MEMPHIS

Guests: JB Smiley, Ricky Jones

SOUNDCLIP

CERELYN DAVIS: What was said was that there was a witnessing of what was considered reckless driving. We've looked at cameras, we've looked at body worn cameras. And even if something occurred prior to the stop, we've been unable to substantiate that at this time.

MG: That's Memphis Chief of Police Cerelyn Davis speaking with CNN, saying she saw no reason why police pulled over Tyree Nichols. A 29-year-old man died three days after being brutally beaten by Memphis police officers. Video of Mr. Nichols’s interaction with police was released on Friday evening, sparking protests across the United States, including in Memphis.

SOUNDCLIP

[protests]

MG: JB Smiley Jr was among those protesting in Memphis. He is a city counsellor, vice chair of the Memphis City Council, and he joins me now. Councillor, good morning.

JB SMILEY JR: Good morning.

MG: How would you describe the mood in your city at those protests?

JB SMILEY JR: I think there's only one way to describe it. People were pissed off and demanding change.

MG: What is the change? I mean, the first part of that I can understand. And I think anybody who has seen this video can understand that the change is something that's called for in the wake of stories like this. What specifically were protesters in Memphis calling for?

JB SMILEY JR: I think if you look at the very first video, I think this is an indictment of the entire system. If you look at the very first video, toward the end of the first video, you see an officer, a white officer who has yet to be fired or indicted or charged. He says something that kind of sparked them, you know, sparks a lot of emotion out of me and anybody who pays particular attention to it. He says, when I catch him, I hope they stone him into the ground. And then he had the curse word he used. But I think what happens with that type of culture, it's assuming that excessive force is commonplace, assuming that people should accept excessive force when dealing with police officers. And the change that people want to see in Memphis, the change that people want to see throughout our country is to address just that. People when interacting with police officers should be treated with respect and just decent humanity. And that's what we're not seeing.

MG: With that specific officer, five officers have been fired and charged with murder. But you tweeted there are more than five officers. And that's what you're referring to, is that other officer that has yet to be fired or charged.

JB SMILEY JR: Absolutely. I'm specifically referring to I believe he's being identified as Mr. Himhoo at the Memphis Police Department. He was also part of the Scorpion who was also named in the incident report describing the event. He's yet to be fired, charged or anything. It’s almost as if he was not at the thing, but it was his body cam footage that we saw. It was his body cam footage that showed him tazing Mr. Nichols while he was lying on the ground. It was his body cam footage that we heard him say, I hope they stomp him into the ground.

MG: What do you make of the actions of your chief of police so far, Cerelyn Davis, who has said, as we heard, she's found no reason at this point for why Tyree Nichols was stopped by police in the first place. What do you make of how she has responded to this?

JB SMILEY JR: I think she's been extremely forthcoming with the information that she's gathered. I think she's acted appropriately as it relates to getting the officers charged. But, you know, at the next council meeting, I think we're going to ask very specifically if the other officers who were on the scene are not charged. What have you done to address this? But not just this because the Scorpion unit was also disbanded. But my concern is it's not just the Scorpion unit. What about other organized crime units that lacks supervision, lack discipline, lack self-control, lack respect for humanity? What have you done to address those training protocols going forward? Because we have to do something and we must set the standard going forward.

MG: She is a black woman. She has spoken out against police violence in the wake of other incidents like the murder of George Floyd. Do you believe, I mean, again, I know that you're waiting for further action from her, but at this moment, do you believe that she is the one who should and could lead the change that protesters were calling for on Friday night?

JB SMILEY JR: I think she has to. I think she has to lead the change. She doesn't have any other opportunity. She's only been on the job for, I think, less than two years when we appointed her to the position. And she has to be a fast learner and implement change right away.

MG: How would you describe the relationship between the police and the black community in Memphis, leading up to this horrible event that we saw the effects of play out over the course of this weekend?

JB SMILEY JR: I think you have two different relationships, to be honest with you. You have relationship with the police department and relationship with the older black community, which, you know, respect police and believe police are absolutely necessary. But then you have the relationship between the Memphis Police Department, the police and the millennial generation. That relationship is tense. That relationship is one in which it's almost adversarial. And we have to figure out a way to bridge that divide. And I think the only way you can is through collaboration between police and community. And right now, we are not seeing that in the city of Memphis.

MG: Is it possible to bridge that divide? I ask you as a member of the community but also as a politician.

JB SMILEY JR: Well, yes, I think it's possible. But I think we also have to keep in mind when our law enforcement officers are trained, they're trained by other law enforcement officers, oftentimes by folks who don't have intimate relationships in the community. I think training has to look different going forward. And training should also and must include the community members. I don't think you could do it without them. But also, giving back community service. Right now in the state of Tennessee, police officers can leave. There's no residency requirement essentially anywhere. They don't have to live or be a part of the community they're protecting or serving. And I think that's problematic in the grand scheme of things.

MG: The five officers that have been fired and charged in the death of Tyree Nichols were black men. What does that tell you about how difficult it will be to fix that relationship?

JB SMILEY JR: One of my colleagues, she mentioned that she felt like each one should be slapped for disrespecting their community. And also looking at Mr. Nichols laying on the ground, the fact that they did not see that themselves. But I would take it a step further and I’ll say I don't believe it's a white cop versus a black community issue. I don't believe it's a black cop versus a black community issue. I think it’s the entire culture. It’s a blue versus black and brown people, blue versus poor people. And I think the only way you can fix this issue is to completely change the culture of policing.

MG: And that's why at the protest you told demonstrators, in your words, to pull up at the next council meeting.

JB SMILEY JR: Pull up.

MG: Yeah. What do you want? I mean, in Memphis, that means people should show up at that meeting. What do you want people to be there for?

JB SMILEY JR: Because, you know, myself and some of my other colleagues on the Memphis City Council, we will propose legislation that will begin to facilitate or bring about change in our community. But the only way that we can count to seven votes, come up to seven votes, seven votes is necessary to pass any law in the city of Memphis. We need people to pack their chambers, to urge some of my colleagues who are less willing to talk about police reform, less willing to vote on police reform, to vote a particular way. The only way you can get people to move in terms of elected officials and as the people in the community, if people show up their outrage, if people show up to the council meeting, we will get laws passed that will set the standard for comprehensive reform in the city of Memphis and throughout our country.

MG: What are you most worried about in the wake of this?

JB SMILEY JR: We don't get anything done. What I mean if we don't get anything done, we do not have any effect of legislation. We only pass surface level legislation. And I believe surface level is disbanding the scorpion unit. I think effective legislation is specific monitoring of the body cam when there is excessive use layers. Right now, it seems like we just kind of skirt over winning and want to allege excessive force unless there is a death or serious bodily injury. But we need to take a look at every single thing. I think effective legislation is also requiring semi-reporting, where the Memphis Police Department has to come in and give a detailed report about traffic stops. I think those things are effective, but also stop allowing organized crime units to conduct routine traffic stops. That is effective legislation. That's what I'm concerned won't happen here unless the people show up to the next city council meeting and the next three.

MG: JB Smiley, thank you for speaking with us this morning.

JB SMILEY JR: Thank you for the opportunity.

MG: JB Smiley Jr is a city councillor and the vice chair of the Memphis City Council. We reached him in Memphis. Ricky L Jones is a professor and chair of the University of Louisville's Department of Pan-African Studies. Ricky, Good morning to you.

RICKY L JONES: Good morning.

MG: You and I have had many, many conversations about police killing black people in the United States over the years. What has changed, do you think, in that time?

RICKY L JONES: Nothing has changed at all. We've talked about it a lot, as you said, over the years. And so we continue to be caught in this cycle of black people die and people protesting and talking of the need for change. And nothing really happens, even though we'll have, you know, some statements of sympathy and empathy and push for understanding. Then it'll die off and then somebody else will die and we'll repeat that cycle again. But when you talk about the basic power dynamics and interaction with American structures with black people, nothing has changed at all.

MG: One of the reasons why perhaps some people might say that something has changed is because this video of the killing of Tyree Nichols was released by the police to the public at a time when everybody knew that the video was going to come out. People said that that was a sign of transparency, there hasn't been a months-long investigation into this, that the officers have been fired, that they have been charged. Do you see that? I mean, progress is a perverse word in some ways to use when you're talking about the death of somebody. But do you see that as a degree of progress when it comes to addressing these sorts of situations?

RICKY L JONES: No, I don't. I see this as a change in technology, certainly, where people can no longer deny something that happened because it's caught on video. Same thing with George Floyd and some other black people that have been killed in this country. But the act of the violence towards black people by these agents of the state, in effect, has not changed. So I would challenge anyone to say, hey, this is a sign of progress still, that the Tyree Nichols family who've lost their son, who've lost their brother, their cousin, their loved one. The result of the violence are the same, even though the processes of the killings are more transparent and observable.

MG: Did you watch the video?

RICKY L JONES: I accidentally saw a snippet of it because I woke up in the middle of the night and the television was on it. But I very intentionally tried to avoid it and intentionally kept my 14-year-old daughter away from it as I think a lot of black people are at this point in this country, because these are snuff films and they're in effect, incredibly traumatic. And it's tough to continue to watch that type of violence.

MG: How do you understand the brutality of this assault, knowing that the officers knew that they were being filmed as it unfolded?

RICKY L JONES: That's one part that is tough to understand. You know, why they would do this knowing they were being filmed. I can explain why they would do it and they themselves are black. That's because of the miseducation and missocialization of black people in the country who then go on to become agents of the state. One in the police department, but also in other spaces. So what we saw was physical violence, but we see political violence intra racially among black people every day. And that's because they've been taught to regard black people in the same way that a white supremacist system regards black people. And once they gain entry into that system, they'll inflict the same type of abuse upon their own as their white counterparts. But I'm not sure what happened with them knowing that they were being filmed to behave in such a way and still think that they could do it without consequences. That I see as somewhat irrational. But it is certainly possible that they believe the police in the country still can act with impunity whenever they want to inflict that type of abuse upon other black people.

MG: And so where does that leave? I mean, when I spoke with the counsellor, he said that he was confident in part because he doesn't believe that there's any other way forward, but that that police culture, such as it is, could be reformed. Are you as optimistic as the counsellor is?

RICKY L JONES: Well, again, as you know, you and I again have talked about this for years, and I am not as confident. I'm not confident at all. In fact, I think change has become a buzz word in the country. People are unable to lock down exactly what that means and how it can happen. America is in a bad place. I think that folks don't understand the history of policing, that they don't understand the history of a lot of other very toxic, abusive and often deadly American structures in this country. And now, ironically, we see this and that misunderstanding at the same time that American politicians in many states across the country are banning the study of race and structural racism, which they brand as anti CRT. They're making it illegal for black children and white children and others to study the history of racial interaction that leads to these deadly incidents while the incidents continue to happen. So we have racially motivated incidents that folks in the country want to say are motivated without race and they don't want to study exactly what's going on. So if we understood the history of policing in the country, how it comes out of slave patrols and understand the roots of that negative racial interaction, maybe we could start to move in another direction. But right now, change is talk. It's not substance in America.

MG: I mean, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, there was the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act introduced in 2021. This was supposed to stop aggressive law enforcement tactics installed in the Senate. The president is calling on Congress to send it to his desk so that he can sign it into law. If that were to happen, because it would come from the highest office in the land, Would that signal anything when it comes to meaningful change, do you think?

RICKY L JONES: You know, we've had American presidents for decades, some more than others, who every now and then, usually in the wake of some atrocity, speak to the problem of racism in this country. I mean, we're coming up on Black History Month. Martin Luther King Jr himself talked about the three evils plague in this country, racism, materialism and militarism. So we'll have moments that we'll talk about these things, that our politicians and presidents will talk about these things. But then nothing substantive happens because the problem runs so much deeper. And I understand there's kind of a ministerial mandate in the wake of these types of losses that we talk about hope and change and give people encouragement. But I don't see that coming as we're currently situated.

MG: I guess I just wonder finally where that leaves people then? Because to your point, people are looking for some degree of change. And in the wake of something like this, the belief from some is that this will be the one, this will be the moment that spurs change that will lead to a situation where history doesn't repeat itself. Are we going to have the same conversation, you and I, again, in a few months time?

RICKY L JONES: We will. Unfortunately, if you decide to call me, we will have the conversation because more black people will die. You have to understand that black people in America, as in many places in the world, are subjected to unchecked stress socially, unchecked trauma and unchecked violence in many respects. And there does not seem to be a protracted, consistent concern about where that comes from or what we can do to alleviate it. There just isn't great sincere concern with the black human condition. And the continued words are not going to change that. So we'll be doing this again.

MG: We will talk again. In the meantime, I'm glad to talk to you this morning. It's a difficult subject, but it's always good to have you on the program. Ricky, thank you.

RICKY L JONES: Thank you so much. Always good to talk to you.

MG: Ricky L Jones, professor and chair of the University of Louisville's Department of Pan African Studies. He was in Louisville, Kentucky. Just a heads up about something that's coming up on the program in days ahead. A week from today, I'm going to be in Victoria, British Columbia. That's on the 6th of February. It's Monday. We're holding a forum in Victoria talking about something that is top of mind for many people here, and that is the issue of health care. Specifically the crisis in health care when it comes to primary care. There are Canadians, about six million of them, who cannot get a family doctor. This, as we know, can lead to all sorts of complications within the health care system, including emergency departments that are overrun, delays in cancer screening, pushing back essential treatments. We're going to Victoria in part because this is particularly acute. Wait times at walk in clinics there are the highest in Canada. The other reason we're going is because of some degree of hope. B.C. is starting a new funding scheme this week to pay family doctors more with the hope that that will fix the shortage. We spoke with the Health minister of British Columbia on this program about that idea. It goes into place this week. And so we'll be in Victoria to speak with patients and health care providers about what's going on, why they can't find family doctors and what could lead to a change in that system. Again, it happens on the 6th of February at Camosun College, 6 p.m. The event is free. If you want to come, you need to reserve a ticket. Go to the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Again, Cbc.ca/thecurrent. It's free. We will see you next Monday in Victoria. And the program will air on this program the following day, just as federal and provincial leaders meet up to come up with some health care solutions. So we'll see you in Victoria in seven days. Your CBC News is next. And then the conversation about the tech sector, layoffs in that sector and what the future of the sector actually is. That's coming up on The Current.

[Music: Theme]

TECH LAYOFFS

Guests: Erika Weber, Shruti Shekar, Daniel Tsai

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, addressing the gaps in care for children with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa. But first, droves of tech workers being let go.

[Music: Theme]

MG: These are tough times in the tech industry. Over the past few months, tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs. Giants like Alphabet's, the parent company of Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, have been laying off people en masse, and it is happening in Canadian tech companies as well. Shopify has cut roughly a 10th of its workforce. Erika Weber was a project manager with Shopify based in Toronto. She'd been working with the company for almost five years when she was laid off. Erika, good morning.

ERIKA WEBER: Good morning, Matt. Thank you for having me.

MG: Thanks for being here. And I'm sorry. I mean, this is tough to talk about, but it's important. And so I'm glad that you're willing to speak about it. How surprised were you to lose your job?

ERIKA WEBER: Oh, incredibly so. Incredibly so. It's difficult to still talk about today, even though it has been some time. But it was really tough on my mental state, my identity and of course, financial circumstances.

MG: Yeah. You started, I mentioned, at Shopify about five years ago. What was the company like when you went in the door?

ERIKA WEBER: I started on the front line where my job was incredibly gratifying. Business owners would try their best to sort of navigate the way through ecommerce and commerce, and some needing more help than others. And in my case, I knew that by working on that front line and speaking to them, I was helping people by giving them space to share those struggles, educate them, give them a way forward with their business. And the response from them was overwhelmingly positive. There were really visible opportunities everywhere for growth in my role. And having worked at a Start-Up previously, the transition to my early time at Shopify had the same sort of creative energy, encouraging culture. And I just really loved it. And I took the time to engage with it outside of my role as well. It was amazing. It was a really good time.

MG: How did you see the company grow? I mean, as you mentioned, when you went in, it had that Start-Up kind of feel. Over those five years, what was happening?

ERIKA WEBER: Yeah. I mean, the company has always been really great about embracing outside of the box thinking and being creative. So I think that we naturally grew our talent base and upskilled people as they were with us. People saw that value. I mean, just one example of people that would refer others in their lives to then come on and work with us. And I think that it just naturally, organically grew that way. But the biggest point of growth has to be when the pandemic hit.

MG: Yeah. What happened then? I mean, from an outside perspective, it seemed as though the company kind of exploded. What was going on from the inside?

ERIKA WEBER: I think that when it comes to our business owners and our merchants, I was incredibly impressed and proud of how we took action to really help them. It became an all hands on deck kind of situation, working really hard on all aspects of the company. And I really felt a sense of pride that we were helping all together. You know, we were adapting to help individuals who wanted to start a business and had nothing, no previous knowledge about business. And then those who wanted to pivot from in-person and retail to online, who didn't really know how to go about doing that. And it wasn't something they'd ever considered before, but it became a need at that point.

MG: And this is because Shopify was able to in some ways offer the tools to people who, I mean, while we were on lockdown and not going to in-person stores, people were doing much more online shopping, and Shopify was able to offer those tools to people to help create those pathways forward.

ERIKA WEBER: Incredibly so. You know, there was an instalment of a three-month trial and just making it that much more accessible to help businesses really survive. And we gave hope to individuals who felt very little of that and very lacking of support potentially in their immediate network. And so they might have just needed somebody to listen and light the path for them. And I felt like we really, really did that.

MG: What did you hear from management at the time of that growth when the company seemed to be, as I said, it couldn't hire enough people in some ways and it was growing by leaps and bounds?

ERIKA WEBER: It was probably the time at which I felt like management was the most transparent they'd ever been, You know, just addressing the human aspect in that we're going to see more and more suffering and we want to help in all the ways that we can. That message was very much loud and clear externally and internally as well. You know, they were really supportive when offices all over were shutting down. In our company, outside of our company, they made various efforts to assist with that transition to work from home.

MG: What happened then?

ERIKA WEBER: I mean, I was in a situation where I had always been remote. But there were a lot of our office staff who were suddenly without their space that felt very much like home, being surrounded by those that they felt supported by on their teams and other teams. And so, you know, speaking to a lot of them and my co-workers, it felt like the rug was pulled from under them. Although there was no one to blame for it because it was just the nature of the pandemic at the time. So to have that support was very, very much appreciated on all sides.

MG: Do you know why you were laid off?

ERIKA WEBER: I don't. I still don't know to this day.

MG: I mean, one of the things that we've heard is that many companies similar to Shopify, because people were working remotely and used those virtual tools, found out through those same tools that they no longer had a job. I mean, again, it's awkward and complicated to ask, but how did you find out?

ERIKA WEBER: Yeah. It’s a funny thing. In my case, I saw the email upon waking up on the morning after my 34th birthday while on a solo trip in a forest in Quebec. And let me tell you, layoffs can happen at any time And you feel pretty terrible. But being notified in that place at that specific time, it made it harder for me to hear. And after almost five years of working on multiple teams and different roles, and being engaged in company culture and really trying my best to lead with its values, and like I mentioned, referring good people in my life who would go on to get hired. After all of that that contributed to the growth of the company, getting let go by email, you left me such a range of emotions. Matt, yeah, it was brutal.

MG: And as you said, I mean, losing a job has a financial toll, but there's a mental toll to it. There's part of your identity. You're saying that, you know, you felt connected even when you weren't working for Shopify, to the company. How are you doing now in the wake of this? You were laid off in August.

ERIKA WEBER: Thank you for asking. Yeah. So when it initially happened, you know, that's a feeling I'll never forget because it felt for me in particular, I have ADHD and I also experience rejection sensitivity dysphoria, which makes emotions seem quite severe because of the different brain structure. And so that impact was so powerful at the beginning. So it really took me time to process it. You know, no one wants leaving a job to be the decision of anyone else's but your own. It's sometimes we don't get to decide. So I know I'm not the only one in this. There are so many others that have been affected, and I wish everyone affected over time is able to leave with confidence, knowing how much we were able to learn, the greatness that we're capable of and who we are in this world outside of anyone else. Because I think it's really crucial. You know, I had the privilege of working in tech. And while at Shopify, I was doing high level, high impact work. And I'm so proud to say that I feel I can do that now for a profession detached from a particular type of company. And I want to be really clear that I think mass layoffs happen to us. You know, they aren't typically related to who we are. And once that's accepted, then it comes time to do something with that to help ourselves. And I felt I just really needed to be there for me at a time where I felt so down, yet also weirdly, so valuable and knowledgeable. And it didn't take long to acknowledge that working for a company known for hiring and growing highly creative, skilled people meant I had solid experience on my resume. And the company provided me with enough opportunities to develop those strong transferable skills. So initially, that gave me hope that I would be okay. But then doubt set in and reality came in because after some time came the news that other companies were conducting mass layoffs. And the ease of getting another tech job, well, I questioned it. And the reality of the employer’s job market kind of began to set in when it came to recruiting. You know, fewer people wanting to work for big tech meant more competition for work for small and medium sized businesses who could afford to be selective of hires, given the fact that we're now a bigger pool of well-equipped applicants. So.

MG: I wish you the best of luck.

ERIKA WEBER: Thank you. Well, I mean, I'm happy to report I'm on a good trajectory.

MG: Good.

ERIKA WEBER: Because faced with a few questions of, you know, how do I bring value to the world, how can I and what I want to contribute and where do I see my impact being the most meaningful? I mean, I was able to take that time to consider that. And it was so valuable because in a fast paced tech world, there aren't many things that encourage you to pause and honestly disconnect from those tasks at hand and zoom out to bigger picture. So now that I've gotten to take some time and consider that, I am happy to say that I've shifted and realized that what is really meaningful to me is community and building a strong sense of community. So that means building and nurturing, creating safe and inclusive spaces. And I'm now on that journey of pursuing community management, something I care about tremendously, you know, promoting human connection and togetherness.

MG: I wish you the best of luck with that. And Erika, I'm really glad to talk to you about what you've been through. Thank you so much.

ERIKA WEBER: Thank you so much. And to those out there affected, I wish you all the best as well.

MG: Erika Weber used to work at Shopify. She was laid off from that company with many, many others in August. Shruti Shekar is the technology reporter and managing editor at Android Central. It's an online tech publication. Shruti is in Toronto. Shruti, hello to you.

SHRUTI SHEKAR: Hi, Matt.

MG: Erika, as we heard, one of many thousands of people laid off by these tech companies. The numbers are staggering when you take a look at them, right?

SHRUTI SHEKAR: Yeah. It's really, really unfortunate. And hearing Erika’s story was very heartbreaking. But as you mentioned, that is a very similar story to thousands of other employees at Google, Microsoft, Metta, Shopify, Salesforce, Amazon. I mean, I think that list is a very long list and it's very unfortunate. But I'm also very much not surprised. A lot of these layoffs took place Q4, Q1 2023 now, partly because a lot of these companies are thinking back at their pandemic hiring, which was a large scale of pandemic hiring, partly because these companies, Shopify included, believed that the world was going to change in a different way during the pandemic. We thought we were going home for two weeks. That lasted two years. No one anticipated it being this way. And so that mass hiring took place because a lot of these companies thought people's mindsets were going to shift, they were going to shop more online, they were going to be more indoors, we would need more of that kind of hiring. And now that sort of has crumbled because there's just too many hirings that has taken place. And these companies’ revenue per employee has not been going up.

MG: Well, it's not as though these companies are on the verge of bankruptcy. I mean, they're laying off, you know, Spotify lays off 6% of its employees, Google, 12,000 employees, Amazon 18,000 employees. But they're not, you know, on the verge, as I say, of bankruptcy. How do these layoffs impact the company profits?

SHRUTI SHEKAR: You're absolutely right. These companies are not doing bad at all. In fact, they're doing well. But it's the way investors and shareholders are looking at these companies. Typically, these investors would look at the profit of the company. But when the company is not making enough profits, then these investors are saying, well, why are they not making enough profit? Is it because you have hired too many people and that you spent too much money per year for salaries on these employees? Okay, maybe you need to cut back. And so these companies are saying, okay, we need to cut back those employees because we're not making the profits that our investors want. It's totally brutal. It's awful to hear. But the fact of the matter is that is really what these companies are looking at, profit and revenue per employee and if that is enough.

MG: What does that say about the health of the sector as a whole? Because the layoffs, aside from Apple, which is yet to lay off anybody, the layoffs seem fairly widespread. So what's going on in the sector itself aside from over hiring people during the pandemic? Is there a shift in the tech sector broadly?

SHRUTI SHEKAR: Yes, there is, absolutely. And I think part of that has to do with looking at the space in terms of where these companies want to invest. And, you know, you look at companies like Microsoft, which just put money into OpenAI to invest in artificial intelligence. You look at companies like Meta who has shifted their focus, firing people and now putting money into VR and AR. Companies are looking at what the future is for tech. You know, in pre-pandemic days or just as the pandemic happened, these companies were saying, oh, people are going to be working from home, we're going to be doing e-commerce. Maybe that's where we need to be investing our money in. But when that failed, the shift completely changed. And so now companies are saying, okay, it's the metaverse, it's AR VR, it's artificial intelligence. What are we going to invest in for the long. Term for this company to make more profits so that we can grow that area. And I think that's sort of where that shift is taking place. We are seeing a mass shift in the way these companies are thinking and where they want to put their money in.

MG: So we've talked on this program about Chat GPT. Artificial intelligence is for a lot of people a hot topic because of the success of something like ChatGPT. Is that going to help fuel the future of some of these companies, do you think?

SHRUTI SHEKAR: Oh, 100%. Absolutely. I mean, you already look at companies like Amazon and Google and Apple who have already invested heavily in artificial intelligence. And having those assistants that we like to use on a day to day basis, that's all powered by artificial intelligence. And now you see Microsoft wanting to get in on that and try to build on what that artificial intelligence could look like, whether it means powering our assistance or it could mean in Hollywood using artificial intelligence to better make the moviemaking industry. I mean, the possibilities are endless. And I think these companies are seeing that if they can build software and hardware that includes artificial intelligence to be used by many, many people, they're going to be getting money in the bank. And that's where they see that money growing.

MG: But there's no proof, of course. If they bet on, you know, the pandemic leading to a surge in e-commerce that was going to be permanent, if people thought that, you know, Netflix would continue to survive because we were all stuck at home and some of us bingeing Netflix because we had nowhere else to go, there's no proof that this bet will pay off any better than the previous bets.

SHRUTI SHEKAR: You're right. There is no proof. But the one difference between a pandemic and growth in doing that e-commerce business versus artificial intelligence is that artificial intelligence is still growing in terms of understanding what its capabilities are. I'm not going to say it's new because it's been around for a really long time, but there's still a lot of research and development happening with AI. And so there is more of this feeling like, okay, there is a possibility of it growing, there's a possibility of it really becoming this next big thing. But you're right, there's never a possible. You know, you could bet on something and it could fail. There's never any guarantee on something really being successful. But we have seen there has been some success with artificial intelligence. And so that is why these companies are betting on it so heavily.

MG: Shruti, thank you very much.

SHRUTI SHEKAR: Thank you so much for having me, Matt.

MG: Shruti Shekar is tech reporter and managing editor of Android Central. For more on what these layoffs could signal for the broader economy, I’m joined in studio by Daniel Tsai, lecturer on technology and business at the University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University. Good morning to you.

DANIEL TSAI: Thank you.

MG: The numbers, as I say, are enormous. 6% of Spotify's workforce laid off. 12,000 people at Google's parent company, Microsoft laying off 10,000 people, Amazon laying off 18,000 people. It goes on and on and on. What do you make of what's happening in the tech sector?

DANIEL TSAI: The big driver of This is a large drop in consumer spending. And online sales dropped in the fourth quarter last year by 16%. And we are going to see probably another drop this quarter. So the big driver is the fact that sales have gone down on online, and revenues have gone down for a lot of these big tech companies in terms of the advertising that they would get. And the response to that is layoffs.

MG: And so, I mean, we heard from Erika earlier, who was laid off from Shopify. She talked about how her life was turned upside down by that. For people who are directly impacted by that, it's devastating. But what's the bigger picture here when these tech companies are laying off at this sort of scale? When we take a look at the broader economy, what's the bigger issue here?

DANIEL TSAI: Well, a large driver of this is interest rates. And you'll see that interest rates have gone up by 4% over the span of a year. And debt servicing costs have gone up by four times the amount as a result. Silicon Valley, a lot of start-ups, a lot of tech companies rely on now what is expensive interest costs, financing costs. And so they just can't afford that along with a drop in sales revenue to justify that much labour.

MG: Again, in the individual stories, for all of those people who've been laid off, they've seen their lives affected in a very dramatic way. But we know that unemployment rates in the United States and Canada are still at historic lows. This is just one sector. So why should one sector be a cause of concern?

DANIEL TSAI: Oh, it's the canary in the coal mine

MG: Is it?

DANIEL TSAI: Yeah.

MG: truly?

DANIEL TSAI: Well, the thing is, when there's inflationary expansion, when there's a lot of cheap money due to low interest rates, technology is where people invest in. And when the economy is struggling, technology is also the first thing to be cut. And we saw that with the tech boom in the 2000s. People don't remember that. But that's a function at play right here. And as much as the Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem last year said it was transitory inflation', it wasn’t going to last, well, they got it wrong. And that's a function of it.

MG: So what do you see? I mean, the parallels between the tech bust and boom of the 2000, which again, a lot of people who are being laid off now don't have memory of that. What's the connection between what happened then and now?

DANIEL TSAI: Well, former bank of Canada governor David Dodge came out and said that the impact of these huge interest rate increases is actually six to 12 months. We already saw that inflation dropped from nine to six percent in the middle of the year last year. And that's after six months. And so we've got another six months to see even more of an impact on the economy, more of a slowing down. And I think this is going to impact other sectors. We're going to see discretionary spending. Already for restaurants, appliances, electronics…

MG: Online shopping.

DANIEL TSAI: Online shopping, all that stuff is going to get impaled even more.

MG: So when you say it's a canary in the coal mine, does this indicate to you that a recession is coming? People are reluctant to talk about this because they don't want it to be in some ways a self-perpetuating story. But does this suggest to you that that's, you know, on the horizon for 2023?

DANIEL TSAI: I'm going to say we're already in a recession.

MG: We're in one now.

DANIEL TSAI: The data is going to show that in another quarter. And the reality is we just have to be prepared for this and people have to bootstrap themselves. And what they're doing right now is they're looking very tightly on their money.

MG: What does it mean for the people who have been laid off? This is a sector that used to fight for employees. People would be paid large bonuses. Companies would fight for the best employees. And now there's a labour shortage that we keep hearing about. So what does that mean for people who are laid off from the tech sector who are now going to be looking for work?

DANIEL TSAI: Well, it's really problematic because here are the stats. 39 to 41% of tech workers are immigrants. This is computer coders and engineers. And with that reality, a lot of them are on closed permits. Meaning if they don't have a job, they got to go back to their country or they have to apply for an open permit. And U.S. has that issue as well. A lot of those tech workers are on visas where if they don't have a job, they get deported. So this is a looming crisis that's going to happen if we can try to address it through the government.

MG: What does it mean for us here? I mean, what does the government need to do to address that in this country?

DANIEL TSAI: Well, immigration is an issue. So they have to make sure that these permits get converted over and extended. And they have to streamline that process, not like what they do with passports. It can't just be a long, elaborate, labourous process. It has to be quick and we have to really take care of these workers.

MG: In part because we have made it a virtue that we are an attractive place, that people want to come and work here, that it's not just Silicon Valley North, that we're creating our own thing.

DANIEL TSAI: That's the thing. We want to retain these workers because we just can't send them back. You have to create conditions for them to stay here with the immigration policies, but also supports because like I said, a large number of these people are not just immigrants, but they have families, they have homes, and you're looking at downside knock on effects for the rest of the economy.

MG: Is this just a cycle? I mean, Shruti just finally was talking about, you know, artificial intelligence ChatGPT, etc. as being the next thing. Is the next thing going to pick up from where this thing has, you know, let off so low?

DANIEL TSAI: I don't think artificial intelligence is there just yet. The commercialization of ChatGPT isn't there.

MG: It's fun to use, but there's not any money in it.

DANIEL TSAI: It’s great for cheating in exams and writing essays. But other than that, it's not yet a viable replacement for online commerce.

MG: Daniel, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much.

DANIEL TSAI: Thank you.

MG: Daniel Tsai is a lecturer on technology and business at the University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University. Well, coming up after your regional update, a success story of sorts. Great strides have been made in the battle against HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa. One group, though, has been left behind: children. We'll talk about addressing that gap. That's coming up in 90 seconds. My name is Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

HIV CHILDREN AFRICA

Guests: Stephanie Nolen, Dr. Judith Kose

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. HIV has gone from being a deadly virus to, in many places, something manageable and preventable. According to the WHO, an estimated 38 million people worldwide live with HIV. 28 million are receiving some form of treatment. And many of those cases are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa. While the continent is making significant progress in eradicating HIV, children are being left behind. Stephanie Nolen is a journalist with The New York Times. She was in Kenya last month looking into the challenges in reaching young people with HIV. Stephanie, good morning.

STEPHANIE NOLEN: Good morning, Matt.

MG: I want to ask you and I ask you this in part because of the work that you've done over time in covering sub-Saharan Africa, in covering South Africa and covering health crises on the continent. How have things changed when it comes to HIV AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa?

STEPHANIE NOLEN: You know, I was thinking about this when I was there, because in so many ways, the situation with HIV is unrecognizable. I moved to South Africa to start covering the HIV pandemic at a time when 800 people a day died of HIV in South Africa alone, and there was almost no access to treatment and almost no attention to the crisis and no help from the rest of the world. And comparatively, you know, for my many friends in Sub-Saharan Africa who live with HIV, this is almost an afterthought in their lives at this point. There is access to treatment, widespread access to treatment for adults. HIV is treated like a chronic condition. There are systems to test and treat and support people built into the health care systems almost everywhere. And by and large, it works really well. You know, people are still getting infected, which is a really big problem, especially young girls. Young girls or young women are, we know, incredibly vulnerable and still driving the ongoing epidemic. But compared to the epidemic that I covered 20 years ago, the situation has changed so dramatically. And it's so lovely now. Every time I travel in sub-Saharan Africa, in all of the countries with a strong HIV response, it's so great to see that incredible progress.

MG: And yet that progress is not equitable. As I mentioned in the introduction, you went to Kenya in particular to look at children who are being left behind in that fight. What did you see there?

STEPHANIE NOLEN: Well, you know, this really caught me off guard because I was sort of like I think many others lulled into complacency by the huge progress on adult treatment. And I wasn't paying attention to kids. And then I started seeing the data about how just half of kids with HIV around the world, the bulk of whom obviously are in sub-Saharan Africa, are on treatment. And I was kind of flabbergasted because that's what happened first, right? Like the first HIV programs that I covered in different sub-Saharan African countries were programs to keep mothers from passing on the virus and to take care of kids. And I was like, wait a minute, we know how to do this. I wrote stories about this 20 years ago. Like how could we not be reaching kids? And I really didn't understand it. And I thought, I have to go somewhere and try to figure this out. And it was kind of shocking. Like it was shocking. And it was really disheartening because while all of this sort of progress I was just describing is on display, also really basic things, the things that would make a difference for kids don't happen and have broken down. And the result is I met a lot of children living with HIV who should never have been infected, and a lot of children whose lives have been really disrupted by the fact that they weren't diagnosed and they didn't get drugs when they were small. And I met moms who have lost more than one child because of undiagnosed or untreated HIV. And you just think like, you know, at that point, it was December of 2022, and like there was just no freaking reason in 2022 for a child to be dying of AIDS. Like just none at all.

MG: A representative of UNICEF tells you that in some ways children are almost forgotten when it comes to this fight. I mean, we'll talk about the specifics, but broadly, is that fair to say?

STEPHANIE NOLEN: I think it is fair and it's for a crazy reason. And it took me a while to figure this out. So the focus of the fight against HIV for quite some time now has been controlling the epidemic and ending transmission. And you do that by getting people onto antiretroviral drugs so that their viral load drops really low, that they don't have detectable virus, they can't transmit it, they don't infect more people. Great. Well, who do children infect? Nobody, right? So when there was this big focus to figure out how to kind of bring down transmission, kids weren't involved. And so the effort and the resources and the focus and the attention that would have had to go into also reaching kids, it just got ignored. And the specific steps you would need to take now to make sure that kids are reached, they just weren't the focus of attention or investment. You know, there was no malice in leaving kids out. It was just a really devastatingly tragic oversight.

MG: Why was Kenya in particular the lens that you wanted to look at this through?

STEPHANIE NOLEN: Well, the country with the overall largest number of kids living with HIV is South Africa. South Africa obviously has more resources than other countries in sub-Saharan Africa and has a stronger, more developed HIV program. And so in lots of ways, South Africa is kind of exceptional. And the next country with the largest number of kids with HIV is Nigeria. But Nigeria is actually a really low HIV prevalence country, and it's just because of the sheer size of the population. So third on the list was Kenya. And Kenya is kind of representative because as I learned, the things that go wrong there are the things that are going wrong in a lot of other countries. It's a country that's really invested and made huge progress in fighting HIV and in treating people who live with HIV. It's also a country with really limited resources, a weak public health system. And despite really good intentions, some abject failures in taking the steps that would make a difference with this.

MG: So let's go and hear what's happening on the ground. I want to bring Dr. Judith Kose into our conversation. Associate director for Pediatric and Adolescent Services with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. She's in Nairobi. Dr. Kose, hello to you.

DR. JUDITH KOSE: Hello, Matt.

MG: Do you feel, and we'll talk about the specifics, but do you feel broadly when it comes to the fight against HIV in your country, that children have been left behind in some ways?

DR. JUDITH KOSE: Yeah. So I agree very much with Stephanie’s sentiments. Children are left behind, even 20 years down the line in fighting the epidemic. And we still see that children don't get access to services that they require. The coverage of services among children remains very low. And even the provision of comprehensive services for children is still wanting. So really, children are still being left behind. And when I think about some of the clinics where we are, children are coming to the facilities for services like treatment or immunization, but then they lack access to testing. So initially, perhaps 20 years ago, we would say that children are not coming to the facility. We couldn't reach them. But even in facilities where children are being brought by the caregivers and parents, they don't access HIV testing, they don't access TB screening. You know, their mothers may not access testing in the antenatal clinic. So those things are still really lacking. And so it denies children the services they require.

MG: Let me ask you about testing in a moment. First, Stephanie mentioned transmission and the things that go wrong. When it comes to mother to child transmission, why is it challenging right now in Kenya to prevent that transmission?

DR. JUDITH KOSE: So when I think about the challenges around preventing mother to child transmission, Matt, I want to look at it in three ways. So one of the main factors that leads to high mother to child transmission is women getting infected during pregnancy and breastfeeding. The other one is women who are infected not being put on treatment. And the third big bucket for me would be women who are infected, put on treatment, but discontinuing treatment, falling off of treatment. So when I look at these three major factors, some of the reasons for this is really poor health systems. So women not accessing services as they are required, not accessing testing when they come for pregnancy services. So again, access and coverage remains a major, major reason. Women are stigmatized so much that they may be tested positive but unable to go on treatment. And so they fear to even disclose that they have HIV. And so they are not started on treatment. And in the same breath, the ones who maybe started on treatment may not be retained because of various issues. Perhaps distances to the facility, not being able to manage their life needs as well as the needs for the treatment and many other things around their support. So for me, these are the three major reasons why we still have mother to child transmission today, you know, in Kenya and indeed many other countries.

MG: How accessible is testing right now?

DR. JUDITH KOSE: It's easy to get tests, Matt. In fact, we even have self-tests that you can buy from an outlet and you test yourself. So access to testing is there. But I think what lacks is the information of where to get it, how to get it, what to do when you do the test. So the access is there, but I think there needs to be better information to be able to enable these women to access these tests for free. I mean, I think about adolescent girls and young women who may be pregnant. This is really a population that also needs to be addressed because they have no money, they have no agency, and yet they are the big population that are now getting infected, and they have no access to facilities. When I think about adolescents, I think they also need to have adolescent friendly, adolescent responsive facilities that will be able to bring them to facilities and keep them in a way that they feel comfortable and not judged.

MG: That's about the stigma that still exists?

DR. JUDITH KOSE: Yes. There's also a lot of stigma around publicity. When you think about stigma, it's really a social process that defines a person. So they are labelled because of their differences or they are located a negative value. So stigma really remains a major challenge in some of these areas. And, you know, there's this perceived stigma and real stigma. So I think both of those play a huge role in terms of access to services.

MG: Stephanie, you wrote about this when it came to in particular one woman's story, Joyce Acheng. What did she face when it came to accessing the testing that should, in the best case scenario, be available?

STEPHANIE NOLEN: Yeah, Joyce. I spent a really lovely day with Joyce and her family. And she was really generous about sort of talking me through how this worked. But, you know, I met Joyce through a mothers’ group at a clinic where I talked to about 20 different women, and they all had stories that were some iteration of this, some iteration of Joyce's experience, which is that when she tested, she was screened, as Dr. Kose was saying, in prenatal screening and found out she had HIV. And she was started on treatment right away. She was supposed to take the drugs right away, but she felt like culturally in her community, an admission that she had HIV was going to be tantamount to an admission that she had been unfaithful to her husband, and that she risked being driven away from her home and away from her children and her existing children, and violence by disclosing. And so she didn't want to take the drugs, you know. In her first pregnancy after she found out she had HIV, she managed to take the drugs and also to get to help that child take drugs. And that child tested negative. For her next pregnancy, her husband was around. Her in-laws were living in the next house. She felt like she was under an enormous amount of scrutiny. She didn't dare openly take the drugs. She wasn't able to be adherent to the treatment. She would have needed to go regularly to the clinic, which was about eight kilometres away to pick them up. And she felt like she couldn't do that without giving away that she was living with HIV. She would be risking everything by disclosing that she had HIV. So she wasn't able to be adherent and that child eventually tested positive for HIV. And that, some iteration of that, of people knowing what they should do and the services maybe being available to them, but not feeling like safely, culturally, they were able to take the steps they would need to as they're currently set up to protect their children. They weren't able to do it. And Joyce told me about being just devastated, about wanting to die herself when she realized that she had infected her child, but also not feeling like she had had options. And so, you know, the way that we currently do this, the way that we provide services to women clearly aren't good enough.

MG: What did you learn about how it could be better and what's being done to address that stigma?

STEPHANIE NOLEN: Well, you know, how to address stigma, I think the great thing we haven't cracked in the fight against HIV is underlying the problems in, I don't know, 200, 300 stories I've written about the fight against HIV.

MG: Yeah.

STEPHANIE NOLEN: We haven't figured that out. And anybody who I talk to who tells me that they have, I tend to at this point mistrust. You know, some things would help. You know, really simple things like putting pediatric formulations of ARVs into syrups instead of pills so that moms don't have to go through a giant battle to try to get their kids to take their meds. That's a change that's just started to happen. And a lot of moms told me that has made things a little bit easier. Joyce is part of a mother's group that is made up of women like her who have kids who have become infected at birth and are living with HIV. And she is supported by some really incredibly assertive, wonderfully terrifyingly assertive clinic staff who are making sure that she stays on her drugs. They helped her disclose her HIV status to her husband. They helped her get the rest of her kids tested. When those systems work and you're able to wrap that kind of support around a mother, I think it makes a difference. But the fundamental fact that culturally, Joyce had to be so afraid for her own well-being and her other kids, like that's a super hard thing to change, which, you know, obviously because 40 years into the epidemic, we haven't done it.

MG: Dr. Kose, as somebody who's there in this field working on the ground, how do you wrestle with what Stephanie is saying, that that stigma is still in many ways at the heart of this epidemic? Are there things that can be done in a meaningful way, do you believe, to start to address, at the very least, that stigma?

DR. JUDITH KOSE: Yeah. Stigma really is still there at the heart of the epidemic, and it affects the enjoyment of rights. It leads to denial of health services and social services. And many times, it's even enshrined in the criminal laws and even mandatory testing. And when you look at some of the data we have, we find that in almost 11 countries, 26% of women who are living with HIV reported that they were forced to have contraception before they could get HIV treatment. So one of the ways we address stigma is, for example, we assess this in surveys to know what the data says, and we assess this with health care workers, but also with patients. We train health care workers to explore the root cause for the stigma, on why they're doing certain things so that we are able to address some of these prejudices. We support policy change because some of these stigma come from policies. So we support policy change to ensure that certain rights are given to people living with HIV without stigmatization. But also, we actively involve people living with HIV in some of these activities so that they can speak to what they see, they can speak to what is happening, but also integrate stigma reduction into existing structures and processes.

MG: Stephanie, another mother that you talked to, Nancy. Her child didn't get tested until she was much older. What was the impact of that?

STEPHANIE NOLEN: Nancy's daughter, a middle child, also was infected at birth but didn't get screening, which again is routine on paper but didn't happen, and was really quite ill by the sounds of it all through her childhood, and had repeated bouts of pneumonia. And like again, speaking to where the testing policy breaks down, Nancy took her back to different clinics, different hospitals numerous times, and she was treated for her pneumonia, but she was never screened for HIV. And, you know, I think Dr. Kose would say repeated bouts of pneumonia in a child certainly would be an indicator to test for HIV. But this child was never tested. And it wasn't until again Nancy was sort of taken into the embrace of one of these really supportive clinics where they encouraged her to bring all of her older children in for testing that the underlying HIV was identified and that child was able to be put on treatment. And she's on treatment now and she's well. But it's obviously had had a really debilitating effect on her and on Nancy and frankly, on Nancy's finances, right? Like, if you are someone living like really kind of on a day to day income, having a sick kid and a sick kid that you have to walk kilometres and kilometres to a clinic, like that's a really large burden.

MG: It speaks to something that you were told by a pediatric clinical officer who said just in talking about the treatment that's available, the new drugs do wonders. The children who are on their deathbed, you start them on medication, then you see them very active. You wouldn't even know that they're suffering from HIV. But to start them on medication, you have to know which children have the virus.

STEPHANIE NOLEN: Yeah. And, you know, I certainly saw that with Nancy's kids because when Nancy took me back to her home and I met all the kids, I couldn't have told you looking at them which were the kids on HIV, right? I mean, now they're the ones a couple of her kids are infected, the rest aren't. When I was kicking a soccer ball around with them in the little sort of patio in front of where they live, I had no idea which were the infected kids, right? And it was only later when Nancy talked me through the kind of order of events that I was able to piece it together. But, you know, she wasn't tested. She wasn't tested at birth and she wasn't tested through those repeated illnesses. And, you know, there are many reasons why that happens. And they're not glamorous or sexy. It's not a sort of thing we can swoop in and change with the health system. It's not a miracle drug. Its investment in training and the building up of basic primary care systems so that when somebody like that child is taken to the clinic with repeated pneumonias as a small child, she gets an HIV test. And that's like it's hard work. It's a slog to kind of build up that kind of primary care.

MG: So end where we started, which is, I mean, 40 plus years into this epidemic and 20 plus years into your covering it, where does that leave you in thinking about where we as a world are at in tackling HIV?

STEPHANIE NOLEN: I was a pretty grouchy, angry person when I finished this reporting trip. I think that Dr. Kose could probably attest to that. We had a drink in a cafe in Nairobi, and I was pretty frustrated after some time tromping around these clinics and seeing kids pay the price of some things that really could go wrong and seeing some moms who were trying like hell to do the right thing and take care of their kids and not getting what they needed to do that. But I guess I kind of come back to when I moved to South Africa in the early 2000s. It was an absolute living nightmare and we're a long, long way from that. I know Dr. Kose remembers those days and remembers what that looked like. And we have solved a lot of things that seemed insurmountable early on. And I think that this is also probably fixable, especially because we know what to do. And, you know, part of the solution with kids is going to just be about a bit of a reset where we realize we've missed them. And we need to do it differently.

MG: Dr. Kose, last word to you. I mean, again, you're there on the ground. Do you see hope in the future in terms of what Stephanie is saying? We know what to do. We have to get back to doing it.

DR. JUDITH KOSE: Yes. Absolutely, Matt. We know the science. We know what needs to do. We know what the gaps are. And so it needs commitment from all partners, from all stakeholders to get to it. One of the things Kenya has done well is Kenya is very responsive to adopting the new treatment guidelines. And it's among the countries that adopted this new drug that Stephanie is referring to, the pediatric DTG. So being responsive and adopting quickly the new guidelines. Kenya has decentralized HIV treatment to ensure improved access. They now even use data, you know, to inform how well they're doing. And in fact, the Kenya data is on the cloud. The EMR has been rolled out so that at any facility you can see where is the gap, where are we not doing well? But I think the bigger picture is really, where it starts is identifying those who are infected like you said, Matt. And this requires an optimal mix of various testing approaches both in the facility and in the community. Kenya is trying these. Many countries are trying these, but I think there needs to be more. So really, it really just calls for commitment from various stakeholders, doing what is right and maintaining this continuously with children in our minds. I think children should not be forgotten in this day and age. And so there is hope, Matt. There is hope that this can be done because we know of countries that have achieved epidemic control, even achieved much, much better coverage for children.

MG: Dr. Kose, best of luck in the work that you're doing and thank you for taking time from that work to speak with us.

DR. JUDITH KOSE: Thank you very much, Matt. And nice to hear you, Stephanie.

STEPHANIE NOLEN: And you.

MG: Stephanie, great to talk to you as always. Thanks so much.

STEPHANIE NOLEN: You're very welcome, Matt. Keep well.

MG: Stephanie Nolen is a global health reporter with The New York Times. Dr. Judith Kose is director for Pediatric and Adolescent Services with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and she was in Nairobi, Kenya. That is The Current for this Monday. Of course, stay tuned to CBC Radio One for Q with Tom Power. The show's got a fresh coat of paint and more. Our man is here.

TOM POWER: Hey, Matt, how are you?

MG: What are you at?

TOM POWER: What are you at?

MG: Did I use that correctly?

TOM POWER: You nailed it.

MG: Thank you.

TOM POWER: And you know what? Can I teach you the answer?

MG: Yes.

TOM POWER: So ask me again.

MG: What are you at?

TOM POWER: This is it.

MG: This is it.

TOM POWER: Yeah. This is it. As in this is it. This is what I'm doing.

MG: Tell me about Q, the new Q.

TOM POWER: Oh, yeah. Yeah. The show relaunches this morning, as you mentioned, with a fresh coat of paint. It's an hour long interview show that comes out as a podcast first. So at four in the morning Eastern time. So it's 5:30 Newfoundland and parts of Labrador. You will be able to hear that show first thing in the morning when you wake up, make it part of your morning routine, make it part of your day. The show then airs at 10:00, as it normally does on CBC Radio One, and then in the Night-Time at 9:00 on CBC Radio One.

MG: The same but different, right?

TOM POWER: The same but different. It's an hour long show. It is focusing on the interviews that we do. I guess the version of it on the radio would have some music. And it is hard to do the music stuff on the podcast. You'll be able to hear full songs, you'll be able to hear that kind of thing on the radio version. But no, I mean, it's very, very, very similar.

MG: Tell me what's behind this? Why have you kind of pushed it in this direction?

TOM POWER: I think that, let me see. How do I put this? My listening habits have changed over the years. I'm sure yours have too. The team that I'm lucky to be the lead singer of, the band that I'm lucky to be the lead singer of, our tastes have changed and our listening habits have changed. And I meet people all across the country with all this lucky travelling we get to do who tell me the same thing. You know, they listen to the show at different times every single day. Matt, I listen to The Current on my way home, on the streetcar, on the CBC Listen app. Like that's how I listen to The Current. And we were taping more of these interviews and we were pre taping more of these interviews, and we were going longer for 45, 50 minutes and cutting them down.

MG: Which might not work on the radio.

TOM POWER: it may not necessarily work on the radio. We're able to cut them down and that's how we kind of started to go. I mean, my interview style kind of changed a couple of years ago and that kind of happened. And more people started coming to us for the podcast. Younger audiences started coming to us for the podcast, and we just wanted to give them an opportunity to think of it as a podcast first. When they wake up in the morning, it can just be part of their day.

MG: And so who or what will we hear in just a few minutes time?

TOM POWER: In just a few minutes, you're going to hear the first Canadian interview with Sam Smith. They are one of the biggest pop stars in the world. They talk about their new album, Gloria, but they also talk a little bit about I mean, they were lauded for their decision to come out as non-binary, but they talk a little bit in the interview about how they were sort of forced to do that through a leak. And they talk about how there's a lot of talk about the pronouns and there's a lot of talk about the culture wars. But ultimately, what they want people to focus on is how good they felt when they finally started talking about who they were. And Matt, Shania Twain, up and coming Emerging artist.

MG: I've heard some things. A big future ahead.

TOM POWER: You know, I think she’s got a big future. So we're really excited about it. I would love for you to go to Apple Podcasts. I would love for you to go to Spotify. I'd love for you to go to CBC Listen and subscribe and follow the podcast or just take a listen to it. And we're just delighted about it.

MG: These are big names.

TOM POWER: Oh, don't be talking.

MG: Don't be talking.

TOM POWER: Don't be Talking is another Newfoundland expression, by the way, that when I say up here, people think I'm telling them to shut up. But I’m not.

MG: That’s why I closed my mouth.

TOM POWER: Yeah. Yeah. It means like Oh, you bet. Tomorrow, my friend and yours, Sarah Polley is on the show tomorrow with Bier Das on the show as well tomorrow. Later this week, we have Matty Healy from the 1975. We have 1985. I never put that together till now, but a producer from Division and one of the members of Division works closely with Drake. I'm really, really excited about the show this week.

MG: I have to get out of the studio because you're going to take over the airwaves. You've got the wheel. Tom Power and Q coming up in just a moment on CBC Radio One. Best of luck. We'll be listening.

TOM POWER: Matt, thank you so much for having me. And yes, bye.

MG: My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Q is up next and I'll talk to you tomorrow.

[Music: Theme]

The Current Transcript for January 30, 2023

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

MEMPHIS

TECH LAYOFFS

HIV CHILDREN AFRICA

Monday January 30, 2023 Episode Transcript

Social Sharing