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The Current Transcript for May 12, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: Coming through COVID-19, we see that money can in fact be redistributed in society. We have to organize and push the governments to listen to us, what we want and what we need.

MATT GALLOWAY: Remember Fridays for Future when students around the world walked out of class to protest climate change. Well that, like so much of the world from before, has fallen by the wayside in this pandemic. In an hour, how this moment has derailed protest movements around the globe and the push for change. Also this morning, are you tired of working from home? Wondering what's going back to the office might look like? A peek into the crystal ball on the future of work, coming up in half an hour. And later, what were you doing when you were 15?

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VOICE: The main message was really like, don't get your hopes up. I was just telling myself like it's not the end of the world if it doesn't get published.

MG: Chances are you didn't have an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine when you were 15. A conversation with a young man who did. Plus, the health writer Andre Picard on why he thinks Quebec students should not be back in school right now. We begin though, at the university where classes will look a whole lot different come this fall. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is an extended edition of The Current.

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As universities move online, students worry about value for money

Guests: Christopher Zwaagstra, Jack Sydney, Alex Usher

MG: Well it's actually happening. Zoom is the new university lecture hall. This week, the University of Victoria SFU, McGill University and the University of Montreal announced that the Fall 2020 semester will take place primarily online. UBC says it will keep large classes online, while certain small classes will be held in person. Is video conferencing a true substitute for the real physical classroom? Allie Hurry is a law student at McGill and she's not so sure, especially because students are not likely to get a break on their tuition.

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VOICE: So they had a town hall last Friday and they said that they didn't plan to have tuition be any different because they were planning on having the same quality of education available to us, which ironically, despite their very best efforts, like it's just really not the same quality of education, no matter how much effort is put into it. And it should be reflected in tuition.

MG: International students are also worried they pay even higher fees. Ye En Kim is from Korea and is studying bioengineering at McGill.

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VOICE: As a international student, I pay roughly about $350 per day, which makes $50,000 a year. If it's only on online, I believe that I can not resume my studies here because I appreciate lots of experience. But if I'm paying a lot, but not earning those experience, I don't want to make my mom to pay all that lots of high tuition because I feel guilty about it.

MG: Christopher Zwaagstra has just finished pre-med at McGill and a starting medical school there in the fall. Jack Sydney is going into second year math and computer science, also at McGill. They're both with us now. Good morning to you both.

JACK SYDNEY: Hi.

CHRISTOPHER ZWAAGSTRA: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MG: Christopher, let's start with you. How did you react to the news that courses in the fall 2020 semester would largely be online?

CHRISTOPHER ZWAAGSTRA: Well, it's not a very pleasant piece of news there because as a medical student, it's really important to get that well-rounded approach with both physical and theoretical aspects. So I don't really know how we'll effectively get the education that we need next year. So, yeah, it's looking a little bit glum for us.

MG: Jack, what about for you? What was your reaction when you learned that you would not be in class this fall?

JACK SYDNEY: Yeah, I mean, I had a similar outlook on it. Obviously, it would be very preferable to be there in person, but I also understand why they didn't go ahead and do that.

MG: Things started to give the sense that this was going to be happening a couple of months ago when this pandemic really took hold and classes that were happening in the classroom were then moved online. Christopher, how well did that go for you compared to being actually in a lecture hall?

CHRISTOPHER ZWAAGSTRA: I think it went relatively well given the time they had to prepare for it. But of course it it's hard to compare with actual in-class learning, some of the downsides where the difficulties of zoom. So some people had to deal with spotty Wi-Fi or technical difficulties, as I don't know. unmuting yourself or making sure that you catch all the slides or somebody would cut out and you miss information. Another tricky part is staying on top of everything. There's less motivation when you're not actually going to class. And even for the teachers I found, sometimes the lectures would be posted late just because there's not as much of an accountability there.

MG: What do you mean and I want to bring Jack in in a moment, what do you mean less motivation? Because it's the same or similar material, presumably that's being presented, but because you're not there face to face, you feel less compelled to do it?

CHRISTOPHER ZWAAGSTRA: Precisely because it's because it's on the computer and sometimes the lectures are pre-recorded. So you could take to do it any time. You really have to be a driving force behind your motivation. So it's possible, but not preferable.

MG: Jack, what was it like for you as your maths and computer science courses moved online?

JACK SYDNEY: Yeah, I mean, I guess for computer science and maths, those two subjects, I guess lend themselves more easily for remote learning. But there definitely was a big struggle to kind of adapt mentally to the whole idea that you're in your home now. You really need to be on top of it yourself and that was definitely hard at first.

MG: What did you miss?

JACK SYDNEY: I mean, I loved at school just being able to go to the library and separate kind of my personal life from my academic life, if that makes sense. So obviously that's not possible, you know, in the quarantine lifestyle. So it was very hard to kind of, exactly as Christopher was saying, co-ordinate when I was going to do work and bring myself to do it in the timeline that I needed to. But ultimately, it worked out.

MG: What about extra curricular? I mean, going to school, a huge part of it, obviously, is the education, but it's an experience as well. And you pay for and you sign up for that experience. What did you miss when it came to extracurriculars, Jack?

JACK SYDNEY: Yeah, I was part of the Bull and Bear, which is a McGill News magazine. And I mean, obviously, everyone tried their best to keep up with writing articles and a lot of people were able to. But obviously, there was a lot of other stuff going on and that definitely suffered from not being able to communicate in person. And so I can't foresee that ir'll be able to run as well as it did in past semesters.

MG: Did you feel like your educational experience was diminished at all because you couldn't be face to face in those extra curricular environments?

JACK SYDNEY: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it was kind of like the whole month and a half that we had online at home was kind of like you were just working on a project over the weekend because you still had that kind of academic work that you had to do, but there was none of that other aspect of school that really makes it great.

MG: Christopher, what happens in the fall? You're going into med school. How is med school going to unfold online? Do you have any sense?

CHRISTOPHER ZWAAGSTRA: Not a ton. I assume that the theoretical aspects be very similar to the classes that we had last semester, but we're still waiting on details. I know that the statement that produced by McGill said that classes will be held primarily online. So perhaps we're part of the kind of the exit clause in that primarily. Maybe med school labs will will still happen in person? Where they were distancing or fewer numbers. Kind of hoping for that because it's difficult to dissect virtuall, if you know what I mean.

MG: Do you know is there any, I mean, but you haven't heard anything specifically from the university about this?

CHRISTOPHER ZWAAGSTRA: Not specifically about how med school is going to unfold. Yeah, they're keeping in touch with us, but they haven't made a definitive decision about that yet.

MG: Do you think there's any way that, you know, safely you could be brought onto campus? I don't know whether you're talking with with other students or friends or colleagues or anything like that.

CHRISTOPHER ZWAAGSTRA: I think it's possible to have a comprehensive approach because as medical students, we do have a good understanding of cross-contamination and the risks that we're facing. But given the reduced numbers in labs it would be easier to keep distance. If we need to wear masks, I'm comfortable with that and we're already wearing of course, lab coats and gloves. So I feel like the risk would be relatively low. And if we don't have our hands on approach, I don't know. It almost seems like a bit of a disservice to the public because we're the doctors of the next generation and we really need that physical aspect.

MG: Have you given any consideration, Christopher, to deferring a year. If this year, this fall is not going to be a typical start to med school, have you thought about putting it on pause for a year until things settle?

CHRISTOPHER ZWAAGSTRA: I haven't considered it as of yet. It's possible, but personally I'd prefer not to not to extend the time of education would take just because the medical career already takes so long to get into.

MG: What about you, Jack? Are you confident that things will unfold the way that they should unfold, or would you consider stepping aside for a year and just whether you take a gap year, whether you work if you know work is available until things come back to normal?

JACK SYDNEY: You know, I don't think I would just because I'm the kind of person that likes to work, you know, all the time. So I wouldn't want to kind of delay my life by a semester unless I mean there was something to do with the pandemic that I could help out with and that was the reason why I was delaying a semester. But I don't foresee myself doing that, no.

MG: Part of this is about value for money and getting what you pay for. And I know, Christopher, you signed a petition that's asking for a partial refund intuition for the past term, the winter 2020 term. Why did you sign that?

CHRISTOPHER ZWAAGSTRA: I find it because well there's clearly services that we no longer have access to. So, yeah, I'll stress the fact partially because I know that they're still providing us with a lot of services, but things like the student wellness hub that we don't have access anymore and perhaps the library where I spend a lot of my time just because they had some great resources and turns out the chairs are good for your back. It was a better environment. So there's that. And also some of we ran into the notion that some of our elections we were getting from last semester like they were already recorded last semester. So at that point, we weren't even getting the full services from teachers or lecturers. So I felt as though I'd be nice if some of the economic weight came off our shoulders cause there's clearly some things we don't have to cover any more.

MG: And so if you don't get the full suite of services that you would pay for in med school this fall, do you want the university to cut you a break on that part of the tuition as well?

CHRISTOPHER ZWAAGSTRA: Hopefully. Particularly the labs, because that's a massive part of the experience.

MG: What about for you, Jack, do you want some of your money back?

JACK SYDNEY: I'm luckily in a position where money is not such a pressing issue for my education right now, but I think that the university should increase their support for students who do find that a problem and who have been upended because of the whole situation. At the same time, I don't know that the university should necessarily do a full or partial refund for everyone, especially because they still have to support all of their staff who are, you know, just as this place as we are right now.

MG: If you could say one thing, Christopher, to the administrators at McGill, what would you say to them?

CHRISTOPHER ZWAAGSTRA: That's an interesting question. I'd say just consider the downstream effects of how they're going to conduct education next semester. I understand if it's a more theoretical course, that's fine to have it online, but it's also the doctors of the next generation so we need to be careful that we're well prepared with a comprehensive approach.

MG: Good luck to you both. It's great to talk to you. Thank you.

JACK SYDNEY: Thank you.

CHRISTOPHER ZWAAGSTRA: Thanks for having me.

MG: Christopher Zwaagstra is an incoming medical student at McGill University. Jack Sydney is entering his second year in math and computer science, also at McGill. Alex Usher has been listening in. He's a consultant in strategic planning and counselling for post-secondary institutions and president of Higher Education Strategy Associates in Toronto. Alex, good morning to you.

ALEX USHER: Hi there.

MG: Are you surprised that universities like McGill are moving online largely for the fall semester?

ALEX USHER: Nope. This has been pretty clear, I think, since they shut down in in March that given the nature of the virus and the way it spreads and, you know, the number of people are saying that, you know, the virus susceptibility, the virus is really about time in enclosed space in the universe. You spend a lot of time in closed spaces with a lot of other people. And I don't think you're going to see universities really reopen for full face to face until, you know, until the Leafs are playing again. Right? If you can imagine 15,000 people in a hockey arena or watching soccer at BMO, you know that that's about when you're going to see universities reopen to. They're about the same level or risk.

MG: So you need a vaccine. You're looking at like 18-24 months.

ALEX USHER: Well it could be a vaccine. It could be just that you've got the the the chains of transmission down the way they do in in South Korea or Taiwan. I mean, you know, there are places that have managed to control the virus to an extent where those kinds of things are allowed. But yeah, it's a long way in the future. It's probably midway or late through the fall at the earliest. And so, yeah, that's the future we're looking at.

MG: In the meantime, what is the biggest challenge facing universities in terms of creating an online learning program?

ALEX USHER: Well, you know, what I really liked in those earlier interviews was actually I think the students were basically saying we don't just pay to go to learn things. We pay to learn with other people. And so I think finding a way to create that sense of community is is the biggest challenge that institutions have. It's not anything else really. It's it's the community and the interaction that students get. That's what they're going to miss. I mean, at a technical level, you've got thirty forty thousand profs across the country that have to relearned pedagogy to a certain extent. Right. There's a lot of people who've never taught online. It's a very different kind of experience. The way that you chunk your class, the way that you sort of divide up an individual lesson into different pieces is different. The way that you assess is different. The way that you interact with students is different. And you see you really have to redesign to do it well, you have to redesign your courses from the ground up. I think one of the problems that we have as a system is that universities don't actually own the courses that they give. Right. Effectively, it's the professors that do. And if the professor shows up and says, I want to give exactly the same course I did last year, only I'm gonna be lecturing on zoom in front of the classroom. That's going to be a disaster. So, you know, whatever support we can give profs, they help them, you know, think about their pedagogy and redesign the courses. And that's going to take an awful lot of hours out of the summer. You know, we have to be able to give it to them because that's the only way the students are going to get an education. That is that keeps them alert. Right. I think one of your students was talking about the difficulty of staying alert in front of a screen. That's huge. It's absolutely huge. And if we don't do that, I think we're going to see very high levels of dropout.

MG: The other part of this is about and Jack raised this. I mean, yes, you go for education, but you also go and you've hinted at this for the experience of being in school, whether you're in first year and you live in residence or whether you're involved in extracurriculars. Does the university need to figure out whether and McGill has, I guess, hinted that this is not going to be the case, but that people are going to need to get some sort of break on tuition because they're not getting everything that they would pay for.

ALEX USHER: So I think you've seen McGill's announcement was actually pretty clear that they were going to do their best to try and do something positive around the student experience. And they were going to have a co-curricular extracurricular trying stuff that they would try to bring people in on virtually. I have no idea how they're going to do that. Best of luck to them. I mean, I understand everybody's I mean, on the issue of refunds. I completely understand why white students thinks they're not getting what they're paying for. On the other hand, you have to understand that institutions are probably looking at a hit of depending on where you are, between about 5 and 15 percent of their income.

MG: Is that the fault of the students though? I mean then we can talk about whether governments need to bail out these universities. But if you're a student and education is as expensive as it is right now, you want to get value for money, don't you?

ALEX USHER: Well, yeah. But I mean, if you take away more money then the product is going to be even worse. Right. So you end up in this kind of spiral. And so, I mean, I'm sympathetic to students, but look, everybody is hurting in the pandemic. Everybody is. It's unfair to everybody that we're, you know, losing income. We're losing months of our lives to this kind of stuff. This is you know, and I would say for students, one of the things you need to remember is there are some students who are getting up to $8000 from the federal government for replacement income, for working or an increased need based grants. So the idea that there are that they're financially penalized, I have a little bit of trouble with. Because it's true the institutions aren't giving them something, but the Government of Canada sure is.

MG: You talked about dropout rates. Could you imagine that there would be a number of students perhaps going into first year who would say, you know what, I'm going to take this year and do something else and I'll come back when I get the full complement that going to university is going to present to me.

ALEX USHER: Yeah, I think especially you'll see that from international students for the reasons that your South Korean student was talking about.

MG: Paying $350 a day.

ALEX USHER: Exactly right. And and I think part of the issue for domestic students though, is what's the alternative? Normally, if you take a gap year, you go travelling or you work. And it's not clear that either of those are really an option for the next 12 months. So I understand that, I think where you're going to see it the most are classes where labs are a big deal and the institution is not able to provide labs. I think some will, but not all. But the you know, I think you're probably looking you can get, you know, 15, 20 percent of the students in places like engineering and science, chemistry, physics, those kinds of places. I could certainly see people trying to drop out this year because really, it's not just that there's no alternative, it's that the product really isn't what they're paying for at all. In a way that's a little bit different than, say, in arts or social sciences.

MG: In the last few seconds that we have, this seems to be the way that schools are moving for the fall and we're, what, four months away until the fall semester starts. What's the one thing that the schools need to do now to get ready?

ALEX USHER: They need to be investing everything in instructional design and learning how to teach online. I would say that's one thing and the other thing is they need to listen to students. I'm a little concerned that some of the institutions out there, they're doing a lot of planning and they're doing what's convenient for professors. But I think they need to a lot more listening to students and how they're going to experience the fall and what they absolutely need to see to come back and be productive and that kind of thing. The stuff that you were just talking about with your students beforehand, you know, that stuff has to be part of the decision making process.

MG: That experience is such a big part of going to school.

ALEX USHER: Absolutely.

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

ALEX USHER: Take care.

MG: Alex Usher is the president of Higher Education Strategies Associates in Toronto. We did request comment from McGill University. No one was available to speak with us this morning. We'd love to hear from professors, from students and from parents. What are you thinking about as the fall semester gets closer? Professors, what are you worried about in terms of creating a course that could largely be online? Students, are you going to get what you pay for in terms of value for money and that experience? And parents who have a huge role in this as well, what are you thinking? Would you advise your child to continue on to maybe take a year, although what would they do in that year off? Let us know how you're processing the news that many university courses could be offered online in this fall semester. You can reach us through the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link or e-mail us thecurrent@cbc.ca. The news is next. And then from school to work. We're going to talk about what work could look like coming up this fall. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

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Experimenting with your work day shouldn't end with pandemic, says psychologist

Guests: Adam Grant

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

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MG: Still to come, protesting at a distance how activists are adapting with online protests. But first, rapid change in the way we work.

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MG: Well, maybe the virus that changes everything the way we work, learn, play, how we function as a society. As part of our season long series, The Fix, we are looking at how COVID-19 has altered our lives, how it's forced us to acknowledge longstanding problems and how we could go about fixing those issues. One of the most dramatic changes in our lives has been the way that Canadians work. Millions have lost their jobs. Others are still working, but adjusting to a new normal. Take, for example, the Grovenor School in Edmonton. Teachers at the elementary school are trying to roll out digital lessons plans, and it's been a big undertaking. Here's the principal, Cori Fraser.

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VOICE: One of the biggest transitions was having everybody learn all of the platforms. Just teachers who have been historically really expert teachers. They've been teaching for a long time. They are really, really good in the classroom, they've never had to learn. Google Classroom and Google Meet and Google Hangouts and all of those things. That's never been part of their normal. And once we got the platforms down pat, then we had to teach that to families and students and we went really slow. It was one of those go-slow to be able to go fast later on.

MG: To discuss what that later on could mean for our work lives, I'm joined by Adam Grant. He's an organizational psychologist with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of a number of books, including Originals: How Non-conformists Move Our World. He hosts the podcast WorkLife and joins us now. Adam, good morning.

ADAM GRANT: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Our work life has changed so dramatically in such a short period of time. There are a number of people, as I mentioned, many, many millions around the world who have lost their jobs. There are others who are working, but they're working in a completely different way. If you stand back and look at what's happened, how significant do you think the shift is?

ADAM GRANT: Oh, I think it would be hard to overstate how significant it is. I have spent the last five, six years trying to convince workplaces around the world that we should at least try remote work one day a week. And I got more pushback that you could possibly imagine saying there's no way we could ever expect people to be productive and focussed and collaborative. And now a lot of the world has shifted to being fully remote and we're discovering that it can actually work.

MG: Is it working?

ADAM GRANT: I think it's working in some ways, not in others. So we know from controlled experiments that when people work from home, their productivity often goes up. They appreciate the autonomy and flexibility that they have. They also take it as a sign of trust from their employer, and they reciprocate that with loyalty and gratitude and commitment. And they're less likely to leave over the next six months. But there is a cost when it comes to communication and coordination. And I think that's one of the big challenges we're all grappling with right now.

MG: Let's talk a little bit about what the workday looks like. For a lot of us, I mean, whether it's 9 to 5 or 8 to 4, whatever, you be in the office, you spend a time, a period of time in the office, and that's when you did your work. What has what we're going through now taught us about time at work and the workday itself?

ADAM GRANT: Well, I think it has taught us that the time we saved in not having to commute is easily being taken up by all of the Zoom or video clips that we're being dragged into.

MG: I think for a lot of people, the workday has expanded. I've seen some evidence that people are now working two to three hours later or longer and a typical day than they would have before, you know, trying to squeeze things and after their kids are in bed or before they wake up. And I think that's that's made a lot of people really, really struggle with time management. And I actually think, Matt, that time management is the wrong way to think about this. You know, if you if you try to manage your time better, you just become more aware of how many hours you waste. And there are only 24 hours in each day. So what I'd like to see more people do is shift a tiny management and say, look, there are different points in a day where you're most likely to be effective in different kinds of tasks. So take, for example, your circadian rhythm. I would start as a morning person that I should do my my most creative work in the morning. That's what I'm most alert. But the evidence suggests that actually if you have more creative ideas when you're off cycle at night, I'm more likely to be a little bit unfocused, less linear, less structured. And that means I have a better shot at Eureka moments. So I think we all need to be running the kinds of experiments to adjust when we do particular tasks and figure out if there's a sequence that works better.

MG: But the downside of that is that you're working all the time in some ways. And people are saying and anecdotally you'll hear it and I don't know whether there's studies been done yet, but certainly you'll hear it anecdotally that because the office is now my, you know, kitchen table or my couch or the bed where I'm sitting with my laptop that that idea of work-life balance has just been erased because work is everything. And it's in my life at all different times. Is it possible to the you know, that phrase is unscramble the egg, now that this is happening, are we going to be able to get some of that balance back?

ADAM GRANT: I don't know. It's a great question. I talked to the banker recently who said, you know, I have great work life balance. I have work and that's my life.

MG: That sounds really depressing, actually.

ADAM GRANT: I think, you know, one thing we should all be clear about is there's a spectrum of of what's often called integration to segmentation. So integrators are very happy to bring their work home and and even take their families to work and blur the lines, whereas segmenter is like to have a strict boundary between work and home. And if you look at the data gathered over the past decade or so, segmented is actually have higher well-being and happiness. And so I think there's a risk right now that we think we blur. We're going to have a hard time recovering those boundaries. And I've seen some people try creative ways of solving that. My favourite one so far has been people who who actually will change clothes when it's time to work and then change into a non-work outfit just to signal a transition into a different part of the day.

MG: You'll also hear I mean, again, whether it's a Zoom call or socially, people will say, well, it's 5 o'clock and, you know, you can stop and you can have a cocktail. You could go for a walk. I mean, people will try to draw some sort of artificial line. I just don't know whether that does anything in terms because the work is still going to be there when you return.

ADAM GRANT: Yeah, I think mental segmentation can only go so far. I think being able to separate physical space also helps. So to the extent that you can put your office in a room that's different from your kitchen table and it could be a step in the right direction. But I think these are these are probably all steps that are like putting lipstick on a pig.

MG: The other part of this is that this does not shake down equally among families. There was a piece in The New York Times this weekend that a lot of people were reading. The title of the article said nearly half of men say they do most of the home schooling, 3 percent of women agree. Do we know what this new normal has done when it comes to gendered divides in work, whether it's work in the home or how we process work that normally would be taking place out of the home?

ADAM GRANT: I think it's too early to know for sure, but I would say that we'd all be fooling ourselves if we think all of a sudden the fact that everyone's at home has solved the gender divide. We've we've known now for decades that women do more than their share of childcare and housework in the home. Even when you know, when both members of a couple work and I think it would be it would be wonderful if that that divide were raised. I think the reality is that people still gravitate toward traditional gender roles. And so it's easy for men to overestimate their contributions, to want to be celebrated for occasionally doing the dishes or helping with math and I think that obviously needs to change.

MG: Is there the possibility that what has been revealed in this moment, because if we are stuck at home and we're lucky enough to still be working, we see things differently, perhaps that that could shape what happens when we get out of this moment that we may have a better understanding of, you know, how people are working and in the home in particular, and that those gender divides might change?

ADAM GRANT: I think it's possible. I think one thing that that might be encouraging is one thing we've done in psychology for decades is we've gathered people, sometimes members of married couples, sometimes members of a work team, and we've asked them to estimate the total percentage of the work that they do. So how much do you contribute? And it turns out that most of us overestimate our contribution. So if you look at couples, three out of four, when they do, their individual estimates will add up to over 100 percent. And work teams, if you get a team of five, they'll often add up to over 200 percent. And so you start to wonder, OK, how do we calibrate that better? And the answer is we have to become more aware of what other people are contributing when we're all at home. It's easier to see what our partners are doing. And that actually makes us less overconfident about our our own value added. And I think as we realise, we're not necessarily carrying our weight, that may become the motivation to step up a little bit.

MG: If you're the boss and your team is working from home, presumably it can be trickier to manage them than if you happen to be in the office and you can wander through and say hello and check in on what people are up to. Have a listen to Paul Bellows. He's the founder of Yellow Pencil. This is a web design company in Edmonton.

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VOICE: The more challenging place from a leadership and management perspective is, I think, just managing your own mindfulness, your own emotional control, just being aware that everyone has 20 percent more stress and anxiety in their life, even if it's just environmental or just cognitive overload of all the information and what's going to happen and how am I going to get groceries this week. And so as a manager, we've had to be very flexible. We've had to say, you know, you take the time you need. If you need to take two hours and go to the grocery store when it's not as you want to clock, you know, do that, come back, work a little later. There's a lot of personal managers that comes into that, you know, needing to be there, to be emotionally present you with your own anxiety and then show up to be actively listening to your team and understanding what they need and participate in helping them to be part of the solution. And also recognizing a lot of people have things going on that are just more important than work right now.

MG: Adam Grant, how has what we're in right now changed the expectations that managers and leaders might have of us?

ADAM GRANT: Well, I think it's changed some of them for the better and some of them for the worse. I think you hear plenty of managers like Paul who say, look, I need to be more compassionate and more flexible. And I think that's good news. We've also seen a rise, though, in micromanagement with stick with companies trying to monitor their employees keystrokes.

MG: I read about this. There was some software that's been circulating which allows the boss to see, you know, how much time you're spending on work and how much time you're spending on Twitter.

ADAM GRANT: Yeah, which I think is a tragedy because we know that not only does monitoring employees that closely undermine their intrinsic motivation, it actually also backfires by making managers more suspicious, because if you go around looking for somebody shirking, you're going to find them and then you start to believe this behaviour might be a lot more common than it really is.

MG: How could managers be more trusting? I mean in having that understanding that if your employee is working from home and is juggling all the things that working from home entails, you're not going to be able to get a hundred percent out of them in the way that you might when they're at the office.

ADAM GRANT: Yeah, I do think managers need to adjust their expectations a little bit. And this is true for individual employees to have. I've talked with so many people over the last few months who said, OK, look, this is a horrible situation, but at least I'm going to be able to have a super productive spring. And the reality is that none of us really plan for all the interruptions that we're going to be happening throughout our days. And so I think managers need to be aware of that. I think the other thing that I'd love to see more managers do is say, OK, look, instead of micromanaging, what if I got better at macro managing, which is recognising there's a lot of uncertainty right now. And the best way I can support my employees is trying to give them clarity about how our mission is evolving, what their contribution might be, how they're adding value to the team and make sure they know how much their work matters.

MG: You tweeted "Being virtual doesn't erase power or status. Those who speak loudest and longest tend to drive the agenda, even if they don't have the best ideas." How has the fact that we're working online changed the power dynamics that might be unfolding in the office?

ADAM GRANT: I really wish Matt that they had changed them more. I think one thing we've already begun to notice when looking at Zoom interactions is the person with the authority in the room tends to dominate the conversation, and that means you often crowd out dissenting voices. It means that often women and minorities don't get heard as much. It also means that introverts have a harder time getting heard. I think one silver lining here though, is that we all have access to a chat window. And one thing I've noticed when leading group discussions is we've actually had richer discussions now virtually than we did face to face, because instead of calling on the person who's the most assertive, I actually get to see what the different viewpoints are. And then I can invite a variety of voices into that conversation.

MG: So there are side conversations that happen that wouldn't be possible face to face because you can't unless you're sliding notes back and forth across the table. You can't have a separate conversation if you're all in the same room.

ADAM GRANT: Exactly. In psychology, we've studied for decades an alternative to brainstorming called brain writing, where you take people at a brainstorming group and you have them first write down their ideas and then collect them all and discuss. And you get more ideas and better ideas if you go that route as opposed to diving right into conversation.

MG: So these are people, we're talking about people who are working. There are millions of people, as I mentioned, who are not working and find themselves whether they are out of a job or have fewer hours. Kelsey Collette lost her job as a legal assistant. She's staying home to look after her young children. Listen to her.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Right now my worry is just, you know, my future. I don't have any security, financial security. I have been home with my two children. It's been extremely difficult. I mean, it cost me my career. I don't think people really are understanding how difficult of a situation it is for people in my position. And there's definitely going to be more. They're just not being talked about. And I think the big thing is that there is nothing to protect employees that were put in a situation than I was. It sounds like we're protected, but at the end of the day, we're not.

MG: What sort of challenges do you think there'll be when people like Kelsey try to get their old jobs back?

ADAM GRANT: Well, my heart goes out to Kelsey and to everyone who has lost a job during this crisis. I think there are. I mean, they're micro and macro challenges from a macro standpoint. We definitely need to have new conversations about what a social safety net looks like and how we're going to make sure that people who can't necessarily count on a former employer for support will be able to get by. I think on a micro level, one of the biggest challenges has to do with the, you know, the ongoing feelings of rejection, a failure of disappointment. We know that when people lose their jobs, there's obviously the primary loss of of work and income. But there are also a series of secondary losses, which have to do with anxiety, blows to self-esteem and we need to manage those as well. There was actually an experiment done a few years ago where engineers who lost their jobs were just randomly assigned to keep a journal about their thoughts and feelings. And that active writing seems to significantly increase their odds of getting a job. There were over five times more likely than the control group to become employed in the next few months. And I am obviously not suggesting that writing is a solution to the problem of job loss. But it is it takes a lot of energy to suppress emotions, and I think expressing them can be a helpful step for people who are in this situation.

MG: There's been a lot of talk about what when we get out of this, what work will look like. And to some people and to. Personally, this is about the bottom line. The suggesting because so many people who are working are working from home, that that could be the way of the future. And you talked about trying to convince employers that the people should be able to work remotely one day a week now with everybody working remotely. Is that going to help predict the future path? Or are people going to be spending more time not in the office and more time actually working remotely?

ADAM GRANT: I think it's hard to know. I think it's reasonable to expect that most employers are going to be more flexible on remote work than they were before. But yeah, I think this is going to be something that varies from workplace to workplace. We do know from a meta analysis, a study of studies of telecommuters, that you see no cost to performance or satisfaction as long as people are in the office half the week. And so there is still a benefit of being face to face. It's hard to substitute for. I also think a lot of people are missing the office right now. And I've even heard people say, you know, I never thought I'd say this, but I really miss my boss. I think there will be people coming back to the office excited to have a separate place to work, to be surrounded by a community of colleagues and I don't think we should discount that possibility either.

MG: And there are all sorts of times at work where people can't work from home, for example. But in that office, presumably the employers could save a lot of money in real estate, for example. Wouldn't that be a driving force to try and get as many people to stay home as possible?

ADAM GRANT: Yeah, I think I think that's a draw. The idea that you can reduce costs real estate wise. I think many employers, though, have already made those investments. And so the question is, can they recoup them? I think that's an open question in a lot of places.

MG: When we go back to the office, what ways of working do you hope we bring back with us?

ADAM GRANT: I think the first thing I hope everyone brings back is, is just the idea of running experiments in the way that you work. I've seen so many people adjust their routines and I think that's all too rare. So, you know, rather than say, hey, there's one practise you should bring back to your workplace. Keep that mindset of saying, OK, what if we adjust when we meet? What if we rotate? Who's in charge of the meeting? What if we try out? Actually, this, you know, this idea of having everyone write down their thoughts, even when we're face to face in the same room before we start talking. And I think just being willing to adapt and change is one of the best ways to learn.

MG: What if you're the boss? What should the boss be thinking about? Just and again, in terms of how to ensure that your employees aren't working constantly and feel as though their contributions are being valued in whatever the new world is going to look like.

ADAM GRANT: I think for anybody who's the boss, the first thing you want to do is recognize that part of what makes your job meaningful is trying to help other people understand the meaning of their work. And you know, when I see a lot of leaders do as they try to inspire people by saying, look, you know, here's why your work is important. Here's the impact that you have on our customers or clients or end users and that can be effective. I found in some of my research though that sometimes it works better to outsource inspiration and say, hey, you know what? If we have grateful clients or customers, let's actually invite them to tell their stories and talk about why the work matters to them.

MG: And then you get to hear directly from the people you serve. Do you miss the office?

ADAM GRANT: Do I miss the office? No, I do not.

MG: Honesty's the best policy. Adam, good to speak with you. Thank you.

ADAM GRANT: You too. Thank you.

MG: Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He hosts a podcast called WorkLife. And he was in Philadelphia. Do you miss the office? Is there anything about the office that you miss. If you are lucky enough to be working from home, how has that played out? And are there things that maybe you want to bring back to the office when you get back there and things that you don't, for example, that erasure that Adam was talking about between work and the rest of your life because your work is your life now. Let us know through the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link.

Listeners finish Michael Lista’s story

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. We have been experimenting with a bit of a creative writing project to while away some time during this pandemic. We asked you to finish a short story, a very short story. The writer and poet Michael Lista wrote the first minute of the story. We asked you to pick up where he left off and end it in a minute or less. The stories we received were fantastic, funny, sweet, poignant. We can't air them all, but thanks to everybody who wrote in. We will over the course of this week, air as many of them as we can. Here's Michael Lista with the beginning of the story and then a reading of the ending sent in by Mark Forsythe in Fort Langley, British Columbia.

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MICHAEL LISTA: The girl threw the cup with the string attached to the neighbour boy. She'd made a telephone that was just for them and had a cup of her own that she could talk to the boy through the cup, landed on the boy's bedroom window sill. Their parents had grounded them both, but she could still see him in his blue room with his Mickey Mouse clock on the wall. And she would wave and he would wave back. Sometimes he would dress up as Superman just for himself, and the girl would see him in his blue suit and his red cape and thought that he looked sad and brave. They used to play in the willow tree on their street, swinging from its long, sweet branches and laughing until the street lights would come on and their moms would call them home. The cup landed with a thump. The boy opened his window and put the cup to his ear. The girl pulled the line tight, almost tugging him out onto the laneway. Her voice travelled like a song over the string. I want to tell you something, she said.

VOICE: The Willow Tree, it's gone. The boy felt her voice trembled through the string telephone. Now it's just a pile of sawdust and ants. She sighed. The boy thought about how the willow leaves tickled their necks like feathers, how its branches sometimes whispered in the wind. How it was their tree when they weren't grounded. He peered down the street to where the willow was supposed to be. All he could see was Sky. Then the boy said, you know, Superman would fly up, circled the earth, and turn time backwards. A crow swooped past his window and caught at a cat creeping across the lawn. Or we could plant a new one came the girls reply, the string telephone went slack, a tin can hit the ground and rolled.

MG: These are so great. A reading of Mark Forsythe's ending to the story. Mark is a retired CBC radio host and writer in British Columbia. More of your stories coming up over the course of this week. Coming up on The Current, organizing in isolation. How activists are moving protests online and whether that actually is accomplishing much of anything. These are very different times and so some of the big issues that were at play before this pandemic maybe aren't getting the attention that they were before. What happens now to those issues and what happens to the people who are trying to raise them in our consciousness? We'll find out. Coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

[Music]

How the pandemic has shaped global protests

Guests: Randy Shek, Alienor Rougeot, Jonathan Pinckney, Dana R Fisher

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

SOUNDCLIP

[Sounds from protests]

MG: Maybe the quickest way to draw attention to a cause. Show up in big numbers and make a lot of noise. You saw it at the women's march last fall during the climate strikes. Then a pandemic hit and gathering got complicated. Roudabeh Kishi is with something called the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. In other words, she does research on protests.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: So unsurprisingly, we've seen a significant decline in demonstrations since the start of the pandemic. It's largely given the restrictions placed on movement around gathering people, trying to avoid being in large groups, etc. and especially coming out of 2019, the year of the mass social movements seen around much of the world. We've seen governments try to use the crisis as an excuse to push through policies that might expand their state power, for example. And so these facts has all the makings of fuelling a resurgence in these social movements that were seen before, especially as these restrictions begin to be lifted. For example, we saw more demonstrations reported across the Middle East last week than in any week since the beginning of the pandemic in early March. And the rates of demonstrations in the region now look really similar to what we were seeing before the pandemic and close to the start of 2020 for example. So in Lebanon, there's been a 67 percent increase in demonstrations in April. That was to the months prior. And unlike the peaceful uprisings of late 2019 that we were seeing, demonstrations now turned more violent with reports of vandalism, property damage, etc.

MG: That's Roudabeh Kishi, an expert on protests and political violence. Let's head to Hong Kong, where pro-democracy protests are resurfacing. More than 230 people were arrested this past Sunday. Randy Shek is a barrister helping to connect protesters to pro bono support. He's in Hong Kong. Randy, hello.

RANDY SHEK: Hi. Good morning.

MG: What was it like on the streets of Hong Kong today?

RANDY SHEK: Well, recently, it's getting restless again. Of course, before the epidemic hit, Hong Kong has been suffering months of street protest. Very violent street protests like petrol bombs are being used very frequently. But now the protests have resurfaced. They are of a much more peaceful nature as Hong Kong has, we always had very peaceful demonstrations alongside with very violent conflicts. But now the peaceful ones came out. Most of the time, people gather in shopping malls singing the song that cannot be sung with the glory to Hong Kong, which many looked at as a bit of an anthem of the whole movement. So there are hundreds of people gathering in various malls. In fact, there will be another one happening in about an hour's time at a shopping mall just near where I work. But the police coming in to disperse these people are often using pepper spray and using the pretext of this new social distancing regulations that came into force a few weeks ago to deal with the pandemic. So the protest hasn't really stopped, though the anger has been around simmering throughout the entire time.

MG: What have you heard from the protesters about how they kept their movement alive during three months of lockdown and didn't lose the momentum that they'd built up before the world changed?

RANDY SHEK: Yes, I think the focus changed during the time of the pandemic because it was quite impossible to go out to the streets. But a lot of effort online to maintain the momentum by information campaign, by encouraging each other that the fight is not over and there's a lot of regrouping. You know people start thinking about, you know, how to move on from here. But I think the international line has taken a much more important significance during those three months of lockdown, especially with a lot of international attention being put on the arrest of very senior peaceful up pro-democracy figures just a couple of weeks ago.

MG: Did you wonder whether the momentum could be maintained? Did you ever have a point when you thought maybe this will fizzle out because of the time that we're in right now?

RANDY SHEK: Well, I think it crossed many of our minds, you know, whether this whole movement will die the unexpected death. We'll certainly be the powers that we, of course know, they hope that would be the case. But no, as everybody has been so deeply touched by the protest and the anger continues. You know, there's a lot of simmering. And none of the issues that people raised not have been dealt with. So there were moments of concern or worried that the momentum will die down,, but I don't think it will. As the public health situation improves here and also there are quite, quite a few issues that being brought up now. For example, the legislation off national security laws in Hong Kong is being raised again by Beijing. And then, of course, the anti-facial covering law is going to be qualified on appeal. And there were threats of disqualification of pro-democracy legislators for following the regulations, the rules of the legislature, thereby allowing the filibustering and obstructing the passage off of the national anthem bill. So the political conflict, I think will very much continue even when public health becomes not as bad at issue.

MG: Randy, good to speak with you. Thank you.

RANDY SHEK: All right. Thank you.

MG: Randy Shek is a lawyer in Hong Kong. He works with protesters facing charges there as the street protests continue. Street protests are back in Hong Kong. Many activists in North America, though, are keeping their gatherings virtual. Remember those climate strikes inspired by Greta Thunberg last fall? The movement known as Fridays for Future is still happening, except these days the strikes are happening online. Alienor Rougeot coordinates their Toronto chapter. Ali, good morning to you.

ALIENOR ROUGEOT: Good morning.

MG: How has your activism changed because of the pandemic?

ALIENOR ROUGEOT: I'll be honest. At first, it kind of shattered everything. We organized a in-person meetings because they're quite important to encourage participation from everybody and we obviously demand change by gathering massively. So neither of these are an option anymore. So as you mentioned, we had to go online. And that feels very different. We also can't strike from school as much when some of our school has been cancelled and our work has been cancelled. So we've resolved to using different, I guess, methods. And a lot of our focus has just been on keeping the momentum, using this as a restructuring and recruiting period so that a stronger postand what is an online strike look like? An online strike? Usually we do this still on Fridays and we have one person, some organisation and a guest on a specific topic. So anything from, you know, the science behind climate, indigenous rights, we have, you know, workers rights and we have kind of an interview with them that we livestream. And folks can ask questions and we also encourage them. You know, we show them how we call our elected officials live on the call to give feedback on climate action, but they're usually those one hour livestreams.

MG: How effective do you think they've been in terms of getting people to still be engaged with the issue? But also, I mean, the point of the protest is to try and create some sort of change. How effective have they been, do you think?

ALIENOR ROUGEOT: Right. I mean, that's the thing. You know, sometimes I still try to think I've always putting pressure on governments. And right now I really don't think they feel that pressure from us. But so our goal is maybe less to put pressure on them right away. My big fear would be that we have to start over and not have the progress of this year of protests to accumulate. So a big focus is keeping that. We've actually been able to recruit much more and restructure and have more active participation from, for example, university campuses, which we didn't have before. And I think anybody that knows protests knows that once we have universities on board, things can go very quickly. So it's been more of that focus.

MG: If you think back to last fall when thousands of students across this country and around the world were walking of class on Fridays and this became a thing and people paid attention to it. How concerned are you about losing that momentum, that when everything changes, we'll talk about, you know, what else happens? But but when everything changes, all of that attention and all of that drive and that sense of passion just kind of gets shelved. Are you worried about momentum being squandered?

ALIENOR ROUGEOT: It was definitely my worry at first and it might still be a little bit. But as we progress in this crisis, that is becoming a big economic crisis as well. I'm also thinking there's so many lessons from Colvard that are relevant to climate. I mean, anything from government intervention in a crisis is important. Listening to science is relevant and crucial and lifesaving. You know, all these things that I think people are aware of. So hopefully that will reboost the rest. But I'll admit that we have a we have people that were just expecting another fall strike. And right now and we're telling them we won't do it if it's against public health recommendations. Yeah, there is a fear that we're going to lose people eventually.

MG: I mean the other reality is that life has changed and people's priorities are really different right now. People are losing their jobs. People are facing a public health crisis that is costing lives, that is forcing us to stay inside. That's changing everything. Has that affected me personally for you? Has that affected you in terms of your priorities suddenly shift?

ALIENOR ROUGEOT: It definitely changes everything. For example, you know, even as students, if we're gonna go back to school next year, if, you know, we're losing student jobs, things like that. One thing that it's made clear to a lot of us is that we can't go back to the normal we had before because the normal we had this war might ask us to produce and consume two times more to make back for that lost GDP and on a finite planet that won't work. So I think we definitely know that there's gonna be big limitations. And at the same time, somehow this recovery from cosied could be very in line with a green new deal or the principles of a just recovery because they would just demand, you know, investing in other jobs, investing in public health and having stronger social services for people that need that safety net for a while. So in a way, those policies could really make sense.

MG: How do you get people to pay attention to them at a time when people are worried about losing their family business, when they're worried about going outside, when they're worried that, you know, their loved one in long term care home could get sick with this virus?

ALIENOR ROUGEOT: The first part is you don't try to get everybody's attention and you respect the fact that some people are going through extreme hardship and that even if climate is going to be extreme, extremely hard and may be worse than coal, this situation eventually you respect that right now, people don't have that space to think about that. But we do try to get to those who are more simply, you know, just at home with not much to do and maybe with little hope. And we try to you know, we have much more frequent calls as a team. We have much more movie nights where we invite our usual supporters and these things won't lower emissions or save the planet, but they definitely allow us to continue a momentum show that we're committed to our community and and kind of give hope for a post-pandemic massive movement.

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

ALIENOR ROUGEOT: Thank you.

MG: Alienor Rougeot is the coordinator for Fridays for Future Toronto. Activists in Toronto and Hong Kong are by no means alone and trying to figure out how to protest during a pandemic. Jonathan Pinckney is the lead researcher with the Program on Non-Violent Action at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. Jonathan, good morning to you.

JONATHAN PINCKNEY: Good morning, Matt.

MG: As these protests start up again in Hong Kong, what do you make of how the protesters are trying to figure out how to operate in this new reality?

JONATHAN PINCKNEY: You know, it is certainly a question that many movements are dealing with all around the world. You know, you talked about your prior guests, the need to maintain momentum and in particular to keep public attention on the grievances or goals of the movement is something quite challenging when you can't gather tens of thousands of people in public spaces. But movements are really getting creative and innovative in how they're thinking about addressing that. So I think about, for instance, a protest in Israel where an opposition group gathers a large number of people in a public square, but was careful to place them roughly two meters apart so that they would continue to abide by physical distancing rules.

MG: That was a really powerful image that came out. And I mean, one of the things that people saw in that was that you can still protest, but you have to figure out the new reality. What do you think was the effectiveness in making that image seen around the world?

JONATHAN PINCKNEY: Yeah. I mean, I think on the one hand, it's very powerful because it shows that the movement is conscious of the current situation and that they're thinking carefully and that they're sort of responsible and that the particular goals that they're pushing for are so important that they will take the time to deal with this current situation in order to continue to advocate for their goals.

MG: Where else are people protesting while they're still in lockdown?

JONATHAN PINCKNEY: So I think one another interesting example that came up in the last few days was in Slovenia, where a civil society group that organised a bike protest where people sort of rode their bikes through the city. Again, with the idea being you can get a certain number of people out there, draw some attention to their to their goals, but maintain the necessary physical distancing.

MG: Also in Latin America, there have been protests similar largely, I mean, again, we've seen people singing and performing on their balconies. These are the spaces where people can protest as well.

JONATHAN PINCKNEY: Yes, most definitely. I think so this is a longtime tactic amongst the Latin American movement of the people getting out on their balconies and banging pots and pans together at a specified time to express dissent. Originally coming up in movements where you couldn't go on the streets because government repression was was so violent or extreme. And today, this has been repurposed as a tactic and in places like Brazil and Chile and elsewhere to continue to get attention while abiding by physical distancing rules.

MG: What do those protests tell you about what a movement, a social movement needs to do to succeed in in a time when you can't go out and you can't be gathered? What can it still do?

JONATHAN PINCKNEY: I mean, I think I would really point to the absolute necessity of careful strategic thinking and adaptability. You know, if you're if you're just focussed on a single set of tactics like a big public protest and your movement hasn't really thought about it, you're you've changed beyond that, then you're really going to struggle in a time like this when an unexpected challenge comes up. But if your movement is one that has really emphasized your thinking carefully about how to strategically respond to changing conditions, then you're going to be in a better position in a crisis like this.

MG: I mean, I think it was also interesting that Ali Rougeot was fairly honest in saying that people, you know, have other priorities and that the momentum in these protests could be lost. How do you square that with with the desire for people to to create change that the lives people are leading right now are dominated by, you know, existential concerns or whether they're going to get a virus that could kill them or whether they're going to have a job when we get out of this.

JONATHAN PINCKNEY: Yeah, no, that's so true. And of course, you have people all around the world are dealing with not just the public health consequences, but the social and economic consequences of this. I think, you know, so for many movements, they've recognised this sort of crisis moment and have pivoted a lot of their efforts to directly responding to those exact economic and social needs. So, for instance, in Algeria, there's been a long term pro-democracy movement there that had been pretty much based on public protest. They've cancelled those protests because of public health concerns. And now instead, they've sort of whole movement infrastructure has been devoted towards distributing masks and food and other sort of necessary items for people that are dealing with the consequences of the pandemic.

MG: Do you need to do that so that you don't seem like you're coming from a completely different reality? That if you want people to to, you know, pay attention to you, but also take you seriously, you have to to meet people in some ways where they are?

JONATHAN PINCKNEY: I mean, I think the situation is going to be very different depending on the particular movement. Of course, the impact of a pandemic has been very different depending on what country you're in and even sort of what region within countries you're in. So it's gonna be it'll be different for a particular movement. But the real core thing that I would emphasize is that aspect of strategic thinking and adaptability that, you know, movements need to sort of carefully think about how the pandemic is affecting their specific context and what's the most reasonable and effective response to dealing with those changes.

MG: Dana R. Fisher has been listening into this. Sociologist and the author of American Resistance. Dana, good morning to you.

DANA R FISHER: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What do you make of the shape of protests, if I can put it that way, in in this time of the pandemic?

DANA R FISHER: Well, I've been actually studying activists in the United States in a number of different arenas right now, specifically looking actually at the folks who were involved with and continue to be involved in climate strikes, as well as activists involved in the American resistance. As I define it in my book and in both cases, I actually have asked them since the pandemic struck how their political work has changed and only around 10 percent of the activists who have participated. My surveys have actually reported that their activism is on pause while they deal with a pandemic. Instead, what we see is, for example, with a youth climate activists that only about already 87 percent of them say that they've changed the way they are doing their activism, and around 37 percent report participating in these talks for future like Ali was describing. But we also see it overwhelming participation in all sorts of digital strikes, as well as over 50 percent of them report that they're planning for post-COVID activism.

MG: I mean, the protest that we're seeing on the streets right now largely come from the right and come from people who are tyred of in their words there are lots of things going on, including political elements to this and political rallies in this. But they say that they're tired of the lockdowns. They're tired of being forced to stay inside. Have a listen to some of the sounds from the streets of America now.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sounds from protests in America]

MG: Dana R. Fisher, what do you make of those protests that are happening right now in various states in the United States?

DANA R FISHER: Matt, you're correct that these small scale protests are happening in many states simultaneously. But actually, if you look at the numbers, they're quite small. Less than 50,000 people have been estimated to have participated in any of these protests. And this is in contrast to even the large numbers of people who participated in the pro-impeachment demonstrations that happened quite recently. So what's really interesting is how much media attention these what we're calling anti lockdown protests have received. In fact, the mayor, the governor of my state, Governor Hogan, reported in the news. He said we're getting, well, more media inquiries about these protesters than we're actually seeing protesters in the streets. So it's relatively small. And in fact, what I think is most interesting about them is the way that they are confronting and responding to limitations. And so they're instead of following the social distancing recommendation. Most of these people are coming out, standing quite close together, are not wearing masks. And in many cases, they're actually arming themselves publicly. So this is in some ways a form of direct action or civil disobedience, if you will.

MG: They say that they're trying to change the equation and get, you know, as you heard the United States to the very states back open, the protesters that you cover in in your book and that you've been talking about earlier in moving to a digital world, what are they lose in not actually being out on the streets, being able to be visible and being heard?

DANA R FISHER: Well, there's no question if activism is purely taking place within the digital arena that a lot of the activism is is communicating within echo chambers that mean that you do not bring in new people or sympathizers who might likely become activists in the future. And I found that in my research. But I also have found that these activists and organizations are specifically looking at what we call tactical innovations, adopting new tactics. Some groups are starting to use these horn honking traffic, blocking protests and thinking about that, or they're talking about doing a socially distance draw. die in out around state capitals where people are, you know, two meters apart, but are participating out in public. And we've seen truck drivers also doing these horn honking types of protests where they drive through the streets of D.C. And well, block, there's not much traffic, but they they they put themselves in where traffic would be and honk their horns.

MG: That seems like a key thing. If you're blocking traffic, but there's no traffic, what are you actually accomplishing?

DANA R FISHER: Well, if you're getting media coverage, it doesn't really matter. And if you see I mean, if you look at these anti lockdown protests, that's exactly what's happening.

MG: Jonathan Pinckney, what do you accomplish if if the game has changed? You talked about, you know, bicycle protest in Slovenia or people who are in Latin America banging pots and pans from their from their balconies. What does that accomplish?

JONATHAN PINCKNEY: I mean, I think in the same sense that with a public protest in the streets, I mean, really what you're you're trying to do most of the time is to gain attention to sort of build community within your within your supporters and see, as, you know, come into pressure governments to respond in some way. But then those same prophecy can be brought about through these more diffuse kinds of tactics that we've been talking about. You know, the key matter is, you know, where the points to get attention and to create pressure are in your particular society.

MG: How resilient, I'll ask you both this question finally, in the last couple of minutes that we have, Jonathan, how resilient are these movements that have been stalled because of the coronavirus?

JONATHAN PINCKNEY: I mean, I think it's certainly varies from movement to movement. But I would go back to what Randy, earlier your guest said about the movement in Hong Kong. The anger is still simmering and many of the underlying causes that drive many of these movements are still there. So I think, you know, as the public health crisis recedes somewhat, we're likely to see a really big resurgence of many movements around the world.

MG: Dana, what about for you? This is an election year in the United States and you have a president that has, you know, in many ways fuelled some of those protests that we heard about earlier in those states, whether there are people coming out or not. But he's been deeply involved in that. How resilient are people in the social movements that you track, given that their movements have been stalled in some ways or distracted by the coronavirus?

DANA R FISHER: Well, that's exactly true, Matt. And what I've found and talk about an American resistance is that President Trump and his behaviour specifically on social media has fanned what I call the flames of outrage. And in a lot of ways, we continue to see behaviours from the government and the Trump administration that are continuing to fan outrage among many people on the left in the United States. And what I found in my book is I tracked how people were resisting in the streets and then working and channelling their energy and enthusiasm into congressional districts working towards the midterm election. And as I continue to track the movement, what we see is these small pieces of collective identity formation through small types of digital organising, if you will. And what I predict is that the outrage, I mean there's no question the outrage is growing, so what I predict is that we'll see momentum transitioning towards the election as we get closer and closer to November.

MG: It's great to talk to you both about this. Thank you.

DANA R FISHER: Thank you for having me, Matt.

JONATHAN PINCKNEY: Thank you so much, Matt.

MG: Dana R. Fisher, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the author of American Resistance. She was in College Park, Maryland. Jonathan Pinckney is the lead researcher on the Program on Non-Violent Action at the U.S. Institute of Peace. And he was in Washington, D.C. The CBC News is next. And then he's been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He found out that that achievement was coming his way when he was riding the school bus. I'll speak with a 15 year old Montreal kid coming up in our next half hour. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

[Music]

How this 15-year-old Montreal teen ended up published in the New England Journal of Medicine

Guests: Thomas Khairy

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come to wear a mask or not wear a mask? That it seems is the question. We want to know are masks protecting us from COVID-19? Should we wear them? If so, what kind? When should we wear them? We'll speak with infectious disease specialist Allison McGeer coming up. But first, making a mark.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Now, I don't know this for certain, but I would bet that very few scientists have been riding a school bus when they learned that they are about to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine. That's because they've all been older than 15. In March, a Montreal teenager was on the way home from a school trip when he got the news. The article is out this month. And just to underscore the significance here, the New England Journal of Medicine is widely recognized as the most prestigious medical journal in the entire world. Thomas Khairy is the 15-year-old whose work is published in the journal. He goes to Montreal's Loyola High School. Thomas, good morning.

THOMAS KHAIRY: Good morning, Mr. Galloway.

MG: Mr. Galloway. Nobody ever calls me Mr. Galloway. Congratulations on this.

THOMAS KHAIRY: Thank you so much.

MG: Your study is called Infections associated with resterilized pacemakers and defibrillators. What does that mean?

THOMAS KHAIRY: Well, it basically means that we were testing to see if it's safe to resterilize these implantable devices.

MG: Where did the idea for this come from?

THOMAS KHAIRY: So this came from some time that I spent in the summer of 2017 as a research rotation at the Montreal Heart Institute, and then that's when I came across the pacemaker clinic where the technician was resterilizing and cleaning all these devices. And so I got to learn a bit more about what she was doing. And I learned that for the past 10 years she would take these devices, clean them herself, and then if they had more than five years of battery life left, she would send them to participating countries in South America for free out of her own time, where they would then resterilize them again, re-implant them and basically save a life. So I was so interested in the work that she was doing. So I joined her in that summer of 2017, I helped her a bit. And then I was pretty curious. I was asking a bunch of questions, and, you know, one person alone can only do so much. So her days were packed of course, and when I asked her how many lives she saved, she just simply didn't have the time to assemble all the database and to count. And so, I mean, I took it upon myself to find out for her, and then at that point, once we had a database with every single person who had received a device, it just we decided, you know, we have the tools to do so much more with this. And then it became a project that tests how safe it actually is.

MG: How old were you when you were cooking this idea up?

THOMAS KHAIRY: I started off when I was 12.

MG: Sorry. When you were 12?

THOMAS KHAIRY: Yes, in 2017.

MG: What did you learn as a 12 and 13 and 14 year old about whether and the rate of infections associated with these resterilized devices?

THOMAS KHAIRY: So what I learned the conclusions was that out of the database had 1051 patients that received a resterilized device and their infection rate was 2 per cent. And I didn't know like we can't really know if that's good or not unless we compare it to the infection rate of new devices. So every single patient that was in my database was compared to three handpicked patients that received a new device at the Montreal Heart Institute, according to their age, their sex, that type of device and all that would be as accurate as possible. So there was three times as many controls as there were patients with the resterilized devices and the controls had an infection rate of 1.2 percent. So even though there is a difference of 0.8 per cent, there were many vigorous logistical tests that were run through the data and it was proven, in addition to the very low difference that the difference is not even statistically significant.

MG: Why do we need to know that? What are we what do we learn in the fact that, as you say, that's not even statistically significant?

THOMAS KHAIRY: Because this because the result could have been proving that there's a 0.8 percent difference in infection rate. But since it's not statistically significant — let's say we were to redo the entire study with even more patients or even if you just redo the same study with the same amount, the fact that it's not statistically significant means that, you know, the infection rate could have been 1.3 percent for the new and then 1.6 percent for the resterilized, for example.

MG: What do we learn then about what it means to be able to use resterilized pacemakers and defibrillators?

THOMAS KHAIRY: Well, I guess let me put it this way. Now that we know that it's safe to resterilized these devices, this proves nothing if we don't actually start sterilizing and reusing them. So since the beginning, the whole initiative of this project was really just to see how many lives can be saved. And then if that many lives were saved from just the Montreal Heart Institute doing this, I mean I can only imagine how many lives could potentially be saved if more centres started sending these devices and participating in this humanitarian effort.

MG: How did the New England Journal of Medicine find out what you're up to?

THOMAS KHAIRY: So it was it was actually it's a pretty funny story. It was all the way at the very, very end when they were, after the final revisions and everything, they were looking through, the authors and every author has all their titles and credentials next to them, like I don't know PhD or like MD and all that stuff. And then well my name had nothing next to it. And so they thought at first it was a mistake. But then I don't know, I guess they did a bit of research and they found out that, 'Hey, this guy has the same name and he's a 15 year old living in Montreal. Is this the guy?' And yeah, it wasn me.

MG: And so you're on the school bus and what? There's a you get a text or a call or something saying your study is going to be published in The New England Journal of Medicine?

THOMAS KHAIRY: Exactly. Yeah. It was an email.

MG: And what goes through your mind in that moment?

THOMAS KHAIRY: Well, I At first I didn't believe it. It was I mean, througout the whole publication process, the biggest message that was being sent my way was to not get my hopes up. And, you know, at that point, the whole publication was really put in the hands of the amazing team at the Montreal Heart Institute. They're basically the ones that did everything in terms of communicating with the New England Journal of Medicine and all that. So for me, it was really it was just an unbelievable. My reaction was simply like, no way.

MG: Your dad is a doctor and a researcher at that Montreal Heart Institute. Has he ever been published in the New England Journal of Medicine?

THOMAS KHAIRY: Oh, no. He's tried, but this is the first time too.

MG: You have one up over your father.

THOMAS KHAIRY: I mean I don't want to put it that way, but I guess you can say so.

MG: You're 15 and you have this accomplishment under your belt already. This is such a strange time because you're graduating this year. You can't go back to school. You can't share this with your fellow teachers, but you have your whole future in front of you. Where do you want to go from here? If I was to talk to you in 5 years time or 10 years time, where do you hope to be?

THOMAS KHAIRY: I mean, I've never really looked that far ahead. I'm still trying to be I'm still at a point in my life where I can still keep all the doors open, so that's really what I'm hoping to do. So my goal in life is to become a doctor, a specialised doctor. Obviously, after working at the Montreal Heart Institute for the past three years, I'm pretty much leaning towards cardiology, but I mean, we'll see how my first step would have to be to get the med school. I'm not even there yet.

MG: No, because you're 15-years-old.

THOMAS KHAIRY: Yeah.

MG: It's an amazing accomplishment. Congratulations.

THOMAS KHAIRY: Thank you so much.

MG: It's great to talk to you. Thomas Khairy's study of infection rates of recycled pacemakers and defibrillators was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He will graduate from high school later this year. He's 15-years-old.

Some experts suggest that face shields, not masks, offer the best protection against COVID-19

Guests: Allison McGeer, Daniel Diekema

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. A resident in Florida had reached her limit. Tired of people ignoring the warnings of public health officials, the young woman in big aviator sunglasses recorded herself driving while ranting.

SOUNDCLIP

[Clip of woman ranting on social distancing]

MG: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommends that all Americans wear a cloth mask while in public. In France, the government has introduced a mandatory mask order. And in this country, Canada's chief medical officer changed her advice last month to say that non-medical masks could, in fact, help stop the spread of COVID-19. Still, it's not mandatory here yet to wear a mask. To talk about the role that masks could play as this pandemic continues, I'm joined once again by infectious disease specialist Dr. Allison McGeer. Doctor, good morning.

ALLISON MCGEER: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What is your view on how useful masks are when people are out in public?

ALLISON MCGEER: Well it's a complicated question. And the reason that we're seeing such variability is because we don't know for certain. The reason we don't know for certain is because about 60 years ago in hospitals, we move from using cloth masks to using medical masks during surgery because medical masks were better at protecting patients from the surgical team. And since then, we've done very little research on how well cloth masks protect other people from you. So remember that if we're wearing masks in public, it's. I'm not wearing a mask to protect myself. I'm wearing a mask to protect you. OK. The reason we've switched to wearing masks is because we know that a very substantial fraction of this disease is transmitted from people who aren't symptomatic or aren't symptomatic yet. So the purpose of worrying me wearing a mask is because I might be the 1 in 10,000 people who's coming down with COVID-19 and I want you protected from me. The problem is that we know that medical. We know that cloth masks are not as good as medical masks. We don't know how well they work. And so lots of people who are saying they may well be better than nothing, they may well offer some protection. It makes sense to wear them. And other people were saying, jeez, you know, a lot of the time they maybe prevent 10 percent of particles getting out, maybe 20 percent, probably not very important. Maybe we shouldn't be recommending.

MG: That confusion, I think, is felt by all of us because we're trying to figure out our way through this. We're trying to figure out what we should or shouldn't do or what health officials should tell us to do. There are some doctors who think that wearing masks should be mandatory for all Canadians. Listen to Dr. Joe Vipond. He's an emergency room physician, clinical assistant professor at the University of Calgary.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It has to be mandatory because we have to have a reasonable percentage of the population wearing masks in order to prevent transmission from person to person. And so if you have a moderately effective mask, like a cloth mask, you need to have the vast majority of the population doing this. And unfortunately, with voluntary measures, we just can't get the numbers that we need in order to decrease that transmissibility. Right now, 81 countries in the world, including 13 U.S. states and over 100 million Americans that are living under mandatory mask law. So we in Canada are actually the exception to this effort. Most of these countries that have had these in place have had great success with mitigating their COVID crisis. Places like South Korea, the Czech Republic, Austria have all done wonders with their COVID crisis and are at much decreased levels of transmission than we are. And I think we should be learning from those countries that are winning.

MG: Dr. Allison McGeer, what do you think is wearing a mask something that should be mandatory for all Canadians?

ALLISON MCGEER: The correct answer is I don't know. I think the first thing to recognise is that testing, contact tracing, physical distancing are more important. You know, we we've all every country around the world, including Canada, who's instituted very careful physical distancing, has substantially reduced the number of cases, you know. So, yes, some countries are doing better and we can send a lot of time arguing about why they're doing better. But almost all of them have much better testing and contact tracing than we have access to at the moment. Not that we are working at it not we're not getting better. But I think it's physical distancing and testing and contact tracing that are the biggest differential.

MG: Sorry. Continue. Go ahead.

ALLISON MCGEER: You know, personally, I think masks outside. When you have to be close to somebody, of course, if you're by yourself, wearing a mask won't make any difference at all. Right. It's only when you're in contact with other people. To me, the evidence suggests that they may be a benefit. It makes sense to wear them. But I'm sympathetic to, you know, public health. People who act on evidence and the evidence base for wearing cloth masks is pretty slim.

MG: And that's, I was just gonna say, I mean, you see in different context, anecdotally, people wearing masks more or less. So when they're walking down the street down front of my house, you'll see people who are wearing masks. You go to the grocery store and you'll see more people wearing masks because perhaps physical distancing is more difficult in some ways. You're saying it should be based. You know, what people do should be based on context and where they happen to be.

ALLISON MCGEER: Yes, I know. Certainly, if you're walking in the woods by yourself, if you're sitting in a room by yourself, if you're driving in your car by yourself wearing a mask couldn't do anybody any good. Wearing a mask is only useful if you're within six feet of somebody and you can't avoid it. And again you know, first thing to do is try to keep six feet away from everybody. If you can't do that, then wearing a mask, medical mask, if you've got one cloth mask, if you don't, maybe have some benefit in protecting the other person.

MG: In the United States, not wearing a mask has become some sort of sign of resistance for people who see public health measures as somehow excessive. The US president doesn't wear a mask. People around him now are having to wear masks. Do you worry about that sort of reaction here in Canada that people see an overreach? You can't tell me I'm going to wear a mask.

ALLISON MCGEER: You know, remarkably, I don't think we've seen any of that in Canada. What I've seen in the last few months is a very large number of people, all of us working together to get where we need to be. I think that's probably Canadian as opposed to American. But I've seen I've seen lots of people arguing about the science of it. I think the fact that people are interested in the science of it, the less you a scientist is kind of exciting. But I've not seen anybody just being straight oppositional because they feel like it.

MG: I think it's really just personally, I think it's really encouraging that you say there's a lot of stuff that we don't know because it's easy to say, no, this is what you should do, but that we exist in this grey area where some of the evidence is evolving and the people are willing to talk about that I think is encouraging, isn't it?

ALLISON MCGEER: It's certainly very encouraging to me. What I try to tell people about breaks is the time you want to worry about outbreaks, it's when people aren't changing their mind. Because in an outbreak of a new disease, knowledge is always changing. And as it changes, we need to adapt and make better decisions and if we're not changing, then we're not learning. And that the key to managing new diseases is learning about them and doing better.

MG: We're about to hear from a doctor in the United States who says that wearing a face shield is potentially better protection than a mask. What do you think of that?

ALLISON MCGEER: I think so, if wearing a mask in public and wearing a face shield are the same. Both of them will block particles coming out of your mouth. I think you know it's really interesting, a few months ago, people would've said wearing a mask was weird. I think now wearing a face shield is kind of weirder. But they have the same effect and we use them interchangeably with masks in hospitals for that purpose. Face shields also protect your eye. So if you're taking, if you're in a hospital, taking care of somebody with COVID, face shields have some advantages over just plain masks. You definitely want eye protection. But if you're worried in the community, as we are about me transmitting to you, there's no benefit in me wearing a face shield over a mask, because obviously the virus doesn't get out of my eye. It comes out of my mouth and nose and that's what needs to be covered.

MG: Dr. McGeer, great to talk to you, as always. Thank you.

ALLISON MCGEER: Pleasure, Matt.

MG: Dr. Allison McGeer, infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. Daniel Diekema thinks there is a better option than masks. He's in favour, as I mentioned, of transparent plastic face shields. The doctor is a Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa. Doctor, good morning to you.

DANIEL DIEKEMA: Good morning.

MG: Why is a face shield better than wearing a mask?

DANIEL DIEKEMA: Well, I should start by saying that whether it's better or not, I think the jury is still out. As Dr. McGeer said, we really have very little evidence for either a cloth, face masks or face shields in community settings. So one of the advantages of face shields or at least one of several is that I think exists are that face shields can be reused and cleaned and disinfected quite easily. They're just clear plastic barriers. There are many different types. Many of them are quite lightweight and and easy to use. And they present a a really clear barrier to droplets and again, as you've already heard, we believe that direct contact with these droplets into the eyes, nose and mouth or be a touching an infected droplet and then touching one's face are the main ways that this virus is transmitted. So another advantage of Face Shields is that they prevent you from touching your eyes, nose and mouth. And whereas masks, unfortunately, are often worn incorrectly. And all you have to do is walk around your local grocery store to see how often masks bring the hands up to the face to readjust the mask. And in some ways could paradoxically increase risk if people either wear them incorrectly or are continually touching their face to adjust the mask.

MG: These are the masks that you'll see first responders wearing, the clear plastic shield with like a little bit of a headband that holds it on?

DANIEL DIEKEMA: Exactly.

MG: Are they, because you can see through them, are they less socially limiting than wearing a masks? There's been concerns that perhaps some people who perhaps might need more visual cues can't get those if you're wearing a mask, whereas if you're wearing a face shield, you might be able to still get those visual cues.

DANIEL DIEKEMA: Right. I think that social interaction is better when you can see someone's facial expression in some people who are hard of hearing do depend on some degree of lip reading. And that's possible through through a face shield. And I also think a facial this is a sort of clear visual reminder to physically distance. Because, again, as you've already heard, whether it's a cloth mask or a face shield, these are what we would call adjunctive measures to we we add them on to what we believe are the most important things which are still physical distancing and improving access to testing and contact tracing.

MG: Do we have enough of these things? We hear constantly that there is a shortage of personal protective equipment for those who are on the frontlines, which is why they say wear a cloth mask, not a mask that perhaps could go to a hospital instead.

DANIEL DIEKEMA: Right. Well, it's interesting you say that because one of the reasons we kind of became big fans of face shields here at the University of Iowa is that during the early part of this pandemic, medical masks were in extremely short supply and the supply chain showed no signs of improving. So we were really unable to get enough medical masks for our healthcare personnel, but we were able to get enough of the face shields to outfit every one of our health care workers. These can be easily manufactured. They can even be made from materials you would find in a craft store. But many companies have switched to may have been able to manufacture them on on very short notice. And unlike medical masks, which have very limited lifespan, you know, traditionally we just use them for one patient at a time. Right. But at most you might be able to wear them for a few hours. Face shields can be reused almost indefinitely until they break or have some mechanical issues.

MG: Just a couple of seconds left. Realistically, do you think people are going to walk around wearing face shields? I mean, it was difficult enough in some ways to convince people to wear a mask. It's a pretty hard sell to convince someone to to wear a facial, isn't it?

DANIEL DIEKEMA: Yes, I agree. It's going to be a tough sell to do that. I think we're trying to work locally to make it, you know, socially acceptable to do so. And I would hasten to add that some people can't wear cloth masks or any type of mask. People with certain types of breathing difficulties can't do so. So for them, this would be, you know, the only option. But again, we'll see. I mean, over time, things can change.

MG: What seemed, as Allison said, what seemed weird in terms of wearing a mask a few months ago, now, in some ways seems commonplace. Perhaps that will be the case with a face shield. Doctor, good to speak with you. Thank you.

DANIEL DIEKEMA: Thank you.

MG: Dr. Daniel Diekema is the Firector of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa. Coming up next on The Current, fighting an infodemic in the midst of a pandemic. We'll look at the explosion of COVID conspiracy theories and the people who are out there trying to tamp them down. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. We're back in 90 seconds. Stick around.

[Music]

From the Wuhan Lab to The Plandemic explanation, conspiracy theories flourish online – and off

Guests: Jane Lytvynenko, Timothy Caulfield

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. The crowds were out in Vancouver this weekend. Beautiful weather lured people into nature, into the parks, into the beaches and elsewhere in the city, a different type of crowd.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sounds from protests in Vancouver]

MG: They stood outside a downtown hospital carrying signs, megaphones. Definitely not social distancing, and for a brief time, they blocked access to the ambulance bay.

SOUNDCLIP

[More sounds from protests in Vancouver]

MG: What you're hearing is an anti-lockdown protest. It's not the first one that's happened in Vancouver. This one featured signs calling the pandemic a scam and the public health response a fraud. One was a little more specific. It read "Traitors and Dupes: COVID-19 is a Luciferian Masonic New World Order Operation." It's a variation on the pandemic conspiracy theories that are flourishing right now. Jane Lytvynenko is a senior reporter with BuzzFeed News. She specializes in revealing disinformation. Jane, good morning.

JANE LYTVYNENKO: Hi.

MG: A Luciferian Masonic New World Order Operation? That's quite something.

JANE LYTVYNENKO: It sure is. I bet you that one came from the various Bill Gates videos that we've seen popping up over the last while. The conspiracies over the last month or so have really been flourishing online and habr found huge audience.

MG: What does Bill Gates have to do with this?

JANE LYTVYNENKO: Well, it's quite interesting. Bill Gates wasn't mentioned a lot in online communities, online conspiratorial communities until about mid April when he went on Reddit and answered some questions, which led to some people extrapolating things that he hadn't said. There's a lot of very false allegations about Bill Gates. Everything bill Gates spreading the virus to, you know, this being a ploy to vaccinating the entire global population with microchips, which is not a technology that we have.

MG: That he was going to somehow become richer through this pandemic?

JANE LYTVYNENKO: Right. Right. Right. And, of course, a lot of people have compared Bill Gates to the Antichrist as well.

MG: Ah. There's a theory that has been getting a lot of attention through this film called Plandemic. What is the premise of this film?

JANE LYTVYNENKO: So Plandemic is a 27 minute YouTube video, which has been since removed by most social media platforms. And the video looks extremely professionally produced. It looks like a sit down investigative interview with a woman named Judy Mikovits who positioned herself as a whistleblower, she said. She claimed that she's someone who worked for Fauci and is now sort of revealing the truth and the cover-ups that Fauci and his team have tried to keep hidden. So a lot of her points were going against known health advice. She advised people not to wear masks. She said that washing your hands doesn't battle the virus. But it's that positioning as the whistleblower that has really propelled this video to millions of people online, despite the fact that there's no evidence she worked directly with Fauci..

MG: Why do you think and as you mentioned, I mean, it's YouTube and other platforms have been taking this down, but it keeps popping up. Why do you think that this video took off the way that it did?

JANE LYTVYNENKO: Well, the video you know, if you've only been paying tangential attention to the politics around the coronavirus, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for a real sit down investigative interview. The production value is quite high. But it also, you know, it spread online very widely. It started with YouTube. It led to Facebook groups, but it was really everywhere. And one of the things that's important to keep in mind is that Judy Mikovits has been advocating against vaccines for the last six years or so. And she's written two books, one of which came out just before the video did. And one of her books is now the top bestseller on Amazon. So we can't know the motives for this video, but we can sort of juxtapose facts that we know. And Mikovits herself is a former scientist, but has had a scientific paper retracted and was fired for essentially allegations that she faked her results.

MG: You and I spoke at the very beginning it seems like with this. It was months ago. You were here in the studio back when people were able to come into the studio. And we talked about misinformation, which is your beat at BuzzFeed. How has that flow of misinformation changed since the pandemic began?

JANE LYTVYNENKO: Well, when we first talked about the disinformation around the coronavirus we were talking about a few different streams. Everybody's sort of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. Now, some of that spaghetti has stuck. A lot of the narrative that we're seeing online were around from the very beginning. Some of them are selling false cures. Some of them are sort of pushing political means. But now that we're out of the period where everybody sort of just tried to grab on to any piece of online attention they get, we're really seeing a lot of people buy into false narratives that they may have been seeing online over the last two or three months and really pulling together, pull those narratives together.

MG: Why do you think people are receptive to those theories? Whether it's about conspiracy theories about Bill Gates or, you know, the possibility of a vaccine, what is it that leads people to to buy into that?

JANE LYTVYNENKO: It's a tricky question and it's a quite individual question. But there's you know, there's a few things. One is that there's a historic lack of trust in institutions, be it media or a government, which likely informs, but that lack of trust really likely plays into people buying into these theories. There's also an overwhelming amount of information about the coronavirus that might be tricky for people to navigate around. We can't forget the fact that situation changes day to day. And we're really asking for people to keep up with the news in a way they may not have before. But of course, the last thing is sort of a vulnerability. You know, we've been stuck inside for almost two months now. We are all getting anxious and we're all looking at a global pandemic, the facts of which on paper can feel quite unbelievable. So it's difficult to say why each individual falls for this mis and disinformation. And of course, platforms, social media platforms are not blameless here. But we do know that this has been pretty effective during the pandemic.

MG: Do you feel, I mean, it sounds a bit like Whack-A-Mole where, you know, one thing pops up, you knock it down, another thing pops up somewhere else. It's that old game that we used to play at the fair. Do you feel like you're getting anywhere in shedding light on this stuff, given how much mis and disinformation is out there?

JANE LYTVYNENKO: You know, it can be quite discouraging. Every disinformation reporter, every fact checker in the world is writing about the same topic, the coronavirus. So we have the good information. We, you know, we have the facts to the best of our ability. But part of the issue is dishonesty from politicians, dishonesty from figures of authority that we might otherwise be able to trust. And of course, social media, which hasn't quite figured out the problems that they have been linked with for the last four years.

MG: Jane, great to speak with you again. Thank you.

JANE LYTVYNENKO: Thank you for having me.

MG: Jane Lytvynenko is a senior reporter with BuzzFeed News. She specializes in tracking disinformation. You trace the origins of a conspiracy, you'll often find, as she said, a grain of truth. The problem is, it's kind of the funhouse version of the truth. Twisted and flipped around, stretched out of context. You might know it's wrong. How do you convince your second cousin on Facebook that it's not true? You may know our next guest from the book, "Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?" Timothy Caulfield, good morning.

TIMOTHY CAULFIELD: Good morning.

MG: Why is a crisis like this one such fertile ground for conspiracy theories, do you think?

TIMOTHY CAULFIELD: Well, you know, I think Jane really highlighted some of the key components. You know, fear, uncertainty. You know, the science the science is is moving. And and people are looking. They're looking for answers. And research tells us when you have that those kinds of situations, it is it does create the perfect situation for conspiracy theories. You know, people want to they want to complete the narrative. Right. They want to have a story that makes sense of the situation, especially when they're feeling kind of powerless. And I think also, you know, Jane touched in the studio the frustration, you know, the anger, you know, that can stoke it also. And I think that's why we're starting to see this real uptake in conspiracy theories.

MG: You want to watched this Plandemic video last week?

TIMOTHY CAULFIELD: You know, I did watch it and every 30 seconds there's something infuriating in it. Very, very frustrating. But it is compelling and it does seem to provide no clear answers for a confusing time.

MG: It repeats this debunked claim that COVID-19, was created or manipulated in some sort of Chinese lab. Let's have a brief listen to this. You will hear the interviewer and then Judy Mikovits, who answers.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Do you believe that this virus was created in a laboratory?

VOICE 2: I wouldn't use the word created, but you can't say naturally occurring if it was by way of the laboratory. So it's very clear this virus was manipulated. This family of viruses was manipulated and studied in a laboratory where the animals were taken into the laboratory and this is what was released, whether deliberate or not. That cannot be naturally occurring. Somebody didn't go to a market, get a bat. The virus didn't jump directly to humans. That's not how it works. That's accelerated viral evolution.

MG: Timothy Caulfield, this claim is something that virologists and infectious disease experts have been saying is false for weeks and weeks and weeks now. Why is it so sticky? Why doesn't it go away?

TIMOTHY CAULFIELD: You know, I think it fits with, again, a narrative that people want to believe. There might also be ideological leanings that that conspiracy theory lines up with, which is going to make it more attractive for certain people. And the other thing, of course, is that it's presented in a very sciencey way. It sounds like it might be true. And again, as I said, it completes that narrative. Right? You know, right now, we don't know where it came from. You know, there's a lot of uncertainty. She has just provided you with an answer.

MG: Allison McGeer, infectious disease specialist, was on the program just in the last half hour and was talking about the fact that she's encouraged that science changes and that there are things that we don't know and that we're saying that we don't know them. Does that create holes that that people try to fill in the narrative?

TIMOTHY CAULFIELD: It does. You know, a good conspiracy theory will fill that gap. Right. And you're right, you know, one of the things that really frustrated about is, is that science literacy, misunderstanding, science does change. It's not a list of facts. And if one is wrong, it doesn't make science wrong. You know, on the contrary, science evolves. It's exactly what you want it to do and you want the recommendations to evolve with the science. But conspiracy theories, theorists will use that evolution as proof or as an argument that that those in power, you know, the deep state, it has some nefarious goal that makes their version of reality seem more compelling.

MG: And into this steps Bryan Adams, who tweeted yesterday, "Tonight was supposed to be the beginning of a tenancy of gigs at the Royal Albert Hall. But thanks to some F-ing bat eating wet market animal selling virus making greedy bastards, the whole world is now on hold. What do you make of what Mr. Bryan Adams had to say?

TIMOTHY CAULFIELD: You know, I saw that as soon as it came out. Really, really frustrating. It was angry. It is, you know, hate baiting. And I think I called scientifically wonky, which might be too kind of a way to characterize it. But that kind of message from a celebrity matters. There was an interesting study that came out from Oxford not that long ago, just weeks ago that found that much of the misinformation that is spread comes from prominent sources. So people might say, who, you know, who cares what Bryan Adams says. It matters. You know I think he has almost 700,000 followers on Twitter. It matters. It gets that story out there and it makes it more difficult to counter.

MG: What kind of person believes a conspiracy theory?

TIMOTHY CAULFIELD: That's a really good question. And Jane touched on this a little bit. There is a sort of a typical conspiracy theorists, you know, that, yes, they're less trusting. And I think that's a really important thing to highlight. They're often angry. They're more likely to buy into sort of magical thinking. And that's really important because research tells us that one of the reasons people believe in conspiracy theories is they see connections when connections aren't there. You know, the grassy knoll, right? and I think that we have to recognize that when we're trying to debunk. But the really important thing that is it's very difficult to change the mind of a hardcore anti-vaxxer or hardcore conspiracy theorists. The goal should really always be the general public. Our messaging should be to the general public.

MG: Well, that's what I was saying. Your second cousin on Facebook who shares some posts saying that 5G towers are spreading the coronavirus when people have said that that's nonsense. What do you do about that?

TIMOTHY CAULFIELD: If this person is just sharing this information, they find it interesting, I think that you can debunk it. And I think that it's worth trying to debunk it. So you'll give facts from independent sources, you know, use some empathy. Try to understand their position. And you should also do that when you're talking to the general, to the general public. And everything we do is something called pre bunking. Try to get people to use their critical thinking skills all of the time. And again, there's evidence to show that that that can work on the other thing. This is really interesting research because it sounds ridiculously simple. Maths can't really work, you know. Ask people just to pause and think there's a great study. A colleague of mine, Gordon Penny Cook, found that, you know, most people want to be accurate. They're capable of being accurate. So if we can just nudge people to think about accuracy before they share, we can actually have a tangible impact on the spread of misinformation.

MG: It's easy for some people to dismiss the spread of these theories, but we started out by hearing the protests of people in front of a hospital in Vancouver where they're blocking the emergency bay, saying that what's going on is is a hoax, that the death rate has been exaggerated. What's at stake in this, do you think?

TIMOTHY CAULFIELD: I think there's a lot at stake. You know we shouldn't dismiss this. And think of the 5G tower conspiracy theory. You know, people are destroying the towers. You know, people are being attacked. But let's use this other example. You know, the autism myth. You know, the myth that the vaccines cause autism. That is a conspiracy theory that has stuck and has probably cost you know, has cost lives.

MG: Despite the fact that it's been debunked for for years and years and years.

TIMOTHY CAULFIELD: Debunked,t you know, for so long, you know, not a shred of evidence to back it up, but it's still having an impact. It's having an impact on Canadian parents today. Right? So that's a really good example of how conspiracy theories can have a tangible impact in why stopping the spread of misinformation is so important.

MG: Just finally, do you worry about this moment? And you know, the line is that the lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes tied up. Do you worry how quickly things are spreading in this moment when we're all trying to figure out what's going on?

TIMOTHY CAULFIELD: I really do. It's a scary time. But, Matt, I like to be an optimist. I also like to believe this is an opportunity to understand how valuable science is, how valuable trusted scientific voices are and how harmful misinformation can be.

MG: Great to talk to you, as always, Timothy. Thank you.

TIMOTHY CAULFIELD: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Timothy Caulfield is Canada Research Chair in Health, Law and Policy at the University of Alberta. He, this morning, was in Edmonton.

[Music]

New season of Someone Knows Something covers cold case of Donny Izzett

Guests: David Ridgen

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. It was 25 years ago this week, a final call between mother and son.

SOUNDCLIP

[Clip from Someone Knows Something podcast]

MG: Donny Izzett's disappearance is a cold case, a very cold case, but it's getting new attention and new life in the new season of the CBC true crime podcast, Someone Knows Something. The first episode dedicated to the case of Donnie Izzett is out today. David Ridgen is the host of Someone Knows Something. David, good morning.

DAVID RIDGEN: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Tell us briefly a little bit about Donny and his mother in this disappearance that you're investigating in this new season.

DAVID RIDGEN: Well, as we just heard, Season 6 of SKS back after about a two year production period is really the story of a mother looking for answers, Debra Izzett, who we just heard And she'll do anything to get those answers in the case of her missing son. Donald was 19-years-old. He was a college student and he disappeared while on a road trip across the USA with a friend in the spring of 1995. And as we just heard Debra last heard from Donny, as she calls him, on Mother's Day. And she said he called, he was very distraught and said, mom, I need you to send me some money. And she heard what sounded like a scuffle, a scream, and the line went dead and she never heard from him again. And all of the victims family members I've worked with, as you've probably listened to or heard over the years, suffer from incredible guilt, incredible self-immolating guilt about the disappearance or murder of a loved one. Many are self-destructive and it just consumes them. Why wasn't I there to fight for them? What did I do or why did I do this or didn't do that? Somehow I must be responsible for the disappearance or for their murder. And my task, I feel anyways, as the host of SKS is to kind of be a conduit for the journey into sort of reconciliation with themselves. So it's less true crime and more self-healing, I'd like to say. And this case is no different. About a year before Donny went missing, he came out as being gay to Debra. She didn't react well to that and they had a gigantic fight. And even though they made up fairly quickly, she's always felt that that fight helped distance Donny from her and helped make him more vulnerable. So these are the kind of partial truth propagandas we tell ourselves and that's a big part of what I do to help victims unpack.

MG: And that sense of guilt that you talked about and what she goes through, that's why despite the fact that for years people have told her that her son presumably is dead, that's why she won't let it go?

DAVID RIDGEN: She won't let it go. And for years, she worked, tried to get police to look at the case, wrote letters. Why is nothing being done here or what she perceived as being nothin.? And they would do case reviews. And they'd say Debra we've done all we can. This is over a 16-20 year period and two or three different case reviews that were undertaken by quite high up in the system there in Maryland. This is out of Maryland USA. And Debra finally found a sympathetic officer from the Baltimore area who gave her part of the police file. And probably not within three or four hours of getting the file, Debra figured out that they had not interviewed a key witness.

MG: What sort of connection do you build over the course of working on these stories? What sort of connection do you build with family members like like Debra?

DAVID RIDGEN: Well, with victims family members, I mean it's kind of an interesting connection. And not normal because of the length of time I take to work over years with people. I still have connections with people that I've worked with since 2004. Thomas Moore in the Mississippi case and Linda Keenan and Sherry Greer who recently passed. And all the family members I've worked with, I'm in touch with and continue to work on the case as if they haven't been solved. So it's really a commitment, a life commitment that I make and that they make and to their detriment maybe, to me and with me to go through these cases. So it's really something that never goes away.

MG: Why do they trust and it's not a slight, why do they trust you?

DAVID RIDGEN: That's a good question Matt and I guess it's just, I don't go away and I keep talking and listening and I hope they trust me. I mean, you should probably have them on here to talk. I don't like speaking for victims family members, but it's just a matter of working on these cases.

MG: Well the question to you then might be, how do you build that trust?

DAVID RIDGEN: Slowly. Sometimes it takes months to even get a phone call with a family when I'm thinking of a case or sometimes when they come to me with a dossier of information that they've already approached several other media people. I'm just honest. I tell them exactly what they're gonna be getting into. They listen to my previous work or watch it and I think they know what they're getting into. Families that don't want to do that won't approach me or will, you know, be inaccessible. And I think there's a willingness to to want to work and be passionate about the case from the beginning. So I think it might be something to do with that.

MG: You don't want to give too much or anything away, but were you surprised with what you learned in Donny's case the further you got into it?

DAVID RIDGEN: There's always surprises. Yes. And in this case, particularly with regard to Debra's work on the case, especially, I mean, this is a single mother, I would say an impoverished mother, vulnerable in many ways, and who struggled many years to work on her own and spent her own limited funds to work on the case. And at every turn, she seemed to be able to uncover things on her own, which is awesome and hard not to respect. So I come into the scene, you know, I'm piggybacking on her work and we help each other through the rest of the way. I think it's a pretty exciting case and it's I'm still working on it. And there's things unfolding even say yesterday that are going to be getting into the series.

MG: How do you do this again and again? I mean, every time this I'm I amazed as a listener in terms of what you do and and the stories that people will tell you and the way that you try to put the puzzle together. How do you do this over and over again?

DAVID RIDGEN: Well, it gives me a sense of purpose. Right? I mean I live once on the planet, and I don't want to do things that are what I see as meaning this idea to be useful. I like the value add to anything I do and these cases are good examples of that. They're hard. I mean, I choose to do them. I understand how officers and first responders suffer from PTSD. And you know, those images you can't unsee, which I have you know taken part in myself. But it's nothing compared to what victims families and communities feel. So if I feel like I can be useful, then that's a good thing.

MG: But you have to carry something for that too. I mean, again, as a listener. We'll take one thing from it, but you know more than you know what I'll learn. And you have to have seen things, as you said, that you can't unsee that wake you up in the middle of the night. What do you carry at the end of something like this?

DAVID RIDGEN: Well, you carry all the imagery, you carry all the narratives, you know, and to some extent will never be able to get rid of them as well. But somehow it's overcome by the by the notion that there's some kind of assistance happening. And most families, in fact all families I've worked with have told me afterwards that that they appreciated it, that they've made changes and they've been changed. And it's a transformative period, the collection period, and the aftermath of SKS for them and other investigations I've done. So that's it. I mean, that's the nutshell of why.

MG: And do you feel satisfaction at the end of it when it's done? I mean, it sounds like this thing isn't anywhere near done.

DAVID RIDGEN: Never, ever. It's never done. For somebody who likes to get things done and have it done and over, which is me. It's kind of a curious pastime. Cases that never end and stories that are always ongoing. But there's always a new part of the narrative. Thomas Moore in the Mississippi case, you know, we got to courtroom justice. Thomas found out what happened and the guy went to jail, died in jail, a clansman. But I'm still in touch with him. We've worked on a reconciliation piece together. He went back and talked to the clansman. And we're still in touch. I'm going to be going down to Mississippi after this COVID nightmare is over what and putting up a new memorial.

MG: What a process, David. I'm a fan and we're lucky to have the work that you're doing. Thank you.

DAVID RIDGEN: Thank you, Matt.

MG: David Ridgen hosts the CBC podcast, Someone Knows Something. The new season, Season 6, Episode 1 is available now wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. We're back in six minutes. Stick around.

[Music]

All eyes on Quebec as schools reopen

Guests: Andre Picard

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, she is ready to don the red braids, but even Green Gables is under lockdown. Hear from the latest actor to play Anne, later this hour. But first, it's back to school for some.

[Music: Theme]

MG: They sit at desks, carefully separated from one another, facing teachers wearing masks, some in face shields. This is how classrooms across Quebec, outside of Montreal, where schools are due to open on the 25th of May at the earliest, are managing the reopening of their schools this week. It is, as you have heard, a controversial experiment. Public health officials in other provinces will be eyeing this very closely. Many provinces have already said that classes will not resume until the fall, even as they begin easing other restrictions around the coronavirus. Andre Picard is keeping tabs on this and other COVID-19 developments. He's back with us again today. He is the Globe and Mail's health columnist. One of this country's leading voices on public health. Andre, good morning.

ANDRE PICARD: Good morning.

MG: Outside of Montreal, where you live, the city that finds itself at the epicentre in many ways of this outbreak, what does the return to school look like for students who are affected in Quebec?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, it started yesterday, and we have a sense that, you know, it went pretty smoothly. But kids are adjusting. Desks are far apart. Recess, there were circles drawn in the schoolyard. You can't get too close to each other. Lines everywhere. Lots of hand-washing. So an experiment really, but not a very controlled experiment, unfortunately.

MG: I spoke with the Quebec education minister and one of the rationale that he provided was that life goes on and that that's why this needs to happen. What's your understanding as to why these schools are opening up now?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I don't think the government has provided a very good rationale for doing that. You know, if you want to see, I think there's a good rationale. We're seeing there's very low rates of infection in these regions outside Montreal. And we're gonna we're going to do an experiment. But if you do an experiment, you have to test the kid before you have to test them after you have to have strict criteria. But the rules are kind of all over the place. You know, why are they going back when life goes on is not a very good reason to be honest. Is it for their education? Is it because they're driving their parents crazy? I think you have to be clear about why you're doing it. It's just to get kids out of the house. Then why does it have to be school? Why can it be a summer camp? Why can't they be outside where they would certainly be safer than inside and more active? So there's just so many questions in what Quebec is doing and I think that's the problem.

MG: And so the column that you have in the paper today is headlined Quebec Should Not Be Heading Back to School. You've outlined some of the concerns. But what really is at the heart of this? Why do you think that this is an experiment that doesn't need to proceed?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, as I said, it's because if you're going to do an experiment, you're going to say, we want to figure out how things are going to work in fall. So we're testing it out. Actually do a test. Don't just say yes, some kids will go back and go back if you want to. We don't know how many kids turned up yesterday. I was trying to figure that out, watching the news stories from various regions of Quebec. Some that seem to be 20 percent. Some people like 60 percent. But, you know, if we're seeing we have to send kids back to school for their education, then it can't be, it has to be mandatory as it is in European countries. So when I look to Europe, they're returning to school in a very regimented fashion. The rules are clear. What they want to do is clear here. It's kind of just it seems all very seat by the seat of the pants.

MG: I would imagine that jurisdictions across this country are paying close attention to what's happening in Quebec. Ontario has yet to announce when schools will reopen. There are other jurisdictions, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia among them. They've said that classes won't resume until September. B.C. is reopening some schools in June. What do you think that other public health officials will be will be watching for?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think they're going to be watching is there going to be a spike in cases? But I think if you were not going to find that out because we're not doing any systematic testing. So I think we're going to learn a lot more from Denmark, from Germany, from France, that we aren't going to learn from Quebec, where we're going to learn from Quebec, I think is how fearful parents are not. And that seems to be all over the map. A lot of parents just not sending their kids in other regions. Just about everyone sending them. So I think that that's not very we're not getting their useful information from this experiment, if you want to call it that.

MG: Yesterday, the World Health Organization raised this issue of school reopening. Listen to what Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We've seen transmission from adults to children. There have been some instances of transmission the other way around from children to adults. But to a much lesser extent. The vast majority of children who are reported to be infected with COVID-19, they experience a mild disease. In terms of making the decisions about opening schools, it's very important to understand the virus circulation in the area of where the schools are. Are the schools able to practise physical distancing within the school system itself? Are there different ways that they can set up the classroom, for example, or the play time or lunchtime so that they can keep children physically separate? It's not just a matter of if they should open, it's how they should open.

MG: Andre Picard, what does this tell us about what school might look like in the fall? Not even right now, but come September when the school year is meant to start up?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, it's going to be different. Kids are going to be more far apart. There'll be less interaction, probably less activity, unfortunately. And I think what was said in that clip that's really important is, you know, everybody wants kids to go back to school. I don't think that's the debate. Debate is how do we do it safely and when do we do it? And the really key issue is if there are cases and there are going to be new cases, how can we nab them really quickly and nip any spread in the bud? That's really what's essential and that's what's lacking. That's what's lacking in Ontario and Quebec is we don't have the ability right now to catch new cases quickly and to do the contact tracing has to be done within 24 hours if you can avoid spread. And that's what distinguishes the European countries from us. They can do that, and that's why they can return to school. And if none of this go, if you want every kid who's going back to school and they get tested. I was looking at I was reading a piece yesterday in Der Spiegel about high school kids do their own testing. They show up at school, put the swab in their nose to the test, get the results within 30 minutes. If they're clear, they get a sticker to circulate freely. If they're not off, they go home. So it's very, very organised that we just don't have anything here that can you reopen the economy if there's nowhere for kids to go? You can't you know, parents have to be able to have their kids in school and day-care. So it's really an impediment. And that's why it's so important that we do it right. That more important than doing it quickly is doing it right. And the last thing we want is to open up schools. It's a disaster and we have to shut them down again. That's good. That would be doubly hard. I've said this all along. 3.The important to go more slowly and get it right than to so you don't jump and fail. Life goes on. Let's try this out and it turned out to be a mistake that that's going to be the worst possible outcome.

MG: There's been some confusion when it comes to the reopening. You and I have spoken about this before in terms of what's happening across the country. In Ontario this past weekend, the premier, Doug Ford, had his daughters visit the family home for Mother's Day. Two of them don't live in the home. They didn't bring their partners with them. But there was criticism of the premier. He said you have to trust the judgement of people in the province. This what he was doing contradicted the guidance of public health officials. What do you think an incident like that says about where we're at in in terms of this pandemic and how people are feeling about what they are being asked to do?

ANDRE PICARD: Yeah, I think so. I agree with the premier's frustration. I don't think what he did was wrong. I think we're at the point where we have to expand our bubbles a bit and we have to do, a lot of this is going to be personal risk management. You know, we don't want people throwing huge parties, but, you know, some interaction, can you have your grandparents over if they're healthy? Can you have your kids for Mother's Day, even if they live you know few miles away at university. I think these are personal decisions and shaming people and blaming them for doing the things that feel right. I don't think that's going to help us. So I don't think the criticism of the premier in this case was fair. I think a lot of families did this and they're managing the risks and this is what it's going to be about going forward.

MG: What does it look like managing those risks? You use the word frustration. I think a lot of people are feeling frustrated, but they're also hearing the guidance about staying home, if you can. So how are we going to manage those risks?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, you know, that's what we have to figure out is good guidance is guidance. It's not a golden rule. I often say public health is very much like like French grammar. We have a lot of rules, but every rule has some exceptions and that's how life is going to be going forward. We're going to have to figure out, you know, what feels right for us. Maybe we'll go a little too far one day, we'll dial it back. But we can't just lock ourselves in our homes for the rest of our lives. We have to learn to live with this virus and be as safe as possible. But there's no such thing as zero risk.

MG: And shaming people, as you say, doesn't do anybody any good.

ANDRE PICARD: We're not going to shame ourselves out of this. We're not going to police ourselves out of this. We're going to figure it out.

MG: Andre Picard, great to speak with you as always, and we'll talk again. Thank you.

ANDRE PICARD: Thank you.

MG: Andre Picard, the Global and Mail's health columnist. He's a regular part of our ongoing COVID-19 coverage here on The Current.

Tom Power in conversation with Jeff VanderMeer

Guests: Tom Power, Jeff VanderMeer

MG: I'm Matt Galloway. Tom Power, host of Q is here. Hello, Tom.

TOM POWER: Shaming doesn't do anyone any good, Matt. Hey.

MG: That's what Andre Picard says and what Andre Picard says.

TOM POWER: Shame on you for saying that, Matt. Shame on you for saying that.

MG: Just a hashtag. It's like a real life version of social media.

TOM POWER: It's like a wave form. If you shame someone for shaming, it gets cancelled out and no one got shamed at all. I think that's how it works.

MG: Oh OK.

TOM POWER: All right. Don't mean to get nerdy on you here, Matt. How are you?

MG: Everything's well. Yourself?

TOM POWER: Speaking of nerdy, I'm good. Are you a science fiction guy?

MG: You know, I read a lot and I don't read a lot of science fiction.

TOM POWER: You know, me neither. It's a new part of my life ever since I started hosting Q, but I really enjoyed it. I talked to Jeff VanderMeer. He's the author of books like Annihilation and Dead Astronauts. He's been on the show before. The thing about these science fiction authors I spoken to is that, especially if they write dystopian science fiction, they have a real way of, if not predicting the future of interpreting the strange world that we're living in right now. So when COVID-19 came around, the first person we kind of wanted to talk to you was a science fiction writer because we felt like they might have interesting perspective on all this. And they did. Take a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

[Tom Power's conversation with Jeff VanderMeer]

MG: Tom Power in conversation with the author, Jeff VanderMeer. We've been asking you questions. And one of the questions is what is the music that is helping get you through this moment that we are in? You've been sending in your song requests. This one comes from Joan Robb in Roberts Creek, suggesting what she calls a brilliant original performance by Vancouver's Phoenix Choir. Keep in mind, they were all working from home when this recording was made. She recommends the video as well. Can't play the video for you on the radio, but we can play the song. This is the Longest Time - the Quarantine Edition.

[Song: "The Longest Time (Quarantine Edition)" by Phoenix Choir]

MG: The. Oh, he's got. Oh, on this. He's very Nice. Recorded at home. Vancouver's Phoenix Choir and the Quarantine Edition of The Longest Time. Time to say goodbye to our listeners in Newfoundland and Labrador. For everyone else, The Current is back in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to CBC Radio One.

Emergency benefit to aid seniors is a start, but more needs to be done, says advocate

Guests: Laura Tamblyn Watts

MG: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. An announcement came this morning. The federal government will give Canada's seniors a one time grant of $300 if they receive old age security. An additional $200 dollars on top of that, if they also get the guaranteed income supplement. Ottawa says this money will help more than six and a half million seniors deal with the extra costs associated with COVID-19.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We know that our elders have built this country. We have an enormous debt of gratitude to them. They are my parents. They are your parents. They are our parents and grandparents. We need to look after them.

MG: That's Treasury Board President, Jean-YVes Duclos speaking earlier this morning. Laura Tamblyn Watts is a seniors advocate and the CEO of CanAge. Laura, good morning.

LAURA TAMBLYN WATTS: Good morning.

MG: What's your initial reaction to this announcement by the government? As I mentioned, up to $500 for seniors. It could be as little as $300, but as I mentioned, as much as $500.

LAURA TAMBLYN WATTS: It's a small but welcome first step and a long time coming. The about up to $500 really is for low and modest incomes senior. So it won't help everybody, but we'll help to defray some of the additional expenses that low and modest income seniors are experiencing in the time of COVID.

MG: What are those additional expenses? We've seen life get more expensive for a lot of people, but for seniors in particular what are they being hit with?

LAURA TAMBLYN WATTS: There's additional costs with transportation. So the public transit may no longer be an option for people because of infections. So they're having to spend more money on things like taxis and Uber and Lyft. Now, when it comes to grocery delivery, there can be extra costs to get groceries into the home. There's also additional costs with dispensing fees because of a 30 day restriction that many provinces put on ease. All of these little costs add up and make a big difference to low income seniors. But this is just a small first step. There's much more that needs to be done.

MG: I was going to say if those costs are as real as you say and the seniors are getting as little as a one time payment of $300, upwards of $500. Is that going to go any distance at all to meet those needs?

LAURA TAMBLYN WATTS: It's going to help a little bit, but we can each have some real questions as to why this is not at a minimum of rolling benefit as the other benefits in this area for a COVID-19 have been. Why a one time support? It's not going to get cheaper in June and it doesn't help some of the big system issues with regards to financial support for seniors that we really need to face. But any little bit helps right now.

MG: Would seniors be, to your point, I mean, there are other rolling benefits. Are seniors eligible for the CERB, the Emergency Response Benefit?

LAURA TAMBLYN WATTS: In theory they can be, but in practice mostly no. So what it does is really provide income replacement and for many older people who are retired. So it doesn't actually help that. Our big concern is for people who are having to really manage their own retirement, which is overwhelmingly most people in Canada who are seniors, they have to really make management on their r-s.d and their Riffe withdrawals. And that's an area that you didn't hear needed reform, that carnage has been asking the government to look at.

MG: What would you want from the government when it comes to those retirement funds?

LAURA TAMBLYN WATTS: Right now, there's a penalty for having to cash in RRSPs generally. So if you're a younger senior and you've got RRSPs, you have to live off of your own money or cash a bit early. We would like to see that abated so that you can cash in RRSPs without penalty. Right now you're also required at 71 to convert from our RRSP to a RIFF. And we're asking that fees be eradicated for that as well. Many people are not planning to cash those in, but because of the markets are going to have to do so. So when you pass those things in, it creates a taxable benefit. We need the government to waive that taxable portion so that the government isn't taking advantage of older people who are in financial crisis. They can do that easily. They haven't done it yet.

MG: Taking advantage of that? Is you believe what's happening when it comes to keeping that taxable portion in place right now?

LAURA TAMBLYN WATTS: Older people really need this money. And people who are looking at having to cash in their savings are doing so because of dire financial need, because the plunge in the markets. So they are at their most financially vulnerable and they're usually not eligible for low income benefit because they have some assets. So taking tax off of a really essentially a forced cashing in is really, I think, quite inappropriate in this circumstance. They can stop having to collect that tax and really help seniors who are now facing very different life circumstances.

MG: In the absence of gestures like that, what are the choices that seniors have to face as as you said, the costs continue to go up and the expenses of of daily life continue to change in this pandemic.

LAURA TAMBLYN WATTS: We're going to see senior bankruptcies absolutely come into play in a much more serious way than they ever have before. And so for very low income seniors who are already living in poverty, you know, they're going to experience greater poverty and this one time benefit helps a little bit to alleve that. But as they say, it doesn't exist in June. So on a go forward basis, it won't help. But for many people who've been managing okay on their own through their own savings are now going to see a huge plunge in the market. And people are making life choices that aren't just, well, I'm not going to travel, but their life choices like can I have to sell my house? And if so, in this market, would anyone buy it? Do I have to cash in all of my savings just to make ends meet? And is the government going to take that taxable income at a time where I really need it? These are very difficult decisions. And seniors are really at the beginning of having to make those very hard choices.

MG: The conversations over the course of this pandemic around seniors, particularly revolve largely around what's happening in long term care homes and seniors residences. The prime minister has talked about the debts that Canadians owe to seniors who've built this country. And people have said that there will be a reckoning when it comes to how we treat our elders and where they are housed in those long term care facilities. But what about this? Do you find that the actions of the prime minister match the words?

LAURA TAMBLYN WATTS: We're happy that the prime minister is speaking on the issue of seniors, because seniors on the whole don't get that much attention when it comes to the federal politics. So we appreciate the fact that they are raising this awareness, but we're really, really wanting to see proper action put in place. This is a nice gesture, an important gesture for very low income seniors on a one time benefit. But does it rise to the requirement of what we need to do? It does not.

MG: Do you have any indication that more will be coming?

LAURA TAMBLYN WATTS: In the press conference, there was questions about really substantial perform around things like tax deferrals or not taking tax on conversion of larger assets and so on? And I heard them say that there was nothing off the table. I can't age work very closely with governments to try to make sure that older people are able to live well as well as possible in these very difficult financial times. So I'm encouraged that nothing is off the table, but I didn't hear the announcement today. So positive first steps for very low income seniors on a one time basis. But if we look at what's needed, it's not enough.

MG: Laura, good to speak with you. Thank you.

LAURA TAMBLYN WATTS: Thank you.

MG: Laura Tamblyn Watts is a seniors advocate and the CEO of CanAge.

[Music]

Tom Power in conversation with Emma Rudy

Guests: Tom Power, Emma Rudy

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. Tom Power, host of Q, is here. Hello, Tom.

TOM POWER: Matt, I got a bit of a problem.

MG: Yes?

TOM POWER: I'm drinking a lot of brake fluid.

MG: Well, that doesn't sound healthy at all.

TOM POWER: It's OK, I can stop whenever I want.

MG: I wasn't entirely sure where that was going for a minute, but.

TOM POWER: Wouldn't it be sad if it was just a sad admission of mine on national radio.

MG: Quarantine is difficult for all of us in different ways, I suppose.

TOM POWER: How are you doing? You doing okay?

MG: You know, it was a year ago that I stayed up far too late to watch Kawhi Leonard put a shot into a basketball hoop and I was just watching a video of that and was reminded not just of how great of a moment it was, but how great it was that thousands and thousands of people were just close to each other and didn't worry about catching some sort of virus.

TOM POWER: I know, I know. I was doing a gig. I play a gig in Toronto every Sunday. And I came home and watched that game. And there were 13 seconds left in the game. And I was like, oh, God, well I missed it. What's the sense of watching a game with 13 seconds left in it?

MG: Everything.

TOM POWER: Everything. It was the greatest 13 seconds of my entire life. Now, I have and speaking of people being unable to get together, I have sad news. I have another kind of disappointing cancellation to tell you. The Charlottetown Festival on Prince Edward Island, home to Anne of Green Gables, the musical, you know Anne of Green Gables.

MG: Indeed. Yes.

TOM POWER: Anne with an E, I don't know if you heard of that show.

MG: I've heard of it. Yeah.

TOM POWER: You know, they've got some a couple of fans that are very passionate. Emma Rudy won the role of Anne last season in the musical. It was a dream come true. She was asked to return again this year then of course, the whole summer line-up was cancelled. So I caught up with her. Take a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

[Tom Power's conversation with Emma Rudy]

MG: That's Tom Power in conversation with the actor Emma Rudy. And that will do it for The Current for today. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. Take care yourself and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

[Music: Theme]

May 12, 2020 episode transcript

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