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The Current Transcript for May 29, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

I used to live in this neighbourhood and all these white cops over here treat everybody exactly the same, based on skin colour, it's not fair. I'm over rid. I'm tired of it. And ain't nothing's gonna happen. And that's so [beep] up.

MATT GALLOWAY: It has been. A fraught week in Minneapolis. A black man, George Floyd, died while in police custody after saying I can't breathe. To an officer who had his knee on his neck. Last night, protests erupted again in that city. A police precinct was torched and demonstrators spread their actions to New York, Denver and Phoenix. The U.S. president threatened on Twitter to have looting demonstrators shot in 30 minutes. America's race relations at a boiling point. Also this morning, it's been nearly five months since Iran shot down a Ukrainian airliner, killing everyone on board. As Iran continues stalling on handing over the black boxes from that plane, the victims families are still searching for answers. We'll hear about their frustrating fight. And what, if anything, the Canadian government can do to help. And later:

SOUNDCLIP

One of my favourite parts of a rehearsal is somebody who just knows the music so well because maybe they sang that song when they were kids.

MG: As performances move on line in this pandemic. How one choir is still helping patients with dementia connect and feel the power of music. We start, though, with the crisis in long term care. Horrific conditions in a number of homes have been exposed. What will the federal government do? Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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Political fallout of long-term care reports

Guests: Salimah Shivji, Aaron Derfel, Robert Benzie

MG: It is no secret that Canada's long term care homes have been rocked by COVID-19. But two scathing reports into the state of some facilities in Ontario and Quebec this week offered even more proof. They detailed abuse and neglect, including patients left being unbathed and workers wearing contaminated gear. There are issues that family members and workers themselves have been warning about for years. Candace Rennick was on the current earlier this week. She's a former long term care worker who is now secretary treasurer of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario.

SOUNDCLIP

We do know about this. We've been ringing the alarm bells on this crisis for more than a decade. Many of the things that I read in the report are things that we have been talking about for years and frontline workers have been sharing their experiences. Those have fallen on deaf ears. And there's been a complete and total inaction on the part of government to correct this crisis.

MG: How to correct the crisis in Canada's long term care homes is now a ballooning political question, one the prime minister is promising to address.

SOUNDCLIP

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: We need to do a better job of supporting our seniors in long term care right across the country through this pandemic and beyond. This is a situation that has gone on for a long time. We need to take action as a country.

MG: What kind of action? Our national affairs panel is here to discuss. Selimah Shivji is the CBC senior parliamentary reporter, Robert Benzie, the Queen's Park bureau chief for the Toronto Star. And Aaron Derfel is a health care reporter for the Montreal Gazette. Good morning to you all.

GUESTS: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Rob Benzie On Tuesday, the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, called the report by military personnel 'heart wrenching'.What is the premier said and done since to act on what was so unsettling in that report?

ROBERT BENZIE: While the Premier, Matt, was very shocked by the findings of the Canadian Armed Forces report, this is a searing 23 page document that outlines some harrowing conditions. Cockroach infestation, patients left to wander around with COVID-19 - soiled patients - just a devastating scene that it was painted by these soldiers who are in these five homes in Ontario. So the next morning, the premier after reading the report. He said he stayed up all night. He couldn't sleep. He was so shocked by what he read. Even though Ontario has 175 inspectors who are inspecting these 626 nursing homes in the province. But anyway, side story here. The province has taken over four of those five homes. They were - four of them - are privately run and they are now being run by local hospital corporations. These are all in the greater Toronto area. And also in Toronto and in the suburbs around the city. And I think I think it was a wakeup call, but I'm not sure why, in many ways- because this has been hiding in plain sight for years. I mean, my newspaper has done investigations. CBC has done investigations. It's not a secret that long term care is not a great thing in this country right now.

MG: At least he has a minister of long term care who also said that she was shocked and surprised. Is she still the minister of long term care?

ROBERT BENZIE: Yes. I mean, she's under fire. And the opposition leader, Andrea Horvath, has called for her resignation, Dr. Marilyn Fullerton. But I'm not sure that you can blame systemic issues on a minister who's been on the job for only eleven months. These date back - And it's not just this Tory government, the previous Liberal government, previous Tory government, the previous NDP government, that all of these things have been festering for a long, long time.

MG: Report came out into long term care homes in Quebec, Aaron. Quebec is still the epicentre of Canada's outbreak in many ways. Was that report as damaging, damming as the one in Ontario?

AARON DERFEL: Well, it wasn't, although it the troops did go in and it's a 60 page report, 25 care homes. But the report did not cite instances of malnourished residents or cockroaches. Quebecers had known of the horrors for a number of weeks after several reporters, including myself, had broken the story about the presence of heroin, where staff had abandoned the facility and it was placed in trusteeship. And when the workers came in, they say they saw that there were a couple of residents who are already dead in their beds and there was malnutrition. People couldn't speak. So Quebecers were already primed when the report came out as a significant and as serious as it is. It was somewhat anti climatic and the findings were that that some of the workers were absent from their posts for long periods, that they were shuttling back and forth between hot and cold zones, that in one case some medication had gone missing. But it didn't land like a book like the bombshell it did in Ontario.

MG: How has the premier, Francois Legault, responded not just to the. From the military. But as you mentioned, the reporting that you and others have done well?

AARON DERFEL: The premier, he said that these are systemic problems that predated the pandemic. And the biggest problem, he's acknowledges that there are 10000 workers. They propose [unintelligible] orderlies who. That's what they need. They need 10000 workers. So the government is gone on a hiring spree and is trying to entice people to enter this field, paying them upwards of 47,000 dollars a year and paying for their training. That's what he thinks Will turn things around. But it's going to be very, very hard to do that because we're in the midst of a pandemic. The coronavirus is highly contagious. There's no quick, easy fix to this.

MG: Selimah Shivji, that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said nothing is off the table when it comes to solving the long term care crisis in this country. What does that actually mean?

SALIMAH SHIVJI: Well, yes, that is the question, Matt. It's sort of a catchall that the prime minister does use when he doesn't want to provide many details. And the sense here is that he does want to oppose any solutions on purpose because of the trouble that that could bring over jurisdiction. Right. So we've seen Justin Trudeau talk about the need to give support where it's needed for the provinces, that the need for action. He has been strong on calling for action. But what does that look like? You know, he hasn't detailed whether that's funding that the provinces are asking for, how much that funding would be? Would it come with any strings attached? And in terms of making sure it goes towards fixing the problems in in long term care homes? You know, would who owns the homes, be on that same nondescript table with this pack that we see of public and private. So Justin Trudeau you see him really emphasising that the requests need to come from the provinces. The premiers need to ask for more federal leadership. And if Ottawa comes out with aggressive proposals, that would be a problem and that could descend into something that would be counterproductive. So there's this reluctance to really intrude, this tip toeing around provincial jurisdiction, even as the prime minister is talking about, you know, the need for a long, serious conversation. We need to talk about how we treat our seniors so that word about, you know, more conversation comes up often. But I mean, there is a sense that jurisdictional hesitation, you know, may not cut it for Canadians [cross talking] hear what's in this report?

MG: How does he thread that needle? I spoke with the premier of Nova Scotia earlier this week, asked him about federal involvement. He said, no, this is a provincial matter. We've heard the same on this programme from the premier of British Columbia. But if this is a national crisis or at the very least a crisis that people want national action on, how does the prime minister, [unintelligible], do that dance to make sure that there's action, but it also doesn't step on the toes of territorial provincial leaders?

SALIMAH SHIVJI: Well, absolutely. It's a careful dance. That's it's always there, of course, when we're talking about this. And there's so many things in this crisis that we've seen under provincial jurisdiction that that it's very sensitive for the prime minister to come out and say, we need to do this. So you're hearing him him hinting at talking about it, hearing urging the premiers to tell him what they would like to see. It was the dominant theme in the weekly call last night between the prime minister and the premiers. The provinces, you know, are laying out the issues that they're seeing. And the prime minister is is still pet pledging for help. But that path forward, you know, is far from decided. We've heard the NDP federally calling for an end to for profit homes, talking about the system being brought under the Canada Health Act. And that's another whole can of worms for the federal liberal government because you know, that would be complicated, for one, the prime minister actually even floated that idea. He was one of the first to mention it in the sort of musing aloud in one of the briefings. And this was weeks ago when the disproportionate death toll on seniors was really first coming to light. We were really sort of trying, seeing how the coronavirus was spreading in the long term care homes. And that idea was so quickly swatted away by Quebec premier, Francois Legault. And he just, you know, repeated what we've heard often from a lot of the provinces that, you know, we'll just up the health transfers, you know, we'll deal with it. And that's not wrong. The provinces do have an expertise in dealing with this. They're on the ground. They see what needs to be done. So the federal government has less of an expertise in that route. So the liberals really seem not keen to go that route of opening up the Canada Health Act. It would be hard and even long term care experts to say that. Would that be the right route to go? Would that solve anything? There are other ways to go. There could be separate legislation and a way to impose consistent standard.

MG: Rob, to any sense as to what Premier Doug Ford has had to say about the idea of bringing long term care under a federal mandate under Medicare?

ROBERT BENZIE: I mean, the premier has said that it may be necessary to do that, but he said that it costs cost so much money and, you know, people are going to have to be prepared to pay for this. I mean, the estimates are ten billion dollars a year to have Long-Term care, to be treated like our hospitals, our public hospitals. So I think it's one of these things. Is there going to be the political will there? There is certainly now in the midst of this crisis. I mean, 70 percent of Ontario is COVID-19 deaths are in long term care. You had almost 1600 people die in Long-Term Care since March of this virus. But, Matt, it's a lot of money. And are people going to want in a in an economic upheaval, a time of economic upheaval? Are they going to want higher taxes to pay for a publicly funded long term care system? I'm not sure. I'm not sure there'll be the political will to do it.

MG: Are people going to want another investigation? People have called for a public enquiry. He's leading an investigation. But is that what people want? This is a crisis that's happening now.

ROBERT BENZIE: I mean, yeah, the opposition parties have called for a public enquiry and you know how long those things can take. I mean, this isn't the Kuramochi secret that we're trying to find. Everyone knows what the problem is. The problem is these things aren't particularly well funded and they aren't particularly well monitored. So it's not rocket science. This is. A problem that can be solved.

MG: It just takes political will and a lot of money early on in this crisis, in this pandemic, Aaron, premier Legault was getting great support. The polls showed considerable support for him. Despite the fact that the province was continuing to struggle, it remains the epicentre of Canada's epidemic. What is support like for what the premier is doing and how he's tackling this?

AARON DERFEL: That's a great question. So initially Legault's satisfaction rate soared as high as 95 percent for his handling of the pandemic. But it's dropped following the revelations in the care homes. It's dropped to as low as 77 percent. That's still high for a premier, but it gives you an indication that there is some erosion.

MG: He's shown sensitivity as well. I mean, particularly around your reporting in calling you out.

AARON DERFEL: Oh, yes. Yes. Because, you know, I did fact check some of some of his assertions and perhaps that wasn't appreciated. But, you know, the stakes are high here because Quebec has had 3152 deaths in its seniors facilities, much more so than Ontario. But if I could pick up on something that, as Salimah had said, I see no reason why we can raise the standards, why we can add, you know, an article to the Canada Health Act in terms of ensuring guaranteeing a minimum level of care in the nursing homes. I think that, you know, this is a crisis that has persisted now, arguably for decades, and it's time that we address it. As for the money issue, yes, it boils down to that. The premier has talked about perhaps even nationalising some of our private care homes in the province. It's going to take a lot of political will and it will take money. But right now it's a national shame and we can't put this off any longer.

MG: Rob Benzie, how is Premier Ford being regarded in Ontario again at the beginning of this pandemic? A lot of people were saying that he had done an impressive job in terms of addressing in an empathetic way what was going on. Ontario is having a difficulty in flattening the curve. And so how is that being reflected in the premier's actions?

ROBERT BENZIE: Well, I mean, the premier is more popular than he was a year ago when he was booed when the former Raptors won the championship at Nathan Falls Square at Toronto's City Hall. He was booed and Prime Minister Trudeau was there and he was cheered. So fast fast forward one year and Mr. Ford's handling of the COVID-19 crisis has certainly helped his poll numbers a little bit. But I think we're starting to see that taper off a bit. Just anecdotally, you saw yesterday the premier kind of lashing out at unionised inspectors, complaining that they hadn't wanted to go into long term care homes in April and then the union firing back at him and saying that wasn't true. So it's more of the old style of Premier Ford rather than this new, kinder, gentler kind of conciliator who we've seen since March 17th basically when Ontario has been in a state of emergency. He has been very much sort of [unintelligible] familiar for that, for the whole province and trying to be everyone, you know, we're all in this together kind of kumbaya stuff. So I don't know. He could be that it was chippy yesterday. I mean, he's been working hard and they and they actually are having too many of these press briefings, I think. I think it's starting to wear on them all.

MG: Selimah. Is there an opportunity for the federal government - taking what you said about how difficult this is - but is there an opportunity for the federal government to swoop in and be saviours in this and say, listen, you know what, this is a crisis and we're going to act and, yes, the provinces are concerned about this, but we have to take the national interest at heart here.

SALIMAH SHIVJI: There is absolutely an opportunity to do that, and I think that that will really come from the way the prime minister lays this out, the way he presents it, and the way it has to be careful in how he says things in terms of not being seen to impose something. But there is absolutely a place for him. And you see, you see all of the liberal ministers really saying as Aaron said, you know, this is an issue. This is an issue we've known for a long time. They're not using the word national shame. But it's there. The idea that this has to be fixed. So there is a place for them to say, look, we could go this route, we could go this route. Which do you prefer for the provinces? But publicly that the prime minister cannot say we're going to do this.

MG: I just wonder whether this could be about a ballot box issue. And people have said over the course of this crisis, certainly in the last week or so, that one of the reasons why it drags on is because it's not an issue that grabs voters attention. Certainly has now. And so, I mean, an election isn't on the horizon immediately, presumably, although it could be, I suppose. But could this be a ballot box issue, Salimah?

SALIMAH SHIVJI: Well, and that's the thing. This is an unprecedented pandemic. And we're seeing this drastic portrait of the conditions. This is the one thing that could finally make this a ballot box issue that that long term care homes and the conditions that we see in them absolutely need to be improved. Health care in general is never really a sexy election topic, never really becomes that ballot box issue, always sort of slides off into other things. And particularly for seniors homes, you know, easier issues like pharmacare sort of take over. And they did with the Liberals in the last election. It really seems like that could not really be a priority for the liberals going forward when we see what's happening in the long term care homes. So they can't do both. So, yes. This become the moment that people go. We absolutely have to do something about the situation. The federal government will take a leading role in leading the provinces to the table and see what can be done and what sort of funding can be given to the provinces to fix this problem.

MG: Aaron, briefly, is your sense that people in Quebec are seized by this issue? Politicians, certainly, and those who have family members in these long term care homes, but generally across the province, is this the kind of issue that would motivate people in in Quebec, particularly around the ballot box, but also to give supports to politicians to take decisive action?

AARON DERFEL: Definitely. So it was a ballot box issue in the last election, you know, two years ago when the coalition government won and partly on the strength of the Legault's promise to fix the nursing homes and to be one of the reasons that the former [unintelligible] liberals lost the election because of problems with the health care system. Our news media is focussed on this. A lot of Quebecers are focussed on our surveys. The horrors here were just absolutely shocking. And we do have a an ombudsman who's going to be launching an investigation into this. So this will fuel new stories to come. So it's definitely going to be a ballot box issue during the next election.

MG: What about for you, Rob? Looking at Ontario in the last minute or so that we have, what's at stake for the premier in terms of addressing this in a meaningful way?

ROBERT BENZIE: Well, the premier has promised to fix it. He has said the system is broken and it's rare for a politician to admit that's something they administer is actually broken. And he said that he's going to do something about it. Now, as Aaron is saying, there may well be the political will to do it. It's just it's going to cost a lot of money, Matt. And I think that people have to get their heads around that. But as people are living longer, we have to have to say as a society, do we want to warehouse our seniors in these conditions? And I don't think that we do. So I hope that it's an election issue in 2022 in Ontario and it may be resolved before then, hopefully.

MG: But when he says the buck stops with me, I mean that suggests that he feels as though he has the mandate to address it.

ROBERT BENZIE: Yes. I mean, there's certainly pressure on him from the opposition parties. And there's blame enough to go around for all of the political parties in Ontario who have all been in power over the last quarter century.

MG: Great to speak with you all about this. We will talk again. In the meantime, thanks.

AARON DERFEL: Thanks, Matt.

ROBERT BENZIE: Thank you.

SALIMAH SHIVJI: Thank you.

MG: Salimah Shivji is a senior parliamentary Hill reporter with the CBC. Robert Benzie is the Queen's Park Bureau chief for the Toronto Star. And Aaron Derfel is a health care reporter for the Montreal Gazette. The CBC News is next. And then Hamed Esmaeilion is still looking for justice. He knows exactly what that will look like.

SOUNDCLIP

Justice to me is to find the truth, to find what happened that night, that morning in Iran, and to see the perpetrators in an international court.

MG: Hamed Esmaeilion lost his daughter and wife in Ukrainian's Airlines crash in Iran. And we'll speak with him in about 15 minutes time. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

Trump's 'looting' tweet should come as no surprise — racism in U.S. runs far deeper: scholar

Guests: Ricky Jones

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

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MG: Still to come, choirs have joined pretty much every other social enterprise and gone online during code. It's pretty tough considering the choirs sort of exist to bring people together in person. In about 45 minutes, we'll hear about a choir in B.C. that's for people living with dementia and surprisingly, they found some opportunities to grow during this pandemic. But first to the anger on the streets of Minneapolis and beyond.

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MG: Protesters chants in front of a burning police precinct in Minneapolis overnight. The anger is over the death of another unarmed black man, George Floyd. He died after being pinned to the ground by a white police officer. The officer had his knee on George Floyd's neck and a video shows him calling out that he couldn't breathe. The police officers involved have been fired. No charges have been laid. But the FBI says that it is investigating. Ricky L. Jones is a professor and chair of the Pan African Studies Department at the University of Louisville. On the line with us now Ricky. Good morning.

RICKY JONES: Good morning, Matt. Good to talk with you.

MG: When you saw that video of George Floyd lying beneath the knee of a white police officer, what went through your mind?

RICKY JONES: Well, it was troubling, obviously, when you see a man with the life literally been choked out of him, you know, right before your eyes. Unfortunately, as an African-American, it wasn't surprising. But what was shocking was that it was caught on video and the utter disregard of the officer who was committing the act in doing it. How callous he was, even knowing that he was being recorded. That that was a bit disturbing.

MG: In the wake of this video going public, there have been protests in Minneapolis, but also, as we saw last night across the United States. Authorities have called for calm, the National Guard has been called in to stop the rioting. What do you make of what happened overnight?

RICKY JONES: Again, I don't think it's surprising, I think it is really a very logical progression of what's going on in the country. Obviously, the narrative will shift now to the rioting, the looting and the violence being unacceptable, you saw that even coming from the president. While he even in his dispatch last night said, you know, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. So he was embedding violence even in that. There'll be very little serious attention to what brought this on, and what brought this on is really the continuation of white supremacy and the consequences of it in America.

MG: Were you surprised by the president using that language? I mean, his tweet was flagged by Twitter as glorifying violence. Were you surprised that the president of the United States, as riots and protests were happening across his country, would say something like that, that when the looting starts, the shooting starts?

RICKY JONES: I think at this stage Matt, anybody who is surprised that the president of the United States would use that type of language has not been paying attention to what's been going on in America for some years now. I think Donald Trump was elected by a particular constituency for a particular reason. He is the champion of that ideology in this country, and that's why he's sitting in the White House. So, you know, America has a problem that's running much deeper than Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a representation of white supremacy and racial domination in the country, but he is not the only purveyor of it. If that were the case, once we get rid of Donald Trump whether it be this year, or when he terms out in 2024, everything will be fine. But it's not going to be fine in America, and I think we need to get our arms around that fact. So, no, I wasn't surprised. I don't think anybody globally was surprised.

MG: Tell me about that moment and that problem. There is the story of George Floyds. There's a story in Louisville, Kentucky, where you are where protesters were shot and injured at a protest over another death, that of Briana Taylor in March. She was a medical technician shot dead by a Louisville police in her home. And there's the story of this white woman in New York City in Central Park who calls the police saying that an African-American man is threatening her life because he asked her to leash her dog. What's going on in your country?

RICKY JONES: What's going on in our country is what's been going on for a very, very long time. Technology now is simply making it more obvious and more unavoidable, more undeniable. But what we're really seeing is a system of racial domination, of racial terror all over the country. And, you know, a lot of this stuff is hitting home for me. A more was killed to my home state of Georgia. I'm a native of Atlanta, Georgia.

MG: This is the young boy who was jogging and was shot dead.

RICKY JONES: Yes, the jogger who was killed. In Louisville, one of my former students [unintelligible name] is the lead attorney for the Briana Taylor family who was killed in Louisville in March. What happened in Central Park see what happened to George Floyd. Again, the old calcified things when we talk about what's going on. They're just that. They're old and we just see them now. So the question is, how are we going to respond to them now in an era where black people have to be believed when these things happen to them? But even in the face of video evidence, quite often we will have agents of the state say they trust us, there's more evidence that this is not as it seems. Almost like, you know, the old comedian, I think Eddie Murphy, you've learnt the horrors you're going to believe me or your lying eyes. And I think people are just at the end of their rope with trusting the structures of control in the country.

MG: There's the hashtag came out of that Central Park story, birding while black. And after the Ahmaud Arbery arbitrary shooting, there was jogging while black. We used to be driving while black. There was walking while black. What is it like to be black in America in 2020?

RICKY JONES: What it's like being black in America is what it's like. It's always been like being black in America. There is no peace for black people in America, and I wrote a piece that came out in the Corridor Journal and USA Today when an opinion columnist about the fact that George Clooney was somebodies child. And so we are seeing instance after instance after instance of black people burying their children, whether they be for six or 46. Like George [unintelligible]. But what we're really dealing with is the reality that if you're black, we cannot learn. We cannot worship. We cannot work. We cannot exercise. We cannot even sleep or birdwatch in peace. And that is a very exhausting existence and folk are now struggling to figure out what to do when the structures get to the point where they are so broken that we know we cannot go through the legitimate legal, elected, afford or relief. And so I for one that conflagration with some people will call riot happened more and more frequently. And people are ultimately now in confrontation with police. We saw a police station burning last night in Minneapolis. This simply is not a sustainable system.

MG: Does that answer anything if a police station is burned to the ground?

RICKY JONES: No, I don't think it answers anything. I don't think people have answers right now under serious question. But we have to have. I think it's a recognition that we are not dealing with singular instances. We're dealing with an overall system of white supremacy where one group of people in this country has always felt they have the right to think, to know and decide for everybody else. And other groups are simply getting sick of it because they have not behave in a responsible manner. And we cannot simply sit back and say that nothing is wrong with a system like that.

MG: We just have a couple of seconds left. It feels as though, based on what happened last night, that things are at a boiling point. How concerned are you about what the next few days might hold?

RICKY JONES: I'm not concerned about the next few days. I'm concerned about the next two decades. You know, I'm the father of a 12 year old child. And all of us here as black parents and black people are trying to create a world that our children can enter into with more safety, decency and humanity. And so I don't think folks who look like me are as concerned about a police station, as concerned about a little looting over the next few days as we are what this country is going to look like going forward for our children, so we don't have to continue to bury them.

MG: Rick, it's good to speak with you again. Thank you.

RICKY JONES: Always. Have a good day.

MG: And you, Ricky L. Jones is a professor and chair of the Pan African Studies Department at the University of Louisville. This is The Current on CBC Radio one. My name's Matt Galloway.

Families of flight PS 752 are still fighting for answers

Guests: Hamed Esmaeilion, Ralph Goodale

It's been almost five months since the downing of Flight 752. One hundred seventy six people were killed when Iran shot two missiles at the Ukrainian passenger plane. Many of the people killed were from Canada's Iranian Canadian community. Hamed Esmaeilion lost his nine year old daughter Reera, and his wife Parisa on that plane. We spoke with Hamid in February, a month after the plane was shot down. He's now speaking for an association representing the families of the Canadians who died on that flight. And he joins us again. Hamed, good morning.

HAMED ESMAEILION: Good morning.

MG: It's been about four months since I spoke with you. How are you doing?

HAMED ESMAEILION: You know where I live day by day by day. Every morning when I get up, I just search P.S. 752, in Farsi and English to find that no news coming out. And I have had a very difficult week because Reera's birthday was on Saturday. So very difficult. Yes.

MG: You're doing that searching to find answers for yourself. But you're also part of this group, the Association of Families of Flight P.S. seven five two victims. Tell me a little bit about that group and what the group offers you.

HAMED ESMAEILION: So far we have thirty five Canadian victims families in our group and more than one hundred families, although all around the world from Iran, Sudan, Canada, UK and Afghanistan. So we have three main goals. One is to remember the passengers. The other one is helping the families. And the main goal is seeking for justice.

MG: What does justice look like for you in this?

HAMED ESMAEILION: The real justice is that Paris and Reera comeback. But it doesn't happen. But justice to me is to find the truth, to find what happened that night, that morning in Iran, and to see the perpetrators in an international court.

MG: What sort of actions have you taken with the group? You've been in contact with the Canadian government, certainly. But what sort of actions are you taking right now?

HAMED ESMAEILION: We found several interesting things that various stayed working on. For example, that night there was a unexpected delay, 36 minutes. And we don't know the reason of the delay because at the same time, there was no flight into Iran and they even cancelled the domestic flights in other airports. The other thing is we found that one flight before PS 752 has a very unusual path. We don't know what's there is. These are questions we just raised, more questions that no one answers for. We send a lot of letters, reports. I'm sure Mr. Goodale has received some of them. There was a very, very disturbing news from Ukrainian head of forensic that the passengers of the flight, nobody fastened her belts or his belt. It's unusual.

MG: Have you had any contact with the Iranian government?

HAMED ESMAEILION: No. No, we haven't had that we had one of the families that talked to him like two months ago. But not at all.

MG: We know that some of the families of the victims have been reporting being harassed and threatened by Iranian officials here in Canada, but also in Iran in the days and weeks after that crash. Is that something that you went through?

HAMED ESMAEILION: Oh, it's it's ongoing. They never stopped it. They insulted us. They harassed us. If I show you my Instagram page, you can see hundreds of messages coming from [unintelligible] Cyber Army. They're very active. Even they photoshopped my photo, you know, to just defame me.

MG: What do you think is going on there? What why would they be doing that?

HAMED ESMAEILION: Their goal is to finish the case in a domestic court. And in their opinion, I think everything's over now because they had they had they never had it handed over the black boxes. And it seems that they don't want to do it and they just want to finish the case in a domestic court and just bring an operator to the court and say that was his fault. And that's it.

MG: You mentioned Mr. Goodale. That's Ralph Goodale, the former public safety minister. He was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to be a special advisor on this file. What sort of contact have you had with Ralph Goodale?

HAMED ESMAEILION: We have been in touch. We exchanged messages and letters. We had a very productive meeting with Mr. Goodale and we shared our concerns about the black boxes, boats probably taking the case to the International Court of Justice and hopefully we can work together to these in future.

MG: What do you want from the Canadian government when it comes to action on this? I mean, if you talk about, for example, the black boxes in Iran has missed this deadline to surrender these flight data recorders and the flight voice recorder. What can the Canadian government do?

HAMED ESMAEILION: If you remember when I was on your first show on the 6th of February, I said to you that Iran is not going to cooperate. So four months later, I think I was right. So you don't see the black boxes and the voice recorders of the cockpit, which is very important. Why two weeks ago, Iranians said that the Supreme National Security Council will decide about the black box. For a country who has signed all the conventions and who is a member of ICAO. I don't I don't understand that. And I think the only way to make this happen is an international pressure as the way it worked at the very first like three days, that was a body of lies. And finally they admitted that. So we are in the same situation right now.

MG: And that's what you want from people like Ralph Goodale and the Canadian government. Is that international pressure?

HAMED ESMAEILION: Yes, we need to hear some good news after all of these bad news that we heard. You know, we're living Canada. After that the pandemic happened and after that we had the mass killing of Nova Scotia. You know, my heart goes to everybody who is affected by a pandemic. And to the victims families, you know, every bad news that we hear that just revised will happen to us. We need to have some good news finally, after five months.

MG: You mentioned that your daughter Reera, would have turned 10. It was her birthday, just a few days ago. When you think about her what goes through your mind and what did you do to to mark that day?

HAMED ESMAEILION: [Sobbing] You know, I'm thinking, why, why Reera is not here to play soccer in the backyard? Why she can't go for a walk and afternoon. Everyone has a right to fly right to life. But it is taken from them and another 134 passengers. So you wrote to her last week. That I'm deeply sorry, sweetheart. I'm sorry to bring a soul to this word to end up in those three minutes of horror. I'm sorry to have failed to protect you from mankind's ill intentions and ignorance. What can I say to her? I mean, I'm in her room right now, and every morning I just say to her, what can I do? What can I do for you, Reera? I have no answers for all those questions that I have. And it's ongoing. It's same thing for other families. And, you know, everybody is suffering. So we need to find, you know, we need to have closure and we need to find answers and we need to see those criminals that they did that atrocity come to justice. That's what they say to Reera every morning that, Reera, I will fight for your right and to [unintelligible] same thing. Sorry.

MG: I'm so sorry for what you've been through. It's just awful. And I wish you the best. And I hope we have the chance to talk again. Thank you.

HAMED ESMAEILION: Thank you.

MG: Take care of yourself.

HAMED ESMAEILION: Thanks, bye.

MG: Hamed Esmaeilion's nine year old daughter Riera and his wife Presa were both killed on Ukrainian Airlines Flight seven five two. You can hear it there in his voice. The kind of loss is unimaginable and it's compounded by so many unanswered questions. Ralph Goodale is one of the people trying to get some of those answers. He was appointed as the special advisor to the prime minister on this file. Ralph Goodale, good morning to you.

RALPH GOODALE: Good morning.

MG: It is heartbreaking listening to Hamed Esmaeilion and talk about the loss that he has experienced. But also you hear it in his voice, that sense of frustration and the weariness that the families are feeling. What is it like for you to listen to that?

RALPH GOODALE: I share many of the same emotions, obviously not with the same intensity. Only a family member could experience that anguish. But I have had the opportunity to speak either personally or in a group setting over the phone with, I think, virtually all of the families. And it's an absolutely heart wrenching experience. It just reinforces the determination that the government of Canada to do everything we possibly can to support these families, to get transparency and accountability and ultimately justice for them. And I have asked them, what is their definition of justice?

MG: What is your definition of justice in this?

RALPH GOODALE: Well, it's several things in addition to all of the supports that need to be put in place to make sure the families have as much backing and comfort as absolutely possible. It's really a restatement of what Mr. Esmaeilien was talking about. What was the sequence of events and the chain of decisions that caused missiles to be launched that killed 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents of this country? How did that happen and who was responsible for it happening? And secondly, why was a civilian airliner in the skies exposed and vulnerable in the midst of a dangerous conflict?

MG: Are we any closer to knowing the answer to that question?

RALPH GOODALE: Well, we certainly are putting the pieces in place to get the answers as much as that is humanly possible to do.

MG: But just back to the plane flying in the sky. I mean, this was a couple of hours after Iran shot dozens of missiles at a U.S. Army base or army bases in Iraq. Do we know why the plane was allowed to fly? There was speculation that perhaps those passengers were being used as human shields. Is that the line of questioning that we're following right now as a nation?

RALPH GOODALE: We're following every line of questioning and none of the answers are available yet. The painful reality is that this is a long process. And Mr. Esmaeilion made a very good point about the need for the international community to pull together. There is a coordinating group, as you know, consisting of Canada Minister Champagne is the leader of it. It includes the U.K., Sweden, Ukraine and Afghanistan, the other countries that lost passengers on that on that ill fated plane, we have to use that coordinating group as a form of pressure to demand the proper action in the international community on the black boxes, for example, the presentation that got the commitment from Iran was one made by Transport Minister Garneau.

MG: Two months have gone by and Iran hasn't handed those black boxes over. So what good was that is?

RALPH GOODALE: And that is unacceptable. And the international community has to take the steps. And this is very laid out in very precise detail about how the international community deal with these issues.

MG: Have you had any contact with the Iranian government over the black boxes?

RALPH GOODALE: Me directly? No. That's up for the prime minister and minister Champagne to have those direct communications. And very early in the going, both the prime minister and Mr. Champagne made it abundantly clear that that Canada is expecting a transparent process that leads to accountability and the answering of these questions. That pressure will be continued, will continue to be applied either directly by Canada or in concert with our main investigative partner, which is Ukraine and the other countries in the coordinating group and through international organisations. We will push with every ounce of effort. We've got to help deal with that awful anguish that you heard in the voice of Mr. Esmaeilion.

MG: I guess just back to the frustration, it's been five months since this plane was shot out of the sky with so many Canadians onboard. Do we have any more answers five months later than we had five weeks after this happened?

RALPH GOODALE: In terms of the criminal investigation, no, we don't.

MG: So aside from saying we want accountability and saying again, we want accountability and justice. What can Canada actually do?

RALPH GOODALE: The answer here, I think is assembling pressure and pressure points amongst the international community. So it's not just Canada alone of one country alone is not going to be able to get the answers that the world deserves.

MG: Ralph Goodale, good to speak with you. I appreciate it.

RALPH GOODALE: Thank you. Good to talk to you.

MG: Ralph Goodale, former minister of public safety and special adviser to Prime Minister Trudeau on the downing of Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752.

MG: Coming up in about 90 seconds, the city of Chicago faced a crossroads in last year's mayoral election. This is a city struggling with police shootings and gang violence. The vote was seen as an opportunity for real change. Steve James is a documentary filmmaker. You might know him from the great film Hoop Dreams. He documented that time in that city's history in a new docu series. And he is my guest to talk about this great film. Coming up after the break, I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current from CBC Radio One. Back in a minute and a half. Stick around.

Director Steve James on City So Real; How a choir helping dementia patients is overcoming pandemic restrictions

Guests: Steve James, Erica Phare-Bergh

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

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Everything is okay in Chicago? Just I want people got the job.

VOICE 2: The city is in shambles. We've got to fix it.

VOICE 3: Many months before the mayoral election, community leaders are demanding incumbent Prime Emanuel resign.

VOICE 4: What we have is more akin to a dictatorship than a democracy. And it's also because of in schools. It's because of pensions.

VOICE 5: Taxes suck, city's broke all the time.

VOICE 6: I'm looking for a mayoral candidate that's going to give some innovative ideas besides adding more police.

VOICE 7: This election is one of the most important in our lifetime.

VOICE 8: Let's hope we get somebody who gets this mess right now.

VOICE 9: There's too many candidates. You know, you have to narrow it down.

VOICE 10: The woods are full of candidates.

VOICE 11: The crowded field will play out like a barroom brawl.

VOICE 12: That's Chicago, though, you know.

VOICE 13: That's Chicago way.

VOICE 14: Welcome to Chicago.

MG: Welcome to Chicago. Hearing that list of challenges, though, could be Detroit, Toronto or any number of North American cities. That's from the opening of Cities So Real. It's a four part documentary series by the acclaimed director Steve James. He's known for past films about his adopted hometown films like Hoop Dreams and The Interrupters. City So Real is screening online this week as part of the Hot Docs Film Festival. Steve James, good morning.

STEVE JAMES: Good morning.

MG: Congratulations. This is a great film.

STEVE JAMES: Oh, thank you.

MG: This is is ostensibly about the 2019 mayoral election in Chicago, but it's about much more than that as well. What were you hoping to show people about Chicago?

STEVE JAMES: Well, having lived here for quite a while now. This is something I've wanted to do for years. And I wanted to find the right moment to do a kind of mosaic portrait, if you will, of the city. And when this mayoral election came along, coupled with the Laquan McDonald trial, you know, Jason Van Dyke, the police officer accused of murdering and then eventually convicted of murdering Laquan McDonald, it just seemed like this was the perfect juncture to do this portrait of a city, like you said, like a number of big cities where these issues of who leads us, race, development, gentrification, all these things are going on, you know, in a very public way.

MG: The city that, as people say, they love it and they hate it. And there's the people who live there who say this.

STEVE JAMES: Yes, no. I mean, I think, you know, the thing about Chicago, I'm sure, you know, Detroit and or Toronto and people would say the same of theirs is there's a tremendous passion here for this city. People do you people can love it and hate at the same time. It's not like you either love it or hate it. You can love it and hate it. And I think that that's part of it's very character. You know, Chicago is the birthplace in the states of community organising. And one of the things you see in this series is you see the spirit of that writ large in terms of the ways in which people engage with the process of trying to make change.

MG: There's a real opportunity for change. Rahm Emanuel is the outgoing mayor. People might know him from Barack Obama's office. He's not going to run again. And so there are 21 candidates who can't go through all of them. But just give us that, you know, the highlights of a couple of the most compelling people and what they reveal about the city.

STEVE JAMES: Yes, well, thank you for asking me not to go through all 21.

MG: We don't have that much time.

STEVE JAMES: I think what they reveal is this sort of incredible that collectively they reveal this sort of incredible cross-section of Chicago. I mean, you've got you've got people like Willie Wilson, who is a older black businessman candidate by any other name he would or by any other in any other city. He would probably be a Republican. But in Chicago, you can't be a Republican. But he has very conservative ideas and he also is very rich and he's also very generous, was giving away his money. And you see that. You see what- you sort of wonder whether he's trying to buy the election in this series. Then there's you know, there's people like Toni Preckwinkle, who is part of the Chicago power structure, who, when she enters the race, is the prohibitive favourite. She's a Cook County board president, an ex teacher, an alderman. And then you've got people like that. We followed like Neal Salazar Griffin, who is this young 29 year old entrepreneur teacher. Just amazing guy. But, you know, it's a very quixotic quest for him to become mayor. And then you have Lori Lightfoot, you know, who eventually surprised everyone by becoming the mayor. And I think I think we were able to show you in the series how she sort of rose from obscurity to surprise everyone, a gay black woman who had never held political office before and became mayor of Chicago, as in many cities, particularly in black communities.

MG: It's the barbershop and the hair salon that ends up being the centre point for discussions, particularly around politics. Let's listen to part of a scene from a barbershop. This is from episode one of your series.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Any of you got a mayoral candidate you like? Somebody who's got a good relationship with the community, somebody who doesn't think they're above the law. Boy, if you don't stop moving . What do you think about Daley? Daley? Man. If that dude even get a bit of a vote then there ain’t nothing changed in this city.

VOICE 2: When the Daleys ran the office, there was no problems for more than 50 years. So you think a Daley in office wouldn't take care of business? No. he's going to be taking care of business for their own kind.

MG: You're talking about Bill Daley there. What is the Daley name mean in Chicago for people like familiar?

STEVE JAMES: I should've mentioned Bill Daley. The Daley may name means a tremendous amount because you know, the rich Richard J. Daley, the original Daley mayor of Chicago, reigned over Chicago for decades. And, you know, it was a famously tough mayor, that 1968 convention, Democratic Convention, Chicago was the beginning of his downfall, in a sense. And then his son, Richard M. Daley, came in and became mayor and was mayor for at least six or seven terms. And then just decided he'd had enough and left. And so that name means a tremendous amount. And so Bill Daley, who was really much more of a Washington political insider, decided he wanted to be mayor and so he ran as well.

MG: You talk in the film about this American city at a crossroads. And that scene in particular and talking about taking care of their own highlights some of the divisions in Chicago. I think some of the divisions on race and class and neighbourhoods people have long talked about in the south side of Chicago and the rest of the city in terms of divisions. How divided is is that city?

STEVE JAMES: Well, I think Chicago is arguably the most segregated city in America. It's a distinction the city does not want, but I think it is apt. You know, there are whole parts of the city that are black or Latino or very largely white. There is certainly some very integrated neighbourhoods. But that leads to divisions politically. You know, in the film, at one point we are kind of out in the street, just sort of get getting the temperature of people about the Laquan McDonald trial. Right. Which arguably was the single most significant trial in Chicago in decades. And, you know, the black community members that we approached in various settings were very engaged with this trial and had extremely well-formed and thoughtful opinions. And then we went to a park up on the north side that largely frequented by white folks. And there were we ran into a number of people who had barely even heard of the trial, much less pay any attention to it. So, you know, I think these divisions are writ large. And there's you know, when I first moved to Chicago, I grew up in Virginia, which is a very integrated state in the South. I was struck by the visceral racial tension I felt in this city when I first moved here.

MG: I'm talking to you in the same week that a black man in Minneapolis died while being held down by a police officer had his knee on his neck. There were protests and demonstrations in Minneapolis last night across parts of the United States as well. There's also this story of white woman threatening to call 911 on what she said was an African-American man threatening her life as she was. He was birdwatching in Central Park and he wanted to leash up her dog. What are you thinking as these things still happen?

STEVE JAMES: Well, I'm thinking, you know, I heard someone say this, you know, the death in Minneapolis. This should be a wakeup call. And I just kept thinking, how many times have we heard that over the last decades, that when something like this happens, people say this should be the wakeup call? I mean, we should be fully awake at this point about what the realities are. You know, I can only, I tend to be a realist, but I tend towards the optimist end of the spectrum and for some reason. I believe people want to do the right thing. And I just hope that that that, you know, justice obviously is served here, but that that police departments in particular are undergoing a change. You know, here in Chicago, we have a new police superintendent, an African-American man from that was from Dallas. And I think there's some excitement here about his the change he wants to bring. And, of course, there's been excitement in the past. So we'll see.

STEVE JAMES: What do you what do you see is your role, as - you might think, of Hoop Dreams and the work that you did, and that should be done a lot other films since. But Hoop Dreams is a film about race and class. Two young black kids who are in the south side of Chicago. They want to try to make it to the elite basketball programme in a white school. This is something that's run through so much of the work that you've done, The Interrupters, as well as a white filmmaker. What do you see as your role in documenting division racial division, particularly in the United States?

STEVE JAMES: Well, I think it goes back to my growing up in Virginia. I grew up and as I said, in a very integrated community, I went to a high school that was nearly 50 percent black and white. I played on the basketball team that was overwhelmingly black. And I saw the profound racial divisions within my high school. It wasn't acrimonious. It was like two separate schools, really. And it was sort of striking. And and so early on race, I think, made an imprint on me and became something that not only fascinated me, but defined me. And so I think that it's a part of America that, you know, has been called racism. It's called been called slavery, the original sin of America. It's something that's so profoundly interwoven into our culture, it's almost impossible to ignore if you pay attention. And I feel like as a white filmmaker, I don't know, not just my passion, but my duty is to grapple with this this issue of and certainly hope that that many other of my fellow filmmakers of all races do the same.

MG: What is the promise that Lori Lightfoot is offering? She, as you mentioned, openly gay black woman elected in a landslide in the runoff to this. And she talks in the speech after she wins about one city, which is something that people muse about in the film. But she has the power to try to create that. What's the promise that she's offering to your city?

STEVE JAMES: Well, I think she offers promise as an outsider, as someone who is- and part of the reason she won was, is that she effectively campaigned as someone who was not part of the Democratic machine of Chicago and that that resonated with voters. So she comes in as an outsider, not beholden to anyone. And I think that's a real asset. She's tough. She has certainly shown her toughness.

MG: But she also comes into a city that's also called, you know, colloquially and it's damaging, certainly, but the murder capital of the United States.

STEVE JAMES: She is. And I think she's taken in taking very seriously, wanting to do something about violence in Chicago and also about the disparities, the racial disparities in Chicago. I think these are very signature and important issues to her. And I think she's really determined to do something about it. She's got a learning curve, though, because she's never been a politician before. And I think there's some people that feel like, you know. Yes, you have to be tough to be mayor in Chicago. But you also have to know how to pull people along. And, you know, I think so. I think she is learning on the job. But but I think there is a you know, fundamentally there's a belief that she's got a chance here to do something profoundly important.

MG: One of my favourite places in cities is at City Hall. There is often the marriage chamber where people will come down to city hall to get married. And so there's a lot of really hard work that comes out in this film and hard stories. But there is this beautiful scene in the final episode where you go to city hall and you meet people who are there to get married. Listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: This special day today. Valentine's Day. And I'm always gonna remember this day, for the rest of my life until I die. Oh for real. What are you laughing at?

VOICE 2: We're completely from different countries. I'm Mongolians, his Albanian. We met through a mutual friend. Two years later, here we are.

VOICE 3: How long have you been together?

VOICE 4: You don't wanna know.

VOICE 5: 20 something years. Life's too short. So if you love someone just do it.

MG: Steve James, why did you want to include that in your film?

STEVE JAMES: Well, like you said, there's a lot of hard stuff going on in the movie. It's nice to see this part of Chicago. I mean, I think that that's often then something very important to me. I've done a lot of films that are about, you know, difficult aspects of the city. But I've always felt it's also important to see that that is not all that's going on in the city and or in neighbourhoods that are even besieged with violence and poverty. And so, you know, we were spurred to go down there because Willie Wilson was there on Valentine's day handing out money to help people pay their property taxes. And we just thought this is a perfect time to go down to one Valentine's Day and see people who are madly in love with one another and tying the knot.

MG: This is your town. You came to Chicago to make Hoop Dreams, is that right?

STEVE JAMES: Pretty much, yes. I mean, my wife and I moved here. This was this is a compromise place in a sense, in that, you know, I got out of school and thought I should probably go to L.A. or New York. I really want a career. But I also had this idea for Hoop Dreams, and my wife did not want to live in L.A. or New York. And I said, how about Chicago? Because I knew Chicago would be a great place to try and do Hoop Dreams. So in a sense, yes, Hoop Dreams kind of drove me to want to come to Chicago.

MG: It just reminds us of I mean, we're in this time where there aren't a lot of people on the streets of cities or towns, and it reminds us of the power of that crush of humanity. You know what I mean? When everybody is out and the streets are heaving and people cities are, you know, physical places, but they're really made up of the people who inhabit those physical places. What do you love about your city?

STEVE JAMES: Well, I love that. I don't know if I can say it better than you just did, but it's you know, I love I love the intense energy. I love the variety. I love the fact that that there are so many people from different walks of life who claim this is their home and passionately so. I love the cauldron, you know, of Chicago as a place where you see America kind of in microcosm. You know, Chicago has been called the great American city. And I think it's an apt description because it really does sort of, in a sense, much more so than any of the cities on either coasts kind of capture all of what this country is.

MG: It's a really powerful film. Congratulations.

STEVE JAMES: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me and for watching all four hours.

MG: So, you know, the thing is, I'm not from Chicago. I've been to Chicago. It's four hours. And I felt that I couldn't turn it off because it's so compelling. Steve. Thank you.

STEVE JAMES: Thank you very much for having me.

MG: Steve James, his new docu series is called City So Real. It's screening online as part of the Hot Docs Film Festival. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to the current on CBC Radio One.

[Choir singing]

MG: That was recorded late last year and choirs could still perform in public. Remember those days? The choir is called Voices in Motion. The members are of all different ages and backgrounds. But the thing that brings them all together is dementia.

[Choir singing]

MG: A few weeks ago, we talked about how choirs are particularly affected by this pandemic. Turns out that singing in a group is a particularly risky thing to do, which is a blessing and a curse for choirs. Like Voices in Motion. Erica Phare-Bergh is the artistic director of Voices in Motion. She is in Victoria, British Columbia. Erica, good morning.

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What is voices in motion?

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: What is in motion is an intergenerational choir. It's for people with memory loss. They're caregivers and students and friends as well.

MG: And this started out as a research project at a university that suddenly turns into what we just heard there, that beautiful sound.

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: That's right. Well, it was it was started by a team of researchers from University of Victoria. We started with one choir and we now have five choirs in Victoria and the greater Victoria area.

MG: That's amazing. What was the project trying to uncover? Wouldn't tell me a little bit about the research that was being done.

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: Well, I think the researchers were interested in knowing what impact singing would have in a choral setting on people with dementia. And they wanted to explore sociologically what would happen and also cognitively what would happen. And some of the biomarkers that which if they would change, you know, for a non pharmacological solutions, are not a solution, but a benefit for it for some of these singers.

MG: And what are the choirs taught them, do you think?

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: Well, it's been amazing. Stigma has gone down. Depression's gone down, not just in the person with dementia, but also the caregivers. It has been erasing some of the silos that we experience in intergenerational even of the students. One student who was so moved by her experience of the choir that she's written a book about it and illustrated it. It's going to be published shortly here. It's called I Remember. And you know, so also just we found that, you know, different parts of the brain would help out the more damaged parts of the brain. You know, when they're singing together. So it's been really exciting to see the benefits. And it's just a joy that it's bringing to people's lives.

MG: When you're standing there in front of the choirs, what do you see?

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: I see smiling faces. Yes, It's wonderful to to laugh together. I think one of the things that's been fun to see our students, you know, initially they thought that, oh, you know, people with dementia, this is just a scary thing or, you know, they just didn't know what to expect. And I think the thing that's been really wonderful for them is to see how much fun and how the whole area is. Like there's so much fun to hang out with and very joy filled. You wouldn't expect how this is a really inspirational group of people.

MG: There's a couple of things that you mentioned that I think stand out. One is the stigma around dementia. How is something like that tackled when people get together and sing?

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: I think just being together and getting to know people and I think because the people that do have memory loss in our choir are honoured. We really honour them and we want to honour them and we want to- The intergenerational peace is an attempt to create a dementia friendly society where we raise some of these, you know, misconceptions and or fears or unknowns that people seem to have around dementia. So we've learnt a lot. I've learnt more than anybody, I think in this. It's just been an amazing experience.

MG: What have you learnt?

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: Well, I think I've learnt that there's a lot of hope in these people. You know, it's a tough road, but they're brave and they take it a day at a time. And I think living in the present has been something I've learnt just you know, life is a snapshot. It's a series of snapshots. And if you just, you know, experience that joy in the moment, it's okay.

MG: You also talked about joy. And again, as you said, this is a tough road that they're on. One might not expect to see that level of joy. Tell me about being surprised by the joy that you see.

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: No, I think a lot of people have met this situation with a real sense of humour. And so they laugh. They laugh a lot. We laugh a lot together, too, you know. And I think that's part of it, too, is when you're with a group of people, when you're socially isolated. First of all, it's awful, not just cognitively but physically for you as well. And so coming together socially, you know, you're creating bonds, you're creating meaning and people are able to contribute. So in choral concerts and just in the group, in the community, in the choir community, you know, they're able to contribute and give back. And, you know, they were part of a virtual choir even, which is, you know, they're going to be sort of a an event that's going to be happening. And they're all, you know, yeah, they were learning a new skill. They both had their two devices, you know, one to sing on. One's ear bud, no. One to be recorded on. And I thought this is a new skills, a lot of people were learning and they all did it and they did it really well.

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: How has that worked out? Because we're speaking on Friday about the difficulty that's choirs in particular are having. One of the great things about singing together is that you're together. You're in a physical space. You're lifted up by other people's voices. When you're online, you might be in some sort of shared virtual space, but you're not with each other. So what does that look like?

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: Well, we've been trying to replicate. We've got what do we do in our choral situation normally. And obviously we can't be together. But so we do have our weekly rehearsals still there and we bring all the choirs together for that because you can undo. We've added a singalong that's for everybody and anybody so that there's still simply because singing has so many benefits physically for us and mentally in terms of lowering our cortisol levels. So we replicated that in a single one. And we've also, as I said, we've been doing that. One of the things we would do is have an interview at the end of each rehearsal, but it would only be normally a five minute, you know, interview with one of the with the person in the choir. And so we've added that as a component too, with our Zoom. So and we've also we're going to be developing a cookbook because we like to eat together. So we're having everybody great bring in recipes and send in recipes and the story that goes along with it. That's a recipe that was important to them and their picture. So it's sort of a journal that was a recipe and attached to it.

MG: When the choir's able to get back together, what are you going to be looking forward to the most?

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: Hopefully being able to hug each other. I think, you know, just, you know, physical touch becomes really important. And, you know, I know that that's a long way off for now. But I think just seeing each other, seeing that everyone is there. I think of the story about Shackleton and his men three months later going back and seeing them all still alive in Antarctica. We went back for the money. So do you feel like that, you know, we're weathering the storm and we're going to go back and hopefully everybody's still there and they're still okay.

MG: We'll get through this and music will help. It's really neat to hear what you're doing and that you're continuing to do it as well. Erica, thank you.

ERICA PHARE-BERGH: Thank you so much, man. Have a great day.

MG: And you take care. Bye bye. Thanks. You too. Bye.

MG: Erica Phare-Bergh is the artistic director of Voices in Motion. She was in Victoria, British Columbia. That's The Current for today and for this week. You can listen to the programme live or catch up on anything that you missed. And any time through the CBC, listen up, it's free. Download it wherever you find your apps. Coming up next on your CBC Radio One, it's Q and the host is Mr. Tom Power. Hello, Tom.

TOM POWER: Hold on. The app is free?

MG: This just in.

TOM POWER: I was paying a guy, Ron, out in the hallway, five bucks to use it. Did I get ripped off?

MG: Yes, umm. Money not well spent.

TOM POWER: How you doing, man? Any weekend plans?

MG: No, very little, to be honest. I was just thinking we were talking to Steve James. But things that you miss. It's a Friday night and normally there'd be like a crush of people out on the streets and bars and restaurants and things. Kind of miss that.

TOM POWER: Me too. You know, I think about I miss I play a gig every Sunday and the east end of Toronto and I play a little bit Irish music in the corner and a session. And if there's anything I want more than anything else in the world, it's just to sit back around the table, play a few tunes with a few people around us. I can't wait for that to happen again. But in the meantime, you know, I will hunker down and we know it'll come.

MG: As Erica says, we'll get through this and that day will appear. .

TOM POWER: You have a great week. And we got a cool show. Speaking acquires the Halifax Gay Men's Chorus. It's going to reveal on our show a pretty big project they've been working on in quarantine.

MG: We'll listen for that coming up in a couple of minutes. Have a great weekend.

TOM POWER: You too.

MG: Tom Power, host of Q. That's coming up right after the CBC News. That's The Current. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you on Monday.

Friday May 29, 2020 Full Transcript

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