Coronavirus on two quarantined cruise ships

Guests: Kent Frasure, Tara Smith, Iain Hay

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MG: Well, it is definitely not the kind of vacation they had in mind. More than 7000 people are now stuck, confined to their cabins on two different luxury cruise ships in Asia. And it's all thanks to the Corona virus. One ship is being held in Hong Kong as a precautionary measure after three former passengers tested positive. On the other ship, 20 passengers are now confirmed to have the virus, including two Canadians. And the rest of the passengers and crew are now in quarantine. Kent Frasure is a passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which is now docked in Yokohama, Japan. Kent, good morning.

KENT FRASURE: Good morning, Matt. How are you?

MG: Well, I'm okay, but I'm not stuck on a cruise ship. How are you?

KENT FRASURE: Things are going okay here. It's basically the evening of day two. Things are looking up a little bit. But, yes, there's still a lot of stuff going on.

MG: How are you feeling?

KENT FRASURE: I'm feeling okay right now. Not cooped up or anything. We've actually been pretty busy today. So that's really helps. If you're just stuck watching movies or something all day long I think it would be much worse.

MG: What have you been doing?

KENT FRASURE: Well, we've actually been doing a lot of media interviews and talking to friends and family, posting videos online and that sort of thing.

MG: Have you been tested for the virus?

KENT FRASURE: Yes, we have been part of the initial screening. They did temperature testing and they there was a questionnaire that went out asking if we'd been to mainland China, if we'd had symptoms of a coronavirus or if we'd been taking any sort of pain medication. We did answer yes to the pain medication. And that triggered a test for the coronavirus which they did with a swab in the back of your throat. So we're among the 273 I believe that we've been tested on the ship.

MG: Have you received the results from that test yet or anything?

KENT FRASURE: No. And we're not expecting him back anytime soon. I think we actually just got a e-mail from the U.S. embassy saying out of the t273 that have been tested. Hundred of those tests have actually come back. So it seems to be taking a very long time because we had the test several days ago.

MG: I mentioned in the introduction that there are 20 confirmed cases on this ship, including 10 new cases of the coronavirus today. Those people were taken to hospital. When you heard that, what went through your mind?

KENT FRASURE: That seems like an awfully lot of people for the very few that have actually been tested. So that's pretty, pretty concerning. If you extend that percentage to the remainder of the ship, that means those 400 will be infected. So it's really concerning.

MG: Describe where you are right now. I mean, what does your room look like? How big is it?

KENT FRASURE: So we actually are very lucky. We're in a suite. So we have a very large balcony overlooking the port that we're docked at. We have a queen sized bed, a sitting area. We're one of the fortunate ones.

MG: Because there are people who have smaller rooms that the I mean, they don't have a balcony, but they don't have any outdoor windows either, right?

KENT FRASURE: Correct. Yeah. I don't know the exact numbers, but I would say probably a third of the ship, either they're inside cabins or they have no windows. Basically no way to get outside. no way to get fresh air and that sort of thing.

MG: Can you imagine being in a space like that, you're not allowed to leave the room. Right?

KENT FRASURE: Correct. You can open your door and kind of peek down the hallway. We do have three other cabins that are close to us. Two of which are inside cabins. But unfortunately, neither of those two speak English. So we're kind of just, you know, gesture to them or they are doing okay, how's everything. But, yes, I can't imagine being in one of those inside cabins. It would just be horrible.

MG: How do you get food? I mean, is it somebody shows up and knocks on the door and slides it under the door or how are they feeding you?

KENT FRASURE: Yeah, it's pretty close. Basically, random times during the day, you will get a knock on the door and then they'll be people outside with trays of food and they hand the trays through the doorway and then we eat in the cabin and then they come back later and knock on the door and take the tray away.

MG: Is like room service. Can you? You know, you want a bottle of wine or something? Can you order that kind of stuff, too? Or is it whatever they provide you?

KENT FRASURE: It's whatever they provide us. We were finally given a sort of menu today, had three different choices for lunch and three different choices for dinner.

MG: This is day two.

KENT FRASURE: Yes.

MG: How long do you expect to be cooped up in the cabin for?

KENT FRASURE: So they are allowing small numbers of people to walk outside in designated areas on on deck. They're prioritizing the people on the inside cabins and ocean ocean view, which are just the windows. They can go outside and walk around for about an hour. But that was only a small portion of the ship. So I don't expect us to be able to walk around. Maybe tomorrow night or even the next day before I'll be able to get out of the room.

MG: Are you going to be quarantined for two weeks? Is that right?

KENT FRASURE: Yes we have two weeks.

MG: I mean, it's hard to predict the future, but if I were to talk to you in a week or so, you seem pretty. You've had a lot going on and you seem fairly optimistic right now. But how are you going to keep your mood up over the course of those two weeks?

KENT FRASURE: I don't know what it's going to feel like, even in a week or a few days. You know, we burn through all the movies that we can watch on the TV. We do have some alcohol in the room. Do we drink it now or do we wait for five days when we'd rather have it. So, you know, that's that sort. It's really hard to say [laughs].

MG: [Laughs] I don't mean to laugh. I don't mean to laugh. But because it's not funny, it's a very serious situation. But you do find yourself kind of stuck in this thing. And you couldn't have imagined that this is where you'd be.

KENT FRASURE: Yes. Luckily, they delivered some. So if you buy alcohol during the voyage, they take it away from you, but then they deliver it back. The last night of the voyage. Well, they thought it was me last night. So they actually delivered back and we got some sake delivered to the room. So that's going to come in use here a couple days for sure.

MG: Ration it. That would be my advice. Stay healthy Kent. I really appreciate you talking to you and I'm sorry for the situation that you find yourself in.

KENT FRASURE: All right. Thank you.

MG: Ken Frasure is quarantined onboard the Princess Diamond cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan. My next guest says the cruise ships are breeding grounds for these sorts of outbreaks. Tara Smith is an epidemiologist who specializes in infectious diseases at the Kent State University College of Public Health. Tara, good morning.

TARA SMITH: Good morning.

MG: What are you thinking as you listen to Kent talk about being under quarantine on a cruise ship?

TARA SMITH: Yes, that's my absolute nightmare.

MG: You and me both, I think. 20 people thus far have tested positive on this cruise ship out of the thousands onboard. He's worried that there could be many more people who might find themselves falling ill because of the coronavirus. How likely is it, knowing what you know, that you'll see those numbers grow?

TARA SMITH: Right. I think we will. I mean, these are people that have already been, you know, very likely mingling on the ship, sharing dining spaces, sharing outdoor spaces. So I think it is likely that those cases will probably and potentially go up.

MG: It sounds obvious, but I mean, when you're on a cruise ship, what is the atmosphere like in terms of allowing diseases like this and viruses like this to spread? Why would it be conducive to space like a cruise ship?

TARA SMITH: Right. Well, you have almost 4000 people on that ship in very close contact and sharing all of those environmental spaces. So you have not only the risk in this case of coronavirus as of person to person transmission, sharing the air that you breathe. But also those coronaviruses can live on surfaces. We don't know exactly how long for the novel one, but for your run of the mill corona viruses that can cause colds, those can live on surfaces for several hours. For the one that was more serious that caused SARS, some studies suggested that that could live on environmental surfaces for up to about 96 hours. So you have people sharing those spaces, touching handrails, touching tables, touching deck spaces, and you have the potential to share those viruses amongst all of those people on the cruise ship.

MG: If you keep people like they are on this cruise ship in their rooms for a couple of weeks and don't allow them really much contact with each other. How effective is that sort of quarantine and helping to contain the spread of a virus like this?

TARA SMITH: Yeah. You don't know exactly. I mean, for SARS, it was really isolation of the patients and then quarantine of those exposed like they're doing right now. That helped to stop the spread of that that virus. So in theory, if this is done rigorously on this ship, this should help to extinguish the spread of that virus if people no longer have contact with each other. But of course, you already have those that are exposed. So if they're exposed, if if they're potentially incubating the virus, it could still spread to others, at least within their cabins and potentially others, depending, again, on kind of how frequently they let them out, that you'll still have those shared spaces. I don't know if they're disinfecting between, you know, groups of people they're letting to the outside. I'm not sure what all of their environmental procedures are right now.

MG: You wrote a piece about being on a cruise ship and your concerns around this. You were asked in some ways whether you'd go on it and you said, seriously, I'll pass. This is what you wrote: As an individual trained in microbiology and infectious diseases, what I see when contemplating such an excursion is the potential to be trapped with thousands of others in a confined space suffering from gastrointestinal ailments, respiratory infections, or, as a recent Scientology cruise demonstrated, the measles. How do you really feel about cruises?

TARA SMITH: I get a lot of hate mail for it. People really like their cruises and I understand that. I understand that they're very convenient for lots of people. But, you know, this is the exact scenario that I was talking about, that you have people that was supposed to be finishing up their cruise, going back home. And now they're stuck on this ship potentially for two weeks, you know, confined to their cabins. So, I know that it's something like this is relatively rare. But you have outbreaks on these types of ships of norovirus that causes extreme vomiting and diarrhoea, as mentioned, the measles ones on the Scientology cruise. And you just never know when those types of things are going to pop up.

MG: The Centres for Disease Control reported that in 2018, norovirus outbreak rates on cruise ships had hit the lowest level in four years. Is that encouraging to you? Is that enough to get you to think about going on one of these ships?

TARA SMITH: I still [unintelligible] but is encouraging. I mean, I think the cruise ships are definitely taking this very seriously. They've stepped up their environmental cleaning. They know that this is a hazard. They know that this is something that has gotten associated with cruise ships, especially the norovirus issue. So I am definitely encouraged by what they're doing. It still won't get me on a cruise ship.

MG: Some cruise companies have started cancelling their cruises out of China. They're putting in place other screening measures for passengers might have been to China or Hong Kong. What's the right way of ensuring that this virus isn't getting on board other boats?

TARA SMITH: Yeah, good question. And we don't have anything perfect for that, unfortunately. The screening, they can do our screenings for people who are already showing symptoms like fever typically. But that can miss individuals who may have already been exposed and that are incubating this virus, but don't show symptoms yet. But of course, during the duration of some of these trips, they could become ill themselves and then spread it to others. So, you know, short of completely shutting down all travel, you know, we just have to be vigilant. And once cases are identified, get them into isolation, find out who they've contacted and just try to do the best we can with keeping them under observation.

MG: Is that an option that people should consider? I mean, this is a big money industry. But look at shutting down this industry while this coronavirus is spreading?

TARA SMITH: Potentially for the vacation industry. But we still need to to have these types of travel and end trips in place. I mean, we need to move supplies. We need to move individuals in some cases. And one of the things that WHO know has stressed is that in this type of outbreak situation, you don't want to completely shut down, you know, travel and things like that. So I don't think that's a good, good solution either, unfortunately.

MG: What advice would you give to people like Kent and the thousands of other people that were on board these boats?

TARA SMITH: Right. Oh, Lord. I mean, definitely for themselves protecting their own health. Wash your hands a lot. You know, try to avoid contact with other individuals. Obviously, you're going to be stuck in these rooms with your families or friends or whoever you're with. But as far as other individuals, I would try to maintain distance from them as much as possible. You just never know who's been exposed and try and keep your own family or group healthy. You know, just try to do those basic things with handwashing and keeping yourselves separated from others as much as possible.

MG: What about their psychological well-being? I mean, cancers in this room with a big balcony and he's got some socks stashed away in a cupboard. For people who are in those tiny spaces that don't have any access to the outdoors and they don't even have a window. They're looking at a screen that shows you what life is like outside your ship. How do they handle this?

TARA SMITH: Right. And great question. I mean, besides getting cabin fever, literally. You know, it does sound like they have boosted the Wi-Fi on these ships. And, you know, they're trying to bring in things to make people more comfortable. I saw one Twitter post from someone who is on the cruise that they brought in some, you know, candies and puzzles and things like that for one of the children that was in there, which just must be miserable. So it sounds like the company is trying to do what they can to keep these people entertained and busy and not thinking just about the virus and being contained to these rooms.

MG: Tara, great to talk to you. Thank you.

TARA SMITH: Thank you so much.

MG: Tara Smith, epidemiologist and professor at the Kent State University College of Public Health. It is my next guests job to keep people healthy on cruise ships. Iain Hay is managing director of Anchor Hygiene Services. It works with the cruise industry to maintain public health standards. Ian, hey, good morning to you.

IAIN HAY: Good morning.

MG: How do you respond to what you just heard from Tara Smith in the way that she describes cruise ships like the ones that. That your company works with?

IAIN HAY: Well, Tara does have a point. In so far as anyone travelling in an environment where your pushed together with hundreds or thousands of other people, there is going to be an increased risk of cross contamination between other people. And especially when you have a person to person spread illness such as the coronavirus or norovirus, that may become quite adept at dealing with on cruise ships. It's unfortunate that the cruise ships tend to be on the end of this and they get a bad rap because people are on board for long lengths of time. And of course, that's when maleness manifests itself in something like nowhere, like coronavirus, where hearing can incubate for about two weeks in the body, during which time you are actually shedding virus, you are potentially making other people ill around you, because don't

MG: How do companies, cruise ship companies go about controlling outbreaks on ships? What do you do?

IAIN HAY: Well, we've become very adept at this. It really all started, I would say, in 2002. Prior to that, we would have illness occasionally on the ship. But 2002 seemed to be the time that norovirus became the big deal. And we actually started to get a lot of criticism unfairly, the norovirus and the press was actually being called the cruise ship industry. I actually used to work for Royal Caribbean at that time. I was in charge of public health for the fleet on the ship borne side. And we came up with a comprehensive plan of action of steps that we would need to take in order to prevent any

virus coming on the ship and being spread around our guests.

MG: Steps like what?

IAIN HAY: Well, that would be things like making sure that we stop self-service for examples so that we don't have multiple people touching tongs and spoons and so forth on self-service buffets. We introduce an isolation protocol so that people that weren't sick, whether they had norovirus or whether we only suspected it, where we would isolate the people. And also a very, very strict and regimented regime for sanitizing. So when people get up from a table after lunch, for example, that nobody would be allowed to sit at that table until people have come along, cleaned everything and have done a really good job of sanitizing the table, using a much higher concentration of sanitized solution. In those days, we were using predominantly bleach or chlorine, whereas nowadays some companies use other methods, electrolytes water seems to be something that is taking hold. They're very impressive in an industry used very widely in countries like Japan, where you rarely hear about outbreaks. Basically those are the sorts of things that we would do.

MG: Just before I let you go, we'll have about a minute left. But I mean, do you worry that an industry like this will be clobbered by stories like this, that people think of this as a floating petri dish and they worry that they're just going to get sick.

IAIN HAY: Absolutely they'll be clobbered. We've been clobbered in the past with norovirus, as many before me stating that the CDC have actually been quite complimentary about the way the industry has handled this, that went down to very low levels of outbreak onboard our ships. I mean, it's an unfortunate situation when you get something like the coronavirus that is, you know, very dangerous, deadly. But I think seriously, people on board a ship in a much better place than they might be if they were sitting next to somebody in an aeroplane, for example, that was coughing and spluttering or even in the line at the post office or anywhere where there are large numbers of people, you know, in close proximity. The cruise ships really do have a lot of experience of handling viruses and cleaning this ship. It's very rare that you hear of an outbreak that actually goes from one cruise into another. No matter how big the outbreak is on board the ship.

MG: We'll leave it there. And it's great to talk to about this. Thank you.

IAIN HAY: Well, it was lovely talking to you, too. And thank you for having me on your show.

MG: Iain Hay is a managing director of Anchor Hygiene Services, works to keep those cruise ships that we've been talking about clean and healthy. The CBC News is next. You probably hear more about this coming up in the news. And then we'll talk about giant parties, fights, shootings. Some people are fed up with Airbnbs in their condo buildings and neighbourhoods. We'll get a response from the very popular home sharing service coming up. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. Stick around.

Airbnb rules to curb violent incidents; Conditions and frustration in Wuhan

Guests: Alexandra Dagg, Bill Stewart, Shawn Yuan

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

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MG: Still to come, does Canada have magical thinking around race? The writer Desmond Cole thinks so. He joins me in half an hour to talk about being black in Canada and why he embraces being called a radical. It's a conversation you won't want to miss. It's coming your way in 30 minutes. But first, checking in on Airbnb.

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VOICE 1: My husband woke me up on Saturday morning and said that there was a shooting. Pretty startling. There's a lot of parties in the building. It's kids that are renting the space. It's not expensive when you share it between 20 people, it's like a frat house. It's stressful to constantly see the police here.

VOICE 2: You should see Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The lobby looks like it's a hotel check in spot. There's tons of people with know suitcases. A lot of families and a lot of genuine people that I, you know, enjoy the city. But a majority of them are kids coming out for a night off. So my floor, I'm on the 47, all three apartments are on me are Airbnbs. So the party is non-stop. They'll be yelling, screaming, banging. They'll be arguing outside in the hallway. And it's just not cool.

MG: Last week's shooting at an Airbnb in downtown Toronto has shaken people who live in that neighbourhood. Three people were killed, two others injured. And it's just the latest in a series of violent incidents at Airbnb rentals in Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax. Now, the short term rental site has announced changes to its security policies. They're banning most people under the age of 25 from renting entire home listings within their own communities. Alex Dagg is head of public policy for Airbnb in Canada and is with me now. Good morning.

ALEXANDRA DAGG: Good morning.

MG: Thanks for being here. What responsibility does Airbnb hold for a shooting like the one we saw in Toronto this weekend?

ALEXANDRA DAGG: Yeah, well, were first I just want to say our thoughts are with the families and friends of Tyronne, Jalen and Joshua who were killed on Friday evening. There's nothing we can do at this point, obviously, to bring them back. But we can continue to iterate and learn about the kind of activity, the inappropriate activity on our platform and look at different ways we can implement positive changes that will hopefully mitigate against unauthorized party activity that occurred in that condo building on Friday evening.

MG: So to the question, what responsibility does Airbnb have for shooting like the one we saw in Toronto?

ALEXANDRA DAGG: So one of the things, you know, obviously our role as a platform in a part of the community, there are certain things that we can do to help mitigate against this. But, you know, the issue of gun violence in Toronto and across Canada is a much broader, more complicated issue. And we will try to step up and do our part here in trying to look at that issue. But with our announcement yesterday, what we've seen from the data and research on our platform in Canada is that we have over indexed activity of people under 25 booking a listing within the community that they live and then using it for an unauthorized party like which is what happened. And so we are going to restrict that and not allow that across the country. For the first time.

MG: So that would suggest that Airbnb does bear some responsibly for these sorts of...

ALEXANDRA DAGG: We very much agree that as a platform we need to take action and we need to be part of a solution here. And that's why we are taking this action.

MG: Airbnb last year announced a ban on unauthorized house parties. Clearly, they're still happening sometimes, as we saw this weekend, with awful results. How many suitable for event listings are there in the city of Toronto, places that you could rent that would be suitable, for example, like a party like this?

ALEXANDRA DAGG: I mean, I think it's hard to say. One of the challenges we have as a platform is that we continually have people putting new listings on our platforms. So we'll take we- since a big party band announcement that our CEO made in November, we took down thousands of listings around the world, including many here in Toronto and across Canada, and we'll continue to do that. The challenge for us is that they're constantly being put on. So we have to constantly monitor this activity on our platform.

MG: So the day after the shooting, the Toronto Star found that there were 300 suitable for event listings on Airbnb in Toronto is what you're doing now, the actions that we're taking last year, are those working?

ALEXANDRA DAGG: I think, you know, again, this needs to be a process where we're constantly monitoring the activity in our platform. There are events or small gatherings that are totally legitimate and are fine to happen. You know, like people will book an entire home at Thanksgiving and have their family over for a dinner party or an event or have something in a neighbourhood where they're celebrating, you know, a family wedding and they have 15, 20, whatever. I mean, those kind of things can be, you know, if people are acting responsibly in an appropriate neighbourhood, it's totally fine. And so it's really to find the kind of activity that occurred on Friday evening in Toronto is what we're really trying to address. The under 25 who are booking a place misrepresenting to the host, the host in this question, had a no party rule in her condo and a sort of a night, you know, a restriction on noise after 10 p.m. And so clearly the guests booking it behaved in an irresponsible manner.

MG: It's not just happening in Toronto. I mean. This is a wildly popular site. I've used the site. People use it all around the world. What's happening and what you're talking about is not just happening here in Toronto, though. Have a listen to a couple of people in Nepean, Ontario until Airbnb showed up. They say it was a quiet suburban Ottawa neighbourhood. Then last October, there was a shooting there.

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VOICE 1: We're confused by the fact that it's if you opened up a barber shop in the neighbourhood, you'd be shut down. But you can operate a 12 or 14 bad house that can have parties. And obviously, in the case of this morning, there were a shooting of two people. The houses next to our house, we have four granddaughters that visit and stay over regularly. Last thing we need is people shooting guns next door to us.

VOICE 2: It's quite frightening, really.

VOICE 1: There were at least 30 people out from outside of our house today, our on our walkway in front of our garage, running around screaming...

VOICE 2: Now with the shooting and going to be more nervous any time I'm alone in the house, I'm going to be more nervous.

MG: Rob and Mandy Hanlon. What would you say to them about what Airbnb has done to their neighbourhood?

ALEXANDRA DAGG: You know, one of the other announcements we made yesterday, too, in terms of the in addition to the under 25 is the introduction on Monday of a 24/7, 365 telephone line that will be introduced to Canada. We did launch that in the U.S. Canada will be launch on Monday. It'll be the second country outside of the U.S. where neighbours like those in Nepean talking about that really unfortunate incident can, if they see something happen next to them, you know, 30 cars arriving. Obviously, something that doesn't seem right. They'll be able to speak to a human on the phone who will be able to assist them.

MG: So why is it on them to do that? Why isn't it on Airbnb to make sure that that doesn't happen in the first place?

ALEXANDRA DAGG: While there, I think there's a bunch of things we're doing to try to prevent that as well. So, for example, houses that in our view, you know, advertise inappropriate events in neighbourhoods where, you know, it's really not allowed. Those are being routinely taken down and not being allowed to exist on our platform. And so in this case, with the addition of this telephone line, we think it's OK. It's also a way of us to be responsive to the community and hopefully be able to contact that host right away or contact police if that's what the circumstances would suggest.

MG: The city councillor who represents the area in Toronto where the shooting took place and what you announced yesterday, in his words, is not good enough. If Airbnb was serious about community safety, they would immediately delist the nearly 7000 homes on their platform that don't comply with the city of Toronto's regulations. Enough is enough. Delist these ghost hotels. Now, what is ghost hotels mean to you?

ALEXANDRA DAGG: Well, it's not a term I recognise and understand. You know, I hear people obviously use that term. But there I think it's really important...

MG: What they say about the ghost hotels is that these are places where people don't live there, just put up on the site so that people can use them to generate income. And you have no control over who is going into those places or what actually happens.

ALEXANDRA DAGG: But just really oversimplification of this issue. So there, too, I think it's really important to separate out the issue here. Toronto has introduced rules and they will be put into place in the next few months. We are engaging constructively and collaboratively with the city of Toronto to implement these rules. In fact, on Friday afternoon. I was at the city of Toronto with the city staff working on how we're going to implement these rules in an effective and supportive way.

MG: But you're not following them. Now, the mayor of Toronto says these are his words. It would make a significant contribution to cutting in on this type of behaviour. If Airbnb were to follow those rules now and not have landlords renting out homes where nobody lives.

ALEXANDRA DAGG: Well, here's the issue, though. The rules, one, are not in place yet. And in order for these rules to be successful, they need to be implemented in a smart way so that people can register. There's no registration system yet. The city's building, it will continue to support the city in this. And in addition, when you're talking about an unauthorized party which occurred on this case on Friday, even if the rules were in place, there's unauthorized activity or party could still have occurred. And so that's why, in addition to working with the city to implement the rules, we went beyond what the city has asked us to do by implementing this new ban of those under 25 from booking an entire home in the neighbourhood they live in, which we're hopeful - and, you know, we're going to monitor this and see how it gets applied across Canada. We are going to monitor this - and we're hopeful that it will mitigate against the kind of unauthorized party that's happening, because this is really about guest behaviour on our platform not host behavior.

MG: People saying that this his really about Airbnb making money, that almost half of Airbnb revenue was generated by commercial operators who manage multiple listings. There's an IPO coming for this company at some point in time and people say that this is about raising money for Airbnb. Just finally, is that what this is really about?

ALEXANDRA DAGG: You know, there are. Our platform is obviously very successful. People use it every night. We have two million plus people sitting on our platform. We're going to continue to iterate, look at measures that focus on safety in our community and the safety of people using our platform. It's really important for us.

MG: How much does the bottom line have to be with this down?

ALEXANDRA DAGG: Not at all. We have made one hundred and fifty million dollar investment in upping our security measures. That was part of the announcement made in November. When we made the announcement yesterday about banning people under 25, we have not made any sort of business assessment as to what that means for our bottom line, but we believe it's the right thing to do. Hopefully we will learn from this. We will see how the data folds out over the next six months. And we're hopeful to be able to pilot this and extend this to other countries in the world as well.

MG: Alex Dagg, I appreciate you being here this morning. Thank you.

ALEXANDRA DAGG: You're welcome.

MG: Alex Dagg is head of public policy for Airbnb in Canada. When it comes to those unintended side effects of Airbnb that she was speaking about, it's not always cut and dry.

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It's hard to say how I really feel about the fact that there are Airbnb places in my building, because on the one hand, I want people to have their freedom and to be able to do what they want. If they want to travel, it's a great way to make money. But at the end of the day, if it's putting people's lives at risk, it is something we really have to look at and make sure that it's totally safe.

MG: A resident in Toronto talking, but again, the mixed elements here of this story. Other cities are grappling with the pros and cons of short term rentals as well. Bill Stewart is a spokesperson for the Halifax Group: Neighbours, Speak Up. Bill, good morning to you.

BILL STEWART: Hi, Matt.

MG: What do you make of what Alex Dagg, who represents Airbnb in Canada, just had to say?

BILL STEWART: Well, I wish there was a little bit more detail in terms of how they're actually going to monitor the performance of their hosts and so on. This whole business is so anonymous. It seems to be the hallmark of the business, which right away makes you a suspect as to the actual business model they're using here.

MG: But there's a lot of good that comes out of it. As we heard from you that earlier guest, that there is a lot of good that comes out of it. People can make money from Airbnb when people travel, they use it instead of a hotel. So it's not all bad, is it?

BILL STEWART: It's not all bad at night. But I think an important aspect of it is that there's actual proper management of the actual rental. That's why we really emphasise if there's going to be short term rentals, it has to be a primary resident. This is someone that lives in the home while it's being rented or it's rented for a short period. But basically they're in control in terms of how that rental is actually handled, managing the behaviour that goes on.

MG: And just briefly, tell us how this is affected you in Halifax?

BILL STEWART: Well, we've been involved in this for about a year now in our neighbourhood in Halifax. And one of our neighbours passed away there. Her house was renovated and the fellow who purchased it told us that he was going to start an Airbnb. So at that point, we began to look at the aspects of that and what's involved and how we felt about that. It's a small- it's a great little neighbourhood. And just as we were kind of looking at that situation, we started to get some real issues happening. So there was a fair amount of disruption. There were parties. There was a lot of late night noise. There were police visits, that kind of thing. So that concentrated our minds fairly quickly. And we looked at what kind of options are there. Was this something that the city can help with? Is it something that the province is involved with? And as we looked around, did some research, we found that there really were no short term rental regulations in place at the provincial or municipal level. Folks in our group have a real volunteer background, policy and academic background. It didn't take long to see that. What we really had to do here was to advocate for public policy and regulation of short term rental.

MG: As you do that, though, what do you want from Airbnb?

BILL STEWART: Well, basically we want Airbnb to cooperate with both municipal and provincial governments. We'd like to see all short term rentals registered that will help greatly in identifying what's going on in those hosted properties and we'll help in enforcement. And it really has to be everybody. That's the issue it's interesting to hear the representative from Airbnb talk about monitoring their hosts. I'm not sure how they're going to do it. They mentioned how they're going to put restrict those under 25. I think she's referring to primary resident rentals. Well, it's interesting that they can make that distinction between primary residence and commercial. We definitely would like to be able to do that. And if they can help us, that would be great. So I know the province and H.R. M Halifax is working with Airbnb in coming up with regulations. I hope they're able to convince them that we need to register short term rentals and they have to have those registration numbers on the platform.

MG: It's a familiar story to people right across this country. Bill, appreciate your contribution to this. Thank you.

BILL STEWART: Thank you.

MG: Bill Stewart spokesperson with the group Neighbours, Speak Up. He was in Halifax. Your experience with Airbnb, we'd love to hear it. You can email us at thecurrent@cbc.ca, or on the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. This is indeed The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway.

SOUNDCLIP

It's fair to say that over the last 10, 15 years, because China was subject of several outbreaks, China developed very strong public health capacities in the area of the outbreak response.

China has been getting a lot of praise for its handling of the Corona virus, including from the WHO earlier this week. There is criticism, though. Human Rights Watch, for example, has accused Chinese authorities of withholding information from the public. And inside China, more and more people are showing their anger. Shawn Yuan is a freelance journalist. He's based in Beijing, has been reporting on the Corona virus outbreak. Shawn, hello to you.

SHAWN YUAN: Hey, how's it going?

MG: I'm well, thanks. Wuhan is a city that is in many ways cut off. And we know the people who can leave are trying to leave. What do you hearing from people in Wuhan who are sick?

SHAWN YUAN: There is a growing sense of despair and anxiety, especially because there is a growing number of cases being confirmed and still a lot of suspected cases that haven't been confirmed yet. And now the government is trying to get more hospitals, including in makeshift hospitals that are supposed to be offering more than 10000 beds. But so far people are still saying that a lot of them are being turned away by the hospital because they cannot get diagnosis. For those people who are not sick. There is also this kind of anxiety about this situation being protracted.

MG: Tell me more about that, because you can imagine the people who are sick, as you say, are trying to get into those hospitals. We've seen the images of the hospital going up in, what, ten days or something like that, these are extraordinary scenes. But for people who aren't sick, what are they telling you about what life is like in that city now?

SHAWN YUAN: So basically, let's us go through what happened yesterday. There was a rumour going around saying that the army was supposed to come into Wuhan and lock down the whole city and then they're going to go into houses to distribute food and you're not supposed to go out. And that rumour has been debunked. But people up right now are so anxious about the whole situation. So it doesn't matter whether it's rumour or not. So a lot of people actually were now[unintelligible] to try to get a lot of food. The vegetables were gone and a lot of markets were running out of food as well. But more importantly, since the lockdown has been going on for almost two weeks now, that means a lot of people are not receiving money. Public school teachers, for example, are not being paid this month.

MG: So how are the people who are right on the front lines of this? I mean, the doctors and the nurses and we've heard stories about the supplies that are or aren't available for those frontline workers. What are you hearing about how doctors and nurses are dealing with this crisis?

SHAWN YUAN: What about the other cities?[Cutting] There are still a lot of cities in the province that are not getting enough supplies. For example, I've been talking to some doctors on the ground saying that there has been such a severe shortage of supplies. They're using plastic bags wrinkled as protective suits or they're wearing adult diapers, but they don't go into bathrooms during the day because that will ruin their protective suits.

MG: Oh my God.

SHAWN YUAN: And some people, some doctors, have already been affected. So right now, I think it's getting better. But there's still a lot of people on the ground telling me, especially doctors in ICU, send out the supplies is still not coming up.

MG: Just to be clear, people were using plastic bags instead of protective gear and raincoats instead of the protective gear that would help keep them safe.

SHAWN YUAN: Exactly. And more than that, for example, there was one nurse was telling me that she had been reusing her mats for days now. Everyday she went back home and tried to disinfect it. But things that you are supposed to change the mask every four hours.

MG: Are you finding that social media is an outlet for people to be able to raise these concerns and talk about what they're actually seeing and feeling on the ground?

SHAWN YUAN: Yes, I think for the first two weeks or so until probably couple of days ago, there was a tolerance for freedom speech online from the Chinese governments. And a lot of people have been posting things on a Weibo or WeChat, saying that even though the government is praising the response and the World Health Organization is praising the response of China, the situation on the ground is just super dire. But then I think a couple days ago, that kind of freedom is starting to fade away.

MG: We collected some of the comments that were posted on. Social media, including some of the things that people were saying that you had been reporting on. We had our producers voice them. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: My grandfather has had a fever for three days now and no hospital is admitting him. Is the government going to let us all die like this?

VOICE 2: I don't care what CCTV is saying. The situation in Milan is dire.

VOICE 1: Why did the outbreak take so long to attract public attention?

VOICE 2: I might be arrested after posting this video, but I still want all of you to know how dire the situation is in Huanggang. We are in desperate need of help. The government doesn't care about us anymore.

VOICE 1: I'm not even afraid of death. Do you think I'll be afraid of you, Communist Party?

VOICE 2: It's like living in hell, waiting for death.

MG: How wide of a gap is there between what you're hearing there and what's being presented in state media in Wuhan right now?

SHAWN YUAN: I say that's a very big gap because the narrative that is being pushed right now from the state media is that the response has been really swift and really transparent. But for people on the ground, that situation is much worse than what the government is saying. The government is saying, for example, a lot of hospitals are being built and all this people going to be able to go to hospitals and get treated. But so far after, for example, the first makeshift hospital has been built, more than 10000 beds are supposed to be offered. But still, people are telling me that it's still really difficult to get diagnosed.

MG: How do people feel that the government of President Xi Jinping has responded to all of this?

SHAWN YUAN: And so I guess there's kind of a misconception of how China works. People tend to think that the government works as a whole. And Xi Jinping is everything. But the situation is right now is that the anger towards the government has most been concentrated towards the local government. And the response from the people on the ground has been generally pretty positive when it comes to central government. But those people who blame the local government are starting to realise that the reason why the local government's handling of this crisis making so angry came exactly from how the government is structured and how Xi is governing the country, because Xi wants to become this beautiful leader that does not tolerate criticism and he does not want to hear this kind of stories coming from the local, local level. So although it is unclear how much information that central government actually knew about the virus in early days, especially in late December and early January, the scientists definitely had an idea already because the WHO already received the report by the end of 2019.

MG: Do people want president Xi to show up in Wuhan? He has maintained this kind of low profile over the course of this and doesn't appear to have visited the city of Wuhan yet, the epicentre of this outbreak.

SHAWN YUAN: Exactly. The still media there are pushing for this same story that Xi needs behind all this globalization. And Xi is the person who has been ordering every single movement in this handling of this crisis. So you tend to understand there are probably the Communist Party does not want to send that top one veto to Wuhan, exposing him to the possibility of even get infected. So Xi sent Premier Li Keqiand to Wuhan, and people are saying that this is probably how Xi wants this crisis to unfold. If the whole situation gets controlled, Xi she will still be able to get praised. But if the situation went out of control, president Xi can actually blame them to someone else.

MG: And so he wouldn't be tarnished by any of the anger you're talking about that's happening on the ground right now.

SHAWN YUAN: Exactly.

MG: Shawn, I appreciate you bringing up to speed on what's happening there in Wuhan. Thank you.

SHAWN YUAN: Thank you for having me.

MG: Shawn Yuan is a freelance journalist. He's based in Beijing. It's a busy half hour. The news is next. Coming up in about 90 seconds on The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Black people are tired of being stepped on housing, labour, prison, education, any social indicator in this country, we're getting stomped on.

MG: The writer Desmond Cole is here to talk about black liberation and white supremacy in Canada. It is not a particularly comfortable conversation to have, but it is an important one. And you'll hear it coming up in 90 seconds. Stick around. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current on CBC Radio One.

What's it like to be black in Canada? Under policing, it's hell, says Desmond Cole

Guest: Desmond Cole

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

SOUNDCLIP

Corruption. Complete and utter corruption and an insult upon injury already to Dafonte Miller and by extension, the black people in this region.

MG: That is journalist and writer Desmond Cole outside Toronto police headquarters in 2017. The focus of his anger, Toronto police and the mayor of Toronto, John Tory.

SOUNDCLIP

They are demonstrating that they value decorum more than they value our lives. So to hell with them all.

Anger ran high around the case of Dafonte Miller. On a December night in 2016, the then 19 year old was involved in an altercation with an off duty police officer and his brother. When police arrived on the scene in Whitby, Ontario, they discovered Dafonte Miller badly injured. The officer and his brother went on trial last year. The verdict is expected in April. Both men have pleaded not guilty to aggravated assault. That case is just one of several incidents of violence involving police and Ontario's black community profiled in Desmond Cole's new book. It's called The Skin We're in a Year of Black Resistance and Power. Desmond Cole is a former columnist for The Toronto Star. He's written for The Walrus and Toronto Life and Doesn't Call joins me now. Desmond, good morning.

DESMOND COLE: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What do we know about what happened that night between Dafonte Miller and those two brothers?

DESMOND COLE: We know that deformity and two of his friends were walking on a suburban street in with the Ontario late at night. We know that they had some kind of a confrontation with two men who we now know to be Michael and Christian Theriault. Michael, at the time, an off duty police officer. And we know that there was a physical altercation between these brothers and Dafonte, which caused him numerous injuries, including the loss of his left eye. And the charge of aggravated assault against these two officers alleges that they did it. That's what the trial is supposed to prove. Dafonte, he says they did. He says that they picked up a metal pipe at some point or came at him with one and that that was what caused the horrible injury to his eye.

MG: Michael Theriault and Christian Theriault say that they were defending themselves from Dafonte Miller on the night of the incident. Why don't you believe their story?

DESMOND COLE: For so many reasons. You don't chase someone over 100 meters down a street at night to defend yourself. If you chase somebody and then they end up with the injuries that Dafonte did, I don't look at that as self-defence. What's more, though, their allegation against Dafonte is that he was stealing change from their car. So I am personally rejecting this idea that a black life is so cheap that if you truly thought that somebody was stealing change from your car, you would chase them and beat them in such a horrible, horrible way. And, you know, I also have issue with the fact that the Durham police came onto the scene, found Dafonte underneath one of these men bleeding so badly, asking for help. And they laid five criminal charges on Dafonte Miller. Those charges were ultimately dropped by the Crown. The Durham police came onto the scene of that crime knowing that they were dealing with a police officer. That was documented through 911 calls. And in my opinion, that's why Dafonte was having those charges laid against him. That's why he was treated as the assailant when in fact, I believe he was the victim.

MG: We contacted the trauma police service and they told us in a statement. This is a quotation: "As the case is currently before the court. It would be inappropriate for us to comment before a decision is rendered by the judge. The Durham Regional Police Service told us" and again, this is a quotation," this is an active case with the office of the Independent Police Review director. We are not in a position to answer any questions". What does this story? And it's one story that's in your book. What does the story tell you about what it's like to be black in this country in 2020?

DESMOND COLE: It tells me that having a black chief of police, having some black police officers is supposed to make us forget about the everyday violence of policing and that the police will go to any length to protect a man, even when it appears that he has done what Michael Theriault, in my opinion, did to Dafonte Miller.

MG: He faces charges. I mean, that this is in front of the judge.

DESMOND COLE: He faced charges because Dafonte's family got a lawyer and that lawyer contacted the SIU. Why weren't the people who came on that scene disgusted at the condition that they found Dafonte in? Why did they handcuff him?

MG: How does what happened with Dafonte Miller and some of the other cases that you outline in this book compare two incidents of the use of deadly force or significant force by police in the United States.

DESMOND COLE: The difference is that we actually do substantive media work, an investigation, an inquiry, or even just airing, let me say, of cases in the United States. Dafonte's story got a lot of attention the first week that we found out about it in July of 2017. The attention went away after that, though. Machuar Madut warmer dude in Winnipeg, Pierre Coriolan in Montreal, who I also spoke about in my book, Abidrahman Abdi in Ottawa, who there is a chapter about in this book. Do Canadians even know these names? But they can tell you Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice. They can tell you who Trayvon Martin is.

MG: Are you suggesting that what's happening here is as bad as what's happening in the United States?

DESMOND COLE: It's not even a worthwhile comparison for me to say is as bad or is-- That is what we do in this country. That's not the question. The question isn't are we better or worse. The question is, what is it like to live as a black person? And when it comes to policing, it is hell and it is almost impossible to hold even one police officer to account. So, yes, Michael Theriaul is on trial. Yes. Daniel Montsion is on trial right now in the killing of Abidrahman Abdi in Ottawa. JamesForcillo shot Sammy Yahitm eight times on a street car and he's already paroled. You know, to get justice for one cop who takes a life in this country is almost impossible. It's when you're living in that kind of a condition where the society will fight so hard to justify killing you. Getting basic needs met in life. Getting basic opportunity. Where do we go, Matt, when that that's the struggle that we're starting from.

MG: You have talked about how you wanted to confront, and these are your words, kind of this magical thinking when it comes to race.

DESMOND COLE: What do you mean by that? The magical thinking is that race doesn't operate in Canada. It's not holding anyone back. It's not dividing people in terms of the way that their government services operate. I mean, these things are false on their face, of course. I mean. Justin Trudeau has been ordered how many times now by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to equalise child welfare funding for First Nations kids on reserve. We just know as a fact that all kinds of services for indigenous peoples in this country are funded at a lower rate. The danger of saying that things like the Indian Act or the ongoing genocide of indigenous peoples is not real, or that black people are just trying to emulate what we see in the United States, but that we don't really have a struggle here. The danger of that is that there is no real motivation then to challenge white supremacy in this country. There is no even need to name it. And that's what was such a privilege of being able to write this book, was to take one year of journalism in the year 2017 and to say, I am not going to present this as if I don't know racism operates in my country. I assume that it does. I live that experience and so do black people across this country. So let's have a book that gets past the phony if you want. In my opinion, the phony questioning and just says this exists. How does it look? How does it feel? How does it sound?

MG: That lived experience is something that people might have read about in a piece that you wrote in Toronto Life magazine, you talked about your experience with carding being stopped by police being asked for identification. The piece got a lot of attention. What was the effect of that piece in that magazine at that time?

DESMOND COLE: I think it was a big deal. Because as I say in the book, I think a lot of people were surprised to see a black person on the cover of Toronto Life and not only on the cover, but talking on the cover about police brutality and police surveillance.

MG: That story got a lot of attention around carding. People addressed it. The mayor ended up, the mayor of Toronto, ended up speaking about it in a way that perhaps he hadn't before that piece came out. What's the state of carding across the country right now?

DESMOND COLE: Well, that's a great question. The state of carding today in a place like Halifax is such that the Halifax Police Department issued a formal apology for carding two months ago, but continue the practice all the time. And as evidence of that. A woman, just a couple of weeks ago, named Santina Rao was shopping in Walmart when she was approached by staff of the store, a security guard and a police officer. She was accused of stealing. She is accused of stealing items that were in her stroller because she has a 15 month old and a 3 year old.

MG: And was putting them in the bottom of the stroller.

DESMOND COLE: She put them in the bottom of the stroller. In fact, she tried to pay for them at another cashier who said, I don't have a scale. I can't wear your grapefruit, your lettuce. She had a grapefruit, a lettuce and two lemons. For a grapefruit, a lettuce and two lemons, five people approached this woman with her children and a police officer and his other police colleagues ended up jumping on top of her. Santina Rao suffered a concussion. Santina Rao suffered a broken wrist. And now she has criminal charges against her. Just like I was saying before, there's a very common police tactic. But an important part of that story for me is that when Santina Rao said, I'm not stealing anything, look in my stroller, look in my purse. The police said, where's your ID? This is the practice that they just told us that they were apologising for.

MG: The practice of carding.

DESMOND COLE: The practice of carding, the practice of IDing black people who aren't doing anything.

MG: In the city of Toronto. When Mark Saunders was named the chief of police, there was a lot of attention paid to the fact that he would be the first black chief of police in this large police force. And that was heralded as a breakthrough, was it?

DESMOND COLE: I don't know who it was a breakthrough for besides Mark Saunders and I remember actually that he himself downplayed it at the time. He had this joke about how being black didn't give him superpowers and the media laughed. I remember the gallery that day. He said that and people really lapped up that comment. But no one was asking Mark Saunders to have superpowers. In fact, I don't really think the public is asking Mark Saunders anything, because we don't choose the chief of police in the city of Toronto or in any city. The politicians do.

MG: Has it mattered, though, if there's a black man, black person at the head of the police force, does it matter to does it make a change?

DESMOND COLE: It doesn't make the change in terms of how black people are policed. The police system that Mark Saunders oversees cannot be reformed. It has to be dismantled. And he wasn't put at the head of that organization to reform it.

MG: What does that mean, dismantled?

DESMOND COLE: It means that we actually need to conceive a new way of keeping people safe that does not involve spending in this city, a billion dollars to have thousands of armed men running through the street, meeting out what they believe to be justice.

MG: Let's be realistic. There's not going to be an abolition of police.

DESMOND COLE: Why not?

MG: Most people would say that that would lead to anarchy. The police forces have existed and continued to exist in places around the world. That that's a stretch too far.

DESMOND COLE: But they don't think that the violence that black people face everyday is going too far.

MG: Is that fair to say? I mean, I would imagine there are a lot of white people who are listening to this conversation who would be greatly offended by you saying that, who would say that they have great empathy for the situation that you might find yourself in, that others find themselves in.

DESMOND COLE: I can't live on people's empathy, man, and neither can any other black person. I think that the individualization of this conversation, which is a systemic conversation, gets us very- it doesn't get us far at all. I am not talking to individuals when I say white people. The government has a census. The government wants to ask if you're white so I can talk about it, too. This is a legal categorization in this country. This is a social categorization in this country. This is a categorization that determines that if you are white, you will, on average make more money than everybody else in this country, get a better opportunity at education than everybody else. And you don't deserve that for being white. But the country gives it to you because the country, such as it is today, is a white country with a white colonial understanding of who is in charge, what the rules are and the idea that the indigenous peoples who were here for hundreds of years, thousands of years, excuse me, are now under an Indian act. Like, that's the system that people are asking me to have faith in. They're asking me to have faith in a police system that kills black and indigenous people, never holds itself to account. And then we're going to have one or two individuals who are black or indigenous come in and reform these things. If people don't like racism, why don't they join in the fight to destroy racism? It's not about a personal offence to the person listening, saying, well, I am of this skin colour. I'm trying my best. If you hate racism. Fight to destroy racism, period.

MG: You were born in Alberta.

DESMOND COLE: Yes and I live here.

MG: And you write in the book about growing up in Red Deer and you say that as a child, these are your words, as a child in Red Deer, you had no conscious understanding of racism. What do you remember about that time?

DESMOND COLE: Really simple things like the sky in the prairies, the big, big sky and the sunshine, because the sunshine happens a lot more on the prairies than it does out here. I remember these huge mounts of snow that my sister and I would play in, and one time sticking my boot into the snow and pulling my boot out. No boot, no sock, just my barefoot in the snow and crying after that.

MG: And you had no idea or no understanding of racism at the time. No encounters with racism at that time.

DESMOND COLE: I lived in Alberta until I was five and all I understood was like little things, like my parents spoke a language to each other that I didn't hear other people speaking. I understood that.

MG: Their language was Krio.

DESMOND COLE: My parents are from Sierra Leone and we're Krio, but I didn't know what racial difference meant. And for most of my upbringing in this country, I downplayed racial difference to I said it doesn't matter. This is Canada. Everybody has an equal opportunity. And then I grew up.

MG: Tell me about the role of the skin coloured crayon in your racial consciousness, in establishing sort of who you are.

DESMOND COLE: Okay, so I was in grade one and we're all colouring and almost every other student in my grade one class is wait and people are sharing all the pencil crayons and then somebody asks somebody else for the skin colour pencil crown and I was just like, whoa, like the like my mind exploded. Nobody else seemed to think that this was a weird thing to ask for, and it was one of the first times in my life, I was about six years old, that I can remember feeling like suddenly so small. I can't say anything about this because my friends will laugh or they'll say something. And I had a lot more experiences like that over the years growing up in Oshawa, which is a mostly white place.

MG: You write that you came to resent your blackness.

DESMOND COLE: Yes. I didn't want to be different. When your parents tell you, you got to be twice as good as a black person, Desmond. You resent- I resented that. I didn't want to hear that. I just wanted to fit in.

MG: School is a huge part of this. I mean, part of that is about the crayon, but also what happens in school. How would you describe the way that school boards in Ontario interact with black children?

DESMOND COLE: I think that school boards in this province see black students as a problem to be solved. The level of discipline against black students in Ontario schools is- it's really, really completely unacceptable and so high and so frequent. I tell a couple of stories in the book. One about a six year old girl who is handcuffed in her school in Mississauga, a six year old black student who is just having a bad day and needed some care and support. Instead, the school called the police on her. You know, we live in a country, Matt, where a lot of us hear stories like that and we know it's a black student immediately because of the pattern of these kinds of behaviour. Black students suspended three times to one, to white students. Black kids put into lower streaming so that they can't qualify to go to university, or told that they don't belong in university. Black kids put into English as a second language when they're born in Toronto or another part of Ontario because their parents weren't. These are patterns that we see across the education system.

MG: Toronto District School Board sent us a statement with some numbers on this, saying that black students account for something like 11 percent of the student population in 2017, represented approximately a third of suspensions or expulsions. This represents, and this is a quotation, a small closing of the gap that has traditionally existed with regards to the rate that black students are suspended relative to others, that they talk about improved understanding of systemic racism through professional learning among staff, efforts to focus on cooperative ways of resolving conflict, removing barriers that has led to positive change for students. Do you think that the boards are- they putting in the work to try and close those gaps. Are they putting in the work to try and address those issues?

DESMOND COLE: It's not a gap. It's not a 50 year plan. At the rate they're going, if they want us to believe that it would change every year, we would need 30, 40, 50 years to, as they say, close the gap. It's not a gap. This is, again, where a philosophy of abolition is the only philosophy that I'm interested in.

MG: Now, again, what does that mean? What does that mean when it comes to a school?

DESMOND COLE: It means stop suspending your student. Stop expelling your students. Matt, the gun violence issues in the city of Toronto have been one of the number one stories in this city for the past two years. Why does no one make the connection to poverty in the city of Toronto and to the expulsion of black students, which further alienates them. We've heard so many times the impact of not giving kids a place at school where they feel welcome or they feel like they have an environment to learn. We push kids out of the education system and we have this huge epidemic of violence and anti-social behaviour.

MG: Pushing kids out of education, suspensions or expulsions, is that not a necessary tool in a classroom if things are disruptive, if things are out of control?

DESMOND COLE: Yes. If you want the outcomes and this is where we always get to. So if people are accepting that the price of kicking black students out of school will be that we won't really have the same ability to influence and care for them. But then we have a good police force that we can spend billions like. At what point does this stop?

MG: What's the answer then to the teacher or to the administrator who has a child in school where it's not- the situation is untenable. If they look at expulsion or suspension as the tool that they're going to deploy and you're going to take that tool away, what's the answer for those types of things?

DESMOND COLE: I just don't think like it's not a doomsday clock, like a bomb's not about to go off in the classroom. If we keep a misbehaving student there. We have to stop doing this. And especially in the context of black people, like we have to stop saying that if there aren't police, that black people will run amuck in the city. We have to stop saying that unless we suspend kids, the black people will ruin the education for everybody else. And that we never explicitly say that these tools are all for black people. But every prison in Canada, every social welfare agency in Canada is dealing more and more with black people. Black women are the highest growing population in the federal prison system in Canada. This is not my idea of diversity. This is my idea of anti black racism and just asking for remedies that slightly reduce the amount of violence and suffering. That's not good enough for our country.

MG: You write in the book about some of the criticism that you faced for your work. One of it is just people will say to you that you make everything about race. How do you respond to that?

DESMOND COLE: Everything is about race. Everything is about race. How come Meghan Markle and Prince Harry can come live in Canada if they don't feel like living in the UK anymore? How come? Because the same family that tried to conquer the entire world is still sitting on top of everything, and they can get people over here to Canada and our families who don't have money, who don't have status, who aren't white princes and kings, we can't reunite with our families in this country.

MG: You've used the phrase black liberation a few times. What does that mean to you?

DESMOND COLE: Black liberation for me means that all of these obstacles that are in our paths as black people every day wouldn't exist. It means that the physical and metaphorical chains that white supremacy has made for us will finally be smashed. What little crumbs we are being offered as black people, these little reforms in the face of so much violence, they are not good enough for me and I don't know how to liberate myself and my community unless I truly ask for what I want. That overhaul is possible if we can dream all of these other things and all of these other worlds. Or if we can realise that the world that we're living in right now is just one possibility, we can imagine another thing and we can try to get there.

MG: There's a lot of hard reading in this book, I think for people and hard listening in the conversation. Things that that people will find difficult to hear. They might take offence to. They might be pushed back by- they could say that what you're saying is radical. For example, how does that word strike you?

DESMOND COLE: That's fine.

MG: Do you need radical thinking to address what you're talking about?

DESMOND COLE: Human beings need radical thinking, right? Of course, I do think that we need radical thinking. And I think that that thinking, like I said before him, really involves not what individuals are thinking or doing or what individuals intentions are. Matt, if somebody comes into your office every day and works with you and every day they walk by and they step on your foot and then they say, oh, shoot Matt and see there. I'm so sorry. After a week, whether this person's being real that they saw you there or not, all the toes on your feet are broken now. And all I'm saying is that black people are tired of being stepped on; housing, labour, prison, education, any social indicator in this country, we're getting stomped on.

MG: Just finally, where do you find hope? Where's was optimism in the life of Desmond Cole?

DESMOND COLE: In the fight. The hope is literally in the fact that I am alive. I also had a whole chapter devoted to taking time out to literally smell the flowers. I'm a very big lover of nature, of birds.

MG: You see posted up on social media all the time. A picture of a flower, a picture of a...

DESMOND COLE: Well, yes, I need that, too. I think we all do need that desperately. We need beauty in our lives all the time. Every single one of us. And I find hope and joy in the natural world. And again, if you want to talk about radical thinking, the ice caps are melting and we can have a conversation there, too, about whose fault it is or what the intentions of people creating carbon is. But it's not going to stop the ice caps. Radical thinking in every sphere of human existence right now. People can call me a radical. It's a compliment.

MG: Desmond Cole, thank you.

DESMOND COLE: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Desmond Cole's new book is called The Skin We're in a Year of Black Resistance and Power. He was with me in our Toronto studio. That is The Current for today. Stay tuned to CBC Radio One for Q. Alexia Cara, host of the Juno Awards. Extraordinary singer songwriter performer. She has six nominations for the Junos and she's the real deal. They hear why coming up on CBC Radio One. You can listen to that, of course, through the CBC Listen app, where you can also download podcasts, including The Current podcast and The Current weekly podcast, which features some of the best things of the week from us. We're going to leave you with some of the best music from this country, from a band called Arkells. They're from Hamilton, Ontario. They have a new project. It's a nudge to get people to pay for news. If you prove to Arkells that you have subscribe to any journalistic platform for a year, they will send you a T-shirt with a typewriter on it. Beautiful image of a typewriter. Our Cal is trying to get people to support journalists and journalistic endeavours. Here's their ode to journalists. It's Arkells in Whistleblower. I'm Matt Galloway, thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song: Whistleblower by Arkells]

The Current Transcript for February 6, 2020

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Coronavirus on two quarantined cruise ships

Airbnb rules to curb violent incidents; Conditions and frustration in Wuhan

What's it like to be black in Canada? Under policing, it's hell, says Desmond Cole

Thursday February 6, 2020 Full Transcript

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