The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - A Vaccine Distribution Success Story

Episode Date: May 10, 2021

We go inside the distribution success story of vaccines and First Nations communities.  Grand Chief Perry Bellegarde is our guest.Plus, a very different story -- how many showers a week are you having compared with pre-pandemic?

Hello there, I'm Peter Mansbridge. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Today, success in one area of vaccine distribution. Like you, I have been so grateful and so thankful for frontline workers during the COVID crisis. Let's just talk about the frontline workers at SickKids, which is one of the world's best children's hospitals. SickKids doctors also work behind the scenes on incredible breakthroughs to help our kids and generations to come. Listen to their inspiring stories in a new season of the popular podcast called SickKids Versus. Each episode explores a major SickKids discovery,

like, well, a virus-fighting supermolecule or a cure for hard-to-treat cancers. Just visit SickKidsFoundation.com slash podcast or search SickKids versus and spell versus VS. So SickKids VS. You'll be amazed at what you learn. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. Beginning of a new week. Wherever you are, I hope it's going to be a good week for you.

You know, there's been a lot of focus in the last few weeks, last few months really, about vaccines and distribution and hold-ups and hang-ups and delays. And sometimes we don't celebrate the successes enough, and so today we're going to celebrate one of those successes, and one that, you know, it actually may surprise a few people about how successful this element of distributing vaccines has been. I mean, imagine for a moment, most Canadians obviously live in the big cities stretched across the southern extent of the country, you know, wherever it may be in Atlantic Canada,

right through to British Columbia. Most of our cities and most of our people live, well, you know, close to the U.S. border. But not all of our people live that way. There are cities further north, Edmonton is one. But most of the communities that are in the northern reaches of the provinces and, of course, in the territories, are nowhere near the southern extremities of Canada. Many of them are remote communities. So if you live in a remote community, say in northern Ontario or northern Quebec or northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, northern BC, northern Manitoba,

if you live in any of those areas, the pandemic hits, you've got to deal with that issue right away in terms of how you're going to protect your community. And next up, you've got to hope there's going to be the development of vaccine. And when there is a development of the vaccine, you then got to figure out how are you going to get it to your community? How are you going to distribute it? How are you going to convince the people who live in your community they should take it? Well, as I said, this is a story of success. And it's one that sort of

became best known over the weekend. When a number of different agencies put out some stats on vaccine distribution in First Nations communities. Now, let's not forget, some of these First Nations communities don't even have water yet. Drinkable water. They've got to boil water. Some of them have had that situation for decades.

We're talking now about getting them a vaccine. How's that going to work out? Well, the stats show that it's worked out pretty darn well. And so I wanted to try to understand why it's worked out well. What's being the, I mean, it's not 100%, but it's well done work by some key people. So how best to try and understand how that's happened? Well, you dial up Perry Bellegarde. Some of you may be saying, who's Perry Bellegarde?

Perry Bellegarde is the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. And among all the other things that he's been working at since he became the National Chief, the last year of dealing with the pandemic and dealing with vaccines has been right up there at the top of his priority list so i dropped him a note over the weekend and asked him if we could talk and he said absolutely peter let's do it and here here's what happened. So, Chief, I guess the first question is, why has the program, the vaccination program,

been so successful in First Nations communities? Well, a number of reasons, Peter. You know, the vaccination rates are going up and the COVID numbers are going down. A lot of that has to do with the leadership, the chiefs and councils and is being very key in terms of communicating the necessity, but as well, some of the initial actions they did, like they shut down their communities. Like they had very,

very tough conditions coming in and out because they were there. There's a fear, you know, and we've always said that first nations communities are very susceptible to this because of the overcrowded conditions and the lack of access to potable there's a fear, you know, and we've always said that First Nations communities are very susceptible to this because of the overcrowded conditions and the lack of access to potable water. And, you know, and so there's greater need, but there is greater fear. And so the chiefs took this very seriously. And so that's one of the main reasons.

And then, of course, dealing directly with the federal government to get access to PPE, proper PPE, to get that out in a timely manner. And then, of course, the whole vaccination program. It was very impressive in the early days, it seemed to be very early days of the pandemic, that First Nations communities were sealing off, like right away, on their own terms, to prevent the virus from coming into their communities.

And was this the encouragement of government or was this something they took control of themselves? I think they took control of themselves. It's really the act of self-determination because a lot of families and a lot of homes on reserve, like there's multi-generational families living in the same household. So it's parents and grandparents and grandchildren are all living. And so that's embedded in the grandchildren, like to protect your elders, protect your grandparents, because they're living under the same roof.

So they could feel it. And so they took that to heart. And so a lot of, in a lot of instances, the chiefs just reacted to their memberships concerns but they acted you could say it's an act of self-determination that hey we're not going to wait for the provincial government to our federal government or anybody else to tell us we need to protect our people and say they took they took it upon themselves uh because uh especially for the fly-in communities the ones that are isolated if covet19 uh you know hit a year ago it would have just spread because of those conditions I talked about overcrowded housing lack of

water and fly in it's hard to go to the uh a hospital when you have no hospital right so there was a special energy and effort uh because of those reasons well let's talk about the vaccination uh program because that's been kind of the story in the last week or so of how successful the vaccine program has been in First Nations communities. And I want to try to understand how that worked out, because as we've witnessed, well, we certainly witnessed it in the States where minority communities, including the Indigenous community in the United States, have been fearful on the vaccine front because of the history of the past dark history of minority groups and especially Indigenous groups being used almost for experimentation on some things. So it was a deeply seated concern and fear on the part of those communities. How about here?

Because some of those same issues are obvious in our country's past as well. How did you get around that? Oh, that fear is still there. There's no question that fear is still there. That, again, we don't want to take any of these vaccines because we're just being used as guinea pigs. You know, experiments, you know, use test them out on First Nations people. So there's that fear. There had to be a constant education awareness process. You know, a lot of leadership, a lot of chiefs stepped up to the plate to show, hey, I'm going to show and demonstrate to my people here,

to the elders that this is nothing to be afraid of you know the science is is solid the science is good that in order to prevent uh death from covet 19 we need to take and accept this vaccine so you see a lot of chiefs that uh basically stepped up to to show the way and lead the way um but it's still something we have to constantly um be vigilant with about getting the message about the importance of taking the vaccine because there is still a lot of fear especially amongst our old people our elders some of them still don't want to take it because of their deep fear ingrained into them you know that this could be just another experiment from government so we have to do a constant barrage of education awareness because our elders are too valuable. We don't want to lose any and any more. You know, we have lost some, you know, there's been some death and we always say

our condolences to the family, but we don't want to lose any more. And so we need to be vigilant with the message going out there that this is, this makes good sense. This is good science and it really will prevent death. What's been the role of young people in the communities, especially given that fact that there was hesitation on the part of elders? Well, again, and it varies from community to community, you know, some there's a good response, you know, both that to hear the message, but a lot of the teenagers, young people still like to go out and gather in groups and everything else, right? They're teenagers. But I think in a lot of instances on reserve, because

there's multi-generational families living under the same roof, that message is being heard about protecting the elders, protecting your grandparents, because you're under the same roof. You do not want to infect them because their health is not as strong and it's not as good as everybody else's. So if you go out and, you know, gather in social gatherings and bring something home, that'll have huge impacts on the household itself. What's the vaccine supply issue? How does it unfold for, especially for remote communities? Is this done through the provincial governments or is it done with the federal government? That's on reserve. Again, there's good access directly with the federal government.

There's good uptake on reserve. But again, 50% of our First Nations people reside off reserve, so that's another issue. So we have to have a two-pronged strategy. On reserve, the numbers are fairly good. Good access to the federal government, to Indigenous Services Canada, to have access two-pronged strategy. On reserve, the numbers are fairly good. Good access to the federal government, to Indigenous Services Canada, to have access to the vaccines. But off reserve, we still don't have really good data. The only thing I could keep pushing for, Peter, is that

we need to get First Nations people at every provincial territorial decision-making table involved in order to make sure that First Nations people in urban centers aren't forgotten. And that's another piece that we can't forget going forward to deal with COVID-19 holistically. Has that been the situation? Has there been a reluctance to be at the table or to be even allowed to be at the table? Well, when you start looking at some of the numbers, and even you look at the prairie provinces, for example, Saskatchewan and Alberta and Manitoba, well, in those instances, the numbers are a little higher. And you have to question, well, why is that? And then where does it look? I'm looking at numbers right now.

The current Alberta, there's 7,923 cases. In Saskatchewan, 6,676. In Manit there's 7,923 cases in saskatchewan 6,676 in manitoba 7,422 well why are they higher in those three prairie provinces you know and you look back at what's the messaging been with the premiers and the health ministers and and the provincial health care tables you know and our first nations people involved in some instances there's a better relationship province by province and, it needs work. So I would just encourage, you know, the premiers and everybody else

to start working with First Nations leadership in those provinces and territories to get our people around those decision-making tables to make sure that nobody's forgotten. Can I ask you to remember a little bit of, if we go back, I don't know, five or six years now to the 2015 election. And I remember you and i talked on that night because you'd been pretty active in that campaign and uh you were very supportive of the uh the trudeau liberals in the 2015 campaign

and you reminded me that night that that that support uh came with the expectation that they were going to deliver on a number of fronts for you. Six years later, have they delivered? You know, Peter, I'm going to say yes, and a lot of fronts they have. Can things still be improved? Of course, because I look back in the last six years and what's moved, you know, and then as national chief, we advocate for things, policy and legislative change. But we influence, for example, the throne speech, because that sets the government's priorities. And I always say, geez, when was the last time

there's a whole chapter dedicated to First Nations issues? The answer is never. You know, but in the last couple of years, the throne speech, there was a whole chapter dedicated to First Nations priorities. So so which involved of course better infrastructure better housing water uh education health care dealing with first nations policing as an essential service you know dealing with the mental health crisis the high youth suicide uh amongst our young people like it was all in the throne speech. The full implementation of C-91, the language bill,

the respect for jurisdiction over child welfare, C-92, was all in the throne speech. And even something that was talked about was to look at reestablishing a national treaty commissioner because our treaties are nation to nation. They still have to be honored and implemented according to the spirit and intent and section 35 of Canada's constitution. So it's all in the throne speech. And then from the throne speech into the federal budgeting cycle.

So that's the process to influence going forward, the federal government. And so from the throne speech to each federal budget every year, and the last six budgets are six cycles, if you will. I think it's, it's over close to 40 billion i think the number was the numbers off the top of my head like combined in the last number of six five or six fiscal years and that's to close the gap because in canada there's a huge socioeconomic gap between first nations and non-first nations people as canadians and that's where investments in housing

and water and infrastructure and health care and education is so fundamental because we're the fastest growing segment of Canada's population. And so when people ask, is it moving the right direction? Yes, it is. But progress doesn't mean parity. And so we still have a lot of work to do going forward. When you list off the inequalities that exist between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, you've mentioned a couple of times the water situation, and it's perhaps one of the ones that all Canadians understand easily. You know, either you have drinking water or you don't.

And in many of these communities, you know less now than six years ago but still in a lot of communities there is there is no drink no drinkable water um it's got to be boiled uh there's been progress but there hasn't been the kind of progress that the government promised six years ago do you accept that i'd agree with that statement there has been progress but they're still going to be in place for another three or four years you know and uh there was a commitment made that they'd be done by 2021 well it's 2021 march is you know march 2021 and they obviously haven't kept that promise so we have to keep putting pressure that they don't forget their commitment because having access to water drinking water fundamental human right to

have access to drinking water potable water and in some cases they've had boiled water advisors for 25 years nishkaniga one of the longest boiled water advisories in canada 25 years and of course we're going to say it's not acceptable in Canada, such a rich country like Canada, to have that in place. And so we have to keep working together and put as much pressure on. And we need Canadians to say the same thing that I'm saying, that that's not acceptable. That's not right. Get this fixed. Get it done.

And I think that that message is resonating. Like I say, progress still doesn't mean parity. So we still have some work to do. I was on that community, the one you just mentioned two years ago, and they've got a whole water plant there. They just can't get it working right. You know, it just seems like if this was happening in any other community in the country that wasn't an Indigenous community,

the thing would have been fixed by now. And it isn't and still isn't and as you said it goes back into the 90s that they've been boiling water uh to drink it's it just doesn't seem you know it's crazy when you when you look at it it is you know you gotta you gotta look at capacity development you gotta look at training and development you gotta make sure that your water treatment plant manager is properly trained and compensated properly as well. You know, operation and O&M, they call it, you know, operation maintenance, proper budgeting in place. So it's a combination of things, but you're right.

It gets frustrating, but we can't throw up our hands and just quit. We have to keep pushing and keep pushing until this gets fixed. All right. Just a quick last question. throw up our hands and just quit. We have to keep pushing and keep pushing until this gets fixed. All right. Just a quick last question. And it's a follow up to that earlier one in terms of where your support was in 2015. Can this government count on your support still? Or is that an open question until an election is actually called? Well, Peter, I would say people got to make an informed decision and look at all party platforms. And as national chief, I'm not a liberal. I'm not conservative. I'm not NDP. I'm not green. I have to work with all party leaders. We have to influence all party platforms.

And I ask First Nations people to look at those party platforms and which ones resonate, which one talk about making continued investments in education, housing, water, infrastructure, dealing with the healthcare, dealing with the disproportionate number of our people in jails, you know, who's resonating to talk about policing as essential service and dealing with restorative justice issues, you know, so, and whichever, whichever party platform, you know, speaks to those issues and puts them into their platform that they're going to deal with. if elected,

I would encourage our people to support that. And you got to remember, we didn't get the right to vote in federal elections until 1961. And so we've been allowed to participate in these elections until 1961. We weren't allowed to leave the reserve without a permit until 51 or even access a legal counsel until 1951. So we're just getting our feet wet in terms of dual citizenship and uh in canada and i voted for my very first time in 2015 and it's my fundamental individual right now and i think we have to exercise that because if first nations people vote we can we can influence you know 25 plus writings and i think

that's important and I think any federal member of parliament or any future prime minister needs to pay attention to these issues because they're really Canada's issues. Because if you deal with these things, you really build a better country for everybody. You know, I'm glad you mentioned that about the voting, because I don't think most Canadians realize that, that it was only 1961 it was john dieffenbaker prime minister and his what his charter of rights or his he didn't call it a charter it was his bill of uh of rights for uh for canadians and that's where it went in i mean there's always talk and rightfully so about how women got the vote in the 1920s but certain

certain women not all women, and certainly not First Nations women who didn't get that vote along with First Nations men until 1961. National Chief Perry Belgard, it's always great to talk to you. I really appreciate the opportunity to do so now. I know it's a busy time for you. So thanks so much for visiting. Well, thanks so much for visiting well thanks so much for the opportunity peter and i look forward to you coming on my podcast now so do i it won't be

long before we do that uh okay thanks again bye bye bye national chief perry bill bell guard um Chief Perry Bellegarde. Chief Bellegarde's from Fort Capel, Saskatchewan. And, you know, went up through the kind of the ranks of the First Nations leadership, and now he's the Grand Chief. And whenever I think of Fort Capel, I think of the nearby Capel Valley. When I lived in Saskatchewan in the mid-1970s, I was on the verge of buying some property in the Capel Valley. And in those days, it was relatively cheap. And I say that cautiously.

It was relatively cheap to buy some land. And I think it was like three or four acres. And it was right on the north side of the Capel Valley, on literally the side of the valley. Valley, on the, you know, literally the side of the valley. And it was gorgeous. It was beautiful. If you've been to Saskatchewan or if you live in Saskatchewan, you know that that is one of the prettiest spots in the province.

Not the only one. There are many. But that was a pretty one and still is. And I've always regretted, you know, I got moved. I got moved from Regina to Ottawa to cover Parliament Hill. And so I didn't get that opportunity to live there in the Capelle Valley. And the other place that the National Chief mentions was the Niskanaga First Nation in Northern Ontario, which I'd visited as part of the documentary that I was doing called A Perfect World.

And the fact is, it's not a perfect world. And that was one of the examples. We used in a worldwide documentary. It was a co-produced with some friends in German television. And we went to different places around the world and Niskanaga was one of them. With this sad and sorry tale of a First Nation

where there have been literally millions of dollars spent in trying to put together a water purification plant, but it hasn't worked. You know, really? Can you see some other city or town in the country saying, well, you know, we've done all this, but it hasn't worked? No, it would have been fixed by now. Anyway, Niskanaga has not been fixed yet,

and that's one of those that needs to be done. But none of that takes away or shouldn't take away from the remarkable job that Chief Bellegarde has talked about that has gone on in First Nations communities across the country in terms of vaccine distribution. It's not 100% yet, but it is being extremely successful. And let's hope it stays that way. Okay, we're going to take a short break and then we're really going to switch gears and talk about something else that involves water

and you and see whether you fit this bill. We'll be right back. Are you still trying to find ways to get into the world of crypto? Well, look no further. this bill. We'll be right back. one-stop shop to get involved and super easy to use for beginners. Visit bitbuy.ca or download the BitBuy app. Enter referral code PODCAST20 to get $20 free when you make your first deposit. Okay, so what was I talking about? Something that involves water, something that involves you. And this is our other story for today. This one caught my eye.

It was in the New York Times last week. And it's about taking showers. Right? The shower. and it's about taking showers, right? The shower. And the issue is, are people taking fewer showers, in some cases a lot fewer showers, as a result of the pandemic? Now, that sounds silly, right? But hey, lots of things about this last year or so sound silly.

If you'd been told about them two years ago, you would have said, that's silly. That I'd be wearing sweatpants every day? That I'd be giving speeches virtually from my home office, dressed in a shirt and tie and jacket from the waist up and sweatpants from the waist down that happens trust me i know and you know there's more than a few days i wear my my pjs especially when i wear my maple leaf PJs, I'll find myself at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and somebody will say, are you going to get out of your pajamas?

Well, it's not that I'm lounging around. I'm working. I'm out on the back 40, as I like to call my backyard, which is maybe 40 centimeters. But I'll be wearing my PJs. I mean, there are a lot of things that we do differently. And one of them apparently is showers. And I'll admit, I took a daily shower before the pandemic. Every day I had a shower.

I don't think I do that anymore. Not every day. I skip a few days here and there. If I've had a big workout, I have a shower, obviously. But on days where I don't have a workout, I usually don't have a shower. And I'll admit that. And so does the New York Times. It starts off this way, this piece by Maria Kramer in the Times last week. Robin Harper, an administrative assistant at a preschool on

Martha's Vineyard, grew up showering every day. It's what you did, she said. But when the coronavirus pandemic forced her indoors and away from the general public, she started showering once a week. The new practice felt environmentally virtuous, practical, and freeing, and it struck. Don't get me wrong, said Mrs. Harper, she's 43, who has returned to work. I like showers, but it's one thing off my plate. I'm a mom. I work full time, and it's one less thing I have to do. Well, let's go a little deeper into this this issue

apparently parents have complained that their teenage children are foregoing daily showers after the british media reported on a yougov survey that showed 17 percent of britains had abandoned daily showers during the pandemic many Many people on Twitter said they had done the same thing. So that's kind of like almost one out of five saying, oh no, I'm out of it on daily showers. Now, daily showers, in fact, are a fairly new phenomenon. Said an environmentalist and writer in London, England, by the name of Donna Chad McCarthy,

who grew up taking weekly baths. I remember those days. I used to take a weekly bath. My mother used to say, okay, it's bath day. You've got to have your bath. I'm not a big bath guy. The idea of sitting there in dirty water, it gets dirty quickly,

doesn't really appeal to me. And that's one of the great loves of a shower. Anyway, getting back to Mr. McCarthy. We had a bath once a week and we washed under at the sink the rest of the week under our armpits and our privates and that was it as he grew older he showered every day but after a visit to the amazon jungle in 1992 revealed the ravages of overdevelopment mr mccarthy said he began reconsidering how his daily habits were affecting the environment and his own body. It's not really good to be washing with soap every day, said Mr.

McCarthy, who showers once a week. Doctors and health experts have said that daily showers are unnecessary and even counterproductive. Washing with soap every day can strip the skin of its natural oils and leave it feeling dry, though doctors still recommend frequent hand washing. The American obsession with cleaning began around the turn of the 20th century when people began moving into cities after the Industrial Revolution, said James Hamblin, a lecturer at Yale University and the author of Clean, the New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less.

An eight-minute shower. I'm just cherry-picking from this article. It's a great article. It's a long article, actually, and you can find it in the New York Times last week. Just, you know, key in the word shower. An eight-minute shower uses up to 17 gallons of water. That's a lot of water, according to the Water Research Fund.

Running water for even five minutes uses as much energy as running a 60-watt light bulb for 14 hours, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And frequent washing means going through more plastic bottles and using more soap, which is often made with petroleum. So you see all these things start to add up in terms of the environmental cost. So there you go. You want to reconsider showering i'm not sure

i think as i said i'm having fewer showers but it's not down to once a week maybe once every two days instead of once every day. But it just added to the list of how our lives have changed, right? And will they remain this way post-pandemic? I hope we're soon going to find out the answer to that question. All right, a look ahead to the week ahead. Tomorrow, we'll talk to Dr. Lenora Saxinger in Edmonton about the situation in Alberta. It is a difficult time in Alberta.

The COVID numbers are up, and the resistance to dealing with them is up. So Dr. Saxinger, who's one of our great infectious disease specialists who we've been talking to every week for the last year, we will be talking with her tomorrow. So look forward to that. Tuesday is, of course, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. The old radish farmer will be in to chat about whatever we decide to chat. Friday, the weekend special.

So you can already be thinking of writing to me about showers or about whatever you want. What's one other thing that you either do less of or more of because of the pandemic? Let's see if we can start our own little discussion point here. If you write, remember, please include not just your name, but where you're writing from. And it's always great to hear from new people. And we've been hearing from a lot in the last little while. So keep that coming.

All right. That's been The Bridge for this Monday. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Been great to talk with you again. And we'll do it all over in 24 hours. Thank you.