The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Season 2, Episode 1

Episode Date: January 7, 2022

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. The program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. This week's episode of the Munk Members podcast explores the Canadian province of Ontario's deepening Omicron crisis and what it says about the state and future of the pandemic. Ontario has the unique distinction of being one of the most locked down jurisdictions in the developed world since the pandemic began in March 2020. Business, schools and civil liberties have been suspended on multiple occasions lasting months. The latest fourth lockdown has resurfaced deep vulnerabilities in the province's healthcare system which seems immune from twenty plus months of remedial action and billions in public spending. Why is this happening? What can be done about it? What are the lessons the rest of the developed world can draw from Ontario's outlier experience of the pandemic and its pernicious effects on every aspect of life in the province? Janice and Rudyard discuss it all. To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live and online events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, monk members. A friendly reminder that this Thursday, January 13th at 8 p.m., the fourth season of the monk dialogue starts. We'll be featuring an in-depth, hour-long conversation with Harvard's Stephen Pinker, one of the leading public intellectuals of our time. Get ready for a fascinating conversation about the state and future of rationality in our society. This is all part of the winter 2022 monk dialogues. Again, kicking off this Thursday. January 13th at 8 p.m. You can get more details on our website, www.munkdebates.com, forward slash dialogue. There are options and that's why we need to take this opportunity seriously. You can prevent global warming unless China is part of the solution. This is not normal

male behavior. This is predatory behavior. We don't know how bad this bug is. We don't know what this bug does. All of that was thrown away in those eight minutes and 46 seconds, and that's the moment that I became an abolitionist. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Hello, Monk members. Roger Griffith is here, the host and moderator of the Monk debates. Welcome to this, our regular Monk members-only podcast. Each Friday, we dig into a big issue or topic in the news, hopefully leaving you with some new analysis and insights. As always, we're exceedingly fortunate to have, as our guest on this program, my interlocular Janis Gross

Stein. She's a founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, International Acclaimed author and scholar, and she's all ours for the next 30 minutes. Janice, great to be in dialogue with you. Great to be here, Roger, and not the way we wanted to start 2022. Good. That's a good way to put it. What we're going to do on this program, Janice, because it's kind of what everyone's talking about is we're going to focus on the particular situation in Ontario. And I want to make an appeal to our other listeners across Canada and the United States to stick with us on this because Ontario has become, throughout the course of this pandemic, for better and usually, unfortunately, for worse,

an interesting and at times just difficult experiment in the clash of COVID, with a society and its different institutional structures, whether they be health care, education, the economy. Ontario holds many distinctions through this pandemic, including, I think, maybe neck and neck with Sydney, Australia and parts of down under, so to speak, as being one of the most lockdown and controlled regions of the developed world. So for those of you who are not in the province, we've just gone through now an announcement of a since our fourth lockdown in 20 months, wide-scale closure of businesses, schools, cancellation of tens of thousands of cancer and other not-unimportant surgical and medical

procedures and tests across our entire hospital network. So this is, once again, a very urgent and serious. moment for a province of some 15 million people in the heart of North America. So, Janice, what I want to do with you for the next half hour is kind of try to break this down. So we've got a series of elements where in this fourth lockdown, Omicom is kind of crashing into Ontario. And I just mentioned them, healthcare education and economy. So let's go through those.

And let's try to, as best we can, I'm finding it, you know, honestly, kind of emotionally tough this week to grit and bear this, but try to think, to understand what's gone wrong, not to simply criticize, but to hopefully share some understanding, some awareness

of what we could possibly do to avoid the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth lockdown of a large, significant, usually vibrant piece of North America in the face of this horrible pandemic. So let's start with hospitals in the healthcare system. And I want to get your sense of

an answer to the question, which is on a lot of people's minds, which is why after 20 months, with all kinds of billions of dollars spent, huge bureaucracies focus supposedly like laser beams on the problem of health care and health care capacity as it relates to the pandemic, why almost two years into this, are we forced to shut down again? because our health care system is seemingly incapable of dealing with the effects of Omnicoran as a public health crisis. That is, in fact, the core driver of this whole story. It's a very, very complex story. But if we had to pick one issue, I think we all know what it is.

This is about protecting the hospital system for, from being totally swamped. So what does that mean? It means that we have two few hospital beds for the size of the population. Now, that is in fact what the evidence shows us. Ontario has the lowest per capita hospital beds of any province in Canada, and we are among the lowest in North America. And the second lowest within the OECD,

we had the same number of hospital beds per 100,000 as Mongolia. Correct. Now, Mongolia, Janice. So there in a nutshell is the history of these last 20 months and all the terrible physical, emotional and psychological costs and financial costs that the population of Ontario has paid. Just compare us to New York. New York has had a terrible surge of O'Mon in the last three weeks. And the good news so that we keep everybody's spirits up as we go through this, the latest news out of New York this evening, it appears to a peak.

And that's only in three weeks, so that is encouraging. But it has a far more robust hospital structure for the size of the population. So they can absorb a blow like that. and the kids are in school today in New York City. Now, one more point that we need to make care registered. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You want to scratch the surface on that or, okay, finish up. One more minute before we go there.

Go a little bit deeper on that. Yeah, because you said, well, why haven't we fixed this in 20 months? Why can't we just get more beds? Because beds is shorthand. Beds means doctors and nurses. It is not about putting beds in a field hospital. if you don't have doctors and nurses. And you can't train doctors and nurses in 20 months.

And that's why we're stuck. So two points on that, because I'm a little less of an illegitism, but an inevitable list as you seem to be here. I think there are two choices. One existed before the pandemic, which is we chose here in Ontario and Canada to venerate, to idolatrise. Again, I'm making words.

up a single-payer health care system, which is an anomaly in the rest of the developing world. It's the only one. It's the only one. It's the only one. I mean, our analogs are Cuba and North Korea. I mean, we chose, for the better part of a generation and more, to exclude, I would argue, very humane and effective mix systems that allow for massive injections of private capital to build capacity in Israel, in all those lovely Scandinavian countries that are not big, bad old America. And we have pre-pandemic pretty lousy public health outcomes in terms of long wait times, inability for people to get tests and diagnostics on time. then the pandemic hits. And guess what? There's a new cost to that. There is a new calculation that has to go through all of our minds here in Canada, which is if you're choosing to live in this country, you are choosing to embrace a system which inherently is limited and will be limited going forward unless we have the courage, the willingness to debate health care, which we've never been allowed to do.

in this country. We have always had to subscribe to the myth. The myth of a single-payer system is the, in the Canadian kind of pantheon is the only just an equitable way to deliver health care to our population. Am I wrong about this? Am I wrong that we are now confronting one of our most cherished myths? And maybe in fact, Janice, this is for the good because we need to move gone and join the rest of the developed world in a hybrid, sophisticated system of health care delivery that mixes public and private and does that in ways that ensures equity and fairness. You're both right and wrong here, Roger. So let's understand what a single-payer system means in Canada.

It's actually, it's a single-payer system for two things and two things only. Hospitals and doctors. everything else in the country is private health care. So if you need occupational therapy or you need physiotherapy, everything that doesn't matter is private. Well, no, no, no. Well, when it comes to a pandemic, when it comes to hospital beds, when it comes to surgeries, when it comes to cataract operations or knee replacements.

Right. So what happened is the pandemic hit hard. You're absolutely right at the core of the single payer system. system that wasn't working very well before this. All right. And one other comment that I want to make, every system in the world, every health care system in the world, rations care without exception. And the reason they ration care is there is an unlimited demand for health care. You could never meet it. You could never meet the population's demand for health care. So every system rations. We in Canada do it in a unique way. We don't do it with money. We do it with $2.2.2. We do it with $2.000.

time. So we wait. We're suffering. With thousands of hours and we wait. People living in chronic pain, unable to access. We wait. But if you're really badly ill in this country and you would be the first to admit a Richard, you get great care.

And you are not bankrupt. And then you'll die in six months. Well, less leave that one out because that one's not. Janice, Janice, honestly, it's happening in our press.

I'm so glad the few, few places where the debate is, finally starting to pull back under the intense pressure of this fourth lockdown. People are finally waking up and starting to realize that this system that we share with Cuba and a few other very, frankly, inhumane and illiberal regimes is an anachronism of the last century. And we have to move on in order to realize that we are in a post-pandemic world now for the next generation. Let me put it just fine billions of dollars modernizing and and enhancing our system

to cope with the next pandemic and the aftershocks of COVID, all the tens of thousands of mis-surgeries and diagnostics because the public funding for that simply can't occur, let's say in jurisdiction like Ontario that has the largest subnational debt on a per-cap basis of any place in the world. So where I think you're right, Richard, and I think I do not agree with you more generally because every health care system has disadvantages and disadvantages. The United States, as we know, spends more money per capita than any other. That's a false distinction.

Janice, I want the debate with you because that's a false comparison. That's the argument we use to defend our system. It's not American. People aren't going bankrupt because of health care. point to all Israel. You know Israel well. They have a very progressive, modern system, public and private, terrific outcomes, far less GDP expenditure than we do. Yeah. And they are not struggling through this pandemic because they have far more hospital beds and other capacity. Let's stop with the comparisons with the United States all the time because it just kills the

discussion. Let's make three evidence-based points here, right? First of all, Canada is the second highest spender among the 11 top OECD countries on health care and has the second lousiest results. Something's not working. You're right. All right. As with the data show, that's not a left argument or a right argument. That's just an evidence-based argument.

Secondly, the pandemic slammed into that fully publicly insured system, which are the hospitals and the doctors. And that's why we are struggling the way we are in this country. And thirdly, you're absolutely right. That the only way we will not have a six to seven to and eight is with massive investments and expansion of hospitals, nurses, which by the way is the biggest shortage we have right now, far more important than physical beds. The nursing staff up to a third are off or have walked away from their jobs or

sick, they're burnt out, you can't admit people to hospital if you don't have nurses. Nothing else matters, frankly. But we are going to have to invest massively in that public part of the system. And fourth, let's add to the misery here. We have postponed elective surgeries, as you just said at the beginning of the program, and you're right, three to four times and the most cheerful estimates, it will take between three and a half to five years to clear the backlog. I think we've hit the wall, frankly. And I think you're right, we've hit the wall because the most vulnerable part of the, of our system got slammed and is getting slammed by this pandemic. We're going to have to do something different because there is not, you're right,

There is not the public funding to invest in hospitals. It's already the largest. It's already eating up 50% of our provincial budget as it is. I mean, what are you going to take it to 70 or 80%? So that debate is coming, Richard. I think you're right. Well, and here's my other thing that I want to add is I think it's time for us to get tough on the unvaccinated because we have to understand that the closure of schools and businesses

is because of hospital capacity that's being used up. overwhelmingly by the unvaccinated. And we've used the carrot and we've been very patient in this country, but we've been patient now for too long. It's time to bring out the stick. We, for instance, Janice, do not give liver transplants to alcoholics. You have to show the sobriety, an extended period of sobriety. You have to be in a certain amount of physical shape,

a certain wellness in order to receive an organ transplant. These are procedures that we already have. in our healthcare system. I don't think there's any reason why we should not be right now saying to unvaccinated people, if you end up in a hospital and you need an ICU bed, you will get in line before the vaccinated who have had a horrible car crash, who have been struck by, you know, a cardiac attack, a stroke before they're seen first, before they get first dibs on the capacity. And guess what? You're unvaccinated. It's your choice. I'm so sick of this tragedy of the commons where we're allowing the unvaccinated through their own choices, delusional, whatever.

It's their choice. That choice is now being externalized and it's impacting me in really, really real ways. So the time has come. We bring out the stick, create some rules that clarify for the unvaccinated, the consequences of their choices. Because right now those consequences, I don't know, what are they yet? It's going to a restaurant. No bars, no restaurants. I'm over with that.

I'm done with that. No movies, which are all closed anyway. Listen, President Macron in France has probably come out with, and he's up for, you know, the elections in France are four short months away. He's come out with it. You are, in fact, channeling President Macron in the last few days. Ah, we bianz-sur. And he has come out and said with some actually quite colorful language, let me put it that way,

where he gave the unvaccinated way, we might call the finger, but fundamentally he's saying there are consequences to the choices that you make. And I think the sentiments that you're expressing are widely shared by. people that when we have in some of our hospitals right now that are cramped and making our public health people very, very nervous. But 80% of those cases are among the unvaccinated. I think it's as high as 90% genes. Well, you know, whatever you hear, we don't have good things. Overwhelming. It doesn't matter. 10% here or there. There is public anger. There's no question about it. You are dealing, and this I think is what everybody who's listening to us all over North America can probably relate to, you are dealing with an exhausted, angry, frustrated, burnt out population who's tired of doing this again and again and again and again.

And is now saying, you know, everything's on the table. Let's look for solutions here because clearly what we're doing is not working. Well, I'm in. You and I'm sure a lot of our listeners on that page, I just think that the political and bureaucratic class in this country are about, you know, let me weigh in on. Yeah, let me weigh in on that one too, because you said earlier, Roger, we are not allowed to have a debate about Medicare in this country.

I don't actually think that's true. I don't think the political class is stopping us. What has been true in the past is any politician who puts his or her toe in the water, get slammed. Look at the last election, Aaron O'Toole, muttered something, and Trudeau was all over it in five minutes, and the public lines up. So it's the public that's constraining the political class on this issue,

not the other way around. Okay. Well, let's move on to education, because this has been an issue of some real kind of passion and heat and concern for you, me, for so many people. Here we are, once again, 2.1 million children denied the benefits of in-school learning, the emotional support of in-class instruction. You know, this is now, what are we on to, the fourth lockdown of our schools.

The longest lockdown in North America for kids. Yes, big box stores are operating at 50%. Construction sites across the province are much vaunted condos, the last great pillar of the once impressive Ontario economy. They're operating at full capacity. Janice, it just strikes me as just so cruel. It's so callous. This treatment of our kids, it's just, it really wants.

worries me about the values of our society and how, yes, it's our politicians and reflecting our values, but the fact that so many of us seem just willing to go along with this moral culpability in denying and harming an entire generation, because the effects of this will be born by this generation for the rest of their lives in the term of lost human potential. That is a moral stain that we will all carry, yet we seem fine going into Best Buy, going into footlocker, whatever your store is, having your condo built, I don't know, being unvaccinated and clogging up hospitals. I mean, are we at some kind of moral crisis here? Well, I actually don't think we're fine with it, Reddy. I think the mood

has shifted. And I say this with some hope. The fight to keep schools open this last round was fierce. And it failed. But it failed by a hair. It was so close.

It was everything was lined up this time to keep schools in Ontario open, including the Premier, to be honest. And things changed at the last moment, as a result of some interventions, frankly, at the political level, but not in the previous office, but at the political level. I think the blowback from this decision is just huge.

I think it's actually a ballot question in the coming Ontario election. I hope so. I have never seen people angry. They are angry about it, Richard. And it's not only parents who are struggling for this last week because they've struggled yet again. The kids who are simply throwing their Chromebooks at the wall, especially boys and saying, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this again. There is among our hospital leaders, people who care about the hospital, but they are saying, everything should be shut, but the schools should be kept open.

We cannot close the schools. let's talk one more time briefly about the evidence. The evidence is a school are not a primary source of transmission. Again, we're shutting down schools without science. That's right. So why did this happen? This is look at Chicago, one of the fourth biggest city in North America, frankly. The schools were scheduled to open.

They were shut down the morning. They were scheduled to open because the unions, that teachers unions would not agree. So, Janice, a lot. That's what the story. I, you know, I have nothing to lose here. So I'm going to say what I honestly think, which is I think the shutting of schools had as much to do with a kind of Mexican standoff

between the government and the Ontario Teachers Union. Then it had to do with anything to do with hospitals or virus spread. And I get it. The union's there to represent the interests of its members. Their feeling was there's too many case counts. There's too much virus out there. We're not going in to teach. I think they told the Premier's office that in no uncertain terms.

And they probably told them, guess what? You open schools. We're going to come after you now during and every day leading up to a spring election that we're going to have in Ontario. Because he's like many of his generation and political class, craven and deeply weakened and wounded. as a result of a series of kind of shambolic decisions around the management of this pandemic, he folded. And I think that's again, like in Chicago, it is a horrible example of how no one is really invested in the interests of children. Even you would think the union for teachers who would feel that they would have some deeper fiduciary, ethical responsibility. to step into the breach, so to speak.

But they don't. Well, you know, again, folds. Let me go back. Let me go back. And everyone blames hospital case counts, but that's not what it really is. Let's go back, Roger, to the week of December the 20th,

when it was clear to anybody who was looking that we were on the way up with Omicron case counts. Everybody knew. There is no excuse for not putting. teachers to the front of the line, along with seniors and long-term care residents, for boosters, right? That's where those boosters should have gone. But the time we got to January the 10th, every teacher who wanted a booster could get one. And if you didn't get one, you're on unpaid leave, frankly.

Simple as that. We did that to hospital workers all fall in this province. The same offer should have been made to teachers. And then that argument of vulnerability and exposure to virus would have gone out the door, especially since five to 12-year-olds. Many of them have now had one shot and some have had to. So I frankly think for this premier, he has no choice now but to take on the union. He may be being told that if he takes on the union, he will lose. the next election, I think the reverse is true. If he does not open the schools in this province,

he will lose the next election. What I hope will be written on his political tombstone were the words that he used at the press conference announcing the closure of schools, which was, quote, it took me 30 seconds to make this decision. Yeah. Well, you know what the issue was. Words of great leadership, of great profound insight. Let me tell you what the issue. moral integrity. Let me tell you what the issue was and be grateful that neither you nor I sit in that seat. When they did a headcount of the teachers who would be in class on January the 5th, a third were not going to be there. Now, they were.

You know, the two thirds that are there, take the kids in the gym, figure it out. You know, this is not like. So he was told that he would be. sending kids into school, into classrooms with no teachers and no substitute teachers. And that's functionally what he said during the press conference. They have had now two weeks, Roger. I'm absolutely convinced that if the schools do not open, this is a ballot question now for him. So I am banking on the voters of this province.

I mean, my final comment on this is it's just so disappointingly Canadian that no one resigns. No one has the intestinal fortitude or the integrity to sit around a cabinet table like that and just say, okay, I resign. And let's look at New York. No bureaucrat is fired. No one accepts any accountability for any of this. The health minister, Christine Elliott, I'm sure a very nice person, been on this job through the whole pandemic. She is not resigning. The education minister is not resigning.

You know, I just, I just again, you know, look south of the border with New York City. The worst surge of Omicron so far in the United States at the front of the line, just like it was in the first round, the schools are open in New York City today as we speak. All right? We have to ask ourselves, what are we doing? What are we doing to the kids? You know, I am in full agreement with you on this. This is just wrong.

No science, pure politics, a moral stain on our generation. I agree. Thank you, Doug Ford. To all our basic free members listening to this podcast right now, I wanted to let you know that you're eligible to claim a free copy of Stephen Pinker's best-selling book, Rationality. We'll send you a hard copy edition in the mail at our cost when you upgrade your basic membership by making an annual donation to the Monk Debates.

For $99 a year, you get all kinds of terrific benefits as a monk supporter membership. And again, we'll send you that complimentary book, Stephen Pinker's international bestseller, Rationality, when you enter the promo code Pinker, 2022. You can do that all on our website, www.munkdebates.com, forward slash membership. Now back to our program. Okay, on to the final part of this, which is our testing and the economy. Because Janice, maybe some of the listeners don't know is that in your usual public-spirited way, you've been immensely involved in a volunteer capacity with testing and trying to ready Canada,

but Ontario in particular for the testing challenge and really the testing opportunity that exist to not vanquish the virus, but live with, again, higher levels of infection scenarios like this. Maybe you can just give us a little bit of an insight as to what you think was the big testing failure coming into this latest surge and what its implications have been for, frankly, for the broader economy as a whole. So we have had two different devices, all right, right now. And our listeners, are familiar with both because you probably all had both. I certainly have.

What is the PCR test in which somebody else puts in swab way up your nose and the results go to the lab and you need lab capacity? So it's slower and way more expensive. But it's a very, very good diagnostic test when you have symptoms. It's really sensitive. In fact, it's too sensitive at times because you test positive on a PCR test long after you're not infectious anymore. That's the problem with the PCRs.

There is a second, what we call screen, which is a rapid antigen test, a lateral flow test. And these are wonderful because you take them home and you use them yourself. And you can screen. They are less sensitive than a PCR test. And what does that mean, right here? It means you have to have a higher viral load

before you test positive. But on the side, I was like coming out. It doesn't tell us. you're positive when you're no longer infecting anybody, even if you're still coughing or whatever it is. So I really worked on this second to make those broadly available to essential workers in companies that stayed open throughout the pandemic. But this is a North American problem.

And here's an interesting, it's a fascinating story, which I'm going to write about when all this is over because it's the private market as well as government here. that just misses the boat because they're thinking three months ahead, time and time and time again. And, you know, that is probably the biggest problem we have in our private sector, too,

that companies are focused on quarterly results, not on next year or the year. So Abbott, which makes one of the most widely used rapid antigen screen, when we got through the third wave, and the spring shows up and the flowers are out, the sun is shining, and everybody's back in the restaurants, shuts down its production line. Because it doesn't think there will be a demand.

I went to our governments at every level and said, get into the market right now. Buy now. By now. There's no demand. You know, be a leader. Be at the front of the line. Stockpile.

We stockpile everything else. Stoppile. And if you waste some money on this and it could have been a billion dollars, it's not small change. But that's a gamble worth taking because we're not done with this pandemic. Well, the departments that had to buy didn't have funds. It was those for the funds were being spent elsewhere. They did not buy.

And sure enough, when Omicron, the most contagious we've had hit like this, everybody woke up and wanted rapid antigen screens. There's no supply. So what we have here, to be honest, is a total collapse of our public health system. And why is that? because if you're not testing and you're not reporting the results, you're blind. You don't know what's happening.

You don't know where the virus is spreading. Anybody who gives you any number right now, and this is my biggest story, one percent of what? We don't have a denominator because we have no idea, frankly, how many cases. We can use some proxies to extrapolate. We don't know. Now, this happened to a different degree all over North America. So just before we did this, I read a really interesting article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in which some of the leading people came out and said, if we don't fix this for the future. In Canada, if we don't do two things in this country, we are doomed to be 20.

Not even 10th rate anymore, but 20.3. if we don't invest in an integrated health data system, which all the provinces are blown to with comparable metrics. Right. So we're not counting apples and oranges. In British Columbia tells one story and Ontario tells another, and they can't understand what they're each saying. We don't build that kind of data system this time out record.

We belong in the dark ages. We deserve all we get. And secondly, here's the good news about what happens. happened last week when the public health system, frankly, crashed. They said, we're giving up. We're in a new world. We can't. Here's what happened.

They devolved responsibility on you and me. Yeah. Okay. Now, I have hope coming out of that because, frankly, you and I are more invested in ourselves. And knowing, I want to know whether I'm bringing that virus home to my kids and my grandson who's not vaccinated. I'm invested. And so this is what it means to be a 21st century healthcare system.

To make everybody, not the only unvaccinated, everybody, a partner in their own health, to use at-home testing kits. We allow pregnant women to do it for the last 30 years. It's got to be, and they're not infectious, so the stakes are much lower. but we move beyond now a system in which it's doctors and nurses who test and screen. We have to become partners in this. And there has to be fundamental systems change in the way we think about this. But what do we do when Omicron surged in Ontario?

We gave them away at our liquor stores. I know. And again, schools didn't have them to reopen with. How mad was that? How mad? So the people could have their Christmas dinner together. We gave them away for free at liquor stores. I mean, this is down market.

There's just no other way. And no reporting. So regular Griffith gets five to take home when he goes to buy his liquor for a Christmas dinner. And nobody knows what you did with them. Nobody knows whether you were or your kids scream positive. We have no idea. They're into the ether. They're gone.

They're useless. They're wasted in terms of what we learned from all of this. And just so everybody understands where we are with our testing system now, we're blind. Because there's no PCR testing, the diagnostic test, except for seniors, for people who have conditions which make them vulnerable for health care workers. And not in the schools, not in schools. We don't screen kids going into school. Did I make a big fuss about that this fall?

Nope. Nope. That's not a good use. So we are getting living proof of the huge failure of public health in this country, both at the provincial and the federal level. Well, so let's try to put this all together. With health care, we need to have a debate. about how we fund it. And I think we need to start looking at international models

that are not the United States to understand how you can have a mixed system of public and private equity deliveries, sorry, that is still equitable and fair. On schools, I think we just keep the pressure on, email, you know, your... Everything you can do. Everything.

Anything you can do. This has got to be a full court press because there is no science to justify why 2.1 million children and youth are locked out of their local schools for these two weeks. There's no science. This is politics people. This is different groups, factions, parties, unions playing for margin. And that is unacceptable when it comes to our young people.

and their urgent needs. And then finally, Janice, I think your example on testing is a good one. You know, there's a story there that mistakes were made, but they can be corrected. And maybe again, we're just,

we're breaking a whole bunch of stuff right now. Yeah. Maybe that's the truth. And if, let's just not go back to the way it was. Roger, we live in an information society. And we talk about a high tech sector in this country.

And we talk about the metaverse. And we talk about our virtual, world. We need a digitized healthcare system with digital healthcare records, where a capacity to compare data in this country about you and me and not, and here, let me say the most outrageous thing that either of us has said tonight. And let's move beyond this privacy fixation that we have, which in fact is getting in the way of Canadians learning about their own health and using that in a systematic and evidence-based way. Either we're in the 21st century or we want to be back in 1918 with a flu pandemic

without knowing anything about any community that it's in. That's our choice. Janice, thank you so much for that. Some great analysis and insights from obviously the healthcare conundrum where I think we just have to figure out a way to have a conversation. about moving towards a 21st health care, 21st century health care system, you know, either the Scandinavian model, the Israeli model, it doesn't have to be the big, bad American model, because we simply don't have the public funds to revolutionize and modernize in a way that we might.

And further to your point on testing, I just think that's critical here, Janice. You know, we're breaking things. And maybe that's the key here. Let's break a whole bunch of stuff. and use that as an opportunity to put things back together in more creative and robust ways that can allow us to have a better chance of not being locked down for a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, or an eighth time. Wishing everybody, including you, Rudyard, a very happy new year and certainly a better year

than the one that we just left behind. Yeah, here, here, things will get better. Okay, Janice, we'll do this all again next Friday. Bye-bye. Bye-bye now. Thank you for listening to the Monk members-only podcast with Janice Gross-Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, and myself, Rudyard Griffiths, your moderator. As always, we'd love your feedback on these Monk member podcasts.

What are the questions or topics you think we should be covering? Let us know how we're doing. Please send us an email to membership at monkdebates.com. Thank you for being part of our community and help. helping us restore the art of public debate one conversation at a time.