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The Current Transcript for November 3, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Today is the first day of many days, how ever many days it will take to defend our public health care system.

MATT GALLOWAY: Pots and pans aren't being banged every evening anymore, but health care workers are still being called heroes across this country, which makes the Alberta government's dispute with those workers, in the midst of a pandemic, all the more perplexing to many people. In 30 minutes, inside the roots of this dispute, why some doctors are leaving Alberta and whether their concerns around the privatization of health care are fair. Also this morning, your comments on a powerful conversation we had last week with three residents in long-term care and their fears about the second wave of COVID-19. And later.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We heard many people shouting in the street, then we heard gun shot, many gun shots and more and more policemen.

MG: Inside a tense few weeks in France after two terror attacks in quick succession. We start though with tension in the United States and the conclusion of our Road to November road trip series. Our radio RV pulls into New Orleans on the eve of the U.S. election and with the pandemic still raging. Life is anything but easy in the Big Easy these days. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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'Every little thing that you do' could impact spread of COVID-19 over winter: Dr. Theresa Tam

Guests: Dr. Theresa Tam

MG: In many parts of Canada, the number of COVID-19 cases keeps going in the wrong direction with alarming upticks in British Columbia, Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. And so health professionals are now warning about the risks to hospitals, long-term care facilities and the community at large. Joining me now to talk about this and her most recent report to parliament is the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, Dr. Theresa Tam. Dr. Tam, good morning.

THERESA TAM: Good morning.

MG: I want to get to your report to parliament in just a moment, but first, it is Election Day in the United States and that country is averaging about 85,000 new cases of COVID a day over the last week or so. Donald Trump has said that the end of the pandemic is in sight. Joe Biden says the situation is much more serious. They are our next door neighbours and so, from your perspective, what's at stake tonight in terms of tackling this pandemic?

THERESA TAM: Well, I think we have seen that to address something as serious as this pandemic, which is really a defining moment in history. It's really important to have decisive leadership and a public that is going to trust that leadership and to observe public health advised. So that is really important. And, you know, of course, you know, whatever the outcome is from the election, whoever wins. I think every country needs to take it really seriously. And right now in the northern hemisphere, for example, we getting into the cold season and where people may go in those even more. And so, you know, there's the risk of increase in cases continues. So now is the time to double down on our prevention and measures as opposed to relaxing them.

MG: Let's talk about what's happening here. In Canada, we're seeing record case counts in many parts of this country. 900 cases a day plus in Ontario and Quebec. Over a thousand cases in British Columbia over the weekend. More than 600 in Alberta on Friday. Manitoba reporting daily case counts of over 200 and health care workers in that province are warning about rationing personal protective equipment. There are just a handful of ICU beds left in the province. Take a listen to Dr. Anand Kumar, an infectious disease expert and intensive care unit physician from Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The nurses and the staff, including the ICU docs, are extremely apprehensive about this situation. There's a lot of anxiety as to where this is going. But if this curve continues and I'm confident it will for the next three weeks, we will go past our capacity. I don't see any way that we can avoid that.

MG: Dr. Tam, what goes through your mind as you hear that warning from Dr. Anand Kumar?

THERESA TAM: Well, I think it's very important to listen to that message. The numbers of cases across Canada now are reported daily is about 3000 cases. And with a increase mostly in younger people who don't get as sick, even though they can still get sick and be hospitalized, we're seeing an increased incident in older individuals as well. And so that hospitalizations and ICU requirements have been increasing. They're gradually increasing, but they're definitely increasing. So we have over a thousand people at the hospital on any given day, of which over 200- 220 or so now in intensive care units. So this is why clinicians and those who look after them anxious, but we can absolutely still bend that curve. So I think that requires everyone to follow public health advice.

MG: But why is your understanding as to why this is happening? The risk of hospitals being overwhelmed is exactly what Canadians have sacrificed so much to avoid over the last many months. So why are we seeing these problems now, all these months into this pandemic?

THERESA TAM: Well, I think in the initial wave, really, the message was to stay at home and society was very much shut down in this second surge. We do know much more about the virus. We know who it affects. And we've increased capacity in the public health system, but also in the long term care systems. I know people are trying hard. But a lot of these systems have limits and the resources. You know, no matter how hard you try, this virus can get into places even without you knowing. Now, what is different about this second wave? There are two things. One is that we did open up society and economic spaces. So younger people, adults going back to work and mingling more. So we're seeing this is the population that's driving the transmission at the moment, the younger adults, 20 to 29, but also some of the people, 30 to 39 as well. That age group is driving that pandemic. And some of the reason is, of course, opening up different spaces, but also a lot of this is due to some things that we can definitely avoid, which is social gatherings are big and parties and that type of thing, and that we can definitely avoid.

MG: Do you think we've become complacent? I mean, when you talk about parties and social gatherings, there used to be this idea that we were afraid of the virus. And people have said now that we've moved from fear to fatigue. Is it complacency that has led us to, you know, let our foot off the gas a little bit?

THERESA TAM: Well, as I said, this is a marathon. It is not easy, but we mustn't let this virus, you know, sort of gain a foothold and and accelerate. So my message is that we need to have a sustained response and really look at this as more of a longer term sustain habits that everybody needs to develop. I do think that younger adults, because we now know that they are less impacted by severe illness, probably things that they are also invincible. But they I think the message is that we cannot stop this if the virus accelerates, the public health system can't keep up with contact tracing and testing and such that it will creep into older age groups and affect them. The other message is that, you know, you can still get seriously ill, although much less common in the younger age groups. But the other thing is that we're still learning much more about this virus. And one of the concerns and needs to be continually studied are the longer term impacts. So we're seeing that in some younger age groups, even in those who had a milder initial illness, have been developing some longer term symptoms which need to be investigated, including, you know, issues with the heart and other parts of the body. And in some situations, people are describing something like brain fog. And so these things we need to understand further. But it's not something that we should be, you know, complacent about. So I think you're right in that I think we need to get that second win. So if we're in a marathon, you people know what analogy is. It is difficult, but you can get that. Win and we can we can get through this if we develop much more of a sustained habit. Looking at this, the other thing was, you know, it is getting colder, right. And so this is another reason why, you know, the gatherings in those crowded, fully ventilated environment is what's coming up. But we are in a difficult time period.

MG: The premier of Manitoba, Brian Pallister, has said in the face of all of that messaging, despite that case counts keep going up and people continue to gather. He's said that he's considering implementing a curfew to address the problem, in particular of private gatherings. Is that what we need now? Not so much the carrot, but the stick?

THERESA TAM: In some local jurisdictions they are considering because, you know, the strategy of finding every case and testing everybody cannot be managed in a situation where there's hidden community transmission. So then local health authorities have to increase restrictions and they will do whichever combination that they think might be effective depending on what's goin on.

MG: Would you support the idea of a curfew to help keep those case counts low?

THERESA TAM: Now, I don't know the exact situation there, but, for example, if you are observing younger people gathering late at night and having, for example, take an alcohol, well, then it's more difficult to observe any kind of public health restrictions. Maybe that's an option that they will take. The bottom line, though, is everyone is not just the individual groups, is that we've got to cut of contacts outside of the immediate family in order for people to go back to school and to work. And for hospitals to continue the important routine procedures. Everyone has to do that, not just people who may be gathering later at night, which I believe that's a curfew, is probably trying to do. You know, other public health units are trying other things that reducing pub hours. They are sort of implementing public health restrictions and gathering sizes. All of those things are really fundamentally for one critical goal, which is cut down on the amount of contacts that people have because you really don't know.

MG: This is happening, if you take a look at elsewhere in the country, I mean, it seems as though there's a move to go in the opposite direction. There are many provinces that are feeling pressure to lift restrictions. Last week, some Quebec gym owners threatened that they would just open in defiance of the public health rules. In Ontario, the premier said that he will unveil his plan, I guess, today in terms of what it will mean to reopen businesses and hot zones. And yesterday, the Ottawa medical officer of health, Dr. Vera Etches, said, I have written to the mayor describing the need for a new approach to the pandemic response for the sake of the population's health. We need to be learning to live with COVID, to coexist with COVID with caution. Can you co-exist with COVID with caution?

THERESA TAM: Yes, and I think that's the important message is that the population level of immunity, we believe to be very low at this point. Some of that the serology tests and studies show that a vast majority of the population is still not immune, which means this virus can accelerate really fast. So I think what the message is, and I agree, is that we have to live with caution and caution for the foreseeable future. It won't be for forever. But these are habits that everybody needs to develop personal hygenic habits and reduce the amount of contact. One one one of the habits people might want to look at is even just jotting down your contacts a lot, not just because somebody might need to know if you become exposed, but it gives people an idea actually of how many contacts, particularly ones that where the measures haven't been taken, can result then in in in, you know, the propagation of the virus. So it is a matter of much, as I said, much more sustained habit that we need to develop and that that's how we can get through the next period. Public health locally have different approaches that they have the power to restrict different gathering as they see fit because they can't manage, like if the population doesn't observe, which I think are habits that we can develop. I strongly believe that Canadians can do it. Mark, wearing just one instance at the beginning of this pandemic, it would be a very odd thing to do. Now, over 80 percent of Canadians are wearing masks and in certain provinces they have mandated mask wearing because they feel that it actually makes it easier for the public so that they don't have to even think about it. But in others, they're trying to habituate the population with this simple measure to keep everyone safe.

MG: In your report to parliament last week, you talked about the need for health equity approach to this pandemic. This pandemic has not affected everyone equally and I just wonder, I mean you write in it, no one is protected until everyone is protected. How do you persuade people who are clearly at a reduced risk of this pandemic, for example, that might be wealthier households or people who live in wealthier areas of the country to sacrifice for the good of those who might be more vulnerable?

THERESA TAM: Yeah, I think it is, you know, we need to look at it as everybody's business in this pandemic, and it has certainly, I hope anyway, jolted everybody's consciousness into knowing who is impacted most severely. The thing is, seniors is is something that I think is becoming evident in long term care. But then it impacts not just the residents of Long-Term Care Homes, impacts the workers, which have pointed out a generally low, low pace, racialise population that's already suffering from inequities. And when you have low wages, you can not necessarily, you know, make sure that, you know, your job is retained. You're in a precarious work situation. And if you don't have sick leave, you may then have to feel like you have to go back to work in order to survive. So in order to support this population, some of them are younger, these other younger adults that are working for us. We need to keep them safe because they're they're actually supporting some of our vulnerable communities. And so we must have to get young people in the health system and in the Long-Term care of it. You have to look after each other in order for those systems to be sustained. And, you know, and look after people not just from a health perspective, but socio-economic one. The other message is really that Public Health cannot do this alone. Is trying very hard to keep up with these cases so that it doesn't increase mortality and severe illness, which means everybody has to try and keep the transmission down to open up social and economic spaces, which is I think perhaps the message that resonates is that in order for people to, you know, increase the normalization of what we had before is to do these personal habits. And then people can go back to school, they can work and observe practises. So that's what we want as it is the necessary balance. That balance. There is no playbook at the beginning of is that the balance between keeping the virus under control and keeping some of these important social economic spaces open is a very delicate one. So what we're seeing in the hotspots of Canada is when that balance is tilting towards the public health or health system, eventually not being able to cope. So I do think that if people can keep that balance and see so in front of the frame of mind and know that everything, every little thing that you do helps keep that balance in check and is not being kept in check in different places in Canada.

MG: Let me go back to that message though around fatigue. Do you think, people have heard you say this for months now, do you think that message is still landing with people? Or have you, I mean, there's that phrase in sports, have you lost the room in some ways? Because people have heard the message and they're tired of the message because they want to get back to whatever it was they were doing before.

THERESA TAM: Yeah, so absolutely that the population may be tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. So, you know, part of maintaining societal motivation and cohesion is perhaps to use different strategies, targeting different populations, a different way, engaging community organisation, engaging elders, for example, in indigenous populations, because that will be to communicate better to their communities and getting employers engaged so that they can message to their employees. So it's not just Public Health has to do with communication. Media can also help. And we're trying to use behavioural insights to better target messages to younger population. Universities can help. School teaches can help. But I think my message really. And, you know, we'll have to see how the public response is to develop a much more sustained habit. So this is just something that we got to keep going on. Washing your hands. It's like coughing into your elbow in the past, you know. Now is a very Canadian thing to do, is not to cough it into someone's face. They started coughing into the elbow and covering the cough. So covering your nose and mouth with a mask, that's probably since it is just another habit that we have to sustain. And the hand washing and remembering, social distancing and physical authorise physical distance thing. Is it something that then becomes much more habitual? And we're seeing, you know, businesses at that. Grocery stores have adapted, different workplaces can adapt. So I think that's the message is is one of adaptation and adaptation brings resilience the population to a community. So I think that is what we're trying to do, is to sustain this in the next month by developing these habits.

MG: Just just before I let you go, we only have a few seconds left, but there are major holidays coming up, Diwali, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year's. Should we be getting prepared to celebrate them on our own?

THERESA TAM: I think people should be prepared and have a plan because it's always better to do that. And we have seen that different lng weekends and different gatherings, sort of social, cultural, the important events do lead to increase in cases. So some jurisdictions have said that Thanksgiving has led to some acceleration. We'll see what Halloween brings, but you can plan it ahead of time and have a really fun time still and still connect with family in safe ways. So make a plan. So Halloween, I've just heard from kids who have been able to in certain areas, do trick or treat, have had a, some of them have one of the best Halloween that they've had according to them. And it can be done safely. And so, you know, but what we don't want is the partying, gathering with completely uncontrolled sort of approaches in other places. So you can plan your Christmas, you can plan, you know, to make it safe, for example if you did want to connect.

MG: We'll leave it there, because I think people are gonna be thinking about how to plan and taking some of the advice that you've given around habits to heart. Dr. Tam, I appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.

THERESA TAM: It's my pleasure. Thank you so much.

MG: Dr. Theresa Tam, the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada. Her latest annual report to parliament is called "From Risk to Resilience: An Equity Approach to COVID-19." This is The Current. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

[Music]

How American voters are feeling the morning of the US election

Guests: Johanna Schneller, Alex Schramkowski, Mariah Campbell, Sandy Przybylak

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

[Music: theme]

MG: Still to come, the Canadian-born author Vicki Laveau-Harvie on her new prise winning memoir, The Erratics and what it's like to find writing fame in your 70s. But first, X marks the spot.

[Music: theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Time for Donald Trump to pack his bags and go home.

VOICE 2: Tomorrow, we are going to win this state and we are going to win four more years in our great White House.

MG: Tomorrow is today. The day has indeed finally come and Americans are going to the polls in what is without a doubt one of the most contentious elections ever. We are marking Election Day by checking in with voters starting in a key battleground state. Johanna Schneller is a Toronto-based freelance writer and broadcaster, originally from eastern Pennsylvania. She headed back to her hometown to get the vote out and that is where we have reached her this morning. Johanna, good morning.

JOHANNA SCHNELLER: Hey, Matt.

MG: Why do you feel the need to go to the United States to help with the campaign there?

JOHANNA SCHNELLER: Well, you know, I've been a lifelong Democrat, I've always voted from Toronto ever since I moved there in the 90s and I watched the last election fully expecting that we were going to see the first woman president, the United States. And then I have spent the last four years basically yelling at the news with my hair on fire. And I decided I just couldn't sit this one out. I thought it was just too important and too close. And the county that I grew up in is sort of too crucial and that if I came down here, I could actually make a little bit of a difference. Trump won Pennsylvania by 44,292 and that breaks down to six votes.

MG: Not to put too fine a point on it.

JOHANNA SCHNELLER: It breaks down into six votes per precinct. And so I thought, okay, let's see if I can get down there and change six votes or get six extra people to vote. You know, it is so one by one, this democracy business here.

MG: You're actually working right now, right?

JOHANNA SCHNELLER: I'm at a poll. I'm at the poll at the Trinity Church in downtown Easton on Spring Garden Street and there's about 30 people in line. We've been open since 7:00 a.m. and I've already heard from various people on the voter suppression hotline that there are Trump cars blocking a polling place in Hellertown, that there are constables taking signs away from people standing in line, even though you're legally allowed to hold a sign standing in line. So it's I don't know what time it is and already there are a little wars breaking out. It's going to be a dramatic day.

MG: Well, it speaks to how fraught the situation is and how important Pennsylvania is. You've been out, you know, over the last few weeks talking with voters. What have you heard from people?

JOHANNA SCHNELLER: You know, I've been all over the county. It's a pretty big county. And I've been I figure I've knocked on a thousand doors. And so I've heard from every possible corner of every possible spectrum. And what is impressed me the most has also distressed me the most, which is that everyone is living in their own reality. Everyone has their own reasons. No one can agree on even the most basic facts. And everybody has very, very, very strong opinions. So the outcome honestly, I haven't had a sense of which way people are going to go because everybody feels so absolutely strongly. They told us right from the beginning that there were very few opportunities. We're going to come our way as we knock on doors for undecided voters that really our focus should just be on getting the vote out from people who firmly believe that they are Democrats and they want to vote Democrat, because at this point, there's just no changing anybody's mind.

MG: I mean, it's fascinating. We've heard that over the course of not just this campaign, maybe the last four years. Pennsylvania is one of those states that could really decide who who wins the presidency. Do people have a sense as to, I mean, how high the stakes are for the nation? You vote locally often, but the local results will perhaps determine what happens over the next four years. Do people have to have a sense as to their role in history?

JOHANNA SCHNELLER: You know, there's a real drama here. You can't possibly exaggerate it, the amount of signage, the amount of people coming. I was at the voter activation centre yesterday and people were coming from Brooklyn and New Jersey, states that are considered safe states to help us canvass because all eyes have been on the country. I mean, Trump and Biden have been repeatedly here rallying. And everybody does really understand that these 20 electoral votes that Pennsylvania offers are up for grabs and that they're going to be crucial.

MG: You're a dual citizen, but your home is in Toronto. What is at stake for you in this election? We've been talking to people throughout the States about what's, you know, at play for them because they live there, but you don't live in that country. So what's at stake for you?

JOHANNA SCHNELLER: Well, my family also live here, so that's important to me. I you know, I've caught a glimpse of health care and a social safety net now that I live in Canada and I want those for my family. I want those things for my friends, all of them to live here. Are many of whom I should say. And I also think that part of the reason that the whole world feels on tenterhooks is that this American experiment has reverberations around the world. Like I'm not saying America is the most important country. But I think people do keep their eye on what's going on here. And I think that the feeling of chaos that's emanated from the states over the last four years has really made people uneasy around the world. And I think certainly the amount of attention that my friends in Toronto are paying to this election, it feels very personal to them too and I think it feels very personal to a lot of people around the world.

MG: Just before I let you go, it's gonna be a long day and a long night. How will you watch the results?

JOHANNA SCHNELLER: Well, I'm here until the last vote is counted. The polls officially close at 8, but the rule is, if somebody's standing in line, you keep going until everybody is voted and everybody's counted. So I'm going to be here for quite a while. I'm hoping at some point somebody turns on a radio so we can hear what's going on and then I'll be up, you know, I'll be up with CNN and whoever until the wee hours, I suspect.

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

JOHANNA SCHNELLER: Thank you.

MG: Johanna Schneller is a freelance writer and broadcaster based in Toronto, originally from Pennsylvania and that's where we reached her this morning. Our Road to November series saw us making stops in cities and towns all along the Mississippi River. From Minnesota to Louisiana, we spoke with, as I mentioned, Americans about the vote and why this day matters to them. One of those stops that we made was in Tennessee, where we spoke with Alex Schramkowski. He's a law student at Belmont University in Nashville, chairman of the Tennessee College Republican Committee. Seemed like a pretty good day to get him back on the line. Alex, good morning to you.

ALEX SCHRAMKOWSKI: Hey, Matt. Thanks again for having me.

MG: Thanks for joining us again. How are you feeling today?

ALEX SCHRAMKOWSKI: I'm feeling pretty good, you know. I think last time that we were talking, we were talking about what what the odds were for who was going to win the debate. And I said whoever won the debate was probably going to have a good last few weeks here. And I think the president did a very good job. And people are pretty energized, especially following that second debate performance and I think it's going to show up here today.

MG: So you're making a prediction that Donald Trump wins?

ALEX SCHRAMKOWSKI: I believe that he'll win. What I personally believe it. I think it's going to be a really big result either way. I don't necessarily believe some of these polls that say it's going to be really close. I think that people probably already made up their mind, kind of like Johanna was saying a long time ago. Either they really like the president and they want to see him again for four years or they want something completely different. So regardless of whether or not the former vice president wins or President Trump gets another term, I don't think it's going to be very close. I think it's just going to be very strong results one way or the other.

MG: What's the mood like on campus? I mean there's this staggering number of people who have already voted, a hundred million people. What's the mood like on campus right now?

ALEX SCHRAMKOWSKI: I think that it's definitely I wouldn't call it anxiety necessarily, because anxiety sounds really negative. Right? I think that people are really energized to get out and go vote. And that can be seen across all of our campuses, across political parties. People are really taking this seriously and they're getting out and voting in numbers that we haven't seen in a long time. You know, the secretary of state in Tennessee releases all of the numbers of early voting every year and every day of early voting in Tennessee. We blew out the numbers from 2012 and we blew out the numbers from 2016 because people are very invested in the future of the country. This is the country that, you know, for people my age, we're going to grow up in, we're gonna build careers. So we want to try and have at this inflexion point where we're going to be moving towards trying to get over that coronavirus hump and trying to get our economy back in play and get opportunities back in play for Americans. I think that people are really taking this as an opportunity to make their voice heard and how they want the country to move forward.

MG: What are you doing today to help get the vote out?

ALEX SCHRAMKOWSKI: So college Republicans in general are all over the place, Matt. We have people all over campaigns. I I've helped to get that on a number of different campaigns. We've got a Senate candidate, Bill Haggerty. HE used to be our ambassador to Japan who is going to, we believe, be elected today to the United States Senate to fill Senator Alexander's spot. So we've got a lot of college Republicans helping him there. We've had college Republicans all over the phone doing phone banking throughout this election cycle, people knocking doors. I mean, it sounded like Johanna was saying. Right. I mean, it's one thing to have signs out in people's yards, but you have to get people to actually turn up and vote. So that's what the College Republicans have been doing since even before August, right. Even before we got into the general phase of the election, making sure that people were energized and trying to get out to vote.

MG: And is your sense, as Johanna said, that people I mean, they've essentially nailed their vote down, that you can't change anyone's mind at this point, that it's just a matter of getting them out of the house and to the polling station?

ALEX SCHRAMKOWSKI: I mean, I think that it could have been different. Right. I think that the way that the Biden campaign ran their campaign, I think that they tried to make it as much of a referendum as they could on President Trump. So to the extent that they made it a referendum on the president, then I think a lot of people probably already have made up their minds about how they like him or or even how they like the policy results of his administration. But, Matt, I mean, the important note here is that there are a ton of people who are registering to vote for the first time ever. And I don't think that the pollsters have accurately represented that demographic. They could go overwhelmingly for the vice president. That's certainly a possibility. But if you look at early voting returns in places like Florida and even some officials up in Pennsylvania, Democratic officials are sounding alarm in both of those states because they see a lot of new voters coming out to support the president. So I think that that's going to be a pretty big contingent of Americans that the polls really haven't accurately polled. And we're going to see how they turn out today.

MG: Just before I let you go, we've heard the president talk about not accepting the results. This is a big day today, but it's also about tonight and what happens in the days ahead. How worried are you about that, that at the end of this, this could be as disputed as the campaign itself has been?

ALEX SCHRAMKOWSKI: Well, I mean, we've had a scenario before, as recently as the 2000s, right, where there were disputes about ballots and that was taken into the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court was able to handle that. It was certainly a peaceful situation. Right. They had to look at ballot discrepancies down in Florida. I, like I said, I personally think that it's not going to necessarily be as close as that. There's got to be a lot of people who have obviously mailed in their ballots, but I think that it's going to be a pretty wide divide one way or the other, which will probably make it a lot easier for one candidate to be able to kind of rubber stamp the results and say it looks like we've got it, right. I mean, if you look at the blue wall that Trump was able to break last time, right, he just has to win one of those four states. And so even if it doesn't look like maybe we have a full vote count in Pennsylvania yet, if it looks like he's flipped Michigan, say, or he's flipped Wisconsin again, that's going to be a big deal moving into tonight. So I don't think it's going to necessarily be as close as a lot of people think it will be.

MG: It's great to talk to you again, Alex. Appreciate it. Thank you.

ALEX SCHRAMKOWSKI: Yeah. Thank you, Matt.

MG: Alex Schramkowski is a law student chairman of the Tennessee College Republican Committee. He was in Nashville, Tennessee. Getting out the youth vote is something that Mariah Campbell is doing this election, just like she did four years ago. She's a student at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. Mariah, good morning to you.

MARIAH CAMPBELL: Good morning.

MG: How are you feeling about the election today?

MARIAH CAMPBELL: Of course, there's a lot of concern, but also a little bit of excitement when it comes to just the outcome and the outcome and results.

MG: What are you concerned about?

MARIAH CAMPBELL: I think, of course, like a lot of Americans, more specifically minorities in America, we are concerned, of course, of the possibility of the election going in the opposite direction. Of course, these past four years, we've been encountering a lot of racial divide and a lot of social injustice and that's a deep concern for my generation, specifically because we're seeing all of the things that are happening in America and we're concerned. It's definitely a desire that we want to change. So hopefully things go our way, but if it doesn't, we believe that there's going to be some detrimental results.

MG: Texas Southern is a historically black university. On campus, what are you seeing in terms of student engagement? Are people plugged into this? Are they excited as you are about what's happening?

MARIAH CAMPBELL: We have some that are excited, definitely, but there also a small group of people that aren't as concerned. But that's our job and our desire to get them excited about the election. Educate them on the things that happen within the election process and just getting them a understanding of how things work and encouraging them just to get out and vote.

MG: How do you do that? How do you go and reach them?

MARIAH CAMPBELL: Yes, we actually have done a couple of things like earlier this semester. We did on the first day of early voting, actually, we conducted a march to the polls. And so we gathered all the student leaders, all the organisations, and we marched to the polls with our city mayor. So we getting people excited. We're also getting sued. We've got students registered really going out, encouraging our freshmen specifically to get out and actually go vote. So just being an encouragement to them in trying to get them involved is just the biggest goal of our whole work.

MG: The vote comes after a summer of reckoning or on anti-Black racism and the protests and demonstrations that took place across your country and right around the world. How do you think the Black Lives Matter protests are influencing this election?

MARIAH CAMPBELL: I definitely think that they are getting black minorities to the table with my generation, getting them, getting them involved. There's a heightened passion for this election, specifically because of the things that have been happening this summer. It's really gotten our generation excited and amplified to go ahead and go out and vote. So I think the Black Lives Matter movement has really just kind of impress upon people the importance of getting out and vote and making sure that this election is one that we have Wushan and that we're taking charge and trying to make a change.

MG: You've hinted at this, what's at stake, do you think, for you in this election?

MARIAH CAMPBELL: As young black woman, I hate to be so dramatic, but honestly, my life. As we've seen, there's a influx of black lives that have been lost, specifically this year and within this administration. And it has really been a pain for my community specifically, and it's been heartbreaking. But I think also another thing is my future. We have things in issues like climate change and, of course, health care. These are things that we, that affect our daily lives and I'm hoping for the best for me and my children and my children's children. So there's a lot at stake in this election.

MG: That's a lot to put on one vote. And it means that tonight, I mean today is one thing, but tonight's going to be a long night. How are you going to watch these results?

MARIAH CAMPBELL: Well, actually, we have a live feed that we're gonna be watching on campus, so really just trying to get as many students out as possible, so that we can all come and watch it together and, you know, lean on each other and really just encourage one another as we go throughout this process.

MG: Do you expect it to be a stressful night?

MARIAH CAMPBELL: Of course, but we're hoping for the best. We are really hoping for the best. So hopefully being there together, we'll be able to, you know, have conversations and be able to have dialogue on this situation. But hopefully we're wishing for the best.

MG: It's great to talk to you about this. Enjoy the day. Stress is one thing, but it is a big day. So I appreciate you speaking with us this morning. Thank you.

MARIAH CAMPBELL: Thank you so much.

MG: Mariah Campbell is a journalism student at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. Of course, not everybody in the United States is voting Democrat or Republican. Sandy Pryzbylak is one of the volunteers for the Green Party of the United States, and she is in Cheektowaga, New York. Sandy, good morning to you.

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: Good morning, Matt.How are you?

MG: I'm well. What is your morning been like thus far?

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: Well, I got up at 5:30 and I've been out delivering signs to polling places this morning. I did pull over so I could talk to you.

MG: Appreciate that.

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: And I'll be phone banking when I get home for a while and then I will go back out and pick them all up this this evening about closing time of the poll. And I will also be participating in a livestream with the Green Party that is having to go over the result.

MG: Why are you supporting the Green Party in this election?

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: I am supporting the Green Party because it is a party that is not funded by corporate donors. We want to see real change, a real green new deal where we are at 100 percent renewables by 2030 and that bans fracking and gets off the fossil fuels because that's the only way we're going to save the climate in our opinion. I also fight for single payer healthcare, and neither of the candidates is trying to put a Medicare for all type system in their platform. In fact, Mr. Biden said that he would veto it if he crossed his desk and as you probably are aware, President Trump wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act and start from scratch another plan.

MG: And so that's why you wouldn't support, I mean you take a look at the options in front of you, that's why you wouldn't support, for example, the Democrats is because you don't think they're going far enough?

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: No. That's correct. That is as.

MG: What's it like being a green voter in this campaign? I mean, it's it's such a polarized time and there are really, you know. It seems like two major options on the table. What is it like being Green?

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: It's been a little rough. I'm not going to lie. We've taken a lot of abuse both online and off.

MG: Abuse why?

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: Pardon me?

MG: Abuse why?

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: Because, well, it depends on who is speaking to you. Really more abuse from the Democrats because they're afraid we're going to spoil the election. But I am in a safe state. I'm in New York and we need to get two percent of the presidential vote today in order to maintain our ballot line, our ballot status in New York. And Biden is predicted to win New York by 30 points, or he was, I think two days ago. So it's a safe green vote, at least in New York, and it will help us preserve our ballot line going forward.

MG: Do you worry about that? I mean, Democrats have said four years ago the Green Party drew enough votes in some ways in swing states to make the difference. And people blamed the Greens for helping to elect Donald Trump. Democrats do. Do you worry about, do you think they have a point in any of that?

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: I will concede that they have a point, but they interviewed 61 percent of the Jill Stein voters said that they would not have voted for Hillary Clinton, had Jill Stein been on the ballot. They would have stayed home.

MG: Jill Stein, the former leader of the Green Party?

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: Right. Well, the our presidential candidate from 2016. So I don't, of course, I don't believe the spoiler theory, Green voters are usually Green voters. They want to not support corporate candidates. We're a peace party. We don't want any more wars. We don't want interventional wars overseas with foreign countries to try to obtain their resources. And the other two parties are not are not offering that. Plus, they're corporately funded, which we are not. We do not take corporate money from any corporations, Wall Street.

MG: It's one of those other two parties that will form government, I think it's fair to say. And so when this is all done, just in the last minute or so that we have, when this is all done, will you be able to live with the results?

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: Yes. And we'll have to live with the result. But I will resume, I do some work for the campaign for New York Health, which is a single payer that we're trying to get passed in New York State. I will resume my fight for that. I will resume my climate activities. I have participated in comment periods against pipelines that are going through. We have the Northern Access Pipeline, which coincidentally goes right up to Canada through western New York. We've been fighting some battles with that.

MG: So your work will continue after this campaign is done?

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: My work will continue. And whichever, I have a saying that whichever which one of the candidates, the major candidates wins, the people are still lose because we'll still have all these fights that neither one of them are addressing properly, in my opinion.

MG: You've had an early start to your day. I appreciate you pulling over in the midst of your work to speak with us. Sandy, thank you.

SANDY PRYZBYLAK: Thank you.

MG: Take care of yourself. Sandy Pryzbylak is volunteering for the Green Party of the United States. She was in Cheektowaga, New York. Of course, lots of results coming in over the course of the evening. And you can keep up on all of it on CBC Television, CBC Radio, cbcnews.ca. Your regional update is next. And then.

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VOICE: I would see the foothills and I would see the seasons. And I actually had the feeling that that landscape nurtured me in a way that my family was not able to.

MG: A turn away from politics. The Canadian-born author Vicki Laveau-Harvie how her prize-winning memoir, The Erratics was informed by Alberta's landscape. You'll hear her coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. Stick around.

[Music]

Reading mail from our listeners

Guests: Karin Marley

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

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: As a small business, I can safely say that we've really been abandoned during this pandemic. The public at first was really excited to shop local, but local can't compete with Amazon prices and Amazon delivery schedules. We had to reinvent and think out of the box and create an online store and watch that online store still have to be price gouged compared to Amazon and da-da-da-da. The mental effort to find a solution to this problem by ourselves as small businesses is incredibly exhausting.

MG: That's an excerpt from Remaking a Living, our special program last week on Canada's economy and how it's been affected by COVID. The stories that we heard prompted you to write to us and so to go through some of your letters, I'm joined once again by The Current's senior producer, Karin Marley. Karin, good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Good morning, Matt. Let's start with a letter from Kate Carver of Toronto. And she writes, There's been a lot of focus already on restaurants, retail gyms, bars, airlines, tourism, but very, very little on the arts, the performing arts in particular. We've become invisible. Yet we contribute a huge amount to the Canadian economy and are deeply intertwined with most of the above mentioned businesses. Now, more than ever, we need people to champion us, to call out for awareness to how we have all, from the fledgling artist just graduating to the mature professional lost nearly all of our employment. And with that, our passion, our life's work, our purpose, our contribution to the economy and to the rich and beautiful artistic tapestry being woven in this country by our artists.

MG: I thought of that this morning as I came into work and went by an art gallery, which has been empty for a long time and I have no idea when I'll get back into that art gallery. This is a letter from Leslie in Vancouver. The last paycheque I received was late March. It seems to me there are now two groups of people in Canada, those who've had steady incomes throughout the pandemic, as their work doesn't rely on working directly with the public and the rest of us whose work does. I'm one of the latter. Even though I've done nothing wrong, I fight the feeling that I have. This is a great strain mentally and emotionally. And as I work in both the arts and tourism, my income has been cut from both ends. As I write this, I have just missed one bi-weekly mortgage payment and I'm very concerned about how to keep the lights on these next few months. My plan is to take whatever work I can to get me through the winter with hope that things will pick up later next spring.

KARIN MARLEY: Finally, Faye Moxam of Belleville, Ontario, who works in real estate, has a totally different perspective. Knowing that many people are really trying their best to keep their head above water through this, I feel uncomfortably grateful that my industry has seen the opposite. The last few months, we've seen record breaking numbers and families and young professionals moving to the area to leave the cities and start a new life. Many tech companies are now asking their employees to work from home, which means people don't have to live in urban centres any longer. This pandemic has greatly shaken our idea of what work life balance should be, and many are opting for the alternative.

MG: Those are the lucky ones, and it'll be interesting to see whether that balance stays as people try to figure out what work means and what the rest of their life means. Karin, thank you.

KARIN MARLEY: You're welcome.

MG: Karin Marley, senior producer for The Current. We love it when you get in touch with us. You can comment on anything you hear on this program. We read every letter and some of them we read on the radio. You can reach us through the email: thecurrent@cbc.ca.

In dark moments, there is always light, says author who wrote memoir of family trauma

Guests: Vicki Laveau-Harvie

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. It's not often that a writer bursts onto the publishing scene and wins acclaim as an exciting new voice in her 70s. That is precisely what happened to the Canadian born author Vicki Laveau-Harvie, after her memoir The Erratics won Australia's prestigious Stella Prize last year. The book has since been published in North America, winning praise from readers and critics alike. Her memoir is the story of a daughter caring for an ailing father in the shadow of a narcissistic mother and set against the backdrop of Alberta's Rocky Mountain foothills. Vicki Laveau-Harvie joins me now from her home in Sydney, Australia. Vicki, good morning.

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Hello, Matt.

MG: How does it feel to be a famous writer in your 70s?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, I think famous is a pretty big word. This has been quite an unexpected development for somebody 10 years past retirement. And on top of that, I'm a bit of a hermit, so this is not the kind of thing that is usually at all on my radar.

MG: What has the experience been like? I mean, I've spoken with a number of writers and they always say, you write the book for yourself in some ways and you have no idea how it's going to be received when it goes out into the universe. And this goes out in the universe and people love it. What has that been like?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, it's been an absolutely mind boggling and wonderful it's been a wonderful experience. But I didn't write the book thinking that it would go out into the universe because I've always read. But I'm not very good at sending things out into the universe. I love the process of writing. It's my great passion. And I just want to get it right on the page. And I have a lot of trouble seeing beyond that. And I very, very seldom send anything out into the universe. This was a bit of a quirk of fate and look what happened.

MG: Look what happened indeed. Just the title of the book is fascinating and you talk about it right at the very beginning. What is the Erratics mean? I mean, it can be taken a couple of different ways, I suppose.

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, yes, that's what I loved about it. It's actually one meaning is a geological one. It's a very large rock boulder that's been carried down by a glacier at some point. And there is a thing down through Alaska, Alberta into Montana called the Foothills Erratic train and these boulders that are called erratics are kind of scattered every couple of hundred kilometres or so. And they're just marooned there in landscapes where they don't belong. And I thought, what a wonderful metaphor or I mean, because erratic was the correct word from my childhood. And for a lot of the people that I was dealing with, I was driving down one of the roads in Alberta near my father's property. On one of the trips when I'd gone to Canada to try to help my sister with him and and with my mother and there was a big sign that said, Visit the Okotoks Erratic.. And I thought, you betcha.

MG: This memoir begins when you and your sister learnt that your mother has fallen and she shattered her hip and this sets off this chain reaction in your family. What happened?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: My sister and I had seen almost nothing of our parents for a couple of decades. My mother was very keen not to have us in their lives. And she was never a well person, but as she got older, her condition got worse. And that meant that there was very little contact. And I lived abroad. I lived in France for 25 years. My sister lived quite far from them in Canada. And it just meant that we were strangers, really and it was most unfortunate. But when my mother fell, my sister was contacted by someone outside the family saying, your father is in some strife and then if we could come and help. And we did.

MG: I want to talk about the situation, but you say that you were disowned and disinherited. What do you understand about why that was the case when it comes to your parents?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, I think my father just wanted to do whatever it took to be able to live in some semblance of peace with his wife. And I think my mother really did not wish us anywhere near them because my mother never recognized my sister and me as separate people from her when we were children. We were kind of the means to an end. She wanted us to get good marks. She wanted us to do a number of things, but those achievements were really hers. She had a personality disorder and it meant her grip on reality was very tenuous. And I think when we grew up, we became teenagers and young adults and she realised that we were separate and that she could not control us as she had when we were small. She really came to feel great disaffection for us, not to use a stronger word and she really did not want, she did not want us around in any way.

MG: You say that in the wake of your mother's fall, you get a call saying that your father was in some distress. Your mother had been starving your father.

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, when we first saw him, when we went that first time, I actually thought he probably was terminally ill. He was extremely thin and he was very foggy. I mean, he he knew we were his children. I believe he recognized us, but I thought he probably had dementia and then he was probably dying. Now he actually wasn't. And his mind cleared once he began to eat properly. And he put on, I think, over 10 kilos in the three and a half weeks or so. We were there the first time. He had just not been eating. And I think it would have been a terrible situation if my mother had not been hospitalized, I shudder to think what would have happened to them.

MG: What else did you learn about the life that they had been living that shocked you well, while you and your sister were disconnected from them?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, I can't see that lot that we learned shocked us because we were a little bit shockproof by that point. However, there were strange things they had told people. My mother had told people that she had no children or that she'd had one daughter and the daughter had died many years ago and that she was heartbroken. Or at one point she told someone in one of the hospitals where she was that she had had 18 children, but only one boy. And we had to deal on a daily basis with the administration of hospitals and various community service people and who were all just doing their job. They were doing the very best they could. But we had to face up two versions of ourselves, which had been projected by our mother, which had nothing to do with who we actually were. She had told people, including some of the neighbours near the property, that I had disappeared decades before, which was more or less true. I had gone to live in Europe, but I hadn't disappeared. And she told them that I'd gone to South America, that she'd sent Interpol to find me. I don't think you can actually send Interpol as an individual person. I don't believe that's possible. And the neighbours were very, very unwilling to open their door to me when I first went down to introduce myself, because I think they thought I was some kind of drug queen of Colombia and I really am not.

MG: Did she also, she faked her death, is that right?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, she didn't do anything melodramatic. She'd actually accepted at one point when I was living in France, two teaching positions, one in a Canadian university and one in an American university for the upcoming semester. And she realized that she actually could not do both of them and she had to get out of one of them. So the obvious solution for her seemed to be to write a letter and sign it with my father's name and say that she had died. And the terrible thing was that a friend of mine was on that campus where she had taught the year before and where she had decided not to go back and there was an obituary in the student newspaper. This friend called me and was so upset for me and I had all kinds of trouble convincing her that my mother was most probably still with us, even though I had no means of knowing exactly what was going on.

MG: You write and I want to talk about how how you write these stories in terms of the humour that you managed to find in them, but it must have been incredibly hurtful as you're going through all of this stuff.

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, at the time, the period that I write about in the book, I wouldn't say it was hurtful at that point. This is actually a discussion I've had a number of times with people about what happens when you write a memoir. So many people have said to me, and I think many people with a painful story of their own have said to me, was it cathartic to write this memoir? My answer to that is no. It had nothing to do with catharsis. I don't believe you can write as well as you would like a book of this nature unless you've already found a path to catharsis somewhere else before, I think you have to lay your ghosts before you can actually do the work and you have to with memoir, come to grips with the question of memory and truth. And how do you navigate? Those are difficult waters to sail through and I think if you are gripped by the emotions that overtook you in these traumatic situations, that you're probably not giving your best attention to how to best put that on the page.

MG: Is that what allows you to use humour in telling some of these stories? There are there's points in the book where it mean it is, you know, put it down because you're laughing so hard funny.

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, thank you for saying that. That's a very nice thing for me to hear, because occasionally I would have to stop writing and laugh a little bit myself. And I think this is what attracted me was that even in the dark moments, there's always a chink of light.

MG: Before you became strange, what was your mother like when you were growing up?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: I think I knew from a very young age that my mother was not like other people's mothers. I think at a young age, I also stopped endeavouring to communicate my distress and some of the situations where I found myself to people outside the family because people could not hear what I was saying. The situation was just too uncommon to be accepted by people when I would try to explain to them what it was that was bothering me.

MG: Was it difficult for you to describe I mean, what was going on?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, it's funny. I have very big blanks in my memory, which I think has served me well. I suspect there were moments of greater trauma that I've perhaps blanked out. I've done a lot of work on myself to recover a lot of. And to make sure what I actually remember about my childhood. But I do have blanks. My sister seems to have fewer. And I think that is perhaps a more traumatic experience, actually. She remembers perhaps more physical expression of my mother's frustrations and difficulties than I do. I know that happened, but I think it was more the psychological problem of dealing with someone who was completely unpredictable and who made huge demands on you as a child and to feel that you were only acceptable as long as you met the demands.

MG: You describe her as somebody who knows the world is out to get her. And you say that she was, in your words, a kind of flesh and blood pyramid scheme, a human Ponzi.

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Yes. Yes.

MG: What does that mean?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, I think if I understand a Ponzi scheme and I'm not a financial person, but I think you invest in something and you believe in it and once you started doing that, you're hooked. You can't actually backtrack because you are knitted into the fabric of that scheme. There's no getting out of it. And I believe that is perhaps the situation my father was in. He loved her very much and she was brilliant. And she was a beautiful woman. And I think he was he remained in thrall to her. And I think he was just. Subsumed by this world she created, she told fantastical stories and she was a consummate storyteller. So you would believe outrageous things when she was saying it.

MG: She also said to you, and I want to get this right. She said, I'll get you and you won't even know I'm doing it. And then you tell the story of when she cut off your ponytail.

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: That's right. I was about 15 or maybe 14 and I had very long hair. And I just said something about how I was thinking maybe I should get my hair cut. And she was sewing. I believe she was doing something with her sewing scissors. And I think this made her angry because she spent a lot of time making sure my hair was the way she wanted it. And she just came up behind me and said. You want short hair? Let's give you short hair, and she just pulled on my ponytail and sheared this off very close to my scalp. And I remember nothing after that moment for quite some time, so I think I must've been very shocked. And I remember up to the point where I heard the scissors close behind my head, close to my scalp. And I don't remember afterwards, I can't remember what happened after that. But that was the kind of unpredictability that I'm talking about. It was quite frightening.

MG: Do you think she loved you?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: You know, I don't think it was, I don't think that's actually a question I can ask myself. I think she may have. I don't know what kind of feelings she had. I think she may have had affection for me and for my sister as extensions of herself, but I don't think she recognized us for individual people that she could be attached to for who they were. You know, I don't believe that was open to her.

MG: What about for you? I mean, after she dies, you wanted to keep some for China. There's there's a vase that you keep and some other things. Is there I mean, given what you've gone through, you could imagine that you are ,you're on the other side of the world away from her, but was there still some sort of bond that was there, despite everything that you went through and that you were put through?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: I think the strange thing, Matt, is that I realize that in a strange way, what she visited upon me was not personal in a certain way. I could have been any child that was born into that family and I would have come in for the same treatment. It wasn't because I was me. It was because she was the person she was. And I mean, I was extremely marked by my childhood, of course. That's why you write a book about it. But I knew that in a strange way, it was not personal. It was because any child in that situation with her would have frustrated her so severely and disappointed her so severely that they would have had the same treatment I did. It wasn't because I was a failure as a child. It was because she was the person she was with the handicaps that she was carry. And in some ways, I felt towards the end of her life. Something close to compassion, because I thought. Here I was and here was my sister and we were trying to take this person's freedom from her. And she was resisting this because we knew she could not live in the real world, with hope coming to great harm herself and without bringing great harm to our follow there and I felt a lot of grief for what she would perhaps have been feeling at that point.

MG: When you and this goes back to the idea of what happens when you read a book and it goes out into the universe. It's now out there and people love this book. When you speak with readers about the book and, you know, in the old days, you'd meet them face to face, before this pandemic and now maybe it's virtually, what do they say to you about why they feel connected to what you've read?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, this is something that flabbergasted me, Matt. And the first people who said to me, who came up to a book signing or an event and said to me, you've written my story. I was so surprised. I was writing my story and I hadn't realized how universal these themes were. And it's ridiculous that I did not realize that because I'm writing about old age, I'm writing about family tensions, I'm writing about mental illness in families, about siblings trying to understand each other, about all sorts of things like this, about finding your way in the world and everybody goes through these things to some degree. And I had a wonderful woman come up to me after a talk I did, and she said to me, both of my parents had narcissistic personality disorder, which is what my mother had and I said boy, you have really got to write a book, girl because you trump what I did. You better write a book and her husband said to me, that's what I've been telling her.

MG: You are far away from the place that you grew up in and I mean, there's a part in the book in which you compare Australia and Canada through the music of AC/DC and Nickelback, which is revealing. Do you want to just briefly explain what the difference is?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Well, Nickelback, they're pretty ernest, aren't they?

MG: And AC/DC puts it right into your face.

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: AC/DC aren't.

MG: What do you love about the landscape in the place that you grew up in? There's a line in the book, I have to get this right. You said if Jesus had been born on a ranch, kind of this is where he would have been born and this is what you write as you're driving and you see the Rockies kind of on the horizon. What do you love about that Alberta landscape?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: I think I love the sky, the space. It's so big, you know? I mean, I now live in sort of subtropical kind of climate and the air is softer and things are not as clear. When you get off the plane in Calgary, the air is sharp and clear. You can see forever. The sky is huge. And there are those wonderful foothills and then the Rockies. And that's the landscape around that part of southern Alberta, south of Calgary, that I saw when I was a very small child until I was about seven. We lived in the little towns on the oil fields in southern Alberta. And that is the landscape I saw. And it's where I would go with my father sometimes because he was a fly fisherman. He loved to fish. And I would see the Sheep River. I would see the foothills and I would see the seasons. And I actually had the feeling that that landscape nurtured me in a way that my family was not able to.

MG: Do you miss it?

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Oh, yes, of course, of course. I love Australia. I really love living here and this is my home, but I think all of us have a landscape where we were marked by something. There's some beauty that marked our heart at some point when we were still malleable. And when I get off a plane in Calgary and I look west, that's where my heart lives.

MG: This is a wonderful book, and it's a real pleasure to talk to you, Vicki. Thank you.

VICKI LAVEAU-HARVIE: Thank you Matt. Thank you.

MG: Vicki Laveau-Harvie is the author of the memoir The Erratics. She spoke with us from Sydney, Australia. That is The Current for today. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q. Tom Power speaking with the very funny Larry Wilmore. He had a late night show then it disappeared. Now he's back. Larry Wilmore has a long resumé responsible for programs like In Living Colour, The Bernie Mac Show, Insecure and Black-ish. Quarter century of making television. He's also become a fixture in the world of politics and commentary. We look forward to hearing from Larry Wilmore coming up on Q on CBC Radio One. Before we go, though, let's take you back to December of 2015. This is from a speech by the then Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, when the Paris Accord to address the climate crisis was signed.

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VOICE: Solutions to climate change are on the table. They are ours for the taking now. Let us have the courage to grasp them.

MG: Why are we playing that? Because this week the United States will withdraw from the Paris Accord. We'll look at the implications of that on climate change for Canada and the world in a special program on Thursday. Tomorrow, of course, we'll focus on the outcome of the U.S. election, if we know the outcome. In the meantime, I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Nov. 3, 2020 episode transcript

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