Lisa Raitt on taking care of her husband as he struggles with young-onset Alzheimer's

Guests: Lisa Raitt

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VOICE: Mr. Speaker, there were incredibly troubling admissions made at this morning's justice committee, so many that I don't have enough time to go through them all, but we're going to fight to do better and make sure we get this on the record. Mr. Speaker, this morning, the clerk of the Privy Council confirmed that he and the prime minister sought to influence the decision of the Attorney General in the matter of bribery and fraud charges against SNC-Lavalin. Can the prime minister confirm that this indeed is the case?

MG: For many years, Canadians knew Lisa Raitt as a powerful force in the House of Commons, whether as a cabinet minister in the Harper government or in opposition, where she wasn't one to back down. But now she is in a very different fight.

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[Clip of Lisa Raitt and Bruce Wood]

MG: That's a glimpse into a very private scene that Lisa Raitt posted on Twitter. You hear Bruce Wood, her husband, who has young onset Alzheimer's. It was four o'clock in the morning, Bruce was growing increasingly agitated and the video that Lisa Raitt posted has been viewed more than 35,000 times. More than half a million Canadians are living with dementia, 16,000 of them are under the age of 65. We went to visit Lisa and Bruce in their home just outside Toronto. Bruce was out for a drive with a support worker. Being in the car calms him down. We sat in their kitchen, distanced with COVID precautions in place. Hi.

LISA RAITT: Hi, Matt.

MG: Thank you for having us here.

LISA RAITT: Well, welcome to Moffatt, Ontario.

MG: How are you doing?

LISA RAITT: It's not a great day. It's not. It's we're at a point you know, three weeks ago when I posted the video, I thought this was as bad as it's going to get and it's gotten worse. And despite the fact or in spite of the fact that there's a lot of good people trying to help us get through it, it's still the reality is for 24 hours a day, you're living it. And Bruce's psychological behaviour problems have escalated. And the area that you feel at the most is lack of sleep. So that's why it's not great right now, where none of us are operating on any level of sleep that's necessary for a human to have.

MG: Can you talk a bit about that video that you posted? What was going on?

LISA RAITT: Well, it happened last night again, so it's pretty fresh in my memory.

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[Clip of Lisa Raitt and Bruce Wood]

LISA RAITT: GAt about 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. Bruce will wake up and if he doesn't go back to sleep right away, he'll start muttering. It's almost like catching a spark. And I'll say to myself, please go back to sleep. But if he doesn't, he'll start jabbering to himself and he'll get louder and louder and louder and then he'll jump out of bed. And then he'll start fighting with the bedsheets or fighting with a phantom person in the room. He'll demand that I get up to fight this person as well. He always has flashlights around him and he'll start taking the flashlights and banging the mattress, banging the bed. And it gets really intense. There's lots of cursing and it'll go on, this morning it went on for an hour and 15 minutes.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: What can I do?

VOICE 2: I don't know. Get up and go.

VOICE 1: OK, I will.

VOICE 2: Right now.

VOICE 1: OK.

VOICE 2: Jesus Christ.

MG: It's scary to watch. Are you fearful for your own safety as this is unfolding?

LISA RAITT: My sons are. Yeah one of them's coming home next week from university early. He doesn't want me to be alone. And I am, yeah. I mean, we we've breached. I always said that there's this line in the sand that if he ever became physical with me, that that would be it and we crossed that boundary last week, unfortunately. And I was, I moved out of the room because he was becoming so agitated. I thought I had to distance myself. And I came down to sleep on the couch and he found me and he just punched me in the head.

MG: That's awful.

LISA RAITT: It's awful because he's a good man. So you tell yourself it's the disease.

MG: In that moment, you're asking in the video, you asked Bruce, what can I do?

LISA RAITT: Yeah.

MG: What are you trying to figure out, you know, to do in that moment?

LISA RAITT: Well, what I learnt from that is I shouldn't be asking him what I can do because he doesn't know. And what I should be doing is trying to divert and try to match my calmness with his anger. So I've learnt that from the video going out because people have provided good feedback. I have learned that there's a lot of folks out there who are using cannabis, both THC and CBD to try to help the calming. And I've gotten lots of information sent to me about that. I fully reported to Bruce's physician and they are prescribing the best mix of antipsychotics and tranquillzers to try to keep them from becoming violent. So that's the kind of help that I ended up getting. Did it come because I posted the video? I don't know, But posting the video gave me the strength to talk to others about what I needed. And it's giving permission to people to tell the really bad stories. There is an online community of people who whose partners have young onset and you find them on lots of different chat boards. There's one that I go to a lot and you can put in the search line extreme violent at night, really wants to go for drives all the time, fighting with bedcovers and you'll find four or five streams of people talking about it. So what I wanted to do is bring it out of the shadow because you suffer in this silent and alone.

MG: You said that you had a line that couldn't be crossed and that the line was crossed.

LISA RAITT: It was, yeah.

MG: So what happens after that?

LISA RAITT: So what I said to him in the moment and it hasn't happened again, I said if you do that again, I will call the police, which I will do. And what that means is he ends up going to the hospital and then he's not released until they can calm him down again because he's not safe to come back into the home with me. And then he's in the system and the system because of covid-19. It's a bit of a mess. So that is a big fear of mine having to take that last step. But we all now know that if that happens again, that's where it's going to go. He doesn't have any cognition of that. I think I told that to him. So I'm telling myself out loud, but the second part of it is I told the doctor and they moved very, very quickly to try to get the right prescriptions to calm him down. And, you know, some of your listeners, Matt, may be critical about the fact that we're using pharmaceuticals to calm him down. But the reality is he's 6'2, he's 250 pounds and he can kill somebody. And if you're going to have to live with that, you're going to have to have the tools in place in order to deal with what's coming at you.

MG: Does telling yourself that that you would take that step, does that help?

LISA RAITT: Yes, it's an acknowledgement. Also, I told myself that we are going to have to find long term care facility for him. And I started that process after I put the video out as well. But wait times for LTC have doubled since COVID doubled its two years. So anything I'm looking at is private. And even then it's a year and I guess it's the other part of it. This is really expensive. It is out of reach of the normal Canadian family and it's in my reach only because he has, he was recognized when he was still working to have this. Therefore, he has disability insurance. A lot of people get fired before the diagnosis and lose all the benefits. So, you know, touch wood, we're lucky.

MG: Yeah, but it's not easy.

LISA RAITT: Understatement.

MG: Yeah. And it's I mean, it's obviously your decision to make and it's an impossible decision, but if that line gets crossed and if you're actually worried and if your family is worried for you, there are people, you know, who would be asking why would you stay true?

LISA RAITT: But we also can't allow him to be put into a long-term care facility without having those emotions under control, because that's just giving somebody else the set of problems. So the goal right now is to find that magical mix of calmness so that he can go and live in a place where he's going to get better care because the psychological side is one thing. And then you have your daily living tasks that he can't do. He can't shower, he can't shave, he can't dress himself. He's getting to the point where he can't feed himself. So I do those things right now.

MG: What is an average day like for you? I mean, there's parts of, you know, normal life, dog's asleep, snoring on the floor, and, you know, it's a snowy day here. What is an average day like for you?

LISA RAITT: Right now, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's, you know, from 4:00 a.m. until 10 p.m. He's an out of control toddler with a lot of strength and the temper tantrums to go with it and the inability to sit down or sleep or nap or and no patience and wanting everything now and constant attention and demand. So it's significant. And then maybe a couple hours sleep and then awake for another hour and then a couple hours sleep and then awake for another hour. But you know what, Matt, here's the thing, this disease is so cruel. If you get 15 minutes of the clarity of what you once had in a relationship with your husband, when you're sitting down and you're watching something, Family Feud on television, you live for those moments and then you almost think to yourself, I can deal with the 23 hours of real crappy time to get this one snippet. But the reality is your body can't like the stress on a caregiver is super significant. And I thought I could just, you know, barrel through anything in life and I'm hitting my limit.

MG: Can you go back to \when he was diagnosed with young onset Alzheimer's?

LISA RAITT: Yeah.

MG: How old was he?

LISA RAITT: 56.

MG: 56?

LISA RAITT: Yeah. And at the time, the doc said he probably was showing real symptoms for two and a half years before that. And like I can see the symptoms going way back.

MG: OK, so I mean, knowing now what you know, when did you start to notice a change in his behaviour?

LISA RAITT: 2011.

MG: You're very quick in saying that.

LISA RAITT: Yeah, because I thought about it a lot. My life, unfortunately, has been measured in elections. So it was the 2011 election that I saw a huge difference in how he approached that election. 2012, he wouldn't order in a restaurant and then he started having trouble at work reading documents. And then in 2014, when we had the the gunman come into the House of Commons, it was pretty scary. My kids were pulled out of school by their teachers, which was really smart and sheltered and Bruce didn't call me that day. He didn't want to know if I was OK. It didn't even occur to him that I was in any kind of danger or worry or like nothing. It's like business as usual. And I thought, what the heck is going on? This man clearly doesn't love me. He doesn't care about me. And I thought we were heading for a terrible marital breakdown and turns out he had Alzheimer's. Turns out that's a story you hear an awful lot.

MG: What?

LISA RAITT: That people get divorced, people lose their jobs with young onset before they're diagnosed, and then everyone goes, oh, that's what it was.

MG: People perhaps have an idea of what Alzheimer's is. What's, aside from the age, what is specific to young onset Alzheimer's?

LISA RAITT: From what I can tell, it's big personality changes. Its mood changes. It's the young part is important because you're still able bodied, but you're really not cognitively there. You lose your executive function. So it's more than just losing your keys. It's the inability to plan anything out. But it's the emotional changes that I think are ones that are overlooked. You go from somebody who could be very sunny and lovely to somebody who's got a real anger issue and uncaring and not enjoying life and that's a good signal of what's going on.

MG: 56 is young, right? So what's happening in your life at that time?

LISA RAITT: Well, I am nine years younger than him. So I was in my 40s. I had lost the 2015 election. The government, we had lost the government. I was still a Member of Parliament and I was you know, it was the end of March and I'm sitting in a in a room with a doctor telling us that he has young onset Alzheimer's. And I wasn't even, I couldn't even understand what the doctor was saying. It was just unbelievable. Never had to cross my mind that he had this problem. And from then, you know, the old ways kind of kick in and we're going to beat this and we're going to live our best lives. And we did. And the one thing, if I could give any piece of advice for anyone out there, I spent an awful lot of money travelling and I have zero regrets. It's all embedded in my mortgage. I don't care. I did the line of credit thing and we travelled and I've got beautiful memories. And I didn't realise how little time I was going to have to travel with him. It really went quick. We only had three years.

MG: What are some of the things that you had to put into place once you got the diagnosis?

LISA RAITT: Powers of attorney and wills. Very important, because at some point you lose the ability to make decisions, and I wanted Bruce to be able to make his own decisions on those two things. And he did. And then the second thing was we got married. I never thought I'd get married again. We're second marriage. So he got diagnosed and I sat with my girlfriends in Ottawa at a restaurant and we decided to put a wedding together in six weeks in Cape Breton. And we did it. And I'm glad because it gives him his security. He wears a wedding ring, he looks at it, he knows he belongs to someone he may not know. He belongs to me because that part is a little bit fuzzy now, but he belongs to someone. And that was really important for him and it actually helps him.

MG: You can imagine that there are some people who wouldn't take that step right. Having just got that diagnosis, knowing what's in front of them, would turn the other way.

LISA RAITT: I respect that choice. I've seen it in the community. I know somebody very well whose partner decided this was not going to be for them. I respect that decision. It's not for everybody.

MG: Can I ask why it was for you? I'm prying. I'm sorry. These are weird.

LISA RAITT: You're an interviewer. You're supposed to.

MG: No, but, so why was it for you?

LISA RAITT: Why was it for me?It was the right thing to do. Sense of duty. I would never abandon anybody. And quite frankly, I was brought up in Cape Breton to do this. My grandmother looked after my grandfather when he had a stroke, when he was paralyzed. My aunt looked after her husband, who had MS for 35 years. This is part of life and I'm glad I did, because, quite frankly, to have a relationship when there are no suspicions about motivation, because he can't have motivation, it's just raw emotion all the time. It's kind of refreshing and absolutely wonderful. Like you feel the best of love.

MG: How did your relationship change when his condition worsened and you needed to become essentially a full-time caregiver?

LISA RAITT: Yeah, it's insidious how that creeps up on you. All of a sudden, you wake up one day and you realise I'm not I'm not a wife anymore and want to know when when he called me mom, he calls me mommy. When he's going through the house, he'll say, Mommy, Mommy. And it's not because he thinks I'm his mother. Hopefully I don't look that old, but it's because I fulfil that role of dressing him, of shaving him, of cleaning him. In his mind he's a little boy. He thinks he's a young boy. It was probably August of this year when it fully became apparent that I was no longer his wife and I just stopped telling him I was his wife.

MG: How do you come to understand that and wrap your head around that?

LISA RAITT: You know what and I'm not trying to take a phrase from another important part of life, but love is love and I love him. And I know I love my kids. And I know love can be different in different ways, doesn't have to be physical all the time. And if he sees me in the light of being someone that he loves as much as his mother, that's OK, because I know how much I love my kids. You know what I mean? It doesn't bother me in that sense. He's expressing his emotion and his love for me, and that's OK, as long as it's a loved one.

MG: There are practical changes that you have to make in life as well as you become a caregiver. I mean, learning this must be a really steep learning curve for you as well.

LISA RAITT: I have nothing else to do but read as much as I can. All my books are on Alzheimer's, but I find the best information, quite frankly, is coming from working with a group of people who are our caregivers for their spouses. We talk on Thursday nights. It's based in the United States. I made the choice to be anonymous and.

MG: Was that important?

LISA RAITT: Yeah it was.

MG: I mean you're a public figure.

LISA RAITT: It really was, and not from the public figure kind of side, but the same reason why you don't put a lawyer on a jury because you don't want to direct people. You don't want to be the all answer person all the time because you have been public. And it allows me to be public in Canada and private in the United States. So I find that to be helpful because we compare notes all the time. And then honestly, there's this website and I'm going to give it. It's the ALZ Connected website. alzconnected.org. Great web chats. I don't actually put my story up, but I certainly lurk and I Google to find out what the next thing is coming for me.

MG: We're going to pause our conversation there for the CBC News. And then we will continue with Lisa Raitt speaking about becoming a caregiver for her husband, who was diagnosed at the age of 56 with young onset Alzheimer's. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. We are back in six minutes. Stay with us.

[Music]

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

[Music: theme]

MG: Still to come, a new investigation from the CBC's The Fifth Estate looks at how migrant farm workers have been treated during the pandemic and why COVID is highlighting some systemic problems. But first, we return to our interview with Lisa Raitt.

[Music: theme]

MG: Dementia and Alzheimer's disease rob you of everything. It is an impossible thing for the people who experience it and for the people around them. Former MP Lisa Raitt is now caring for her husband, Bruce Wood. He has young onset Alzheimer's. And before the news, she was telling us about his decline since he was diagnosed at the age of 56. He's getting more difficult to care for, more aggressive, and his outbursts have crossed a line.

SOUNDCLIP

LISA RAITT: I always said that there's this line in the sand that if you ever became physical with me, that that would be it. And we crossed that boundary last week, unfortunately. And I was, I moved out of the room because he was becoming so agitated. I thought I had to distance myself and I came down to sleep on the couch and he found me and he just punched me in the head. It's awful because he's a good man. So you tell yourself it's the disease.

MG: I was speaking with Lisa Raitt in their home. Bruce was out for a drive with his caregiver. In the house, I mean, there are cameras that are around. We're here in kind of the dining room. Tell me a little bit about that and what you have to do in the house.

LISA RAITT: Cameras were put in when I was commuting into downtown Toronto when he didn't have a caregiver with him. They're two ways. You can speak to them. And it allowed me to have comfort that he was OK. Cameras now are more witness to history as to what's going on in the house. My kids have access to the cameras so they can view and see what's going on at any given time if there's a problem. And, you know, when Bruce disappears into one part of the house, I can track him. And it's always on my phone, so if I have to lock myself in a room, which has happened, I will be able to see what he's doing or if he's left the house via the cameras.

MG: Can you talk about that? About locking yourself in a room. You have a safe room.

LISA RAITT: I do, which is in the basement and I've chosen not to use it now because there's only one access in and out. So if the stairs get blocked, I can't get out. So it's not really a safe room. It's an unsafe, safe room. So I've made sure that there are certain rooms in the house that have locks on them and that have heavy pieces of furniture that can be moved in front of it.

MG: And you've had to use those before?

LISA RAITT: Mhm. Yeah, on occasion, once or twice in the past week. In the past week. Prior to the new mix of, of drugs. So. I can't imagine what that's like. I hope you don't have to I don't wish this on anyone, but it happens and people have to know that. Find yourself help. Emotionally, find yourself help through a doctor. Don't be afraid to make hard decisions because the decision is bad either way, keeping him at home or or having having been placed in a facility that will care for him. And the other thing is that I hope that employers are listening because everyone understands cancer, everyone understands chemo. Everyone understands loss of a child. As horrible as all those things are, nobody knows what Alzheimer's like for people in their 50s dealing with it with a spouse.

MG: What have you learnt that you didn't know from a distance now that you're in this that you think other people need to be aware of?

LISA RAITT: It's going to go violent. It will become violent. Young onset Alzheimer's ends in violence in some way, shape or form, and you can't stop it. It's just a deterioration of the brain and you have to be prepared for some really tough decisions and not to be ashamed. The day that I had to call the police the first time, I was so ashamed. I spent the rest of the day going neighbour to neighbour to neighbour to explain why I did what I had to do. I should never have to do that.

MG: And why did you call the police, if you don't mind me asking?

LISA RAITT: Oh, because he took a pair of hedge clippers and started bashing the car door and the front door and he was very rude and I was extremely worried he was going to be violent.

MG: And you felt like you needed to explain to the neighbours why the police were here?

LISA RAITT: Yes, I did. And I won't do that again.

MG: Did they understand?

LISA RAITT: The close ones did. The other ones just like to gossip.

MG: Because part of this is about what happens in your house, but it's also like stigma is a real thing and I just wonder how that impacts you?

LISA RAITT: So I have a great group of friends and I love them dearly and they're all there for me. But I will tell you I will tell you that there is a lot of chat that happens amongst people who are going through it right now, talking about how there are friends that just disappear, that you never see them again because they can't handle it.

MG: Do you feel that families like yours have what you need from government?

LISA RAITT: Look, young onset Alzheimer's, there's 16,000 families in this country that are dealing with it. I don't think any of them are well served by any level of government or any society. And I know it's really tough for me to say that because I know Alzheimer's Society tries to do, but it's such a small portion of people that a lot of the times were left to our own. In the United Statesm they've got a group called Hilarity for Charity and Seth Rogen and his wife Lauren, and they are they're doing really amazing things for caregivers, really amazing things. So I'd like to see something like that up here.

MG: What do you need? I mean, what do families like hers need?

LISA RAITT: I need a place where Bruce can go to be comfortable to do activities that are appropriate to his age and his physical ability. Activity, that's what really matters. That's the break people need to be everyone wants to have a dignified life and to feel useful, and we're just not even thinking about those kinds of groups. There's a group out west called You Quest in Calgary. They've set up their own group of 10 people who go out and do recreational therapy at a local place, but all of that's gone in COVID.

MG: Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, what happens in the midst of a pandemic?

LISA RAITT: Well, I'm lucky enough that I have caregivers who agree to come into the house. But if any of us get COVID, that's all over and then you're on your own. But I do know in the community that, you know, people who were attending day programmes, they just don't exist. But there are no day programmes for Bruce in this part of the world. I don't even know if there's one in Toronto that would be appropriate for for him. But I do know there's lots of people who have this.

MG: There is money that goes into national dementia strategy, something like $50 million that the government put into it. What would that accomplish, do you think?

LISA RAITT: Hey, look, any money going into anything is good. So you don't you know, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth kind of thing. They've done well. They've got a strategy. They're going to do well on certain things. They're going to bring awareness. And I'm hoping that this will actually spur on private donations. This thing gets dealt with by private donations, by setting up private foundations or private groups that are funded by by charitable donations or even by user pays and run by families. I think that's going to be one of the ways in which to really get at the day to day issues people are feeling.

MG: You talked about the 15 minutes or so and the day that you just smiled when I said that you kind of look forward to what happens. What do you love about those 15 minutes.

BRUCE: It's just normal. It's just normal.

MG: And what is normal?

LISA RAITT: Normal is having your partner know who you are and watching television and smiling at a joke or saying, I'm really tired. That's it. That's really it.

MG: Do you get that every day?

LISA RAITT: No, I do not. No. Once, once every three days. And less and less.

MG: What's your biggest concern in where you are right now.

LISA RAITT: That we can't get the symptoms under control quickly enough, so that there's no damage to me or the house or anybody else?

MG: Who do you turn to? Like what are you doing to hang on and take care of yourself in this? You talked about the hours and, you know, waking up at four o'clock in the morning. That's a long day and that's a lot to carry. What are you doing to take care of yourself?

LISA RAITT: So the hardest decision I made in the past 24 hours. Sorry, that's Ruby. She likes to be fed. The hardest decision I've made in the last 24 hours is that I'm going to start vacation. And my vacation is not a vacation. My vacation is just to be able to cope. So I've let the folks know who need to know that I'm going to have to take some time because caregiver stress kills caregivers. And I know when I've hit my limit and I'm there. I'm there. And I as much as I love what I do and as much as I get gratification out of what I do, I know where I work. would rather have me 100 percent than they would have me at 25 percent. So I'm going to take vacation.

MG: And is that hard? I mean, as an ambitious.

LISA RAITT: Really hard.

MG: Ambitious is making the best case.

LISA RAITT: Even in the note that I wrote to my boss, I said, I can't believe I'm writing this note. I didn't even take maternity leave. But I know I've hit the limit. I'm there.

MG: I appreciate you telling us what you're in the midst of. It's important. I mean, it's not easy and posting that video is not easy, but I think it's really important for people to know a bit about this. There are a lot of people who, you know this already turn to you for some information, for some advice. To to talk openly about this is really important.

LISA RAITT: Thanks, Matt. I had some really good people tell me some hard truths a couple of months ago about the impact in their lives of caregiving on their parents. And as a result, I made a choice that I got to and my kids have a big impact too, right. They want me around and it really does come down to that. Yeah. You hear the old adage, you got to put your own mask on first before you put the mask on the person next to you kind of thing. And I think talking about it allows other people to have that recognition moment. And if it's only one family out there that I help, I'm actually good with that because it matters.

MG: But you need help yourself too, so take care of yourself.

LISA RAITT: I will.

MG: Thank you.

LISA RAITT: Thanks, Matt.

SOUNDCLIP

LISA RAITT: Hey you. Come on in and say hi to Matt.

TINA: He's right there.

LISA RAITT: Bruce, this is Matt Galloway.

MG: Hey Bruce, how are you?

LISA RAITT: You're not allowed to shake hands.

MG: You're not allowe to shake. You have to do this.

LISA RAITT: You're not allowed to shake hands, sweetheart.

MG: There you go.

LISA RAITT: How was your drive?

BRUCE: Good.

LISA RAITT: Good. Matt this is Tina.

MG: Hey Tina. How are you?

TINA: Hello.

LISA RAITT: Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

TINA: He had a good nap.

LISA RAITT: He had a good nap?

TINA: He had a little sleep in the car.

LISA RAITT: Did you have anything to eat, sweetie?

TINA: Yes he did. He had a bacon wrap, the whole thing.

MG: Bruce returned from his outing just as we were wrapping up our conversation. I was speaking with his wife and caregiver, Lisa Raitt. One in five Canadians is a caregiver to a loved one with Alzheimer's and if you're one of them, get the support that you need. Lisa Raitt mentioned the ALZconnected.org website, as well as the Alzheimer Society of Canada. They can help with local resources as well. And if you're living through similar experiences as a caregiver or someone recently diagnosed with young onset Alzheimer's, we'd love to know how you're doing in the midst of that. You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca. We're on Twitter as well. Find us @TheCurrentCBC or you can find us on Facebook.

Andre Picard discusses Canada’s vaccine development capabilities and the holidays

Guests: Andre Picard

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. Andre Picard has been listening in to our conversation. He is the Globe and Mail's health columnist. Andre, good morning.

ANDRE PICARD: Good morning.

MG: We have lots of COVID news to get to typically and so we'll get to that in just a moment, but I wanted to get your reaction first to what we just heard from Lisa Raitt. What did you make of that?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think it really shows the burden and the dedication of caregivers. Anyone who has had a loved one with dementia can relate to a lot of what she said. And she's a tremendous advocate because she's put herself out there and it's not easy to do that, especially when you're living with the loved ones who are suffering through this. So it's, I think, a real eye opener for people, but people who've lived through it will be nodding their head through a lot of that unfortunately.

MG: I think one of the most challenging things that she talked about was the wait time for long-term care, which is doubled during COVID. There's a two year wait, a one year wait for private care if you can afford that. Is that another sign? And we've talked about this over the course of this pandemic, but is that another sign to you of how strained the system as it exists right now is?

ANDRE PICARD: The wait time is horrible, but it's even more horrible for people in her situation, people with someone who's become violent. And I think it reminds us, you know, we have too many people in homes in Canada, but we don't have enough spots for people who desperately need them. So it's this paradox, you know, well, we don't need more beds, but we need better beds. And it's so, so difficult to get a spot for someone like Bruce where you need to wander, where you need to be physically active. And the young onset Alzheimer's folks are amongst the worst. But there's many people, you know, veterans with PTSD, we have a special ward in Canada at Sunnybrook, but it's one ward and we need a lot more help for people in that situation.

MG: Is there any reason, just finally to believe that that's going to change anytime soon and that there would be more spaces available for people like Bruce?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I hope you know COVID, I hope one of the good things will come out of it is that it's really shining a spotlight on the failings of elder care and especially the sickest of the sick. Hopefully we'll start there. That's where the problem has to start to be resolved.

MG: Let's turn to COVID then. Scenes like this are playing out in different parts of this country.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sounds from anti-lockdown protests]

MG: Chaotic scenes that Andre Picard is the sound of police arresting the owner of a barbecue restaurant in Toronto for defying lockdown orders and continuing to invite customers inside his restaurant to eat. There was a confrontation that happened in a BC Wal-Mart over masks last week. Churches in British Columbia and Manitoba have plan to hold services against public health orders. What do you thinking as you hear this pushback continue to lockdown measures?

ANDRE PICARD: I think it's almost predictable. There's always going to be some resistance, especially as things drag on. There's always going to be people on the margins who don't believe it, who don't want to believe it, who have beliefs that they think this offends. So I think, you know, we should be a bit concerned about it, but we shouldn't overstate it. These are very small groups of people who are kind of out on the fringes, you know, people who think that getting barbecue at a gas station is a constitutional right. I think they're pretty out there. I don't think we should overstate their importance.

MG: I guess I just wonder how governments should respond. This weekend, 60 people at a Toronto party at an Airbnb were confronted by police over the weekend. There was and this seems to happen regularly, these marches in Toronto, in Montreal, in other parts of the country, how our government is supposed to respond to this?

ANDRE PICARD: I think it's hard to find that balance. I think you have to tolerate civil disobedience. You know, protest is part of a democracy. You have to allow that. But once people are flagrantly breaking the rules, you know, 60 people at a party, that's when you go in and you slap them with those big fines of forty five thousand dollars in fines at that party, that's the way to go. Marchers, I would let them march, but crack down on on the masked law. You have to just try and find that balance.

MG: And balance is an interesting word because businesses we know we talked about this last week on the program are being hit hard by these restrictions. Small businesses in particular, they see it as a disproportionate response and that it's, you know, not a level playing field. How are politicians meant to balance those concerns between, you know, public health, but also the economy?

ANDRE PICARD: Yeah, again, it's not easy, but I think with the the balance, with the economy part of the equation, I think you have to take a longer term view. There has to be some crack down in the short term or some willingness to to shut down entirely if we want to get control. So I think this politicians, a lot of them are trying to find this balance, but they're doing it a little too quickly. They're not taking the time to get the virus under control and opening up or they're refusing to do what's probably inevitable. You know, we're seeing jurisdictions like Alberta where they're really, really reluctant to to do anything. And the cases are really going through the roof. We know it has an impact when you shut down.

MG: In your column, you referred to the latest restrictions in Alberta as feckless. Why did you use that word?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, because I think it's sort of this deliberate attempt to say we're doing something while doing nothing, I think is kind of the worst possible response. If you don't do anything, that's fine. That's a justifiable political decision. But say it, don't get up as Mr. Kenney did. I think what bothered me about his press conference was saying, we're getting tough, we're cracking down. And then I listened to him for half an hour and nothing really changed. You know, businesses are still open and churches are still having services, et cetera. So you have to be clear about what you're doing and not pretend otherwise.

MG: There's been a lot of talk certainly in the last several months, but it has escalated in the last week or so about vaccines and Canada's vaccine capabilities. Here's the prime minister.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: That race to get to the starting line first, I can understand, but this pandemic doesn't get over until we reached the finish line. And that's why the news that Canadians can expect if all goes well to have more than half of us vaccinated by next September is significant positive news.

MG: It's a pivot by the prime minister. People are questioning, you know, when can we start to get the vaccine? He says the beginning of the race doesn't matter, it's about when people finish. How should Canadians be feeling about that timeline? We're looking at perhaps September for upwards of half this country to be vaccinated?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think I thought it was refreshing that the prime minister was being hopeful, but realistic at the same time. I think half the population vaccinated by September is actually probably unlikely. I think we have to stop fooling ourselves that this is magically going to happen. There's still a lot to do. Yes, there a great vaccine candidates, but you have to crank them out. You have to build the infrastructure. You have to get them into people's arms. You have to decide who gets them first. This is a very, very complex exercise, one of the biggest challenges in the last century. And let's stop pretending that it can just magically happen overnight because you want to score political points.

MG: Is this about politics? There are a lot of questions about where Canadians are in the line. The chair of Moderna told Rosemary Barton on the CBC yesterday that Canada is not at the back of the line, as some politicians have suggested. Where are we in the line for vaccines, do you think?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think, you know, there is a lot of politics in this. Let's be realistic. Not everyone can get the vaccine at the same time. So who's going to get it first? The countries with manufacturing capability, the U.S., Germany, Switzerland. Canada, is kind of in the second tier. So I think we're going to do OK in the grand scheme of things, but I think also Canada has a role to say, listen, what about developing countries? We have to share this. This is not I'm going to get it first and forget about everyone else. I think there's a moral obligation here that's larger than let's just, you know, help our our way to the front of the line. I think there's much more to this hopefully.

MG: You encouraged by the news of this morning? Moderna saying that its results, its latest results show that the vaccine works well and it's going to apply today for emergency use authorization in the United States. Are you encouraged by that?

ANDRE PICARD: Yeah, another little step in the process. But, you know, in the weeks to come, there's going to be a whirlwind of vaccine news. And I think we have to just remember that this is all part of a process, not get too excited by any one step. And again, look to the longer term. Are these vaccines going to work in the real world? How easy are they going to be to deliver? And they're not going to be easy to deliver. They require a lot of complexity and their technology, et cetera. So I think we have to be patient and take some hope in every little step when we get news like this morning.

MG: Would a military leader fit the criteria for ensuring that that distribution works well? The prime minister announced on Friday that he's appointed a senior military commander to lead the distribution efforts in this country.

ANDRE PICARD: Yeah, both Canada and Ontario have announced military leaders. They're as good as people of any. You know, they're good at procurement, they're good at organization. They're good at dealing with unknowns. So I think it makes some sense, but I think, you know, the military has to realize that there's a lot of politics in this that is maybe even more complex than what they do out in a war zone or in an emergency zone. The politics of this can be stultifying at times.

MG: Let's look ahead just finally to the holidays. Mad rush in my neighbourhood for people buying Christmas trees. Seems early, but what else are you going to do, but put up the lights and put up the tree? And people are thinking as well about what they will or won't do over the holidays. How effective have the message has been thus far on what people shouldn't be doing over the holidays?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think the messaging is getting harder and harder. I think we've done relatively well on the Christmas piece. A lot of caution out there saying, listen, don't plan for big Christmas dinners. Maybe your kids shouldn't come home from university. So I think we've prepared people. I think they're getting ready early, buying trees early. I think that's good. It's a good way of expressing ourselves of doing something practical. I think in Canada, what's going to happen, we're going to see in the next couple of weeks the the real consequences of the US Thanksgiving of a lot of people travelling. And I think it's going to be very ugly. I think Canadians are going to take from that, boy, we're probably going to have to sacrifice Christmas this year.

MG: But there's this moral contract in Quebec, this idea that, you know, isolate before, isolate after, but you can have a couple of days where you go and see your family. Is something like that going to fly, do you think?

ANDRE PICARD: Yeah, I think that's as good an approach as any. The you know, the moral contract is kind of dissipating a bit in Quebec. They're going to have second thoughts about that because it was kind of laughed at a bit and people said, well, how does that work practically? But I think we have to find ways for people to have a little bit of fun, a little bit of escape and be as safe as possible. And again, nothing easy in this. It's a great unknown.

MG: Andre, good to speak with you, as always. Thank you.

ANDRE PICARD: Thank you.

MG: Andre Picard, the Globe and Mail's health columnist. More with him as this pandemic continues. And if you have thoughts on that guidance around Christmas and other holidays coming in the weeks ahead, of course, Hanukkah on the doorstep. There are other holidays where people are gathering. We'd love to hear from you. You can reach us through the email thecurrent@cbc.ca. Your regional update is next and then in 90 seconds, a new investigation from the CBC's The Fifth Estate takes us inside the farms where migrant workers were kept in lockdowns long after measures had been lifted. For the rest of us, what does this investigation tell us about the people who come to this country to grow and harvest the food that we eat? You'll find out, coming up. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

[Music]

The Fifth Estate investigates living conditions of migrant workers in COVID lockdowns

Guests: Gabriel Alladua, Dusty Zamecnik, Mark Kelley

MG: Hi. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Back in March, thousands of migrant farm workers started making their way to Canada. These workers are instrumental in getting our food from farm to table, but this year, their journey, like just about everything else, was different. Getting into the country was slow and complicated. And then when the workers arrived, many were met with less than ideal conditions. Thousands contracted COVID, while others were kept in lockdowns, not able to leave their farm property.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It's kind of feel like prison. You know, we can't go anywhere, so we're just stuck here. So it's between inside the house to outside the house and then back in the house. So most of the time we spend the time inside the house.

MG: Shavin is one of many workers across the country who were in lockdown for months. In case you couldn't make out everything he said, he describes where he's living as like being in prison. The CBC's Fifth Estate has investigated what's been happening on these farms and to the workers on the farms since they arrived. The Fifth's documentary airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. Fifth Estate host Mark Kelley will be with us in just a moment. But first, I'm joined by Gabriel Alladua. He was a migrant farm worker for four years, travelling each year from his home in St. Lucia. He's now a permanent resident in this country and with the organization Justice for Migrant Workers. Gabriel, good morning.

GABRIEL ALLADUA: Hi. Good morning.

MG: When you hear Shavin describe being on the farm like being in prison, does that sound familiar to you? And does that sound familiar to the experience of farm workers across the country this year?

GABRIEL ALLADUA: Yes, absolutely. And what we see, what we see is the problem. Imagine that the seasonal agricultural workers program that brought me to Canada, the three pillars of that program are one, we are here to do jobs Canadians do not want to do. Two, we cannot apply for status. And what does status mean? Status means that you cannot, you are denied basic human rights and basic employment standards. And the third pillar of that program, you are tied to your employer. So to be tied to your employer, to be denied basic human rights, basic living standard to do the dirty work. And that's what it is. You're basically, it's a recipe for exploitation. So that's not surprising.

MG: A recipe for exploitation?

GABRIEL ALLADUA: Yes, that's what it is. And what COVID has really done, COVID has shown how money, power and influence has come into play. Here are some simple example. One minute the country is shut, the borders are closed and it's open only to permanent residents and citizens. Next minute, the country is now open for migrant workers who were deemed essential, but yet still they're denied hazard pay.

MG: So describe in normal conditions, before COVID, what would the conditions be like on the farms? Especially when it comes to the freedom that the workers would have to leave the property.

GABRIEL ALLADUA: Before COVID the conditions were, for working and living conditions were really, really difficult. But if you take housing, for example, we live in overcrowded housing below standard. Most are not regulated and this house is isolated. Before COVID the program would allow the employers had the right, they were obligated to take us to shop to access culturally appropriate food and also to allow us to send remittances to support our family, which is the basic, the main reason why we come to Canada. But with COVID, you can see with money, power influence came into play, where workers were either forced or they were led into signing documents that they're waving their right to leave the property, so they would stay on the farm, remain on the farm. And again, that is where influence comes in, that the farmer would do any and everything, so much leeway, so much power in the hands of the employer to protect his investment and pay very little regard, very little regard for the health and well-being of the farm worker. And basically denying him the opportunity to support his family.

MG: We heard about outbreaks of covid on farms across the province of Ontario. More than 30 farms in Ontario this year, according to Public Health Ontario had COVID outbreaks. How easy is it in those bunkhouses where the workers are living to socially distance and keep safe?

GABRIEL ALLADUA: That is an issue we've been highlighting for a while. Over two decades, we've been highlighting that housing conditions, living and working conditions are very, very difficult. They do not allow, overcrowding is a basic thing, overcrowding. And it is not this condition, a recipe, they're the recipe for COVID to spread like wildfire.

MG: Many of these workers have gone home, but they will come back starting in February and March to plan for next year's planting and growing season. What do you want to see in place from both the farms perspective, but also from the government to ensure that when they come back here, they're walking back into a safe area?

GABRIEL ALLADUA: A couple of things. Like one, imagine that program that brought me to Canada, just four years and only now, only now the government is talking about a consultation to improve housing. A consultation. So they're just buying time. So you can see that they're not pretty, they're not ready to deal with the issues. That's one. Number two, if you take COVID as it is, the situation as it is, there's nothing in place to make their conditions better. There's nothing in place. What I would like is for the government to grant status upon arrival and this is something that the government has done before, status upon arrival for migrant workers.

MG: What would that give them? If they come here not as then migrant workers, but they come here and they get status as soon as they arrive, what would that offer them?

GABRIEL ALLADUA: What would that offer? It takes the pressure of the worker and put it on my employer. By having status, you know what it means? I would have an open work permit and it would put the pressure on my employer to create the conditions that would keep me and attract me. That is where the pressure would be. But right now, to my employer, I am at my employer's mercy. There'snothing in place. No protections in place. Can you imagine that these jobs we come to do they are non-unionized jobs. Can even imagine a working condition associated with non-unionized work? Status to us is like Advil, it is like Tylenol. It is the only remedy that would help us to deal with most of those injustices.

MG: Gabriel, it's good to speak with you about this. Thank you very much.

GABRIEL ALLADUA: Thank you. Thank you so much.

MG: Gabriel Alladua is a former migrant farm worker, now with the organization, Justice for Migrant Workers. He was in Toronto. Conditions on every farm aren't the same. There are some farmers who went to lengths to keep themselves and their workers safe, even if that meant imposing tight restrictions on everyone. Dusty Zamecnik is a farmer with EZ Grow Farms in Norfolk County, Ontario. Dusty, good morning to you.

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: Good morning, Matt.

MG: How many migrant workers did you have on your farm this year?

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: At our at our highest peak season, we employed 82 men.

MG: You brought these workers in this year in the midst of a pandemic. What did you need to do to accommodate them around COVID-19?

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: Yes, of course. Upon landing in Canada, of course, just like my like my father is in Florida right now. When he returns, he will be subject to a 14 day federal quarantine. And this is what these men were or were doing inside of the bunkhouses. And here in Norfolk County was three men per bunk. We just built a new housing area on the farm that these men lived in during their quarantine.

MG: The worker that we heard from at the beginning of this conversation, Shavin, was a worker who was living on your property. You kept workers on the farm for some time. They weren't able to go into town as they usually would. Why did you put that into place?

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: So this was direction from multiple health units, you know, and I mean, even as our us ourselves, we were upholding everything that we were asking our men here at EZ Grow to do. We were putting to ourselves because we can only lead by so much example. And during, of course, the quarantine, where it was asked from Prime Minister Trudeau to Doug Ford to our local health unit was, please, please, please restrict all unnecessary travel. You know, only send one person to the grocery store, you know, get what you need and please stay home. And that's what we asked of ourselves and our local labour, our local people that live here in Canada, as well as our offshore and migrant workers.

MG: He said it was like living in a prison.

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: Well, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of terms that could be said, but being locked in my own house, I'm sure there was times and as we're entering another lockdown, I'm sure that feeling can be felt by various people, not just migrant workers.

MG: I just wonder from your perspective, I mean, you're the one who's in charge. It's different for you. I mean you're a Canadian citizen, you're not tied to the employer. He's working for you and he feels as though the situation that he's in is like living in a prison. I just wonder what goes through your mind when you hear one of your employees describe the working conditions like that?

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: Well, what I do say is that it was tough for everyone and it was tough for all of these guys. And and there's no doubt that what we asked of, you know, of these men to do, you know, like alongside us all was tough. And in regards to that, specifically, what we tried to do was during those very stressful times, we were all scared, was how can we accommodate the with with the most amount of convenience to help alleviate both the stress that we're all receiving, the stress that they're receiving, both mental, both physical, everything. You know, and that's where the introduction of the grocery store down on phone, grocery store, the introduction of the local community coming together and donating clothes and starting a clothing store on the farm that was ran by us for what can we do to, like, ensure that these men can work consistently to send money back to their home families, where that they can make money here, that that day to the food system continues and then everyone is healthy. There was no end in sight for what we were trying to do to of course. Yes, we were we were all living on the farm and the farm was our relatively our four walls. But what could we do to at least make the accommodations as comforting for them and you better believe we tried.

MG: What would happen to the workers if they did leave without your permission or they weren't on a sanctioned trip into town?

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: So what we would do is obviously talk about what happened. You know, what was the exposure and because they are like free to leave, but we asked every like, well, we just like I was free to defy the federal quarantine rule. We would talk about like a full disinfection and what would that be? And like we went through that every time that, you know, we were in close contact with anyone. And so that was just part of the protocol.

MG: Would they be punished if they were to break the rules that you had put into place on the farm?

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: Punished in what regard, sir?

MG: Well, I just, I mean, I just wonder whether there would be any consequences for them doing that? They're your employees, so I just wonder whether.

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: So when it comes to punishment per say, it was, no, it's to the part where if there was direct contact and whatnot, we would have to see, OK, do we have to look at another quarantine? Do we have to you know, do we have to separate this person until we can get a test? Any of that was on the books because I was subjecting myself to the exact same scrutiny.

MG: You still have some workers here. The growing season is over and done with for the most part. Why are they still here?

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: The country of Trinidad and Tobago is currently has, I don't want to call it a bottleneck currently right now, where the the men of Trinidad, men and women of Trinidad and Tobago are unable to return until there is an exemption letter that is accepted and approved by the country of Trinidad and Tobago. And until that exemption letter is approved, effectively, these men and women are still up here in Canada.

MG: So they can't go home?

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: They cannot go home. We've set them up on, you know, as soon as like, you know, it's coming into winter time and yes, we do have some greenhouse work, but it's winter time and it's getting quiet, of course. And these key times, the time for the people to come back home and enjoy the warmth, enjoy their family and enjoy, you know, the hard work we all did before obviously returning the next season and we we have subsequently began the process last week to set them up with on the EI because they pay into it, so they are deserved to actually pull and draw from it until they are able to return back home.

MG: Just finally, I mean, the harvest season is just about done, but it's not long until you start to begin preparing to plant again for 2021.

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: That's correct.

MG: The pandemic hasn't gone anywhere. So what are you going to be able to do to create better conditions for next year?

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: Well, I think what's best is for the communication to continue amongst farmer groups, amongst agricultural groups, amongst the workers and, you know, and most importantly, the workers to say, hey, did the grocery store work? I'm pretty sure it did. OK, good deal. Is it, do you want more chicken feet next year?

MG: What about the conditions though, where they're living in? I mean, what we heard just a moment ago from Gabriel was that in the bunkhouses, for example, it's really difficult for people to socially distance. Can you put money into that to make sure if workers are coming back in the midst of a pandemic, that they're going to feel as though they're coming back into a safer situation?

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: So the homes that we've built over the winter time are brand new and whatever it takes to ensure that there is, you know, like there already is, but to ensure the two metre distancing between the bedding. What more do we need in the bunkhouses, is it another stove? Is it things like that? Is it more chest of freezers somewhere? Everything is on the table because these men and women are a priority and they've always have been and always will be.

MG: Dusty, it's good to speak with you about this. I appreciate your time this morning. Thank you so much.

DUSTY ZAMECNIK: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Dusty Zamecnik is a farmer with EZ Grow Farms. It's a Norfolk County, Ontario. Mark Kelley is co-host of the CBC's The Fifth Estate. He's been listening in. Mark, good morning to you.

MARK KELLEY: Good morning, Matt.

MG: You hear Dusty and Gabriel Alladua and workers like Shavin talk about this situation in the midst of a pandemic. It sounds like an impossible situation.

MARK KELLEY: It definitely was, Matt. And it has been for this, what we're calling a bitter harvest this season on both sides of this. You know, I remember walking early in the pandemic into a grocery store. And I looked on the on the grocery shelves and I saw the just scarce food that was there. And for the first time in my life, I thought, is it possible that we're going to have a food shortage during this pandemic? And that was sort of the catalyst where we started looking. But the pressures that are on our food security right now to be able to feed Canadians. So this is what we're looking at here. You see, the pressure was to get these guys up to Canada. To be able to work in the fields, a lot of pressure to open the borders, to let them in, then you've got the pressure on these farmers to be able to feed Canadians the demand that was coming from these grocery stores that said we need more food and we need it faster. Then you throw into all of this the effects of covid outbreaks that are happening on farms. And and I think it should be really underlined here to Matt that when these people came up to Canada work, this is what I call the the pandemic paradox. They are essential workers that we need to keep the food supply running. And yet when they arrived here, we were looking at Norfolk County. They were treated as pariahs by people in the village. You know, I talked to Dusty, who you were just speaking to. He said it was a low point for him as a Canadian. He saw how people were were treating these people, seeing them as a potential threat to public health. What's your sense as to how prepared farmers in general were to keep those workers safe? They were not. I mean, you know, farmers are all about preparing. And this thing just landed in their lap at a point where they were desperately trying to get people here. Then they had to go to the two week quarantine and then they had to get in a bunkhouses that normally would have more people, but they had to put less people. Well, they didn't have magic bunkhouses that they could suddenly put these people in. And those bunkhouses them became, you know, they were vectors for for the virus. It started tearing through these bunkhouses because it's all predicated on this kongregate living. I mean, that's just the way these things work. So farmers are destroying it or scrambling, trying to find ways to be able to mitigate that risk. But there's only so much you can do and so little time while at the same time, you know, you're running an operation. These guys are working six, seven day weeks, you know, 12, 14, 16 hour days and it really highlighted some of those, you know, inequalities, the fact that they're not getting paid over time, that there is no sort of pandemic bonus. I mean, remember at a time that when a cashier at the local grocery store was getting paid a pandemic bonus? Well, the person who was out picking and packing your food was getting none of that.

MG: What about the lockdown's? How common was it? We were just I mean, you hear that from Dusty, but also from Gabriel and we heard it from from Shavin as well. How common was it for farmers to keep their workers on the property at all times? That even if I grew up near Apple fields and near apple orchards and you would see workers on the day off walking into town to not allow them to be able to do that?

MARK KELLEY: Well, we obtained a list of 11 farms in Norfolk County. Norfolk County was the subject of our investigation, because this is where you have most migrant farm workers per capita in Canada. 11 farms with hundreds of workers that were essentially locked down. So what that means that they could not go into town for the longest periods and maybe every two weeks that have an escorted visit into town where they could shop or or and then brought back home, but in some farms. And they did this on Dusty's farm. They did this at another farm. They actually set up these grocery stores to make sure that they wouldn't go into town. Now, the federal government responded by sending in emails, email to these farmers saying you have no right to limit their the freedom of their movement, but they would do it anyway. And here's what it was explained to the to the to the farm workers. They said, look, guys, if you really want to, you can go into town, but you risk getting sick. You risk infecting your co-workers, you risk shutting down our farm for two weeks of quarantine, which you will not get paid during that period. So there was so much pressure put on them. And even one farm we learnt about, we obtained a notice that was sent there where they threatened the farm workers that if they went into town, if they left the property without permission, they'd be fined a million dollars and arrested. And this is not based in in law in any way. Now, what is true is during a pandemic, you can't leave or sorry, during a quarantine you can't leave. But they extended that notion of the two week quarantine that they made that the rule for five or six months during the season.

MG: So when Shavin says that it felt like he was living in a prison.

MARK KELLEY: There's truth to that.

MG: That sounds like an extreme point of view, but you say that there's some truth to that.

MARK KELLEY: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, it's difficult. And it should be noted, Matt, that not all farms did this. And we spoke to other farmers who didn't say, why didn't you do this? And they said, well, we have to treat our workers like any other Canadians. And this was the point. Can you imagine what place of work where in Canada where your employer would tell you you cannot leave? Like a hospital worker, you can't leave the hospital at any point because we don't want you going into the community and exposing yourself to the possibility of getting sick. I mean, it's unheard of. And yet this was the practice on the farms. And this is what really highlighted, you know, what we're we are hearing from is those inequalities between the Canadians and the migrant workers.

MG: The other issue here is, as Dusty was saying, there are still some workers that he has who are living here, that they can't get back home, they can't get back into Trinidad because that island is locked down and there's a bottleneck of people trying to get in. Do we know more about that?

MARK KELLEY: Yeah. There's about 600 workers that we have learned of here in Ontario who are now essentially stranded here. I was talking to one of them just this week out at a farm in Norfolk County. They're devastated. I mean, these are people that it took them longer than usual to get into the country because of travel restrictions. So they're already out of pocket, you know, a significant amount of money. And, you know, they're not only a labour lifeline for our farms and our for our food supply chain, they're they're also an economic lifeline for their families back at home. So they've given up a couple of months that they couldn't work because the travel restrictions they get here, they do their job in a compressed season and now they just want to get home and they can't do it. They're devastated. And I know one farm that I went to this week, the farmer said, guys, prepare yourself to spend Christmas in Canada. And for them, you know, it's the bitter end to the bitter harvest. It's been a long, long season.

MG: What happens if their visas or not? They're here on visas. And if the visas run out because they haven't gone back, what is the government going to do about that?

MARK KELLEY: The federal government looking into that. We were asking answers from the office of the Employment Minister, Carla Qualtrough. They say they're looking into this. They're trying to figure, as we heard with Dusty about getting them on EI.

MG: They're still going to be covered for things like health care?

MARK KELLEY: Yes, they'll still be covered for health care. But, you know, essentially there's also their out-of-pocket costs. Now, I know on on one farm that I went to visit, they said, look, we're not going to charge them any housing costs to keep them here, but they've still got to pay for their food. I mean, when they come up here, they come up here to make as much money in a short amount of time to bring it back home to support their families. And this season, they've done so much to help provide for Canadians, but it's really come at a great sacrifice and a great expense to them and their families.

MG: What do we know about next year's farm season? We were talking with Dusty about that planting season will be here before you know it. I mean, it's only just the beginning of winter, but they're going to be farmers plan and they're going to be planning for planting. What do we know about what's going to happen?

MARK KELLEY: And that's the huge problem that and something that's really been highlighted by one of the problems this year that the Employment Minister, Carla Qualtrough, she oversees this program. She admitted in the House of Commons this summer that the system is broken, the program is broken. We need to fix it. The health minister called this season a national disgrace. So what are you going to do about it? Well, we requested an interview with the employment minister. She declined to speak with us. They said that they're going to be doing a consultation, that they're going to be talking. That is time, you know, perhaps revise the rules for for Kongregate living for bunkhouses. But nothing's been announced yet. And you're right, we're starting to trickle right now into the beginning of next season. And it's going to take time for these people to plan for it. It's going to take time for the workers to get back into into into Canada. And if you look at the guys from Trinidad, if they're stuck here much longer, there's simply no point in for them going back home because they'll want to come back here in March. So it's really highlighted, COVID has really highlighted the cracks in this system, the sacrifices that so many people are making to help keep us fed.

MG: You also wonder whether, to Gabriel's point, whether there will be a greater push, knowing what we know now, many Canadians learning about who grows and picks their food, whether there will be a greater push to ensure that those who arrive here are given status when they land here so that they might be able to negotiate some of these issues in a more amenable way.

MARK KELLEY: Yeah, I think there's more pressure than ever right now to really acknowledge the inequalities in the current system as it was set up. I mean, this is a system, Matt, that was set up in 1966. The world has changed a lot then. Yes, it's been modified, but it's really highlighting this is as the mayor of Norfolk County told me, Kristal Chopp. She says this is the human rights issue of our time in this area, looking at this. And I and I think too, another point to be made here, far fewer workers came this season than last season. About 20,000 fewer came to Canada because of the pandemic, because of everything that they've lived through this year, I would expect that number to be even lower next year. That's going to create serious pressures on the system, something that farmers and the federal government are going to have to adapt to quickly.

MG: Mark, thank you.

MARK KELLEY: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Mark Kelley is host of The Fifth Estate. You can catch their full report on the impact the COVID-19 is having on migrant farm workers tonight at 9 p.m. on CBC Television. That's it for The Current for this Monday. Coming up on CBC Radio One, it's Q and they have a special week of programming. Tom Power is looking at the relationship between mental health and the arts. And you'll hear interviews with guests like Katy Perry, Big Sean and Ricky Gervais, as they tell personal stories of confronting mental health hurdles through their art. That is coming up on CBC Radio One. Friday, very popular interview on this program, I spoke with two word wizards, eight-year-old Sophia Matthew and nine-year-old Noah Chender. And they told me in no uncertain terms what they were doing to prepare for Canada's National Spelling Bee competition.

SOUNDCLIP

NOAH CHENDER: So we're in my room and like there's like a mini basketball net in my room, so my mom asked me words while I play basketball on the net.

MG: What about for you, Sophia?

SOPHIA MATTHEW: I write each spelling word in my journal. I also wrote out dictionary and I write them down on index cards so mama can shuffle them and ask them to me.

MG: The competition took place online yesterday. CBC Sports covered it word for word. Sadly, neither Sofia nor Noah made it to the final round in their age category, but they did very well on their own. A winner was declared at the end of it all. Here is the winning last word. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Prestige.

VOICE 2: Could you give me a definition?

VOICE 1: Widespread respect and admiration.

VOICE 2: P-R-E-S-T-I-G-E.

VOICE 3: That is correct.

VOICE 4: The first place winner for the primary category is Mark Raspopov. Congratulations.

[Music: theme]

The Current Transcript for November 30, 2020

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Lisa Raitt on taking care of her husband as he struggles with young-onset Alzheimer's

Andre Picard discusses Canada’s vaccine development capabilities and the holidays

The Fifth Estate investigates living conditions of migrant workers in COVID lockdowns

Nov. 30, 2020 episode transcript

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