Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2022

The Current Transcript for January 26, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

He responded to me saying, you know, how could you be anti-Chinese? People start calling me fellow traitors.

MATT GALLOWAY: The Beijing Winter Olympics open next week and as the global spotlight moves closer to China, Canadian security experts warn that politicians here are being targeted by disinformation and influence campaigns coming from that nation. In 30 minutes, what it's like to be on the receiving end of those attacks and how Canada should respond. Also this morning, the journalist Kathryn Schulz scared the pants off many people on the West Coast with a Pulitzer prise winning essay on the aftermath of the next big earthquake. Her new memoir, Lost and Found, focuses on the after effects of a much more immediate trauma losing her father.

SOUNDCLIP

Loss is interesting to me because it is the fundamental bargain of our existence. You know, we get to be here, get we get to be in the world and be amazed by it and fall in love with parts of it. And what we don't get to do is keep it.

MG: In an hour. She's here to talk about the meaning of loss, the sense of wonder and finding someone new and how the word and is the linguistic super glue that ties our world together. We start, though, with the pandemic lessons we can learn from South Africa about what might be coming next. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

What can Canada learn from South Africa’s bout with Omicron?

Guests: Shabir Madhi, Jason Kindrachuk

MG: The Omicron variant was first detected in South Africa, and while countries like Canada are still in the middle of the wave, South Africa seems to be nearing the end. Case counts there have dropped off steep, steeply nightly curfews that had been in place since the beginning of the pandemic have been lifted, and the data already shows that while Omicron spread like wildfire in that country, it also wound up being less deadly than previous waves. Studying how things unfolded in South Africa could help experts around the world understand how to better cope with future variants. Dr Shabir Madhi is a professor of vaccinology at Johannesburg's University of Witwatersrand. He's in Johannesburg. Doctor, good morning.

SHABIR MADHI: Hi, good morning. Thank you for having me.

MG: Thank you for being here. Describe what's happening with the ground in South Africa right now. How do your infection and death rates look?

SHABIR MADHI: So across the entire country it's very much at the tail end of this particular wave. And in the province, which we the initial epicentre, we very much the same pretty much ended in that the positivity rate, the percentage of people that are coming forward to be tested is less than five percent now. They have a few important observations of this particular way. Firstly, it is much more intensely than any of the previous three waves, but it also subsided much sooner. So this particular wave lasted roughly about eight weeks, compared with closer to 14 to 16 weeks with earlier waves. But perhaps what is most striking with this particular wave, despite large numbers of people likely having been infected, the estimate is 40 to 50 percent, including a large number of threats made to people having breakthrough infections. That's got to be protected previously infected, been reinfected. What was quite striking was the decoupling of infections, hospitalisation and death. This particular wave only contributed to five percent of all of the deaths that has citizen from COVID 19 since the start of the pandemic, compared with the Delta variant that contributed to 50 percent of all of the deaths from COVID 19 in South Africa. And similarly, the specialisation rate this time around was only about one fifth compared to hospitalisation rates of in the course of the Delta variant. So we've seen complete decoupling of infection and severe disease.

MG: The world has been watching what's happening in South Africa. Obviously, scientists there were the first to discover the al-Muqrin wave. What did you make of how the rest of the world responded to what those scientists had to say and what you have seen in what you just described in terms of that decoupling?

SHABIR MADHI: I believe the main reason for this decoupling observed in South Africa is extensive amount of immunity, which has arisen during the course of the first three rounds. And that immunity has largely in because of a high force of infection that this transpired before the onset of the current wave. Roughly about 70 percent of adults in South Africa have been infected at least once. But one of the other variants in addition to that, at least about one third of adults have received at least a single dose of a COVID 19 vaccine. So those two elements, which has really resulted in immunity that doesn't necessarily work too well in protecting against infection, but works extremely well when it comes to protecting against severe disease and death, is what's probably resulted in a very different experience, this time down compared with earlier waves.

MG: Scientists around the world and public health officials watched what was happening in South Africa and were reluctant to extrapolate those results and apply them to their own communities. Many said that they were sceptical of what was happening. They were sceptical of claims that there was a relative mildness of all Macron compared to Delta or other waves of COVID 19. What was your response to that scepticism?

SHABIR MADHI: Well, extremely surprised, and I think it's the a remnant of cultural imperialism because the reality is some of the arguments that have been put forward is that your country is just an example. You've got an older population, but that has been completely oblivious to the reality that up until the time of the crime rate, the mortality rate per 100, 000 in South Africa was double the mortality rate of many high income countries. So it's like Africa doesn't have a healthier population than high income countries that were largely dismissing experience that was being observed in South Africa. And it also is an issue that people who are arguing that most of our population have developed immunity through vaccination rates in South Africa, it's more about natural infection induced immunity. But that argument unfortunately substantially undermines vaccinating individuals because you are casting doubt about the utility of vaccines and being able to achieve what its primary goal is, and that is to protect against severe disease and death.

MG: Can I go back to what you just said that you see this as is in some ways, you know, the shadow of cultural. Imperialism, what did you mean by that when it comes to the science?

SHABIR MADHI: Well, it's about that. It seems that scientists, including governments from some companies, are simply dismissive of any findings that come out from the global south. And that's the same sort of expedience is identified in their country, and that's the only time that they actually winning that. What is coming out from south in particular, probably Africa more so it's actually you have the elements to them, which is really, really unfortunate because on the flip side, it didn't seem that scientists and governments actually had a second thought about shutting the borders to South Africa and South Africa reported the use of the current variant. But when it started to report good news, a good news story, all of a sudden it seemed that our science was no longer as good.

MG: What do you think that countries like Canada could take away from the South African experience? Right now, we're seeing still a huge increase in COVID cases. Our health care systems are overrun. The numbers of deaths are almost as high as the second wave here, although they're largely focussed on the unvaccinated and those who perhaps have not had a booster shot or had a compromised immune system before this wave arrived. What is it that we can take away from what happened in South Africa?

SHABIR MADHI: Yeah, and I think that's a really important point that you're right, that the majority of infections and deaths, but infection, but rather hospitalisation and death is occurring in under vaccinated people or unvaccinated individuals. And certainly that was exactly the case in South Africa, where 85 percent of applications for COVID 19 were a consequence of people not being vaccinated or being under vaccinators. So vaccines still remain an important tool in terms of reducing hospitalisation and death and protecting health care services. But there are other elements as well, and I believe that when countries think that they would be able to avoid infections from transpiring, especially with the Vietnam type of transmissible variants such as Omicron, unfortunately, the only thing they would really achieve is prolong the period of time over which the same number of infections eventually take place. Now, despite there being pressure on healthcare systems in Canada, I think it's still too early to say that you're not going to see the decoupling because I do believe that unless you've had major restrictions in place to prevent infections from taking place and prolonging the period of time over which those infections would take place, the way it was supposed to subside much sooner, the mortality rate will subside much sooner. And I would be somewhat surprised. In a country such as Canada, we've got high vaccine coverage that in terms of absolute numbers and of this particular wave, that those numbers are going to be comparable to what you experienced during the course of the Delta variant wave.

MG: So South Africa has changed its approach in terms of dealing with this current wave and in dealing with the virus itself easing some restrictions. Is that the right approach?

SHABIR MADHI: But it's certainly worked in South Africa, in fact, this time down for the first time when this particular wave started, South Africa resisted going to higher level of restrictions. We were at the lowest level of restriction ever since the start of the pandemic. And in fact, the curfew that was implemented in March 2020 was for the first time that in the midst of the resurgence of this particular wave and the reason for that decision was simply what was being observed. We were seeing this tremendous decoupling of infections compared to hospitalisation and death, although lives were lost, unfortunately, and we could have done better with all of the vaccines more effectively. This particular wave isn't going to contribute to more than five percent of all of the deaths that transpired since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

MG: What do you think the months ahead are going to look like in South Africa schools or just gone back after a winter break? Are you concerned about what the future might hold when it comes to future variants in South Africa?

SHABIR MADHI: So I think it's almost a given that we are going to experience further resurgence. This I would estimate in another three to four months and it might be another variant. But the bottom line is that a type of immunity that vaccines as well as natural infection induced is such that that immunity might not be good enough in protecting against infections. But what is referred to as T-cell immunity, which probably drives the protection against severe disease that T-cell minuti is relatively unaffected by the type of mutations that have transpired up until now in the virus. Now, if the virus undergoes further additional mutations and if that is able to evade the T-cell immunity that's in use by vaccines as well as natural infection and the likelihood of that scenario playing out is extremely unlikely.

MG: So how should we deal then with those future variants?

SHABIR MADHI: Well, I think we need to start deciding exactly what the goal of this pandemic is. And that is, are we really able to achieve the prevention of infections? And I don't believe that we've got the tools available to us right now? Or is the main goal not to have any more death that transpires from COVID 19 compared with just an example of seasonal influenza? So for me, at the end of the day, we need to start having more faith in vaccines that we've got available. We need to make better utilisation of it, including booster dose for high risk individuals. And then we need to basically start accepting that this virus is yet. And we need to learn to live with it. Yes, we'll continue, unfortunately, causing death, which is not ideal. It might still cause people to develop long COVID, which is not ideal. But vaccines do work and they do protect against death as we have this long COVID.

MG: Dr. Madhi, it's great to speak with you about this and hear what's happening there. As I said, the world has been watching over the course of this last wave. What's unfolding in South Africa? Thank you very much.

SHABIR MADHI: Thanks. Thank you for having me.

MG: Dr. Shabir Madhi is a professor of vaccinology at Johannesburg's University of Advanced Run in Johannesburg. For more on what Canada can learn from South Africa, I'm joined by Jason Kindrachuk. He's an assistant professor of medical microbiology and infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba. He is in Winnipeg. Jason, good morning to you.

JASON KINDRACHUK: Good morning.

MG: As we just heard from Dr. Madhii, South Africa's wave of Omicron has essentially ended. How does Canada's experience compare with what he is describing in his country?

JASON KINDRACHUK: So I think part of it is, you know, the trends. We are following as far as this that the quite precipitous peak, I think we're still trying to figure out what this is going to look like for for the rest of the wave. And I say that based on the fact that, you know, we don't have that, that equivalency of, you know, of what happens with whole Macron across the entire country because of the fact that the we're actually quite spread out in terms of our population, large country. So you have that temporal lag. So things are picking up and in certain provinces, they're tailing down in other provinces. I think the trends will follow, but I think we can't lull or self into this belief that it's over, either.

MG: Based on what South Africa has gone through and where it's at right now. What do you think we could learn from that country's experience?

JASON KINDRACHUK: Oh, there's a lot of, I think, the most important thing, and I think you you probably heard, you know, just an unbelievable outpouring of support from from scientists following the release of the initial Omicron ID from our South African in Botswana and colleagues, which was don't penalise countries for reporting when they identify. And I think that's one of the important things is we have to appreciate that when countries are or actually, you know, taking, you know, taking a step forward and releasing this information is providing us with, you know, with warning signs. So we need to be very appreciative of that. I think the other sign is that Omicron is not going to extend on for four months. Once we have, we have things, we still need to learn about it, but we have to appreciate that there is an end point to this. We have to bear down while we're in it. But we we also have to appreciate it is not going to extend on for months and months and months.

MG: And what you've seen in South Africa is, again, that very steep rise in cases and then a very steep drop as well. Do we, and again, taking your point that Canada is a large country spread out with a very diverse population, but is that generally what we expect is to see the peak kind of level out and then cases plummet?

JASON KINDRACHUK: Well, that's the big question, right? And I think, you know, certainly and with respect to to to the prior speaker, I think one of the things that the scientists are trying hard not to do is get caught up in absolutes, right? So I think we're we're trained to always look at caveats. And I think the for us right now, we don't want to say, OK, it is absolutely going to be a precipitous drop in cases because if it doesn't follow that trend, now you've lost that trust. So I think we want to continue to be cautious. I think we can say that there is some, some some bright light based on what we've seen from other countries. But let's also appreciate that we need to also be very cautious so that if that doesn't happen, or if we could see it could still continue to see Delta surging in in some areas or there still are pockets of it spreading and the impact it's added with, you know, with all mccarran that that we appreciate that we need to be very fluid in how we respond to it.

MG: What about what's next? Where do you see this going in terms of future variants feature mutations?

JASON KINDRACHUK: Oh, it's such a hard question, right? Well, I want to be as optimistic as possible. I think part of this goes back to this whole idea that, you know, certainly. But again, the prior speaker talked about, you know, the, you know, colonialism and imperialism. And we get back to the stage of saying, Listen, this is a global pandemic. So things will likely change Canada very, very quickly after all the crime, because the ramp, the amount of spread that we've seen.

MG: Sorry, what does that? What does that mean? Things will change quickly.

JASON KINDRACHUK: Well, I think when you look at the amount of infection that's occurred with Omicron, that only has added to our immunity in the population on top of what we already have with vaccination, so that the likelihood is you were going to have a greater breadth of immunity down the population. But let's not get into this idea that if things start to change here very, very quickly, that means that it's an end of the pandemic. It may be an end to transmission patterns here and certainly the the mortality morbidity concerns we've seen here. But we still have a large portion of the world that not only does not have access to vaccines, they don't have access to health care. So we need to appreciate that there is a moral and ethical reason that we have to provide support there. There's also a security reason for us to do this. The perspective we don't want other variants to emerge and if we give the virus more oxygen, it will do what it's been doing.

MG: So when you hear a speaker from the global South. Talk about how we need to rethink, in his words, what the goal of the pandemic is, that we need to have faith in vaccines, but we also need to accept that the virus is here and that we have to figure out how to learn to live with it. What do you make of that?

JASON KINDRACHUK: Oh, I get. So I certainly appreciate what they're saying. I get cautious with this idea of the learning to live with a virus aspect because I think what we've seen, certainly in people that have talked about the idea that the virus is now endemic. What's in it is it is going to become that we are beyond a stage of of elimination and certainly beyond a stage of eradication, but we have to be also very open, transparent in how we talk about what an endemic disease will look like. That does not mean we're necessarily equate to mild. So what we have to appreciate is that, yes, things will change. COVID is now here, but we still have to appreciate that. That does not mean that this is now just a mild disease, predominantly. It will still have a public health toll, and that's additive on top of the other infectious diseases that we already deal with. So it is still in our best interest to do what we can to try and get transmission down, get vaccine uptake high and continue to be very fluid in our response with what the virus throws out.

MG: What does that mean in terms of policy? Again, his point was have faith in vaccines you're seeing in South Africa, restrictions being lifted, restrictions that have been in place for for the whole of the pandemic? Essentially, yes. So what should that mean in terms of the policies that we see deployed in this country? Again, as you said, recognising that this is a big country and there are different jurisdictions with different ideas about what to do?

JASON KINDRACHUK: Well, this is why virologists and not a public, a public health policy expert, right, gets I don't have to make these decisions. I mean, listen, part of it is is trying to be cautious with how we remove restrictions. So are we at a stage and in Canada where certainly we can start to pull back restrictions in certain areas and test the waters? I think that you can start to make the argument that as we start to see descent of cases in different provinces, yeah, you can start to remove some of those restrictions, but you also have to be very adaptable to the situation. So can you do a blanket removal of all restrictions? Probably not, because already even with restrictions, we are still seeing exacerbation of of of health care capacity, such as we're seeing here in Manitoba. So do it cautiously and also appreciate that as new data or new information comes in, that you will also be able to make those nimble decisions if the situation changes.

MG: I guess just finally, in the last minute or so that we have, there was an optimism to what he was saying. And a couple of years into this people. You hear that you know this phrase, the people are done with COVID and you can park that for a moment. Just COVID, as they say, is not done with us. But people are looking for optimism. Is that something that we should be looking for?

JASON KINDRACHUK: Yeah, I think we have to. You know, I remember the dark days of the West African Ebola epidemic when I was in Liberia and got back and you were getting to the tail end and you wanted to be optimistic that things were changing. But we knew that there still could be cases of transmission and we ultimately saw that. So you want to be optimistic, you want to build on that, but you also want to appreciate that. That does not mean that there is an absolute end to what you're seeing. Things can change very rapidly, so let's be optimistic. Let's appreciate that the pandemic will come to an end. But we also are not in a position to force it to come to an end. We have to appreciate that viruses do what they do very well and also appreciate that putting an end to this pandemic requires us to be unbelievably, you know, I guess, adaptable and being able to to try to provide support to the globe.

MG: Jason, great to speak with you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Jason Kindrachuk, assistant professor of medical microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the University of Manitoba. You're CBC News is next. And then we're.

SOUNDCLIP

All aware of the instances of foreign interference. Today, I present my private member's bill and act to establish a foreign influence registry.

MG: I was a private member's bill introduced by former MP Kenny Chiu last year set off a disinformation campaign against him on Chinese language social media channels. We'll talk in six minutes about China's reach and how it may be influencing opinions and policy in this country. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

Security experts warn China is exerting influence and disinformation campaigns in Canada

Guests: Sze-Fung Lee, Kenny Chiu

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, the death of Kathryn Schultz's father set her off on a meditation about love, loss and what it means to be human. That journey became her latest book. It's beautiful and timely, and my conversation with her is coming up in just under 30 minutes. But first, the misinformation pipeline that runs from Beijing to Canada. We are just over a week away from the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing, and like every Olympics, it will be a made for television showcase of the host country. But the controversy over China's human rights record is not going away, and there are lingering questions about what Beijing's actions, both domestically and internationally mean for that country and its place in the world. Over the next few weeks, we'll be talking about those issues with a number of different guests today. I'm joined by former Conservative MP Kenny Chu. He was the target of a disinformation campaign after he spoke publicly about Beijing's influence in Canada and events in Hong Kong. Kenny Chiu. Good morning.

KENNY CHIU: Good morning, Matt.

MG: When did you first realise that people were spreading false information about you on social media?

KENNY CHIU: I think that was even earlier than than the election, pretty much. Soon after, I decided to participate in the election observation mission for the District Council election in Hong Kong. And that's when that's when disinformation started by saying that because of my participation, I'm an activist, you know, anti-China pro, Hong Kong Pro rioters. And that's that's when the disinformation started. But the crux of it really happened during the election.

MG: Now what happened then? I mean, what were people saying specifically in that period?

KENNY CHIU: Oh, it's pretty much because of three original sense that they they see in me, the first one being the participant in the election observation mission and the other one, it's because I participated just like any other Canadian parliamentarian in a vote in the House of Commons. In fact, the one supporting the definition of what happened to Rieger Muslims in Xinjiang China fulfils the definition of genocide, the U.N. definition of genocide. That one was actually passed. A motion was passed unanimously in the House of Commons that became another big problem of mine and third one, I guess this is the most deadly is the five-member bill that I tabled. First reading in the House of Commons proposing to establish a Foreign Influence Registry Act. And that was that was the worst, according to these people that I'm anti-China, that anti-Chinese myself yourself.

MG: Yes. Had you ever gone through anything like that before?

KENNY CHIU: No, no. Of course, knowing the apparatus that is active in Canada, in the western world, I really shouldn't be surprised. But it really the rubber really hits the road when when I went doorknocking and I realised that for two years during the pandemic, it festered only disinformation and it became a hotbed for for all these disinformation, people's reaction were highly emotional, and they would not even allow a discourse to happen at the door. That's when I realised that something, something serious is going on.

MG: Who do you think was responsible for this campaign?

KENNY CHIU: Behind the scene, I believe that it was actors acting on behalf of certain foreign power could be could be the Communist Chinese Party directly, but it could also be actors acting on their behalf. These people, um, they're just they're pseudo armed, for example, their mouthpiece, the Global Times newspaper, like that they start publishing op ads and also disinformation completely falsified information. And that became an authoritarian I'm sorry and authority speak, and it's highly quoted and highly repeated, amplified in the community through its social media. As soon as something official was established, people started listening and following. By the way, Matt, I'm sure you know, Canadians understand that during the pandemic, there's a lot of discrimination and racism happens. Anti-Asian racism in China has been telling the world, the world of Chinese, that they they are the defender of Chinese descent in Canada and around the world and facing anti-gay anti-Asian racism. They are the ones to be to be acting on behalf of all Chinese and Canada and worldwide.

MG: Let me just back to something you said, which is that you think perhaps it was either the Chinese regime or actors on behalf of that? I mean, how do you know that? Is there anything that you would have that would point directly to that as a source?

KENNY CHIU: Oh, yes. Well, yes, because like I said, the official Chinese mouthpiece, the Global Times, had articles attacking the Conservatives. The the ambassador to Canada, the Chinese ambassador to Canada, was actually during the election period, was actually commenting and discrediting the conservative stance. There have been articles that cannot be traced to the original author were publicised in WeChat and also repeated in in certain Chinese publications that are supposed to be Canadians. And these are these are all these opinions that they established and establishing the off the official stance against conservatives, against the the, you know, MP such as Kenny Chiu.

MG: There are people who might wonder why China would even care about a Canadian backbench MP. It's no disrespect to you, but I mean, you weren't in government. You in in in the leading party, you were a backbench MP and an opposition party. You didn't get re elected. And so people could say that perhaps this is just sour grapes. Did you think that this was instrumental in your failure to get re-elected?

KENNY CHIU: Well, first of all, I'm not blaming this disinformation campaign for as is the only factor in defeating certain MP such as myself, elections winning or losing has a it's a it's a complicated matter. There are many, many contributing factors, but one I'm trying to say, though, is in China. There's a saying that says killing the chicken to win the monkey. And this does establish a benchmark for a lot of critics of what happened to to Canada that that is related to to China or what happened to in China right now. And it shows that to demonstrate that people who are critical of the regime would not have a good ending politically and and it served to shut all the critics up very effectively. And that's something that is actually common in U.S. Not just in Canada, but across across the world. And by doing that, they will effectively serve the notice to up and coming aspired. You know, politicians of Chinese descent or not, that who they will be appreciated and support.

MG: Just briefly, before I let you go, how would you want to see the Canadian government respond to what you went through?

KENNY CHIU: Well, I think that's a very clear signal that Canada is here to protect the Canadian interests inside Canada, at least that that's that's a bare minimum that we need to send out a signal not just to to China, because theses have been telling us that Russia, Iran and all these other foreign countries are interested in influencing and impacting us. And so the first thing we need to do is to serve notice to all these countries that we are watching. Having ironically, something like what I proposed would be would be a first salvo that we can send to all these, all these countries and sending disinformation. Russia, for example, it has been very active in Canada, influencing us and and to the Chinese regime, for example. We need to serve them, notice that that we're we're we're protecting ourself. We're realising what's happened. But unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be happening in this and this liberal government right now can issue.

MG: Good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

KENNY CHIU: Thank you.

MG: And by Kenny Chiu, former Conservative MP for Stevenson Richmond East in British Columbia, to talk further about how his story fits into China's broader international strategy. We're joined by two guests. Sze Fung Lee is a research assistant at McGill's School of Information Studies, who has written about China's use of disinformation and influence campaigns. And Dick Fadden is the former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and a former national security adviser to two prime ministers. Good morning to you, both.

GUESTS: Good morning.

MG: Morning. Sze-Fung Lee, just how big of a problem are disinformation campaigns in this country, like the one that Kenny Chiu described, not just what he was hearing online and seeing online, but what he was facing at the door in the wake of those comments on social media.

SZE-FUNG LEE: Yes, indeed, on state sponsored disinformation campaigns has huge potential to impact our local democracy election results. Yes.

MG: How widespread is that, do you think?

SZE-FUNG LEE: This is actually quite a serious situation because we can see from Jenny use case that even though it was hard to trace back the origin like we will be hard to prove China is a Beijing government is indeed behind this because like all information warfare, this kind of disinformation campaign has these kind of clandestine diplomacy nature. The government could easily do not say responsibility, but we can see some language and characteristics of this kind of disinformation campaign. Like in Canada use case, we can see that the fake news is tailored to Chinese Diaspora communities, both in terms of message and content, and it helps generate the pro-China sentiment or nationalism, which could provoke much social care and will potentially impact the elections.

MG: Dick Fadden What kind of capabilities to Canadian authorities have when it comes to keeping track of what's happening on Chinese language social media, but beyond that as well?

DICK FADDEN: Well, I think to be honest, it's limited because the range of potential information and misinformation activities is pretty broad. And as was just said, one of the difficulties is is tracing the origins, that's not the case if you have something in Chinese written media. But if you're dealing with social media, it's much, much more difficult. I think Mr. Chiu's idea of having a registry is a very good one. It's not a silver bullet, but it would at least allow the government to not worry so much about those who are registered and to concentrate on those who are not. But to monitor, you know, all of the social media and what's happening in the Chinese written and electronic media in Canada is a vast undertaking. I think it's important also to remember we're not the only country that's facing this difficulty, and Australia, the US, the UK and others have the same problem. Social media is so pervasive and the difficulties of dealing with what's on it without interfering with people, constitutional and legal rights are very, very complicated. So I don't think we've reached the point either here or anywhere else where we can honestly say that we have a grip.

MG: Well, what's going on here? I mean, broadly help us understand what is actually unfolding here.

DICK FADDEN: I think this is part of a broader Chinese. I call it the Chinese party state. The Chinese party state's efforts to continue its rise as a superpower. It has any number of tools ranging ranging from the military activities you see in the South China Seas to a whole raft of IP thefts, and then it has infinite disinformation and misinformation activities throughout the West. Canada is not being singled out. They do this as a means of destabilising democracy as proving that they're very effective. And there's no better way of doing that than trying to convince people that democracy is not working an additional way. That they try very hard to move forward is to drive wedges between various countries in in the West. Doesn't take a lot to do that because more and more people tend to focus on particular aspects or particular components of social media or other other kinds of media. And if they get any sort of control or misinformation, it gets amplified really very quickly. But it's part of a much broader attempt on the part of the Chinese party state to destabilise the West and to reinforce its position as a world leader.

MG: Sze-Fung Lee as somebody who has studied the use of disinformation and influence campaigns, what do you see as as the goal here overall?

SZE-FUNG LEE: I think just like Dick said, the disinformation campaign is actually part of the hybrid tactics that the Chinese community party use as the grand strategy, like it was first announced in Central Military Commission in 2003, is called a free warfare include like coordinated use of psychological operations, media manipulation and legal and political warfare. And these are actually political guidelines and mutually reinforcing strategies for People's Liberation Army. So when, when, when this kind of tactics deployed even in Canada, it is going to be having huge impact because the nature of this, our liberal democracy structure makes it difficult to resist this kind of hybrid war or information warfare is like free media, for instance, like it, pretends like a basic value for liberal democracy. But it also provides a room for hybrid interference because when freedom of speech allows free flow of information, then free press will be susceptible to fake news and propaganda, especially conducted by this coordinated disinformation campaign. And this could be a huge problem for us, but we are not dealing with it. And in addition, because they're kind of spreading the the this kind of disinformation fraud, they're all children that work in the Chinese community like WeChat or Weibo. So increase the kind of sense of a murder, some similarity. So because in a psychological perspective, when people receive information from people they know about and from their own social network, they're more easy to believe in that piece of fake news.

MG: And I was just to say, the way that we talk about this is interesting because we're saying that there's a pipeline in some ways of misinformation and disinformation coming from China to Canada. We spoke with Sibo Chen about this yesterday and assistant professor at the School of Professional Communication at Ryerson University in Toronto. He was concerned about the way that we talk about issues like this and the way to Kenney Chiu's point that this could feed into an anti-Asian sentiment that we have seen erupt over the course of this pandemic. Take a listen to Sibo Chen and then I'll get your response.

SOUNDCLIP

There are all kinds of threats, right? You can also see, for example, political extremism is a threat to Canadian democracy. But the key point is we have to be very cautious when we try to actually be a problem, quote unquote always to external outsiders framing something as external, right? It's almost kind of trying to making the assumption that internally we are fine.

MG: See if only that Sibo Chen of Ryerson University warning about the risk of blaming outsiders for misinformation. We have seen, as you know, a lot of anti-Asian racism, especially during the pandemic. Do you worry that that talking about these sorts of campaigns could make things worse?

SZE-FUNG LEE: I do not think so, because this information campaign is what every liberal democracy faces. We have a threat from China would have to from Russia. Iran is not a single issue. And what we have to identify is that talking about this kind of who is responsible behind this kind of determination does not mean that we are anti that regime. Like we said that like tennis shoes, foreigners for an inverse rotary act, it is actually increasing the transparency of whatever political donation or linkage we can is, but is actually targeting people who try to manipulate our our election or have foreign interference. But that doesn't mean that we are anti-China so that there is kind of distinguish between it because those kind of fake news actually try to like to impose this kind of binary opposition that us versus them. And it provokes a certain degree of pro-China nationalism, especially for those who have always been more pro-Beijing said. But that is not what's actually happening for the reality. So we have to distinguish reality and those kind of fake news and addressing those kind of danger will help the crowd.

MG: And how do we go about addressing that? What should candidate do to respond to these efforts at influence, do you think?

DICK FADDEN: I think the first thing we have got to do is I could not agree more. We need to talk about this more. The more we talk about it openly and coherently, the less chance there will be that misinformation will come about. So I think the government of Canada in particular has an obligation to talk about these things, to talk about these things openly. A few months ago, one of my successors as the director of Cece's said that foreign influence activities is one of the main concerns of the security agency. Well, that's good, as parliament said or done anything a great deal about it. I don't think so. Has the government in particular? Ministers talked about it. I don't think so.

MG: Why do you think that's the case? You've been raising the alarm about this for four years.

DICK FADDEN: I think things. Well, you know, to not coin a phrase, things are complicated. I mean, we have we're a middle power. Anything that we can say or do will not keep Beijing awake at night. So we have to work with our allies. We want to have a reasonable relationship with the Chinese party state on an economic tourism trade front. But at the same time, we find that their treatment internally of minorities, their treatment of international law is unacceptable. We find it very hard, I think. And that's not just Mr. Trudeau's government. It's most government, all governments of Canada to find the right balance. I think we need a framework for dealing with China, to dealing with Asia. And in fact, having a foreign policy overall would be important, particularly these days when, you know, the Russians are causing difficulties in Europe. We seem to be more responsive than than trying to get ahead of the problems or we're simply, you know, doing more or less everything that we do in support of the United States. We need to think our way through international relations generally assign a set of priorities, talk about them and the government needs to gain Canadian support. I mean, I think if you look at recent polling, there's been a shift in Canada. Support for China has been dropping consistently over the last little while. The government, in fact, seems to be behind the Canadian population on this. So, you know, I just think we need to talk about it. I think Mr Chiu's idea of having a registry is a good idea. Making the point again, it it ain't directed to the Chinese. It's against anybody engaged in foreign influenced activity and it would help. It would provide another tool to for those who are dealing with these sorts of things. But I think we need to recognise that. I think, generally speaking, the world has not quite yet come to grips with how we're going to deal with misinformation. So one way is continuing research, continuing programmes like these, but talking about it more generally and for the government to take the lead, you know, to to initiate discussions about this and to explain to the Canadian public what we're dealing with and to work with our allies much more than we have on this.

MG: And if we don't, just briefly what's at stake.

DICK FADDEN: I think our sovereignty. I mean, a foreign, a foreign state trying to influence our policies or particularly our elections, endangers our sovereignty.

MG: We're just about at a time. Sze-Fung Lee, do you see it as that stark that this is about? In some ways, Canadian sovereignty is declared an asset?

SZE-FUNG LEE: Absolutely. We have to defend our liberal democracy, and we I think we could have more of a whole of government approach to deal with this kind of a mission or information warfare in general, because right now, Canada doesn't have a specified unit or institution that precisely focussed on combating disinformation and. Yeah, that's that could help.

MG: It's great to speak with you both about this, it feels like it's certainly a timely conversation, but the beginning of a conversation as well. Thank you very much.

GUESTS: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Steve Langley is a research assistant at McGill's School of Information Studies and an expert on China's Hybrid Tactics tech fad and former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and he was a national security adviser to two prime ministers. Our series on China continues on Monday. The Olympics begin in Beijing next weekend, and we will continue talking about what's going on in that country and beyond. We'll have a feature interview on Monday with Kevin Rudd. He's the former prime minister of Australia, also a China scholar and a former diplomat there. Australia, of course, very much like Canada trying to figure out what the future of its relations with China look like. We'll speak with Kevin Rudd about that coming up Monday on The Current. Well, coming up this morning after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

When you fall in love, you're always aware of the fact that you can lose this person to, you know, one of the things about falling in love is suddenly there's someone who's just the most important person in the world to you, and that's thrilling. And it's also a little bit scary.

MG: Life, death, love things lost and found all themes and Pulitzer prise winning journalist Kathryn Schultz's new memoir, My Conversation with Her. We'll touch on all of that and more coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

What losing her father and finding love taught Kathryn Schulz about the 'bargain of our existence'

Guest: Kathryn Schultz

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Lost love and our place in the universe. Those are big, timeless themes, but timely ones too, especially as we head into the third year of the COVID 19 pandemic. And those ideas form the backbone of journalist Kathryn Schultz's new memoir. It's called Lost and Found. Kathryn Schulz is a staff writer at The New Yorker. Kathryn, good morning.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Good morning. Thanks so much for having me on the show.

MG: Thank you for being here. This is a beautiful book.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Thank you. That's so kind of you to say.

MG: You begin by describing the death of your father, a man who you adored, and I wondered if you could start by just telling us a bit about who he was.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Sure. Yes. I feel grateful every day to have been my father's theatre. He was a remarkable person. He was a refugee to the United States. Born in Tel Aviv back when it was still Palestine and then had a kind of nomadic childhood until he landed with his family in Detroit. And, you know, he came from a background of both emotional and financial poverty. I would say a lot of familial trauma and very little in the way of resources. And yet somehow, despite that, he was just one of the most joyful and ebullient people you could ever possibly meet. He loved life. He loved being a parent. He she was just full of curiosity about and love for the world. And it was wonderful to grow up kind of proximate to that curiosity and that joy.

MG: You write that he had the gravitational pull of a mid-sized planet.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: It's true. My father was not a tall man, although he was kind of a round man and in keeping with the planetary image. But but he he was sort of the most obvious presence in any room he was in, and not because he was domineering in any way. But, but he just had a kind of infectious enthusiasm for life. He had a wonderful laugh and a truly remarkable mind. And he just loved people. So I think people responded to that and sort of naturally wanted to draw close to him and get to know him.

MG: And an extraordinary pile of books next to his bed. You wrote a book, you wrote about it in The New Yorker. There was a photo of it, and the picture is incredible. Can you describe that?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Yes, it's true. My my father had a voracious mind and no organisational aptitude whatsoever. So he loved to read and everything that he was either planning to read or had recently read just sort of sort of got discarded beside him in his bedroom until this incredible and frankly slightly dangerous edifice of literature grew up beside. We all affectionately called it the stack, which was a misnomer. There was nothing orderly about it, but it always felt to me like this kind of external kind of manifestation of my father's wonderfully busy and crowded and voracious mind.

MG: When did you first think about writing about his death for many years prior to his death?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: I had been interested in the experience of losing things. I've sort of drawn to these kind of abstract categories of human experience, and one of those is loss. And I thought about kind of the strangeness of just this feature of life is stuff vanishes, you know, trivial stuff like our car keys and and very important things. You know, our minds, our marriages, what have you. So I always kind of wanted to write about this. And, you know, I think every writer has a list of like, you know, fantasy projects that, you know, sort of lurk in the background and menacing us with our failure to write them. And and pretty quickly after my father died, I realised, you know, this is why I could not write that piece before and why I'm ready to write it now. Because because this has the gravitas, right? This is the emotional heart of it. And now I really do have something quite urgent to say on this subject.

MG: Part of it is also and you started writing about this is about the language that you use that you or somebody who is not comfortable in some ways with the euphemism around somebody lost somebody until until your father's death.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Yeah, that's right. I mean, more generally, I wasn't particularly comfortable with euphemisms at all. I've never really responded to this kind of language of someone passing away or going home. I recognise that that it's really comforting for others. So I'm not I don't mean to kind of criticise it outright, but it just didn't provide me personally with any consolation. And then after my father died, I realised that there was this one kind of stark exception to that, which was this this language of loss. You know, I lost my father, which actually felt to me kind of like the opposite of a euphemism sort of shockingly accurate, you know, to be lost. This is to be disoriented and alone and not know where you're going and not know how to find yourself. And all of that actually felt profoundly true to the experience of grief.

MG: You used the word [nintelligibl eating to describe your experience after his death. What does that word mean?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Well, you know, strictly speaking, what that word means is orbiting around Jupiter. It's it's one of our languages. Just wonderful. Just learning something new. You and me both. Yes. So what happened with this word is I can't for the life of me. Remember what on earth I was reading that caused me to, you know, come across this word. But I know that I was having dinner with my father that same night. I said, Dad, what do you think? What do you think circumnavigating means? And my father, who had this incredible mind and incredible interest in language and also spoke seven of them so had a real feel for the undertone of words. I kind of thought about this for about 30 seconds. And he said avoiding God, which of course, is not the right answer. But but he picked up on the Jove in there, right? The notion of Jupiter, this other God and the circum that kind of staying around the edges of. And I just thought, Wow, what a wonderful. That's not what it means, but we all need that word. You know, some some language for what it is like to avoid our sense of duty or our moral responsibilities or our deities or whatever it is we're kind of trying to hide from. So, yes, in my life, circumnavigating now means something quite different from orbiting around Jupiter.

MG: What did it mean after after you lost your father? I mean, in the months immediately after his death?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Yeah. I mean, as I describe it in the book, it came back to mind because I found myself in this incredibly avoidant mode, which I think is common for people who are grieving. You know, I just nothing felt like it could attract my attention and my interest, and I knew I sort of knew everything I needed to be doing. I knew I needed to get back to my work. I knew I needed to, you know, sleep better and eat better and talk about what was going on for me and spend time with friends. But in practise, I actually was just avoiding all of that. I think as a way of sort of avoiding reality, you know, avoiding the fact that my father was dead, that more and more time was passing sense since he had been alive and that there was no restoring him to me.

MG: Part of that is about and again, you write about this, about grief and what grieving is that we have this idea. Maybe that grief is extreme sadness, which it is, but it's also a lot of other things that, as you say, it's volatile and it's tedious, sometimes at the same time.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I thought it was a little shocking to me how much just pure sadness is not necessarily the central or defining feature of grief, which shouldn't surprise me because actually, when you look at the very long history of people trying to pass out stages of grief or the nature of grief, actually, sadness does not feature very heavily in that, you know, it tends to be things like shock or denial or anger or acceptance or what have you. All of it, I found to be somewhat true of my experience, but not terribly neatly staged. And yes, I think I was. You mentioned this, but I was struck perhaps almost more than anything else I have bought. I eventually grew up grieving, which is funny because we think of grief as far too traumatic and momentous to be boring. But in fact, it's, you know, I liken it in the book The Terrible Back Pain or Crippling Debt, you know, you just wake up and every day it's still there kind of sitting on top of you and you're just so sick of it at a certain point.

MG: You write also broadly about loss. As you said, that was something that you'd been thinking about for a while. What is so interesting to you about loss?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Well, you know, I think that loss is interesting to me because it is the fundamental bargain of our existence. You know, we get to be here, we get that, we get to be in the world and be amazed by it and fall in love with parts of it. And and what we don't get to do is keep it. It's all sooner or later ephemeral. And either we leave it or it leaves us. So I'm interested in the fleeting nature of life, partly because I think it's what helps us remember to take it very seriously. Well, we have it.

MG: And the other side of that equation is finding something. And I mean, that's the second third of this book, this meditation on finding love. You met your future wife, the writer Casey. So what a year and a half before your father died.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: It was sort of just enough time that we kind of got one of everything. We got one family Thanksgiving and one of my father's birthdays and one new year and one Passover. And then that was it. And on the one hand, I'm indescribably grateful that they got to meet each other. It feels important to me and I think about it often. And on the other hand, it was just so little time together with the family that had made me and the family that I was making. So from the get go, my experience of grief and my experience of of love were profoundly intertwined.

MG: What was it like the first time they met?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: It was so delightful. I describe it in the book, actually. It was truly very moving, in part because I was struck in that moment by something that had never occurred to me before, which is that although my background and all kinds of obvious surface features, including gender, my partner and my father a radically different they had a lot in common. And in that moment it sort of made sense to me. One of these very basic psychological ways like this is, you know, this is how we fall in love. We have a model of what it's supposed to be like, you know, and in my case, I'm very lucky that model was was generous and tender and wonderful. And so it wasn't very surprising to me when I thought about it that the two of them reminded me each other of each other. But but they got along like a house on fire, which was really fun to watch.

MG: I can hear you smiling as you talk about it.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Yes, it's a delightful memory. It really is.

MG: What is the thread between losing someone you love and falling in love?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: It's an interesting question. I think losing someone is is actually a very, very deep experience of loving. It's not the experience any of us want, but we don't grieve people we don't love for the most part. And so when you go through that very long and slow plot process of bereavement, it's really a reflection on on the the price and also the kind of potency of loving someone. And when you fall in love, you know, of course, you're very aware of love. It's what you think about. And and it's delightful and it's expansive. And at least in my case, partly because of my father's death and partly because I'm sort of wired this way. It's also, you know, you're always aware of the fact that you can lose this person, too. One of the things about falling in love is suddenly there's someone who's just the most important person in the world to you. And that's thrilling. And it's also a little bit scary.

MG: You see, that's how you're wired.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Yes, I think I've just, you know, I could never tell you why, but I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't afraid of losing the people I love. I've always had this very acute awareness that the price we pay for existence is non-existent. It's this death is the kind of ultimate end game of of all of our relationships and all of our joy, which makes me sound like a really dour person. But I promise I'm not. I'm just it's just a kind of awareness I carry around.

MG: It sounds like you are. You are aware. I mean, that's part of the, you know, thinking of your place in the universe, which seems to be kind of this thing that runs through this book is thinking of who we are in this space and in this time.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Yeah, I think that, you know, these, you know, these are the kind of great existential doorways, you know, how do we come into this world? How do we leave this world? Why do we have these inexplicable selves? You know, these consciousnesses that can just be wildly drawn to one person over and above all, the other people like this, to me, are the kind of fundamental mysteries of existence. And so. A private love story or a private account of grieves for me, always operates in that register. It wants to be hooked up to these bigger stories of what is all this? You know, how does the world work?

MG: There are these emotions that you talk about that are connected to finding things like amazement and gratitude and wonder wonders. I love wonder. I love the idea of wonder, is this one of the most intoxicating kind of things that you're always looking for? What role does wonder play in your life?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Hmm. A wonderful one, I guess, would be the answer to that. I guess, you know, you asked me a moment ago about the relationship between between losing someone you love and falling in love, and I see this in the book. But I think, you know, loss tends to make the world feel like a smaller and darker and more difficult place. And finding any kind of find but certainly falling in love makes the world feel suddenly just radiant and expansive and enormous in really exciting ways. And that, to me, is the feeling of wonder. You just anything that makes you kind of pause and think, Man, you know, the universe is remarkable. Like, I can't believe I get to experience that sense and that can happen from these momentous events like falling in love. But you know, as I describe in the book, it can happen from relatively trivial things, you know, coming across something in the junk shot that just delights. You think, why is this thing here, right when I'm here so that the world is sort of sometimes seems like it's in the best possible way, kind of conspiring to amaze us.

MG: One of the great examples of that you have to tell the story of the meteorite.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Well, I will tell it, but I will tell it only in part because although you know, this is not a book that for the most part operates on the basis of suspense, but there is one. There is one little story in the book that I'm reluctant to spoil, but I can tell part of it anyway. That found section in the second section of the book opens with the story of a little boy named Billy, who, when he's quite young, is walking across a pasture from his friend's house back home to his house at Twilight, and he is almost hit by a falling star. And he then goes out the next day when it's light again and manages to find it. So he finds this meteorite. And it's really an incredible story. It's a true story. It's a story I heard firsthand. It also, for me, quite aside from its sort of plot function, how it felt to me like the best possible metaphor for what you were just asking me about for this, this wonder and delight of finding it's absolutely incredible what the universe can rain down on us. Sometimes, literally, you know, this is a case where you know that the odds of finding a falling star a meteorite are just staggeringly small. You know something on the order of one in a billion to find it like that, you know, to see it plummet out of the sky right next to. And so I felt like, well, that's that's how falling in love feels, right? Something plummets out of the sky as against all odds. That's how all manner of astonishing discoveries feel.

MG: I won't give anything away, but I will say that when I got to the conclusion of that story, I literally said, Are you kidding me?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Well, my ears really is fine.

MG: I don't want to give short shrift to the final third of the book, but it is a reflection on and lost and found.

MG: You talk about how and is in some ways kind of like it's the glue, like the linguistic superglue. Tell me about the power of connexion and what and adds to that.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Sure. Well, and the linguistic level, as you're describing, I sort of talk about and as kind of the first and and easiest, not that any of us learn how to tie, we learn about all the stuff of the world and then we start putting it together. And if you listen to little kids talking about life, describing their day, it's all like, Oh, we went to school and then we had visas and then we this and then that. And then it's like, there's no there's no causality. There's no because there's no, but it's just like this endless outpouring of things that happen. And in some ways, I think that's quite accurate. The experience of life we want to impose more order on it than that, and we want to feel that that things precede each other or follow each other or cause each other or in some way are kind of neatly separated from each other. And we want that, especially when it comes to these these stark opposites like love and grief. But in fact, of course, they're profoundly connected. As I said earlier, you actually cannot grieve without having loved and that the price of love is courting grief eventually. And I was very interested in, partly because I lost my father and found my partner in such quick succession. I was very interested in this multiplicity of experience because it seems to me like it really defines our lives, even though we don't often pause to think about it. And I have to say, I mean, I have felt that more acutely than ever now during the pandemic. And I think all of us have just wrestled with multiple conflicting feelings at once, I mean, maybe you're terribly worried about your 80 year old immunocompromised mother, but actually, you're incredibly happy to have time at home with your kids, or you're really happy to have time at home with your kids because you're so exhausted and frustrated and you have no childcare and your schooling has been disrupted. I just think we've all we all spent the last two years feeling enormous amounts of very, very different things all at once, and that it's that kind of idea that I wanted to reflect on the final part of this book because although it's been acute during the pandemic, it is just a constant and chronic part of life.

MG: Is it true that the ampersand sign used to end the alphabet?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: It's absolutely true.

MG: Again,

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: I guess it would be funny if I sometimes I wish I were a fiction writer. I could just make it up. But no, it's true. But I'll tell you it was news to me also that it's really incredible what kind of falls out of our awareness of the world and this is just the early 20th century our grandparents and great grandparents, when they were writing out the alphabet and memorising in school, they got dizzy and there was something that came afterward, which was this the ampersand? Now, of course, we don't think of it as part of the alphabet at all, but I was delighted to learn that it that it used to be part of the alphabet because that felt that felt telling to me. Only because I do think that, as I said earlier, this this notion of and is just so central to how we learn to think about the world.

MG: You write in the book We Live Remarkable Lives because life is remarkable and it's easy. You're just talking about the pandemic and everything is happening to us all at once. And it feels like what we took for granted in some ways has been shunted off to the side, at least temporarily. But it's easy in some ways to forget that life is a remarkable thing. What do you do to remind yourself of that?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Hmm. I find the universe inspired. A lot of my writing is sort of, broadly speaking, in the realm of science writing or nature writing. And I think that's because I find that just every day life rewards our attention. The more we focus on it, the more interesting it gets in, the more mysterious it gets. And yeah, I mean, I think that a lot of this book is really kind of a celebration of the ordinary. My father's death was not tragic. My love story is incredibly precious to me. But you many, many, many people have them. And as it should and yet I find that ordinariness to be so suffused with wonder and fascination and are staying in touch with that astonishment of life is good for our souls. You know, it reminds us to be grateful for everything that we have. Mostly, I feel that way. Anyway, I should say that I might be unusually in touch with it right now because I have a beautiful little five month old daughter and you one has kids who has kids can tell you that they're a wonderful way to just remain constantly amazed by the universe.

MG: How has that and congratulations? How how has that added to your your sense of amazement with the world?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Oh, enormously. I mean, it's just it's as I'm shamelessly stealing someone else's line. But the ordinary miracle two people walk into a room, three people come out. It's it's astonishing that a life. Comes into being and it's astonishing to watch this little consciousness unfold. So, yes, it just amazes me all the time and I'm mostly fascinated by her life is remarkable. It certainly is.

MG: Can I just ask you just one final thing, which is how you decide to write about what you write about? People know that you won the Pulitzer prise for this extraordinary.

MG: Terrifying, scared the pants off people up and down the West Coast. Story in The New Yorker called the really big one about the impending massive earthquake that will slide ahead of America and Canada into the sea.

MG: How do you how do you decide what you want to write about and what catches your sense of wonder and amazement?

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: Hmm. It's a great question, and I wish I could provide a better answer because the truth is it still feels kind of mysterious to me. I suppose, that the best I can tell you is that there's just, when you're like out walking and you watch some little jack rabbits sit up by the side of the road and suddenly it's like totally quivering. I think there's like a little inner rabbit that's like a second pay attention. And I think it often is something I myself don't know much about. I mean, I was drawn to that earthquake story because I used to live in the Pacific Northwest. I love the region, I have family there and a huge consumer of news media. And actually, as it happens, I have kind of a side interest in geology. And yet I knew absolutely nothing about this fault line there. So I thought, Boy, that is the thing I obviously need to learn about, and that's often what's driving it for me is a sense of just enough access in this subject to find it interesting, but not enough to be able to tell you almost anything about it. It just west my curiosity and I want to go learn more.

MG: We will wait to see what catches your curiosity next. In the meantime, this is a beautiful book, and I'm really glad to have the chance to talk to you about it. Thank you very much.

KATHRYN SCHULTZ: It's really my pleasure. Thanks so much.

MG: Kathryn Schulz, staff writer at The New Yorker, winner of the Pulitzer prise. Her new memoir is called Lost and found in that essay about the earthquake is called The Really Big One. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. Tomorrow we return to our series work in progress with the stories of essential workers in this pandemic, whether it's working in long term care at the grocery store and the meat packing line. Canadian workers have made significant sacrifices these past couple of years, and they don't always feel as though their efforts are being recognised.

SOUNDCLIP

My name is Brad Bridgen. I am a DSP and direct support worker. I provide supports to people with intellectual and physical disabilities and their home. Basically, my job is to help them do whatever you or I would do to have a daily life, go shopping, do banking, entertainment activities. And so much of that has come to a screeching halt because of the pandemic. One gentleman I support in particular, he's a very tactile person. He was raised with a family that was always hugging and so on, so forth, and having to tell him, No, we can't do that. We have to remain apart. It was very difficult for him to understand and me to explain the reason why it became even more stressful when thinking how contagious this has become. And I have to keep thinking constantly about what I'm doing, where I'm going, who I'm going to be with because I risked bringing something back to them. I've never considered myself a hero, as everyone was claiming us to be. I've just been doing the job that I was hired to do to the best of my ability. There are some days that are more difficult to get out of bed than others, but I just realised that it needs to be done. And you just can't turn the lights off and walk away. It's not that kind of a job. Every person that has performed an essential service deserves to be recognised for that, and I don't think the value of anyone should be diminished once the pandemic is over. If you are getting some kind of a monetary kudos, that should continue on because the work doesn't change just because the pandemic ended. I know that certain portion of what I am being paid will likely end as of March because the pandemic was supposed to be over. Does that make me feel valued? Not really. Just seems like all talk. Let's get through this pandemic and we'll pretend that they're going to be valued long past. But in all actuality, that's not going to happen.

MG: Support worker Brad Bridgen in Windsor, Ontario, tomorrow on The Current more stories from the front lines and a conversation whether anything will fundamentally change for essential workers when this pandemic is over. That's The Current for this Wednesday. Coming up next on CBC Radio one, it's Q Tom Power, speaking with the very literate musician and author John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats. That's coming up in just a moment. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Have a great day.

Wednesday January 26, 2022 Full Transcript

Social Sharing

More from this episode