeable enough that even the Supreme Court judges here wanted that program started. So they kept on going and pushing the Department of Justice and Department of Justice went to the Indian Brotherhood, it was called at the time, it's called the Dene Nation now. And I decided that I was going to take that on.

MG: And you created... This was in 1975?

GAIL CYR: Yeah, we started officially in '75 yeah.

MG: It still has an important role to play now, all those years later.

GAIL CYR: It does. Although it has been... It got taken over by the [inaudible] and basically people aren't doing the same kind of things that we used to do. So it's unfortunate it would be nice to have it again. But, you know, 40 years later, people still call and they call with problems of whatever kind, social, legal and violence, if they face it. And so they still call. So where people say, I know how to get in touch with Gail. Go and talk to her and find out what to do.

MG: What is it like to know that you have been there and that you have created something that has directly helped people? I mean, it's not an abstract thing that this has actually helped the lives of everyday people.

GAIL CYR: It's a good feeling. It's a good feeling to be able to help somebody out. Especially, you know, like they're really stressed and they don't know what to do and they're afraid. You know, if you can help them out and get through the legal wrangling or whatever it is that they have to do, and then they're relieved like they just... There's just so much relief. It's just a big weight off their shoulders. But once they've got some solutions.

MG: You, as I mentioned in the introduction, are also being honoured for your work in municipal politics. You ran for city council in Yellowknife in the 1980s. You were the only indigenous member elected at that time. What was that like in the first few days when you're sitting there in the council chamber, what was that like?

GAIL CYR: Oh, well, it was. It was pretty exciting. I, you know, I liked it, but I'm a talker, so I didn't have too much trouble. I wasn't too shy to speak up. It was really good. One little thing we had our first meeting with the council at training session, the mayor says any questions I put up, my hand, "yes, Alderman Cyr" and I go, you know, when I was canvassing, everybody said, politicians always just have money in their back pockets and that's what they get, you know, and that's what they're doing it for. And I said, but nobody offered me any money, and I'd like to know if I'm being discriminated against. [Laughter]

MG: Did they understand that it was a joke?

GAIL CYR: You could hear a pin drop on the carpet, that's how... They were stunned for me to bring that up, and especially at the very first meeting that we're having, first training session.

MG: Where do you think your drive for the work that you have done over the course of your career comes from? I mean, the work that you've done, for example, with missing and murdered indigenous women and victims of abuse. What is it within you that has driven that work?

GAIL CYR: Well, I mean, as an indigenous person, I've faced violence myself as a child and as a young woman on the streets of Winnipeg. The one thing about that was on the Winnipeg one, like it was in the middle of the day, like right downtown, right near the bay. And I got attacked and my hair got yanked back and I was raped flat on my back on the sidewalk, and nobody helped. Nobody stopped to help at all. You know, when I just laid there for a second wondering if I hit my hand or anything like that, so but I'm more fortunate than other people because they face more violence and I have.

MG: But that idea of nobody helping, I mean, you're now that person who's helping. I mean, you're the person over the course of your career who has been the person to step up?

GAIL CYR: Yeah, yeah. I also took St. John Ambulance. So I'm a medical first responder. So then I could help if somebody was actually, in fact, injured. And on the street.

MG: And that matters to you to be there, to be that person, to be somebody that people can rely on.

GAIL CYR: Yeah, yeah, I did that for about 15 years or so. I got medals for that.

MG: Well, you're going to get... not a medal, but you're certainly going to get a pin. And I mean, when all of this, you know, the pandemic eases up and you're able to travel south, you will head to Rideau Hall and the governor general, Mary Simon, another indigenous woman. Will pin that medal on you. What does that going to mean to you?

GAIL CYR: That is going to be really special? I've met Mary Simon before, but I found her... Listening to her I found her very good. [meowing sound] that's my little cat. [laughter] I just fed her, too. So she wouldn't start meowing for food.

MG: That's all right. I'll let you go. Let me just ask you one more thing. I mean, what does it mean to you to have someone like Mary Simon in that position?

GAIL CYR: Well, I thought it was really important. I know she was having a hard time when she just got acquainted, and I backed her up all the way to like on Facebook on anything I could imagine. You know, she's a very competent, strong woman, so and she is picking up. Actually she spoke in three languages the other day so, you know, maybe people will back off a bit now.

MG: It'll be quite a moment when you're there meeting her again.

GAIL CYR: Yeah, yeah.

MG: You have a long list of accomplishments and it's great to see you being recognised for things on that list. That list isn't done, though. I mean, it's not as though this comes at a time when you're finished doing that good work.

GAIL CYR: Yeah, I still got a few things to do. I'm on the human race portion right now and I'm also the president of the Yellowknife Seniors Society. So that kind of keeps me just busy enough because I am... I did retire.

MG: Congratulations on all the work that you've done and on this honour, it's a real pleasure to talk to you, Gail.

GAIL CYR: Well, thank you so much for interviewing me.

MG: Take care. Bye bye.

GAIL CYR: OK, you take care.

MG: Gail here was named as a member of the Order of Canada last week. She was in Yellowknife. David Roche is being honoured with the Order of Canada for his pioneering contributions to the field of disability art. It's a career that David didn't start until his mid 40s, when he stepped on stage for the first time to share his story with an audience, and with that also shared his face, which was disfigured when he was a child. As a performer, David uses humour in his stories about living with a facial difference. His one man act, the Church of 80 percent sincerity, has taken him right around the world today. We've reached David at his home in Roberts Creek, British Columbia. David, good morning.

DAVID ROCHE: Good morning to you, Matt.

MG: Congratulations.

DAVID ROCHE: Thank you. I'm still taking it in.

MG: OK, so tell me what it means to you to be named to the order of Canada. As you say, you're still taking it in.

DAVID ROCHE: Okay. Well, first of all, I feel like, well, I've been a good boy [inaudible]. I also am very aware that as you're telling them that I am part of a really global community of people with facial differences and disabilities and that's come a lot over the last 30 years. When I stepped on stage, I was alone. I am no longer alone. And I also wonder, of course, as I'm sure many people who get this do. Why me? Because I know so many people who make Canada a better place.

MG: I think... you in part because of the great work that you've done. We're going to talk about that work in a moment. I'm talking to you on Zoom and we're talking on the radio. So people, I can see you. But people who are listening can't see you. Being seen is a big part of what you do. And that's what happens when you go on stage is that you're seen. For people who haven't seen you on stage, do you mind and only say as much as you're comfortable... Do you mind describing what your facial difference looks like?

DAVID ROCHE: No, I'd be happy to. The left side of my face is malformed, kind of swollen and marked by veins gone wild. There's dark purple and violet... Actually very lovely colours on the left side of my face. The side of my face affected by radiation, which I got at age one year, it did not grow as well as the rest of me. And so it's noticeably smaller. Yet with all of that I'm actually quite cute.

MG: When you stepped on stage for the first time, what was that like to be a performer, to be there in front of a crowd of people?

DAVID ROCHE: It was unusual in that. My first gig was at an adult bookstore and everybody had, had a glass of champagne. And it was called "lay down comedy" and I looked out at this audience for the first time and they all had that kind of yes, look in their eyes. And I thought, Oh my God, this is going to be easy. So that was an easy way to start.

MG: What is it like now? You say that you're part of a community? Tell me about how humour became part of what you do and the message that you spread?

DAVID ROCHE: Well, usually when I stand up in front of an audience, I'll say, Okay, let's get started. When I count to three and point I want everyone to say, what happened to your face. And I do that and what do you know, everybody says it because that's what's on their mind. And that establishes an immediate comfort with the audience. And now I'm at the place where I walk out on the stage [inaudible]. And I feel just inappropriately confident just because I know that my face, I call it a gift from God. I'm out there looking disfigured, and I am yet in about 10 minutes I transformed myself into somebody very attractive, which is really great. And it's a gift to the audience. Because the truth is, everybody feels disfigured. So they're watching me and they see someone who looks disfigured that is also very confident and has a great presence. That's a lesson to them. They don't necessarily fully understand that the way that I have come to, but it's a great gift to them.

MG: Can I go back to something that you said earlier, which is that you see it as a gift to yourself? I mean, tell me, tell me more about that. Did you always...

DAVID ROCHE: No. Did not always feel it's a gift. It's the kind of gift you think, oh you shouldn't have but, it's a gift that many people with disabilities or facial differences have. I feel I've learned from being on stage and getting though that, that everybody has a place inside themselves where they feel this disfigured, ashamed, guilty, body shamed, stupid, fat or whatever. And with a face like I have I am forced to deal with that. I can't fake it. And so that's the way it's a gift. I had to go inside to find my self-confidence. And you know what everybody does. That's why this is a gift.

MG: What was that process like of going inside, as you say?

DAVID ROCHE: I started out with a lot of love. OK, that really helped me a lot. But as life went on, I would say what I had to do was to build a circle of support. I didn't know that I was doing that. It was the kind of thing when I started performing people would say, Oh, you're fantastic you changed my life. Yeah, yeah. And I thought, well, they're just being nice to the little disfigured guy but, they weren't. And it took me, actually years to really listen and to take that on. And that was really a turning point for me, to getting out there, finding my voice, being myself and then getting feedback and that's a really important thing.

MG: What do you think you've been able to pass on to others through the performances that you do and the message that you offer from those stages?

DAVID ROCHE: I think, OK, when I work, it's not like a Ted talk. There's no thing [inaudible], there's no teaching. It's being who I am. And I think that I teach by example and I don't even like to use the word teach. I affect people by example. And in the way that I described when people see me, OK, there's that thing too people that with disabilities call inspiration porn, you know, because the disabled people are so inspirational, etc.. Well, the fact is I am. I am and I feel like everybody needs inspiration. I certainly do all the time. And so that's really what I offer.

MG: What have you heard back from people? I mean, as you said, it can be tricky because there is that idea of inspiration porn is a complicated issue where people don't want to be seen as somebody who's just inspirational. They want to be seen as a human being, and they're full of all of the complexities that human beings are. But what have you heard back from people about how you have affected them?

DAVID ROCHE: I often get told that I have changed people's lives. Okay. I love working with kids, especially those right on the edge of puberty, you know, where it's I'm a teen today and some days I'm a child, you know, that kind of thing. And I know that what I give them is I'm funny, I'm physical, and I'm authentic and they give me great feedback. I have a feeling of love at second sight. Love at second sight, that love, you can see it [inaudible] that shows what when my wife, Marlena and I have done a couple 100 times in schools. And you can see how the kids change from that initial huh to hey, wait a minute to like, Oh my god, this is great. And that's how it happens.

MG: That's a really powerful thing to be part of.

DAVID ROCHE: I love it. I feel like in this amazingly and surprisingly from first getting out on stage by myself and yes being a pioneer, and to now I have a lot of... Like, thousands of friends on Facebook who have come to me [inaudible] to form this global community of people with facial differences. And we have started to have a voice, which is really wonderful because we do know things about the human condition that you handsome people don't necessarily know. And that is how to find inner confidence. If you don't deal with that little place of guilt and shame. That's where the predators come to feed sexual, financial, political, military, et cetera... And people want to foster that fear to make money from you, to control you. I know, I'm starting to get a little ranty here, I know, but that's really how I experience it.

MG: I'm so glad that your voice that you've been using is being honoured in this way, and it's a real pleasure to talk to you, David. Thank you very much.

DAVID ROCHE: Thank you very much, Matt. Take care.

MG: David Roche is a humorist, speaker and author. And last week he was appointed to the Order of Canada. The musician, Ian Tamblyn, is one of the other recipients of the Order of Canada this year. His music often mixes composition with field recordings out in Canada's wilderness. This is Ian Tamblyn and Lancaster Sound.

[SOUNDCLIP: Lancaster Sound by Ian Tamblyn]

MG: It's kind of hypnotic from the album Magnetic North, Ian Tamblyn and Lancaster Sound. Coming up after your regional update. Omicron is raging across this country. Lockdowns and curfews are back. Many schools are moving online, and once again there is grave concern over keeping Canada's health care systems intact. In 90 seconds, we'll hear from health workers across this country. What needs to happen to protect the standards of care. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

Health-care workers on dealing with Omicron and provincial shutdowns

Guests: Srinivas Murthy, Lisa Salamon and Matthew Oughton

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

DOUG FORD: [SOUNDCLIP: Omicron case counts are rising exponentially across the province. We face a tsunami of new cases in the days and weeks ahead. And as we do, virtually everyone in this province will know someone who has been exposed to this virus. Now we're bracing for impact.]

MG: Moving school online, closing indoor dining and gyms, pausing thousands of non-emergency procedures. Those are some of the new restrictions Ontario has announced. And officials said the surge now threatens to overwhelm that province's health care system. And that province is not alone. Across the country, provinces are taking different approaches to ease the strain on hospitals and flatten the curve. To hear more about what health care workers are facing and what needs to happen next, we've reached three doctors across Canada in Vancouver. Dr. Srinivas Murthy is a critical care specialist and Canada research chair in pandemic preparedness at UBC, in Toronto Dr. Lisa Salamon is an E.R. physician at the Scarborough Health Network and in Montreal. Dr. Matthew Oughton is an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Jewish General Hospital of Montreal. He's also an assistant professor of medicine at McGill University. Good morning to you all.

ALL: Good morning.

MG: Dr. Salamon, we'll start with you in Ontario. These new measures were just brought in. What is the situation in your emergency room like these days?

LISA SALAMON: And just as short of time as the last week, over the last one to two weeks, we were seeing, you know, a gradual increase in COVID cases and, you know, patients presenting sicker with COVID. But you know, my colleague was working yesterday and she said, it's a completely different situation than it was a week ago, she said everyone seems to have COVID now. So it's been just a dramatic increase in the cases that we're seeing compared to just even a week ago. And this is what I'm hearing from people at other hospitals around the GTA as well.

MG: Dr. Oughton, what are you seeing in Montreal right now?

MATTHEW OUGHTON: There's definitely a major increase at my hospital, both in terms of people needing to be evaluated, the line-ups for testing at the test center associated with my hospital are really, really long. And I guess the pressure on both our emergency room as well as our hospital wards and our ICU is really substantial and it doesn't look like it's going to be letting up in the next few weeks.

MG: Dr. Murthy, what about in British Columbia?

SRINIVAS MURTHY: We are similar. I think the numbers haven't necessarily translated into a huge spike in ICU numbers yet, but across the wards and across emergency rooms, there's definitely a large surge happening.

MG: Let me ask you a question, just as somebody who is, as I say, Canada research chair in pandemic preparedness. This is not the first or second wave of COVID. It feels as though in some ways we're being caught flat footed. There are scrambles for tests. What people have been referring to as The Hunger Games to try and get booster shots. Once again, we are in a situation where governments are reacting. Many people say in not a proactive way, but they're responding to something that is already unfolding. Do you believe, Dr. Murthy, that we were prepared for this wave?

SRINIVAS MURTHY: No. And I think it's been frustrating for everybody. Health care workers, the public, policymakers, almost everybody to see these reactions and these cycles of reactions over and over again. This is predictable. And to see this spike and to see the exhaustion of health care workers come around again, especially over the winter, it's frustrating.

MG: Where did we drop the ball?

SRINIVAS MURTHY: I think along the way, I think not knowing that COVID was going to be here for a while and we all wanted it to go away in spring of 2020, but obviously we knew that it wasn't going to go away and not preparing our systems. Both our health care systems, our communication systems, our schools, everything for this long haul was, I think, our biggest where we got the ball.

MG: Dr. Salamon Canada is one of the most vaccinated nations in the world. Is it largely the unvaccinated who are ending up in hospital ICUs from your observation?

LISA SALAMON: Yeah, absolutely. So it's the unvaccinated, the under-vaccinated are the large proportion of people who are ending up in the ICU. Unfortunately, there is the odd patient who's vaccinated that are ending up there, but it's the vast majority are definitely the unvaccinated and the under-vaccinated.

MG: What about more broadly when it comes to those cases that are occurring where as you were saying, I mean, suddenly there is an explosion of cases and those cases may not end up with patients in the ICU. But one of the things that we have been hearing is around incidental COVID cases, people who come into a hospital with one ailment and then it is discovered because everyone is tested when they come into the hospital, but they also have COVID. How much of that are you seeing, Dr. Salamon?

LISA SALAMON: Yeah. So, you know, I'm not seeing a lot of it. I do know it's more the patients who are admitted in the hospital. They're the ones where they may find this incidental COVID. I think that there's too much focus on that and it's a little bit of noise that is distracting the public and confusing the public. Yes, there are some people who might be coming into the hospital for another reason, and sure, they test positive for COVID. But we have to remember that all of those people still need to be on precautions. They have the risk of passing COVID, to both the staff and other patients that they've been sharing rooms with. And also, we've found that some of these patients have extended admissions because they have concurrent COVID as well. So we can't ignore those cases, but they aren't the majority. And I think that really discussing this is kind of making noise and distracting from the issues at hand.

MG: Dr Oughton is that along the lines of your thinking?

MATTHEW OUGHTON: One hundred percent agree with that. I would say that, particularly in the ICU setting, that the proportion of incidental COVID, I think, is very, very, very small and really not something that we focus our attention or energies on. I'd also point out that I think the exact definition of what is incidental COVID, I think, is very debatable because I find that very often, even if someone who is admitted to a hospital ward bed with COVID-19, and that was not their primary reason for admission, very, very often COVID-19 winds up complicating things like what Dr. Salamon was alluding to. Sort of prolonging the hospital stay, you know, creating other exacerbations and other chronic conditions. So it's still a significant contributor to that patient's length of stay, their chances of running into severe complications and so forth.

MG: You're in Quebec. That province implemented stricter measures before other provinces did. There's a curfew that's back in place when you take a look at the numbers in your province, what do you think is driving them?

MATTHEW OUGHTON: Very clearly, I mean, I guess the proximate cause is the arrival of Omicron, and it's really stunning to think that we are now only about five weeks in since the very first case was reported in this country, and it feels like it's been a lot longer than that. Yes, I would. I would agree that Quebec was amongst the first to create some restrictions. However, it's certainly to me surprising the parallels that have often existed between Ontario and Quebec in terms of how the two provinces have followed each other in terms of the surge of cases and responses. And certainly in both cases, both of our provinces had very good modelling data that has withstood the test of the last few weeks where on December 16th, both provinces had modelling showing the likely impact of Omicron in terms of cases, hospitalizations and asking for immediate measures to be taken. And both provinces, neither really enacted any strict measures for an additional two weeks, which in Omicron terms is very, very short or sorry very, very long stretch of time. And I think had restrictions been enacted earlier, I think we could have mitigated some of the pressure that we're seeing right now.

MG: I was asking Dr. Murthy whether he believes in some ways we dropped the ball as a society, whether we were unprepared for this fifth wave of COVID. Given what we already know, what do you think, Dr. Oughton was behind the decision not to act sooner? If we know that this is coming, it's getting colder, people are going to be spending more time indoors. And yes, Omicron was a bit of a wild card out of the deck. But if that's generally what happens over the course of a pandemic, why didn't governments move quicker?

MATTHEW OUGHTON: That's an excellent question, and I think there's going to be a lot of dissection after the fact to try to tease out the reasons, amongst other reasons. Certainly, the fact that this happened right as we were going into a holiday season when so many important players in the system, you know, health care workers, the general public, everyone wanted there to be a break. Everyone was looking to the Christmas and holiday season as being that break. And I think that we were really ready to sort of hope for the best case scenario and not plan for anything sort of worse than that. And unfortunately, I think that really set us up poorly, but it really does strike me that I think there was ample warning with these modelling projections, and I think that had we taken action then I think we would have seen... And in fact, the modelling even shows what the effects would have been had restrictions been announced back then rather than waiting a few weeks. And I think that would have really served us well in retrospect. We keep on getting surprised by this, even though we have all the tools at our disposal to not be surprised.

MG: Dr. Salamon, one of the costs of not acting earlier and acting now in Ontario, is that non-emergency surgeries are going to be postponed in anticipation of the surging numbers of COVID. The estimation yesterday was that 8,000 to 10,000 non-emergency surgeries per week are going to be postponed. What is that going to mean for those patients?

LISA SALAMON: I mean, this is horrible and it really is inexcusable. I mean, when people talk about non-emergency surgeries, people have to recognize that these are important surgeries. These include cancer cases. They include, you know, joint replacements that people have been suffering for years with pain, back surgeries, cataract surgeries, eye saving surgeries, you know. And so really, people have been waiting... They've been cancelled numerous times over the course of the last two years because of COVID. And you know, these are life saving and, you know, that affects people's quality of life. So it really is horrible that these cases, these surgeries are being cancelled and the backlog it's going to take years to catch up on.

MG: I was going to say is your sense that there is any plan in place to try to ease that backlog, which is already in place from future or from past waves that we've gone through. So in future, is there any plan to try and close that gap?

LISA SALAMON: Well, the problem is stopping. So the government had said they would give extra funding to keep ORs open on the weekends and evenings. But you have to remember that we need staff to do that. We need nurses, we need PSWs, transport people, cleaners, surgeons, anaesthetists, assistants, so many people that we need. And as you know, we don't have those people right now, particularly in Ontario, we have a huge shortage of healthcare workers. So I don't know how, you know, the government can have a plan, but I don't know how we will achieve that when we don't have the staff available to make up this backlog.

MG: Dr. Murthy, you're in British Columbia on the other side of the country in Newfoundland and Labrador. There were 519 new cases yesterday. The provincial chief medical officer of health, Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, said we will most likely all eventually get COVID-19 at some point in time some day. Is that your belief that we will all, if not be exposed and we will all get COVID-19?

SRINIVAS MURTHY: I don't want to do that on this short timescale. I want to look at that over the course of many months and possibly years that we will be exposed and possibly get COVID-19. If we all get it within these next few weeks, [inaudible] the system will be incapacitated, let's say. But her idea that we'll all be exposed and possibly infected as this disease becomes endemic in the future, that's likely.

MG: If that is the case. And I'll ask all three of you this, because I think this is important given what we're in right now and the various measures being taken across the country. What should the goal of those measures be? Should we be trying to prevent the health care system from being swamped? Should we be trying to prevent people from getting COVID? Should we be trying to prevent the most vulnerable from getting COVID? What should the goal of what we're doing right now actually be, Dr. Murthy?

SRINIVAS MURTHY: I would say at this point in time, it's the health system strain that's going to be the main focus. Looking at our hospitals, looking at our ICUs, looking at our health care workers and making sure that we're able to keep our system going. Cancelling surgeries is an incredibly important thing that we really need to think carefully about. And if we're doing that across our country, then our system has already collapsed in a way. And so looking at those things and making sure that we're able to push forward without too much of an impact on the population.

MG: Dr. Oughton, what do you think the goal of the measures should be taken? I mean, there's a curfew in Quebec right now. What is the goal of that? And what should the metrics be to know when you lift a curfew, when kids can go back into school, when restaurants can open again?

MATTHEW OUGHTON: So the problem is that the metrics that all of us are used to over the last few years, particularly counting cases, are greatly impaired right now by the sheer volume of cases that are not getting tested or for whom there's huge delays when they do get tested. So it becomes very tricky to use that we're generating numbers, but those are consistently gross underestimates of the actual burden of disease that are out there in the community. I guess what I would say is in the very short term, I fully agree. We really need to sort of deal with the survival and the functioning of the healthcare system, both for the severely ill COVID patients, but also for all the other patients who through no fault of their own, need support from the healthcare system that is so underwater right now because of all of the challenges that COVID is posing. In the longer term what we have to be working towards is a more resilient system so that we don't have the same challenges from these, from these ongoing waves. We've got to be learning from what we've done well and what we've done poorly in the past. And we've got to be looking at the long term effects on how we're going to be dealing with this huge and increasing backlog of surgeries and how we're going to have people want to come in and work in the health care system when so many are leaving it right now.

MG: We're going to come back to that resilient system piece in a moment. But Dr. Salamon, from you? What should the goal be? We're seeing extraordinary case numbers in Ontario, but to Dr. Oughton's point, what are those case numbers actually saying if we can't test everybody who believes they may have COVID-19? So in the moment that we're in right now, what should we be trying to achieve?

LISA SALAMON: Right now in Ontario as you know, the rules have changed for testing, so we're not even testing the vast majority of people who have COVID. So our... We don't have that as a metric or data point. All we really have is a data point now are our hospitalisations and the ICU cases. I agree with my colleagues here that right now, the focus needs to be preserving our already fragile health care system and making sure that it doesn't collapse and really never having to cancel important surgeries again. I mean, this is unforgivable [inaudible] We never should have gotten to this point. But I also feel strongly that we need to protect our vulnerable too, our older people, our people with, you know, medical problems, those in long term care. And one thing we didn't mention is we really need to continue focussing on our vaccination efforts. Vaccinate the children. Fourth doses to long term care. And really make sure that we get our third dose boosters into the adult population and hopefully soon the teens as well. Again, I think we were caught flat footed here. We should have started our third dose boosters earlier, and we should have been set up to be able to quickly vaccinate people. We have been doing this for a year now and there's no excuse that it's been taking so long to wrap this up.

MG: Is your sense that any of that is going to be done in Ontario, where the school has been... in-class school has been delayed until at least the 17th of January. The closures of restaurants, et cetera, gyms for three weeks time... In that window is your sense that any of the things that you think are necessary are actually going to be done in a meaningful way?

LISA SALAMON: Well, in terms of vaccinations, that's the goal. We now have two weeks really to push it out. The problem is, is that in Ontario and I think probably Canada. We don't have Pfizer. We're not getting more shipments of Pfizer, at least in Ontario. And so that is going to be a problem, particularly for those under 30 where we're really trying to get Pfizer for the teenagers as well. So we can't start the teenagers till we have that and you know, hopefully we will have enough Moderna that we can give, you know, vaccinate all the long term care with fourth doses and the adults as well. So hopefully we don't have a supply issue again. And as long as we don't have the supply issue, two weeks does give us a lot of time. But that being said, we're hearing about all these staff shortages and you know, we need to have the, you know, the person power in order to be able to do this vaccination. So hopefully you will have all those in place over the next two weeks to be able to do those things that needs to be done in a meaningful way.

MG: Dr Oughton, and let me just briefly go back to you. You talked about building a resilient system. There is the argument that's being made by many people that this has just shown the cracks that were already there. What needs to be done not to paper the cracks over, but to truly address them in this crisis?

MATTHEW OUGHTON: Boy, I could probably spend a whole show just on that. I mean, there's all sorts of things, and maybe some of my colleagues can speak better to this than I could. But amongst other things, I think we're seeing repeatedly that our capacity to deal with surges when they happen is greatly impaired. If you compare Canada versus many other G7 countries in terms of access to ICU beds, for example. Usually we come out on the short end of the stick there. I think there's been... This has been said since the beginning of this pandemic, Canada very often relied on other countries for supplies and technologies that, as it turns out, we need to have domestic capacity for. And that certainly includes vaccines. But with research and development as well as vaccine production, the process has started but by no means are we even close to being ready to be sort of a self-sufficient nation in that capacity.

MG: Dr. Murthy?

SRINIVAS MURTHY: Yeah, that's like an hour long conversation about how our system can be better prepared. There's a famous dictum in health care which basically says every system is perfectly designed to get the results that it achieves, and to the Canadian health care system the results that we've seen over the past couple of years are kind of by design how our system is structured. Limited ICU capacity, limited board beds and limited primary care capacity. No data sharing across our provinces. No data sharing across our country. The list goes on and on. And so when we think about building a system that's resilient to pandemics and surges and health care emergencies, the list of things that we need to improve is huge. And like you said, Matt, we've seen the cracks COVID has exposed them and opened them up. It's time to fix them.

MG: In the meantime, you're all right there at the face of those cracks. How are you holding up? Dr. Murthy?

SRINIVAS MURTHY: Ah, it's been tiring. It's been two years of this and going on CBC and talking about this is not what I want to do, but I think...

MG: We're glad you'll do it, but continue.

SRINIVAS MURTHY: Hopefully this wave is coming to the end of this pandemic, but I'm sceptical.

MG: Dr. Salamon, what about you? How are you dealing with morale on your team?

LISA SALAMON: Yeah, you know, we're all tired. Definitely. Over the last while the morale has been down and no one really wanted this to come. And I think people are really frustrated because, like my colleagues have said, and actions could have been done three weeks ago to prevent this from happening. And now it's weighing... It's on our shoulders once again in order to fix this. And you know, people, you know, we always step up and we deal with the crisis in front of us. But it's been tough. No one wants to deal with this again. And there's that, I think, really going to take a while for people to recover when this is all over.

MG: Dr Oughton, if we were to talk in a month's time, where do you think we'll be?

MATTHEW OUGHTON: I think in a month from now, I'm very hopeful that this Omicron fire that has been burning so very, very intensely is going to exhaust most of its fuel and that in a month from now, we'll at least be solely on the down side of the slope. It's going to be, I think, a very, very tough next month. I'm not looking forward to being on call next week at my hospital, but them's the breaks. But I'm hoping that we will at least have weathered the storm with as little collateral damage as we can. But I keep on thinking about the long term effects, the long term effects on everything from our population's trust in experts, our population's trust in government and the long term effects on the healthcare system, on the workers. People have already given up, moved on, taken early retirement because generating new health care workers who want to work in the system that is showing all these cracks is going to not be a short or easy fix that's going to need a lot of time and a lot of political will to actually really build that resilience.

MG: I think perhaps we should have you all back for that hour long conversation about what we need to do to actually address those cracks. In the meantime, I appreciate you speaking with us this morning and appreciate the work that you're doing. Thank you very much and take good care.

ALL: Thanks for having us.

MG: Dr. Srinivas Murthy is a critical care specialist and Canada research chair in pandemic preparedness at UBC. Dr. Lisa Salamon, E.R., Physician at Scarborough Health Network. Dr. Matthew Outen is an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, also an assistant professor of medicine at McGill University. Tomorrow on the program, we're going to take a look at what postponing the return to the classroom once again for many kids across this country means for their education and their mental health. That's coming up tomorrow. In the meantime, that's it for The Current for this Tuesday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q. Tom Power speaking with a legend, Marianne Faithfull, her 22nd album. She Walks in Beauty is out. Marianne Faithfull has seen it all and is still singing about it, and you'll hear her coming up in just a moment on CBC Radio One. Before we hand it over to Q some big news in the world of music. David Bowie has sold his catalogue for massive profits, well the David Bowie estate has done that. Before the holidays Bruce Springsteen earned a whopping $500 million U.S. selling the rights to his work. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Paul Simon, Neil Young have also cashed in thanks to streaming rights becoming a valuable financial asset. Bowie's deal was reportedly worth about $250 million. Who knows what he himself would have felt about this deal and the changes to the industry, but he was a man who in many ways embodied change. And so we leave you with David Bowie. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current we'll see tomorrow.

[MUSIC: Changes by Davis Bowie]

Tuesday January 4, 2022 Full Transcript

Social Sharing

More from this episode