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The Current Transcript for March 22, 2021

Host: Rosemary Barton

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

ROSEMARY BARTON: It's been an awfully long time since bison were at home in Canada's Rockies. That's all changing, though. In an hour, we hear how North America's largest land mammal is making a comeback in Banff National Park. Also, this morning, the past 12 months have been taxing, to say the least, and our mental health has suffered over the course of rolling lockdowns and isolation. As Louise Bradley prepares to leave her post as president of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, she shares what this year has been like for her and what she hopes our mental health system can learn from the pandemic. But we begin with a devastating new report on femicide in Canada. I'm Rosemary Barton, sitting in for Matt Galloway. You were listening to "The Current".

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Femicide on the rise in Canada

Guests: Delilah McKeith, Amanda Dale, Dawn Lavell-Harvard

ROSEMARY BARTON: In Canada, an alarming number of women are being murdered. A new study reveals that 2020 was particularly deadly for women in this country. In a few minutes, we'll hear more about that report on femicide. But first, we're going to hear from Delilah McKeith. Four years ago, her daughter Nicole was killed in her home. Her estranged husband was found guilty of second-degree murder last month. And Delilah McKeith joins me now. Good morning, Delilah.

DELILAH MCKEITH: Good morning.

ROSEMARY BARTON: I'm so sorry for your loss. Can you tell us early on what the relationship was like between your daughter Nicole and her husband?

DELILAH MCKEITH: Her husband and her had for four years they had a rocky relationship. I knew that there was problems in the marriage, but. I respected her as an adult to make her choices and decisions on her own. She didn't want to be babied by her parents, so we could feel that there was a problem that was escalating, but we just thought it wouldn't come to this. Then in January of 2017, she got some news about infidelity. And long story short, she ended her marriage, and they just so happened to be at our home for Christmas. And it just sort of erupted there where she said, Mom, I'm not happy, I've had enough. [beggining to cry] So I said, it's OK to be happy. It's OK to seek happiness. And if you can't be together, it's OK to separate.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Right.

DELILAH MCKEITH: And they have left back to their home. And it just escalated from there, breaking into her home, hiding under the bed, creepy things like chasing her down, giving her phone calls, horrifying threats. He broke into the house twice, and he was remanded only for a couple of days. And the bail was only at a thousand dollars. And, in my opinion, that's where the justice system failed her. A thousand dollars is all her life was worth.

ROSEMARY BARTON: So when she reported these incidents, Delilah, these... these various frightening incidents. Were they taken seriously? I mean, he was remanded once, but for the other incidents, [00:04:08]was it taken seriously enough? [1.2s]

DELILAH MCKEITH: [00:04:09]No, no. [0.6s] And I spoke to the head RCMP officer who is in charge of the detachment. And that lady said, I didn't even see those reports. She said, if I would have seen those reports, I would have done something. So somewhere in the system, everything just was pushed aside. It wasn't taken seriously.

ROSEMARY BARTON: And I don't know how much you want to say about this, but as much as you're willing to say about the day that Nicole was attacked and killed.

DELILAH MCKEITH: That day, actually, she was killed on the 23rd, and they didn't find her body till the 24th. She didn't show up for work. That's when her employer realized that a wellness check had to be done. And I was not informed till 6:00 that night, and not by the choice of the legal system. It was the choice of my husband because he was far away in the oil field. He got the phone call first, and he didn't want me to hear it from anybody else. So he worked his way home to tell me. So I'm going to tell you. [00:05:17]When I had heard, I was at work, and it was like an out-of-body experience. You just lose it. You mentally lose it when you lose a child. [10.1s] And I found out later on that my employer had to get psychologists in to help the staff. And this is what he said to them. There is no other sound in this world than the wailing and the screaming of a mother who has lost her child. He said, you will never hear that again until you have heard a mother who has lost her child. Then from that point forward, all I could think about was my grandchildren. Where are they? Are they alive? What's their wellness like? And I couldn't get to their home fast enough to grab my grandchildren. Then when we got there, we had to do RCMP statements and stuff. And then they said, you can't go home. We got to put you in hiding. So here we are, two little children and the clothes on their back running and hiding because they didn't know if our safety was in jeopardy or not. So [00:06:23]here we are, about a week in hiding until they could get the situation under hand and it was safe. [5.7s]

ROSEMARY BARTON: It's very hard to obviously to hear you tell this. I can't imagine, you know, how you... how you got through it and how you're still there for your grandchildren. When you got that call from your husband, from the police, did you... did you expect that it would end this way?

DELILAH MCKEITH: Yeah, because my husband, the first thing he said to the police officer, is she gone or is she in the hospital? We knew something was going to happen. We just didn't know which way.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Right. What... [00:07:04]what kind of changes would you like to see, Delilah, to avoid this, to protect other women? [5.1s] Because clearly, you're right. I mean, not enough was done here.

DELILAH MCKEITH: No. And when I'm speaking, lots of victims are coming forward. There's a lot of this going on that in my own home, in my own town, that nobody realizes. [00:07:25]It's a closet epidemic. So I think that restraining orders are not worth the paper they're written on. [6.1s] As soon as a restraining order is put towards a criminal, they should not get a bail for a thousand dollars. [00:07:40]They should have to have psychological assessments, and they should have even an ankle bracelet or something that detects where they are if they're out on bail. [11.5s] And bail shouldn't be a thousand dollars. Bail should be ten thousand dollars-plus, you know? A lot of victims say there's no financial assistance and there's no funds for lawyers and counsellors in an emergency situation. A lot of women feel that they can't leave because they got three children on their hip. They got no money, no place to go.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Right.

DELILAH MCKEITH: So and also like [00:08:19]in the break-and-enter case, in my case, they shouldn't have sent her back home to her house where the occurrences happened often. They should have put her and the children in hiding right away until they could rectify this situation. [11.8s] [sniffle]

ROSEMARY BARTON: What would you like people to know about Nicole?

DELILAH MCKEITH: I want people to know that she was a good human being. I want people to know that she was caring and that she loved all people in general. She had good morals. She was a good mother. She worked three jobs to make ends meet, to keep her family well-fed and to keep a roof over their head. She was the only breadwinner in that family. She was a very strong person, very independent person. And I respect her very much. I'm very proud of her as a daughter. I was very disgusted at the trial that the whole trial was wrapped around the defending lawyer trying to make my daughter look like she was a bad person. That was nasty. And when I spoke with my psychologist, he said that a person who is in abuse is in extreme trauma and PTSD. Those kind of people are in fight-or-flight mode, and they don't make the wisest choices. For somebody to take that trauma, that person is going to gain something on their own - shame on them.

ROSEMARY BARTON: How are how are your grandkids doing? You're looking after them now. How are they doing?

DELILAH MCKEITH: Yes, I have adopted them. I have adopted them. And it's a good thing Child Services had apprehended them because Child Services provided a lot of support systems for the whole family. And they have walked us through the last four years. And we've gotten a tremendous amount of support from Child Services, the government and from the schools. [00:10:11]And I want all victims out there to know that there are avenues out there that you'll be shocked that there is avenues of support. Call your local victim services area [11.6s] and they've got lots and tons of help for people who need... who need help in a situation like this.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Delilah, I hope those grandkids bring you some comfort. I really do.

DELILAH MCKEITH: They do. They do.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Good! Thank you so much for... for sharing that difficult story. It's... it's really important to hear from people like you on a topic like this. So thank you.

DELILAH MCKEITH: Thank you.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Delilah MCKeith is Nicole Clifford's mother. She was in Red Deer, Alberta. Well, that new report that we're talking about by the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability shows 160 women and girls were killed across the country last year. That's more than the year before. One in five were Indigenous. Amanda Dale is an advisory member with the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability. And Dawn Lavell-Harvard is a member of the same group and also president of the Ontario Native Women's Association. Good morning to both of you.

BOTH: Good morning.

ROSEMARY BARTON: I have to tell you, that's hard to hear this early in the morning. Amanda Dale, what do you make of what we just heard there from Delilah about her daughter, Nicole?

AMANDA DALE: Well, it is a harrowing story, and despite doing this work for 40 years, I found myself crying when I heard the story. And [00:11:45]I think that's one of the things that we tried to capture in our report is that these are individuals. These are human beings with lives that were cut short, children that lost mothers, families that lost daughters. [12.8s] And it is... it is everything that Delilah said in her description, both of what happened to her daughter and the failures of the systems that should have been there to support her are replicated, unfortunately, across the country. And more specifically, and ongoingly, for Indigenous women in Canada.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Dawn Lavell-Harvard, as Amanda said there, a lot of similar issues play out again and again. How common are those in terms of the response that women sometimes get from police, for instance?

DAWN LAVELL-HARVARD I mean, the saddest part about this case, I mean, [00:12:39]it's such a tragedy, but it's a narrative, it's a story that I have heard again and again and again. That a restraining order is not worth the paper it's written on. I [9.2s] mean, these men walk right through. If these men were inclined to follow rules of what one should and shouldn't do, then they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. And these restraining orders, you know, essentially give police the power to arrest them after they've walked through and inflicted horrific, absolutely horrific violence against these women. And... and do it again and again. You know, we've heard this over and over that there, as a previous speaker said, it's really not worth the paper they're written on. And [00:13:20]there has to be better ways we can ensure the safety of the women, [3.0s] the suggestions of ankle bracelets, the suggestion of women who are in these situations being moved into hiding because they really are at immense risk.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Amanda, I've certainly... I'm sure people, other people, have read to the stories about an increase in domestic violence through the pandemic. What do we know about the effects of the pandemic on violence against women?

AMANDA DALE: Well, separate from the report, which focuses on femicide, which is the killing of women for being women. Behind that, I guess I could call it the... the horrible tip of the iceberg is the mass underneath, which is [00:14:08]the daily diet of oppression, coercive control, violence that happens in homes across Canada. And it's that background that we fail to recognize. [15.0s] And we do talk about femicide a little bit more than we talk about the background of violence that happens every day. [00:14:35]And what we know from the pandemic, globally, but as well in Canada, is that it has given a free pass to all of these forms of behaviour. [8.5s] So coercive control being the manipulation and control of a woman's life. And obviously, being locked down with your abuser increases his opportunities to do that.

ROSEMARY BARTON: For sure.

AMANDA DALE: We know that the rates have risen across the globe. We're starting to see a slight uptick in femicides in 2021. We don't know very much about that yet. But even without an uptick in femicides, we've seen first a very quiet phase under lockdown where women regrouped and had to monitor their own safety. And women are wise about this. They know when their safety is at risk. And they they hang back and don't contact services until they have an opening. And then we saw an opening happen about six months into the pandemic when women started reaching out, and new women started reaching out to services who had never been in contact with services before. And this, we know, is because the pandemic of violence against women is spreading. It's affecting more women. And the forms of violence that we're seeing, as we know from the survey done by Women's Shelters Canada across the country, the forms of violence tend to be more extreme.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah, you talked you talked about early data. I mean, if you if you just take the province of Quebec, we're less than 90 days into the year in Quebec and there have been six femicides just in that one province. So that gives us a sense. Dawn the report found that Indigenous women are particularly at risk. Why are they continually overrepresented when it comes to violent crime in this country?

DAWN LAVELL-HARVARD I mean, the tragedy of it is that even when you said one in five when you look at the numbers here, it says 23 per cent were Indigenous. That's of the ones where ethnicity is known. And unless somebody happens to be very distinctly visibly Indigenous or has a distinctly obvious Indigenous name or a reserve address, [00:16:50]there's many Indigenous women who are living in rural and urban areas that don't show up in these statistics because they're Indigeneity, isn't known. And so, you know, it's more like one in four, [14.0s] in fact, that this is really just the tip of the iceberg. And the issue is vulnerability. When we live in a country where, as we've seen here, counter to what we thought, where everybody assumes that there's greater femicide, greater violence in the urban centres. Women, Indigenous and non-indigenous, are more likely to be killed in small towns and rural areas. You know, and we know from this conversation it's much more likely, you know, 75 per cent is by a partner or an ex-partner or a family member. So the spaces where we would think women, where we feel people should be safe, in their home, in the small towns, the rural areas, in fact, the truth is, in fact, completely the opposite. And [00:17:48]for Indigenous women, it's exacerbated even more when you're in communities that don't have services, where you don't have a shelter to run to when there's violence in your situation. [10.8s] And I think, as Amanda mentioned, the pandemic has exacerbated. We now have a crisis on top of a crisis. We already had a crisis of violence against women in this country, increased vulnerability against Indigenous women when you think about the fact that we're less than five per cent of the Canadian population, but one-quarter, almost one-quarter, according to the documented statistics of the femicide. Is when you are locked in the home, when those safety plans are no longer possible, because you can't just run to a friend or a neighbour when everybody is in lockdown. You know, people didn't realize shelters were still open. And the fact that those working on the frontlines in the area of violence against women such as the shelter workers are not considered essential services. They're not considered essential workers in this economy. They didn't get PPE. They didn't get support the same way.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Right.

DAWN LAVELL-HARVARD And that in itself shows a societal lack of awareness of... of the very real life and death situation that people are facing and Indigenous women in particular, because of that vulnerability, because of lack of services to support them when they are trying to escape violence.

ROSEMARY BARTON: I only have about a minute. So you'll forgive me. But just quickly, both of you, Amanda, what is needed? What can be done here to help the situation?

AMANDA DALE: Well, you heard some thoughts from Delilah, and she's not wrong. [00:19:28]The criminal criminal justice responses that need to take account of the links between misogyny and recidivism. [6.5s] So the hatred of women is not isolated to one woman, and it tends to be a series of crimes both within the household and outside of it. And our case studies in the report illustrate this harrowingly. [00:19:53]We need significant investment in prevention, significant change in how we invest in rural and remote areas. [7.4s] We need to understand how access to firearms in rural areas, in particular, makes women at higher risk. And all of this needs to be grouped in a far greater understanding. That should be a national action plan that goes beneath the surface of the window dressing kind of investments that keep us in the headlines. And instead, deal with the things that are harder to deal with over time.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Dawn, same question to you.

DAWN LAVELL-HARVARD Well, [00:20:30]femicide doesn't just happen. It's the final step when looking back at these cases in a long pattern of violence for these men. So we need to get tougher and smarter about how we're dealing with the violence in those earlier stages. [12.8s] And as you said, not just a restraining order that they can walk right through. You know, mandatory training, mandatory treatment earlier on, better supports for the women to actually be safe and really trying to understand, you know, training for police officers, training so that you don't have incidences where... I mean, we look at Atlanta right now and the tragedy that happened, a number of women that were murdered. And... and a police officer who says this guy was, you know, basically having a bad day. He's not looking at it as this larger pattern of that man believing that women were responsible for his problem in general as women being a temptation. You know, this goes way back. There's a long history.

ROSEMARY BARTON: OK, I've got to leave it there, both of you. Thank you so much. Amanda Dale, Don Leavelle, Harvard, thank you for this conversation this morning.

AMANDA DALE: Thank you, Rosemary. Nice to talk to you, Dawn.

DAWN LAVELL-HARVARD Meegwetch [thank you]

ROSEMARY BARTON: The CBC News is next. And then, author Namina Forna is dedicating her career to giving young readers characters and stories that reflect the vast diversity of our world. Decolonizing the fantasy genre. I'm Rosemary Barton. You're listening to "The Current".

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Peter Humphrey on being imprisoned in China; author Namina Forna on her fantasy novel

Guests: Peter Humphrey, Namina Forna

ROSEMARY BARTON: Hello, I'm Rosemary Barton. And you're listening to "The Current".

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ROSEMARY BARTON: Still to come, how author Namina Forna's new book, "The Gilded Ones", is helping decolonize the fantasy genre. Plus, if you're heading deep into Banff National Park anytime soon, you might be lucky enough to witness the amazing return of North America's largest land mammal. How the bison bounce back in 30 minutes. But first, we go to China, where Canadian Michael Kovrig appeared in court today.

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ROSEMARY BARTON: In Beijing today, Michael Kovrig was on trial after being detained for more than 800 days. Canadian officials were joined by diplomats from 26 countries to demand access to the courtroom, but neither they nor journalists were allowed inside. A court statement says the trial has been held. No verdict has been released. No verdict was released after Michael Spavor's court date Friday on similar espionage charges. But those following the cases fear there's little chance the two Canadians will be found anything but guilty. Yesterday, Michael Spavor's friend, Jacco Zwetsloot, said he's managing.

JACCO ZWETSLOOT: Michael is a positive thinker. I mean, we all have our downtimes, our down moments, obviously. But I think that... that Michael is weathering this as best as anyone can in his situation.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Former journalist and corporate investigator Peter Humphrey knows what it's like to go through that situation, detention in China and a trial in that country's court system. He and his wife were arrested in 2013 for allegedly illegally acquiring information about a Chinese citizen. Peter Humphrey joins me now. Hello.

PETER HUMPHREY: Good morning.

ROSEMARY BARTON: You've been obviously following the cases of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. Has anything surprised you about the way the Chinese government is handling these cases?

PETER HUMPHREY: I don't think anything has surprised me so far. And I'm not surprised that they have done things like blocked proper communications and not allowed the two Michaels to organize a proper defence, not allowed very much access by their consular representatives. None of these things really surprised me because this is not really justice and due process unfolding. It is actually justice itself which is on trial.

ROSEMARY BARTON: So when... when the Chinese authorities say, for instance, that they can't let journalists or consular officials into the courtroom because there's classified information, what do you make of that?

PETER HUMPHREY: Well, I think that's nonsense. But simply, they do not want the world to see what happens inside that courtroom because it is a totally sham trial. I mean, they tried to make my and my wife's trial secret back in 2014. I managed to fight that proposition down, and we ended up with what I would call a semi-open trial. But even in that semi-open trial, no Western media were allowed in. And there was like a delayed feed of proceedings in the courtroom, which was censored on its way through the feed. You know, we were not allowed to present any evidence in the courtroom and we were not allowed to present any defence witnesses. And there was no cross-examination of the prosecution's cited witnesses. None of them appeared in court. This was not justice. And even if the michaels had a semi-open trial like me, it would still be a complete fiasco.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Can you remind people who may not be familiar with your story about your arrest in China? What happened there?

PETER HUMPHREY: Well, first of all, I was a China specialist all my adult life, and I had spent 20 years in journalism and then 15 years in the due diligence and fraud investigation business running my own company. And in 2013, we were arrested after conducting an investigation into a former employee of one of our clients, GlaxoSmithKline. And it turned out that this former employee was actually a police informer and that she was working with the police on an investigation into our client. This caused us to be arrested, and we were detained for two years under false charges of illegally gathering a citizen's information. We had actually used legal means in all of our work. We were held for about 13 months until we were put on trial, and we were held in the end for almost two years before we were released. In my case, I had developed prostate cancer while in captivity and the authorities were hiding that. And after I got out, I had to spend several years in various treatments. The conditions in which we were held were absolutely appalling. You know, we were held in cells with no furniture, no bed. You know, you had to sleep on a hard wooden floor, a rough floor. And you ate off the floor. You sat on the floor, everything was on the floor. And you had a hole in the floor in the corner of the room for a toilet and an old sink next to it, which produced only cold water and so forth. It was pretty appalling. I can't bear to think, you know, what conditions these two men have had to endure. I know, though, that they are men of great integrity, great self-belief and great discipline. And I am sure that these virtues will have helped to bring them through this terrible ordeal.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Peter Humphrey, without that medical condition, would you have been released? Would you and your wife have been released? What do you think would have happened?

PETER HUMPHREY: I think that we would have served our full terms. In my case, it was two and a half years. And in the end, I served 23 months. But I have no doubt that if I had not been able to stir up trouble, if you like, over this prostate condition, they wouldn't have let me out early. The thing is that President Xi Jinping was imminently going to visit the U.K. This was when David Cameron was... was prime minister here. Once I got this news out to my son, they were afraid that he was going to stir up the media and wreck that visit. So I think that's the reason why we got out early.

ROSEMARY BARTON: The other thing that happened that hasn't happened in the case of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig is that you and your wife confessed on Chinese national television.

PETER HUMPHREY: We didn't. Now, that's completely wrong. We did not confess. We were put in a cage and made to look as though we were confessing.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Sorry. [chuckling] Indeed, indeed. You were... a forced confession happened.

PETER HUMPHREY: Yeah. And this is indeed a very important subject in Canada today because there is a complaint sitting on the desk of the CRTC asking them to investigate these abuses committed by Chinese state broadcasters on your airwaves. No, I mean, this... this is a practice introduced by Xi Jinping when he came to power was to parade prisoners on Chinese television.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Right.

PETER HUMPHREY: And make them look as though they'd confess even before they'd been officially charged or indicted. Yes, we were put through that. And I think the world was shocked by this. Look, as much as we all care about Michael and Michael, OK, and as much as this case is about them, it's also about something much bigger. It's much bigger than one or two cases. Before Xi Jinping came to power at the end of 2012, China did not grab foreigners off the street and throw them in jail. But now nobody can consider themselves safe. He's terrifying everybody around the world. And hundreds of foreigners, not just two or three, have been jailed while he has been in power on very strange and spurious charges. We only hear about a few of them, and some of them have even been given death sentences. I've had contact with the families of people who are on death row in China, and I really need to get together, you know, amongst democratic countries and face down this this abuse. You know, Xi Jinping is waging war against all segments of society. And he's been waging war, in a sense, against all of us around the world as well in the drive for domination. So this is a much bigger issue than these two cases, I'm afraid.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Can I just finally ask you, Mr. Humphrey, what advice you would give to Canada in trying to get these two men released?

PETER HUMPHREY: I really believe that Canada must stand firm for its values and for its system of rule of law. You know, on the one hand, it might seem like a massive victory for the Canadian people when these two men are released. But if this victory is at the price of a massive defeat for the Canadian rule of law, that would be a very sad day indeed.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Peter Humphrey, thank you for making the time to speak with us this morning.

PETER HUMPHREY: Thank you for having me.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Peter Humphrey is a former journalist and corporate investigator. I'm Rosemary Barton, and you're listening to "The Current". Namina Forna has always been a fan of fantasy, "Lord of the Rings", "The Chronicles of Narnia", "Harry Potter". But those books were always missing something, characters who looked like her. And she wants to change that. Her debut novel is called "The Gilded Ones". It's about a young Black girl living in a society where red-blooded people are considered pure. And young girls with gold blood are considered demons. It's inspired by legends from her home of Sierra Leone and across Africa. Namina Forna, good morning.

NAMINA FORNA: Hi there.

ROSEMARY BARTON: How old were you when you started reading Fantasy? I remember being very little reading "The Chronicles of Narnia".

NAMINA FORNA: My first intro to fantasy was Greek mythology, and I was four years old when I started reading those.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Wow, that's young!

NAMINA FORNA: Yeah. Like, my dad was an avid reader. We had, like, rooms and rooms full of books. And when I was four, like, he was like, oh, you're finally on your way. He handed me a dictionary, [Rosemary laughs] and was like, here you go. If you don't understand a word, find it there. And if you still don't understand the concept, then you can come ask me. And so from then, I've just been, like, nose-deep in a book ever since.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah, well, you sound like a bit of a reading prodigy, to be honest. [laughing] And when you were reading, how often did you imagine, see, have described characters that reminded you of you, that looked like you?

NAMINA FORNA: Never, really. When I was reading books, there were never really characters that looked like me. Like, in fact, I remember one of the first few Black characters in a fantasy novel was in Harry Potter, and he was, like, the announcer dude. So he was like, for once second, blink, and you miss him sort of thing. We weren't really a factor.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah.

NAMINA FORNA: But I'm very grateful in that because I grew up in Sierra Leone, my fantasy wasn't only coming from books. Like, my father would tell me all these stories of ancient African kingdoms that I thought were fantasy but turns out with actual real history. And my grandmother would tell me all these stories, like the mythology of Sierra Leone. So, like when I was reading books from outside Sierra Leone, I was never in them. But I was always sort of central in the mythology and in the history that my family was telling me.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Well, that's good. You had that as a touch point. But what is it like as a child to read a book, and presumably to love these kinds of books and not see yourself in them? What does that do to a kid?

NAMINA FORNA: It's sort of alienating in that, like, when you read books long enough, and you start imagining, you're only able to imagine white characters. I didn't realize until later when I went to college that this is basically internalized colonization. I had to, like, basically stop reading those books and do a whole process of, like, purging my idea of what was valid in a fantasy book from my mind or in a book in general from my mind. Because when all you read is white characters, then that's all you as a person can imagine. And that's a problem because you can't actually see yourself as a hero in your own mind.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Wow, that's so interesting. And a little bit sad, too. You talked about how your family told you these... these stories from Africa. How did those stories influence your writing and the way you started to imagine this story?

NAMINA FORNA: With my dad, he would tell me stuff about, like, the Amazons of Dahomey, who were real and the basis for the alaki in my book. He would tell me about the walls of the Benin, and the ruins of Great Zimbabwe and all these places. And he had this gift of, like, storytelling that made places and people come alive. And so this then just made me always think that Africa, West Africa in particular, but Africa as a whole, was this epic place full of, you know, magic and mystery and all these things. So I kept wondering when I was reading all these books, why aren't we having stories like the ones that my dad is telling me about?

ROSEMARY BARTON: Reading your book, I mean, obviously, it's... it's an imaginary place, but it does, even for me who's never been to Africa, it conjures Africa, which I think is so incredible that you're able to do that without spelling it out. You also have in the book, obviously, this is the central part of the book, the young girls undergo this ritual in front of the village to see what colour their blood is. And that will then show people whether they are pure or not. And if it runs gold, it means they are not. Where did this idea come from? Why did you want to focus on this idea of female purity?

NAMINA FORNA: I grew up in Sierra Leone and came to America when I was nine. And in Sierra Leone, I very quickly understood that things weren't... that being a girl meant you weren't equal. And that, on some level, people were lying to you and telling you that things were good when they weren't. Like, for example, in Sierra Leone, we have a secret society called Bondo, which does FGM, female genital mutilation. Don't quote me, but I think about 80 per cent of women have had this happen or have had this done to them. And what's interesting is my grandmother wanted this for me. And it wasn't anything malicious. She just thought she was doing her due diligence as a woman because she was like, you know, in order for you to be pure, in order for you to be ready for marriage and all these things, this is our culture. This is what must be done. And, of course, my parents were like over my dead body. So I'm very thankful that, like, that didn't happen. But the way that she thought about it and believed, it was striking to me that here is something that actually kills women, scars women for life, has all kinds of, like, awful effects. But people really do believe it, and women do hold it up. And when I came to America, I thought, OK, so, you know, Sierra Leone, like this... we just have like this sort of backwards mentality about gender dynamics, right? So America is going to be different. And to my shock, it was the same. Like, they might not have been doing FGM, but, like, there was still that idea of purity culture. I remember, like, being in high school and girls going to like bars with their fathers and promising away their virginities and being pure and all these things. Or like the rampant slut-shaming and all these things. And, of course, it was so you could be here for your family and for God. And I was looking at it, and I was like, wow, these are all the same thing. It's funny, I moved continents just for the same thing. And I really wanted to examine that. Because in both instances, all of these things are couched in very sort of nice ways. Like, this is what you do in order to become a woman and to become a pure and virtuous woman so that other people will see you as pure and as virtuous.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Right.

NAMINA FORNA: And that to me was very interesting. And I wanted to examine that.

ROSEMARY BARTON: The girls who are the gilded ones, ultimately, I think, you called them alaki. I'm reading it as a-leek-a, but --

NAMINA FORNA: A-la-key

ROSEMARY BARTON: A-la-key! Thank you. So alaki, they, though, become sort of the special people in society, and are given rights that were unimaginable to them, and they are so shocked that they are given the ability to even do things like run. What are you hoping that people take away from that? Like, why was that so important for you to give these people, these young girls, who were characterized one way, this enormous amount of power?

NAMINA FORNA: Well, that's the thing, though, is they are not necessarily given rights. It's just another extension of the general bamboozlement. [Rosemary laughs] It's, oh, you fulfil this... you fulfil this sort of function in society, and we want to use you. So we're forcing you to do these things that go against what we've told you is what women should do.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Right.

NAMINA FORNA: And it's the girls who realize that, oh, if we're allowed to do this, that means we could have been allowed to do this all along. And that's what sets the wheels turning of, oh, this is a problem. Because you guys are just using us because you guys want us to be out in the battlefield and we can't be out in the battlefield if we're not running, not fighting, not doing all these things that are necessary. And so I think that's the thing is it's... it's not a privilege. It's just another formation of society requires things of you. We're going to do this thing, couch it in nice terms. But the reality is we're still putting you down and we're still killing you.

ROSEMARY BARTON: What was it like trying to sell this book? Obviously, it wasn't something that was out there because you had to create it. So what was it like to try and market it?

NAMINA FORNA: So I wrote this book in 2012. I wrote the first draft in 2012. Like, it was the time of girl power and all these things - #girlboss [Rosemary chuckles]. I really thought I was like, this is my big break. It has to sell, it's very topical, all of these things. But what I forgot was back then, people would literally say to your face, Black people don't sell books, and especially you can't have Black girls on the cover.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Wow!

NAMINA FORNA: So I would get back agent rejections or agent revise and resubmits that would be like, well, does she have to be Black? You know, maybe consider doing this thing, you know? And so --

ROSEMARY BARTON: And what would be your response to that? What would be your response to that, Namina?

NAMINA FORNA: I mean, like, how can you respond? [Rosemary chuckles] Like, here I am, like, a poor grad student trying to do my dream career. And at every turn, people are telling me that what I'm writing is not what's wanted, you know? And that if I wanted to be a writer, I had to twist myself into all sorts of knots to sell something. And even when I twisted myself into knots, it still wasn't going to sell because, at the end of the day, I was a Black person. And that's not what the idea of a writer was. And for me, this was deeply painful because, as an immigrant, like, I didn't understand American racism, you know? Like to me, the whole black and white thing, like, I didn't get it. Like, that was not my frame of mind at all coming from Sierra Leone, because in Sierra Leone, I did even realize I was Black, like, because that's like... Blackness is a Western construction, you know?

ROSEMARY BARTON: Right.

NAMINA FORNA: Like Blackness, whiteness. All these things are Western constructions. So when you grow up, as I did, you don't understand these things. And then I come here, and all of a sudden I have to deal with this. And that to me was such a huge disappointment. And it levelled me because I truly believed in the idea of the American meritocracy. I believed that if you were the best for what you did, you'd get there. But as it turns out, all that didn't matter. All that mattered was what I looked like. And, of course, I was not able to sell because no matter how much I tried and twisted, I could not get rid of my skin colour.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Why did you keep going? Why did you persevere in this? And then I guess what changed?

NAMINA FORNA: The reason I persevered was because... so I grew up during the Sierra Leonean civil war, and how... and it's funny because you were like you're a reading prodigy [Rosemary laughs]. Well, I no choice but to be because that was... that was my way of escape when things were happening around me. That was the only way that I could find some measure of sanity growing up. And so I wanted to... that was, for me, writing has always been I want to create safe spaces for other children around the world who grow up in in spaces and times that are not safe, because that was my experience. And the authors that... that I read, you know, they were like warm, fuzzy, comforting arms that kept me safe. And that's what I wanted to do for other people. So it was never... it was never an option for me to stop. I would be like, oh, I'm going to quit and go to law school. And, in fact, I did apply and get into law school. I think it was two or three times, [Rosemary chuckles] but I never went because this was my life's goal. And what changed was a couple of things, you know, like movies like "Get Out".

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah.

NAMINA FORNA: Made people realize that there was money to be made. But I think the main thing that changed was Trump, because when he came out, people were like, wait a minute, we really haven't moved forward as much as we thought at all. And like the rest of us were saitting there like, well, duh, you know? But, like, those years where... anyway. [Rosemary chuckles] Trump made people realize that, oh, the world isn't what we thought it was and publishing especially. And so that was when I was able to, like, sort of sell. Like, the other thing was "Black Panther", was because when I saw the reception "Black Panther" was getting online, that the promos were getting online, I was like, oh, it's now or never.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah.

NAMINA FORNA: Either I sell "The Gilded Ones" now, or it's never going to sell. So I told my agent about it. She's like, how long do you need to write it? I'm like, give me two months. I gave it to her in a month and a half. And the day it goes out is the day it sells.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Wow, wow! What do you want young readers to take away from the book, you know, Black kids or not? Because it's... it's... it's something everyone can... parts of it are relatable to everyone. What do you want young readers to take from it?

NAMINA FORNA: I want all readers because and that's the thing is like "The Gilded Ones" is a very diverse book. It's not just Black kids. One of the things about my writing is, like, I make sure that everyone can find themselves in there, and that comes from my not being able to find myself.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Right.

NAMINA FORNA: But that being said, I want people to, number one, look at the systems around them and see do they benefit them or not? The second thing is, and the more important thing is, I would love for people, for readers, to read this book and to understand that in this world, there's always somebody waiting to define you. The minute you walk into a room, whether you're Black, white, like whomever, the minute you walk somewhere, people already have definitions waiting and labels waiting for you. And it is important for you to define yourself and for you to understand who you are, because if you don't, then other people will always be willing and... and ready to tell you who you are. Often to sort of dire consequences. So define yourself. Only you can do that for yourself. And I think that's like one of the big works of life is knowing who you are.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Well, it does all those things, but it also does the thing that books did for you, which is it does allow you to lose yourself in a... in an incredible adventure and an incredible world. And it's a trilogy, and it's going to be a movie. I mean, [laughing] you must be very pleased at how far this has all come.

NAMINA FORNA: I am very, very pleased, but also mainly relieved.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah.

NAMINA FORNA: That's the big word, is relief. People are like, are you happy? I'm like, I'm happy, but I'm mainly relieved that it's happening.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Well, again, congratulations. It is a great read, and I mean that quite sincerely. Thank you, Namina.

NAMINA FORNA: Thank you so much for having me.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Nemanja Forna is the author of "The Gilded Ones". Coming up after your regional update, the awe inspiring return of bison to their traditional lands in western Canada. Plus, the outgoing president of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, Louise Bradley, joins me to talk about what the pandemic has taught us about mental health resources in this country. I'm Rosemary Barton. "The Current" is back in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

[Music: Theme]

How bison are being reintroduced in Banff National Park; and improving Canadians’ mental health

Guests: Karsten Heuer, Louise Bradley

ROSEMARY BARTON: I'm Rosemary Barton, sitting in for Matt Galloway. And you're listening to "The Current". OK, close your eyes just for a minute.

[a bison grunts].

ROSEMARY BARTON: Are your eyes still closed? You're trying to figure that out, aren't you? [laughing] It's the grunting of a North American bison, of course, picture the face, the huge nostrils driving out the hot air, the massive head rising up to horns and tufts of brown shaggy wool. The largest land animal in North America. But over the years, hunting and human expansion drove the wild bison into near extinction. Most are kept in pens and mainly for food for us. Until now, four years ago, a plan was struck to bring wild bison back to one of their native habitats, the valleys of Alberta's Rocky Mountains. Just over a dozen bison were taken up into the backcountry in the hopes they would thrive inside Banff National Park. Karsten Heuer is in charge of the BAMF Bison Reintroduction Program. Karsten, good morning.

KARSTEN HEUER: Good morning, Rosemary.

ROSEMARY BARTON: How does it make you feel, Karsten, to... to hear bison roaming wild?

KARSTEN HEUER: I am thrilled. And, you know, I also have the privilege of seeing them every once in a while. And these are incredibly adaptable, robust, wild, thriving animals. And we started four years ago with a lot of questions. And brought 16 bison into the backcountry of Baff National Park, held them for one and a half years in a paddock to help them anchor to the area, then release them into a 1,200 square kilometre reintroduction zone. And now we have over 50 animals thriving in this landscape. It's... it's hugely rewarding, both as a wildlife biologist but also as a Canadian citizen helping to write a historic wrong.

ROSEMARY BARTON: You just got back from the backcountry, if I understand. What... what did you see and observe in terms of how the bison are doing right now?

KARSTEN HEUER: Well, as we all know, spring has started to sprung... or to spring. [both laughing] And, you know, it's been a long... another long winter. And in the... in the Rocky Mountains, you know, we have snow building up in the high country still. But the valley bottoms that it's starting to melt. The rivers are starting to run again. And I was really interested to see how these bison have survived yet another winter. And they're extremely furry, heavy coats, [Rosemary laughs] looking quite rotund, [Rosemary laughs harder] you know, and... and... and thriving, you know? The amount of... of... of... of reproduction that's gone on in the few short years since we released them, we... we now have a number of milestones that have been reached. One of them is that some of the calves that were born in the first years of the project are now sexually mature, and they themselves are giving birth to animals. So we... we have Banff's first wild bison moms in over 150 years, and these animals have known no other area. And they... and they seem to be anchoring to the area really well.

ROSEMARY BARTON: You said off the top there that when you started this with... with the 16, getting them used to the land, you had a lot of questions. Questions like what?

KARSTEN HEUER: Well, I think, you know, it's been over 140 years since bison were on this landscape. And that means that nobody alive today have actually experienced bison here. And, you know, I think as humans, we tend to have a fear of the unknown. And so a lot of people were concerned about what this might mean to bring back North America's largest land mammal to our first national park. And for those reasons, we started rather small, and we started slowly, and we started in an area of Banff National Park where probably fewer than 100 people visit per year. So this is not the Banff that most people know driving through on the Trans Canada Highway with all the tourist attractions. This is a place that takes two days to get to from the nearest road-accessible trailhead and... and into the backcountry. But that said, you know, we are starting to see people interacting with them a little bit. And there's been nothing threatening about those encounters. These bison want to... want to be while they shy away from from human activity. They are interacting with their native predators, so things like grizzly bears and wolves, which is very, very rare today for any plans bison to be doing that. This is just one of five populations remaining in North America that... that have those natural selective pressures still put on them all, all the selective pressures that would have shaped them into the beautiful, robust, strong animals that they are today. They continue to have those evolutionary pressures today in Banff National Park. Yeah, I

mean, I find what's so interesting about this, it wasn't just about bringing back bison. Obviously, that was the goal, but it was about sort of changing the ecosystem, right? I mean, everything from their fur to how wolves interact, [chuckling] it's a... it's a much broader project, really, than... than we probably understand.

KARSTEN HEUER: Yeah. And I don't think we were sort of trying to change the ecosystem so much as we were trying to restore it.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Of course, yeah.

KARSTEN HEUER: And these animals having been missing for the last 140-plus years means that their ecological role has been missing as well. And that's where we're... we're trying to restore. And we're seeing signs of that happening already. We confirmed that the first bison, a newborn calf, was taken by wolves last spring. One of the 17 calves that was born last year. And then they are rejuvenating the grasses, removing the thatch. They're rubbing up against trees that are killing off trees and creating larger meadow habitats for meadow-dependent birds. They're shedding off fur that insulates bird nests and that's been shown elsewhere to improve the nesting success of those birds. And they're also wallowing in areas, so this is something, a very unique behaviour that the bison do where they horn into the ground and stamp on it and then roll in it and create these dust baths and mud baths. [both chuckle] And... and... and what we're noticing, which is really, really neat, is that they're doing so in areas where their ancestors had done. There's still the vestiges of old wallows you can see beneath the thatch. But that's really, really wow to the same places and reactivating these walls and in some places reactivating old trails.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Wow.

KARSTEN HEUER: That they themselves are starting to excavate some of their ancestors bones. So as we've gone in and followed where they've been, we've... we've seen areas... [chuckling] we've been able to, you know, pick up fragments of bone that they have excavated and then send those off for DNA and and radiocarbon dating. And those are telling us a lot about the patterns of their... and the diets even of their ancestors as well. So it's this full loop.

ROSEMARY BARTON: That amaing, yeah.

KARSTEN HEUER: Transending not only generations, but centuries of... of these modern bison replicating the patterns of their ancestors.

ROSEMARY BARTON: I'm stunned. I mean, animals are amazing! What... you know, some people might be surprised to to think that there were bison in the Rocky Mountains. You keep talking about how long it's been. But can you give us an idea of 140, 150 years ago what it was like?

KARSTEN HEUER: Yeah, this is a huge part of our preparation for our project, obviously, was what are we trying to bring back and does it belong here and what was its role? And we're tapping into traditional ecological knowledge from Indigenous Nations. For instance, last year, I was out for several days on horseback with several Indigenous folks who are doing an ecological knowledge study of the bison reintroduction area. So that's some of the knowledge we're pulling on. But we're also pulling on like the historic journals of explorers in the late-1800s and mid-1800s. And what all that information is showing is that unlike the ecosystem today, which is predominantly ruled by elk and deer. When... when European explorers first started coming here in the late-1700s, early-1800s, bighorn sheep were the most common ungulate or hoofed mammal out there. And then second on that list was bison. So what we're trying to do today is return that ecosystem to more represent the proportions of these major players.

ROSEMARY BARTON: And how do you keep tabs on how they're doing? Because they're in the wild. [chuckling] I guess you can't follow them everywhere. How do you... how do you know how they're doing?

KARSTEN HEUER: We've committed to radio collaring with GPS radio collars 10 per cent of the population. So right now, we have seven of the 50 animals collared. And they generally are staying in... in one large group. Sometimes they're the batchelors. the bulls, that get off on their own, [Rosmary laughs] or in small groups for... for some alone time. But... but generally speaking, we have a pretty good handle on... on the areas that they are using. And that's helping us because, you know, you have to be realistic that they once ranged over huge areas. And... and we're trying to get them to to hone in on a 1,200 square kilometre area.

ROSEMARY BARTON: And do they seem to be taking to it?

KARSTEN HEUER: So far, it's going really well.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah.

KARSTEN HEUER: So far, yes.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah. So when the pilot project is over, because you said it's a five-year one, I think it's over next year, what happens then?

KARSTEN HEUER: Well, that's when we hit the pause button and ask ourselves, and obviously are our major stakeholders, OK, based on everything we've learned over the last five years, and all the data we've gathered in terms of what the bison are eating, areas that they're spending time, what the effect is on... on everything from water quality, to bird abundance... to... to... to how other animals like bighorn sheep, elk, wolves are responding, is what we're trying to do here feasible to try to continue to do it, bison restoration, in this area over a longer time frame?

ROSEMARY BARTON: Is there a world in which it wouldn't continue?

KARSTEN HEUER: I don't know. You know, all I can say is how things are going so far and they're going really well. And I've also seen, you know, that uncertainty and discomfort that people had about all the unanswered questions. I'm seeing that starting to give way to much broader acceptance and even an embrace of... of how we can coexist with these animals over the longer term. People are excited. They're inspired. You know, what we're doing here is.... is a real privilege to not only right a historic wrong. You know, we're rejuvenating the landscape. We're restoring bison and the ecosystem. And it's... and it's an important act of reconciliation with our Indigenous partners as well. Bison being hugely important to Plains and Rocky Mountain traditional cultures, but it's also, you know, it's a breath of fresh air, I think, for not only Canadians but just global citizens to... in a world where there are a lot of bad news environmental stories to show you can do something this big and this bold and it actually working so far.

ROSEMARY BARTON: I grew up in the prairies, and I remember going to the museum and seeing the big giant stuffed Bison. This is in Manitoba. And when I watched the video of these bison roaming free, I actually got pretty emotional. It.... you know, it feels very Canadian. And I wonder, what is it like for you to see them roaming like that?

KARSTEN HEUER: It's pretty emotional as well, Rosemary. It's really emotional. I mean, I've worked my entire career as a wildlife biologist, and this is a dream come true, you know, to... to try and work on something so visual, visceral, and where the feedback is so immediate. You know, these are areas where I started my career as a park warden 25 years ago, patrolling the backcountry on horseback. And so I'm seeing a changing and restoring before my very eyes. And that's incredibly powerful. And I'm really glad to hear that, you know, it's a bit of an emotional experience for you to to watch that video, which anybody can watch. Just Google "Banff bison, free and thriving". It's one and a half minutes, and it's all remote camera imagery of these bison doing their thing in this place where they haven't been for 140 years. And now they've returned. And it's so beautiful to watch.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Well, Karsten Heuer, congratulations. It does sound like a success. We'll keep tracking it to see what happens next. Thank you so much.

KARSTEN HEUER: Thanks, Rosemary.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Karsten Heuer is in charge of the Banff Bison Reintroduction Program. I'm Rosemary Barton, and you are listening to "The Current".

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Our lives have been transformed because of COVID-19. And you might feel like this crisis is taking its toll. Your daily routine might be different. Your way of coping might be more difficult to manage. And it can be a source of anxiety and stress. But I want you to know that it's OK to feel like this. Our mental health is just as important as our physical health. So we need to speak openly about it. And we need to be there for each other, especially during this pandemic.

ROSEMARY BARTON: The prime minister delivered that message nearly a year ago, and many Canadians are still struggling. Canadians' mental health has been front of mind for Louise Bradley her entire career. She has headed the Mental Health Commission of Canada for the past 10 years, and is stepping down this week. Louise Bradley, good morning.

LOUISE BRADLEY: Good morning.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Let's start with where the prime minister was starting there. A year into the pandemic, how do you think Canadians are doing right now?

LOUISE BRADLEY: Well, certainly the one thing I don't want to do is pathologize normal reactions to an abnormal situation. But generally speaking, from the polls that we're seeing is that people are faring worse than they were before. And I think it's safe to say that the mental health system wasn't as responsive as it needs to be even before the pandemic. So it does leave me worried about people's mental health. And I think we have all been experiencing, you know, stress and hardship over the past year, that's for sure.

ROSEMARY BARTON: And do you think the pandemic has allowed us to talk about it in a different way? It sure seems like that to me, just anecdotally.

LOUISE BRADLEY: Yes, I think it has. I mean, it's been heartening to me to see, for example, someone had told me a year ago that the federal government would be launching a "Wellness Together" portal that Canadians could access right across the country. I probably would not have believed them. And we have been able to utilize things like e-mental health, you know, in a much broader way and a more robust way than we ever have before. That isn't for everybody. So there are, you know, the one per cent population that have very serious and chronic mental illnesses and vulnerable populations. That remains a huge concern. But yes, we are paying more attention overall and that is wonderful.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Can we talk a little bit about how you got here, your childhood, and how that started to shape your... your concern and your care for people's mental health?

LOUISE BRADLEY: Yes, I don't think it's a coincidence that I ended up in mental health. My first involvement with the mental health system was when I was 12 years old, and found myself in hospital under the care of, thankfully, a wonderful child psychiatrist. And so when I ended up going into nursing school, it was evident that mental health was the area that that I wanted to go in. But I quickly learned that the stigma surrounding mental health and mental illness was something that I would battle for the remainder of my career, and... and saw that in spades right from the very beginning. My first job was on a psychiatric unit in a general hospital. And somebody actually said to me, that's too bad. I guess you couldn't have gotten a job anywhere else. It was inconceivable that I would choose to actually work in that area.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Can I ask you a little bit more about you as a little girl and what you remember of that?

LOUISE BRADLEY: It was very confusing. And, you know, having been bounced around in a fairly large number of homes, it doesn't leave a young child in the best of mental health. As I said, I had a wonderful child psychiatrist, but when I left the hospital, there was nothing. I walked out the doors, and I never had contact again. Community mental health and follow-up is so important. And it's something that I have been advocating for and pushing for ever since then.

ROSEMARY BARTON: You also have spoken publicly about a friend of yours who died by suicide when you were doing your master's degree. Was that another moment for you when you understood the effects of a mental health crisis?

LOUISE BRADLEY: It really was. I struggled for a long time with that particular event. And yet, you know, I'm sitting here talking to you. And if you asked me, you know, is there one regret that I have that I didn't see achieved over my career? I have to say it was in the area of suicide prevention. We have tried hard at the commission. We have a wonderful program called "Roots of Hope", which is a community-based program. But the suicide rates in Canada have not changed in well over a decade. And so every year, four thousand people die by suicide. And I believe the number may be even close to double that because those are registered deaths. When my friend died, technically on her death certificate, she died of heart failure, and she did. But no one talks about one hundred and fifty anti-depressants she took to bring it about. So we don't really know. The data that we're collecting is poor. And I recently had someone say, well, at least the rates haven't gone up. [chuckling] And I'm like, what? The thousands of people die every year, and most of those deaths were preventable. And so it's something that I will continue to... to push for.

ROSEMARY BARTON: It's interesting you say that because the initial data at least and again, as you say, it may be incomplete, shows that in spite of the lockdowns, we have not seen a spike in suicide reported. I take your point. Is that in any way... [sigh] I don't know. What does that tell you about how Canadians live this from a mental health perspective, or does it make you more worried for sort of the fallout from all of this?

LOUISE BRADLEY: Well, we've learned from previous pandemics that oftentimes the suicide rate goes up after the fact. Because one of the theories is that we tend to be in survival mode during it.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Right. Right.

LOUISE BRADLEY: But I don't.... I don't accept that as a given. I think that if we can be responsive to Canadians, yes, we do need more money. But it also means structuring the system differently. And if we can do that and be really responsive, I do not believe that the rates have to go up. But if we aren't responsive, I fear that... that most definitely will happen.

ROSEMARY BARTON: You know, there's been a lot of talk also about the mental health of kids, right? Pulled in and out of school, virtual settings, not able to see their loved ones, their friends. How... how would you say kids are doing after this past year? And what are your worries around that?

LOUISE BRADLEY: Well, you know, I mean, that's a story that has yet to be told. We simply don't know. I mean, kids are very resilient, but this is a very different situation. You know, I've heard stories that are very stressful. I've heard some where children are thriving. And so far as the things that would stress them out at school, they're able to concentrate and have their parents attention more at home. So it's really hard to say. And we'll have to listen to that tale after we come out the other side of this.

ROSEMARY BARTON: And how much of that do you think is is attributable to the inequities in society that have been so, so brutally exposed during this pandemic? Poverty, racial inequality, I'm thinking about just even kids access to computers, right? How much of the inequities feeds into a cycle of mental health?

LOUISE BRADLEY: You know, thank you for raising that because the social determinants of health are so important. Mental health isn't just a health issue. It's a housing issue. It's a justice issue. I do some volunteer work here in Newfoundland with a homelessness organization, and we are seeing people come through the doors every week that never, ever we've never seen before. And these are people with children. And these are people that are experiencing harsh economic problems. And as a country, we've tried to be responsive, but I think it's going to really take its toll. Vulnerable populations in particular. I mean, I mentioned things like e-mental health, but as you point out, not everybody has access to computers, phones, to be able to afford the Internet. And so, again, we have to look at innovative ways of being able to provide that type of access to vulnerable populations, to, say, nothing of broadband width in our northern communities in Canada, which is a huge problem.

ROSEMARY BARTON: You've been at this for a long time now. I mean,yes, as as president of the Mental Health Commission. But but even before in your job as a nurse. How would you characterise where this country is in terms of accepting a conversation around mental health and allowing people to say, yes, I am... I'm not well, and it's it's my mental health.

LOUISE BRADLEY: We've made a great deal of progress. Back when I started with the commission over 10 years ago, one of the first things that we were charged with was looking at stigma and discrimination around mental illness and mental health issues. And we have made great strides. And there are different types of stigma. I mean, you know, self-stigma is one of them. And I know that one very, very well. One area that we are left with struggling with now, I call it the last bastion of stigma, is what we call structural or systemic stigma. So, for example, there's every good reason why we should invest more in mental health, but yet it is not happening at a pace that needs to happen. And if we don't do that, the problems are going to grow exponentially. And so we're trying to target why is it that these key decision-makers are not making those decisions? I recall being at budget tables when I was in hospital administration where fighting for money for a mental health program against a nice, big, shiny piece of equipment for the O.R. You can imagine which one won. And we're still in the recesses of our minds, and we are all products of this. I think there's still that tiny, niggling feeling that, you know, is this real? And... and if these people would simply pull up their socks, everything would be fine. So we're talking about it more now. There needs to be action that will keep pace with the talking.

ROSEMARY BARTON: You mentioned a little bit earlier that you still want to focus on on suicide prevention, but what else is next for you?

LOUISE BRADLEY: Well, as you can tell, I'm quite passionate about this.

ROSEMARY BARTON: [laughing] I can!

LOUISE BRADLEY: [both laughing] I've spent my entire career working in various areas of... of mental health. You know, one of the first things I'm going to do after a year like this is try to concentrate on my own mental health. I live in the eastern part of Newfoundland, where there are beautiful hiking trails. And I plan on doing some hiking and thinking about this and taking some time for myself. But you can rest assured that whatever it is that I will be doing afterwards, I will be promoting, certainly, the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the the wonderful, wonderful people that are working there. And one of the things I have really enjoyed doing throughout all of my career, and particularly in the last 10 years, is helping emerging leaders because it's important that after those of us of a certain age are moving on, that there are others that will be able to pick up the baton.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Well, time for yourself and your own mental health and a beautiful hike in Newfoundland sounds like a good start to the next step. Thank you for your work, Louise Bradley. Thank you. And thank you for this conversation.

LOUISE BRADLEY: Thank you for having me today. I appreciate it.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Louise Bradley is the president and CEO of the Mental Health Commission of Canada for just a couple more days. She steps down on March 24th. And that is our program for today. Tomorrow, Matt's back ,and he sits down with author Walter Isaacson. His new book, "The Codebreaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race". It delves into the world of mRNA. And if that sounds familiar, it's because it's the same technology that has meant COVID vaccines were developed in months rather than years. That'll be fascinating. Tune in tomorrow for that. And stay tuned this morning to Radio One for "q" with Tom Power. I'm Rosemary Barton. Had a pleasure filling in for Matt Galloway, and thanks for listening to "The Current".

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March 22, 2021 Episode Transcript

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