Parses captions for PM Trudeau's daily speeches and presents them in a more human readable format
Rosemary:
Hello there, I’m rosemary Barton here in Ottawa. Thanks for joining us once again on CBC television, CBC news network”, streaming wherever you might be right around the world. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will deliver his daily address this hour. He might do it a little later. He’ll be somewhere between 11:15and 11:30 eastern, and the reason the time might change is because he did earlier today speak virtually on a global stage, taking part in an on-linepledging conference to try and raise $11.6 billion for researchinto a coronavirus vaccine and or treatment. We are expecting him to expand beyond Canada’s contribution to that. It was $850 million that he had previously pledged, but talked about at that global conversation this morning. It comes as five provinces take some big steps today towards reopening parts of their economy. It looks different depending on where you live, of course. Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, some of those provinces much more ambitious than others, so we’ll look at the specifics over the next few hours too. All of the provinces trying to gauge whether easing some COVID-19 restrictions can be done without causing a spike or surge in new infections. All right, let me show you what we are waiting for, if we have that shot. Rideau cottage, a very familiar sight to all of us now. That is where the prime ministeris expected to emerge maybe in 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes. I think he thought the global conference would go on a little longer, so he likely will be here around his same usual time. While we wait, I’ll bring in Vassy kapelos, the host of “power & politics” and the cbc’sdavid Cochrane from our parliamentary bureau. Good to see you both. I know he will want to talk about the global pledge this morning and it’s important, certainly. It’s also important to note whatwas not in attendance at that conference, and that is the United States. But I think there will also be alot of questions about provincesreopening because there are different degrees of that happening across the country today, Vassy.
Vassy:
Yeah, and I think, rosy, it ties into a certain degree. You’re right, I’m sure we’ll hear more about the money that the Prime Minister reiterated today, that the government is putting towards mostly things like vaccine research, as you mentioned that money had already been announced, but he sort of made it clear or made it evident again today in that conversation with other world leaders. I think where that all ties in, though, to where most Canadians are focused at this moment is with the economy reopening, and depending on where you live, that means something different. You know, all world leaders underscored the same point that we have heard over and over, which is that life may not return or will not return to a full level of normalcy without vaccine or without a solid set of treatments, so all of the sort of global money and investment being poured into research is unprecedented, the amount of research being poured into this vaccine right now globally, but at the end of the day there are no guarantees that it turns around a vaccine very quickly or any sooner than expected, and we’re thinking 12 to 18 amongst best-case scenario. So in the meantime there is thisphased approach to reopening economies, as I said, depending on the province you live in, andthat’s where I’m really keen to hear some more from the Prime Minister on its, and I’ll tell you why. Yesterday our colleagues at radio-Canada asked quite a few questions both directed at him and also at federal public health officials like Dr. Theresa tam about the level of testing that is necessary in order to be confident that an economy can reopen. and that is, I found I couldn’t – I could not hear a straight answer pretty much anywhere. We know, for example, that public health officials want to go from 23, 000 tests a day to 60, 000 tests a day. I don’t know how long that’s going to take or what the hindrance is in getting there. is it just processing capacity? is it the actual number of tests? when do we expect to get at thatpoint, and what is the level necessary to open restaurants, to open – and I know that’s notan easy or quick answer. But I do think – at least I’m hearing from particularly a number of businesses, or even consumers who are worried about entering those businesses, aboutwhat do we need to know, what kind of ppe is there, how many tests need to be done in order to be confident that these are the right steps, and again, there’s no guarantee. There’s no easy answer to that, but I AM interested to hear fromboth the Prime Minister and federal public health officials about that.
Rosemary:
Okay, and to that end, there are places like Manitoba, for instance, My home province, they are going pretty aggressively today towards reopening things. Museums, libraries, some retail businesses, patios. At half capacity. So they will look different than they did before, but they are moving towards that. There are other places, like Ontario, here in Ontario, you know, the garden centres open today, and that’s about it. Even though they have had today our colleague Chris carter notes370 new cases, 500 recoveries. So more recoveries than new cases, which is definitely a positive sign. David, you and I were just talking about this before. Other places where they’ve tried to reopen and it doesn’t always work.
David:
Yeah, and it’s interesting, because we’re starting to see politics come back in a big way over the last week or so. Everyone sort of set the differences aside, except for a few squabbles here in Ottawa, but now we’re starting to see some federal-provincial disagreement on things. The premier of Manitoba, brian pallister, criticizing the Canada emergency response benefit and things like the student aid packages that the government has rolled out as giving people a disincentive to work, and just before we came onthe air we saw very sharp criticism of that from conservative leader Andrew Scheer who said that the canadian government, the trudeaugovernment, has put a tranquillizer into the canadian economy. Now COVID-19 may have done that, a lot of people would argue, andthese emergency aid packages were there to put a financial floor under people. But Scheer is now putting an aggressive criticism of these aid packages on the table for a discussion saying it will impairthe recovery and could hurt the reopening efforts being led by the provinces. It’s an interesting argument to make because this is really day one of much of the gradual reopenings that are happening, and, quite frankly, we have absolutely no idea how this is going to go. We don’t know if it’s going to lead the resurgence in cases. We don’t know if it’s going to be fine and lead to an even broader reopening of the economy, and these programs havebeen in place for less than two months right now, so it’s hard to draw very significant long-term definitive conclusions. We did have a week or so last week of a lot of people relying on anecdotal data saying that a lot of these programs were stopping people from taking jobs. Mostly at the bottom of the economic ladder, which maybe should spark a larger conversation about the salaries we’re paying people to take minimum wage jobs in a time of apandemic rather than the economic dampening effect of income support programs designedto keep people at home and stop the spread. But it seems like we’re going toembark on a large-scale political argument on this, certainly with the conservativesand some more conservative-leaning premiers coming out and attacking the aidpackages that the federal government has put out there to help Canadians.
Rosemary:
Yeah, I would say at the very least it seems premature to have that conversation when we don’t know how the re openings are going to go. We don’t know if places will be able to reopen. We don’t know, as Vassy pointed out, if there’s enough Poe for people working in these places. We don’t know if anyone’s going to show up, because are people really feeling comfortable leaving their homes right now?
David:
Yeah, you saw stories out of Georgia where they expected people to come back and some places got two customers on the weekend. So you can get your ppe, can you get your employees, you can get the right to open up. It doesn’t mean anyone’s going to show up and buy anything.
Rosemary:
and I’m not sure all the 7 million Canadians who are getting the CERB would agree with that political argument at this time. Anyway, I’ll put you both on hold for one moment, if I can. I will make important of an air Canada bit of news that came out just before we went on air, as well as having significant losses in the first quarter, thecompany, though, has made a move as of may 15 to do some pretty dramatic changes to how flights will start to look, and I know that’s something of interest to people. It is – it will now be mandatory for pre-flight temperature checks before you get on a plane. They are going to make more personal space in the economy sections. You won’t be all stuck in there together. and as well as the requirement of the mask getting on the planethat is required by governments, all the people on board, all thecrew as well will have ppe, provided they can get it, of course. All right, I wanted to take a little bit of time to talk abouta story that really touched me acouple of weeks ago, and I hope you will all enjoy too, to some extent. a canadian soccer star, she was facing really one of the most difficult tests of her life. Former national team goalkeeper carina le blanc, they welcomed anew baby into their family, named paris, healthy, happy, very cute. But after she came back from hospital, leblanc was feeling some shortness of breath and on examination her doctor said it might be heart failure and she needed to go to the hospital. She was told as well when she was at the hospital that she might have been exposed to COVID-19. So she went home, but she had to be separated from her brand new baby and her husband for a period of 14 days.
Home now, but self-quarantined in a room wherei’m separated from paris and My husband so I can’t hold her, touch her, put her down for bed at night, which is really difficult for a mom who’s just given birth and all the connections and emotions that I’m having.
Rosemary:
and Karina Leblanc joins me now. Karina, thank you for making the time to talk to us.
Thanks for having me. [indiscernible] and that message already makes me emotional. You’re starting to get to me with this.
Rosemary:
We’ll both try and get through it. I should tell people it wasn’t that video I found uplifting. It was the next video you posted when your 14 days were over and you finally got to be with your daughter. You went through something that really a lot of Canadians are going through when they have to be separated from the people they love. What was that like for you?
You know, being an athlete, you think you’re mentally strong, and I try to use every single mental strength exercise I’d ever learned as an athlete playing for Canada, but it’s not really prepared. I don’t know if it was the hormones of giving birth, but you know, this wasn’t a game. This is life and death, and so the fears of, like, oh, My god, AM I – because at this point I wasn’t the healthy athlete. I was an at-risk young woman, and because I had heart failure and so many other things. So it was one of those things where [indiscernible] and then just not being able to hold My baby girl, you know, just whisper to her, touch her. You know, so many times I just wanted to go in the room and just grab and hold her and say mama loves you and put her down, but that would have been sellish. One of the most difficult thingsi’ve been through. At the end of the day, that timewe got to rconnect is one of the most powerful things. It’s real. When [indiscernible] doctor [indiscernible] two nights in hospital, going through the heart failure and the tough act of breathing and then finally getting out and thinking, ooh, iget to hold My daughter and themtelling me, no, you’re going to have to be away from her for twoweeks, it was so real. It was one of those things whereyou go through the poor me, but then you realize quickly so muchof it is how you look at it and the perspective of it. I think that’s [indiscernible] being an athlete is that I needed to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but trust me, it was extremely hard. I cried myself to sleep many nights, but [indiscernible] about 40 times a day, and at ourplace here we have a little glass door where I could see her, so to see her through the glass door and hear her squeak and cry and just hope that she would remember me after the two weeks, which she did.
Rosemary:
and we’re playing that video as you’re talking so people can see that reunion, which was so intense and heartwarming. So you were self-isolating in the house. You could hear her crying and move around. You could hear your husband. I can’t imagine how much more difficult it was because you were there and desperate to lookafter her.
Yeah, it was – it’s one of those things where I don’t know which would have been better, to just be away or – I loved being able to hear her sounds or hear her waking up crying, and it was one of those things where I feltconnected, and I think one of the biggest things being – and this is My first time being a new mom I just always wanted to be connected to her. So we were able to have her come up to the door and I would see her and, you know, My husband would talk to me and talk through the door which is – I mean, it’s better than nothing, but you know, just to see her facial movements, and that’s the great thing with technology today, [indiscernible] I think My husband was like – he did such a great job. [indiscernible] first couple days, because her grandparents were supposed to come down too from the Bahamas, but they weren’t able to because of COVID-19, and we didn’t want to put them in danger. It was one of those things where just hearing her made me feel connected to her and it was more for me probably than for her, but one of the best things is when we were reconnected and as you said, you showed the video. I wanted that to be, like, a moment of people seeing, because so many people supported me through this journey, and it wasincredible. But I didn’t know how I was going to react, cry the whole time, but it was one of those things [indiscernible] kind of smirked, and I was like, okay, she remembers me, and yeah, it was – honestly, I mean, I played in many big games for ourcountry, and it was the biggest honour to play for our country, but this was, like, My greatest honour, was just to be reconnected with My daughter and husband and just get to hold he rand – yeah, I’m trying not to get emotional.
Rosemary:
No, it’s an emotional thing. I get it. How are you? you didn’t end up getting COVID-19, even though you had been exposed to it. But what about the heart failurepart? how are you doing health-wise?
Well, that’s the thing. I still have to [indiscernible] want it to be, and what’s happened is that My body didn’t realize I gave birth, so it was still doing different things as if I was still pregnant, and it wasn’t catching up to it. One of the things is that My body [indiscernible] and it’s for women to just know your body and trust your instincts. It was one of the reasons I went to the hospital or called a doctor because I was still swollen and most women are swollen after pregnancy but knowing My body after the days as an athlete, I was like this isn’t right, so I still have to keep My high blood pressure down. The medication I’m on, it’s not where they want it to be, which is hard. When you have hormones as a pregnant woman, you are quite emotional. But I just – it’s – I just hold her and it’s one of the best feelings, and through this whole thing, which I know everyone has their story, I hope that everybody has their version of Paris to see that light at the end of the tunnel and know it’s going to be okay and just have something that brings that happiness to them because it was tough two weeks, or 17 days, including the days in the hospital, but just at the end I had My happiness, and I hope that everyone in our country can find that moment or that reason to be happy, because this is a difficult time, but you know, like, I don’t know, find your Paris because that’s what makes it – that’s what allows us to get through it.
Rosemary:
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. The Prime Minister is coming out, so we’ll turn to that other team Canada approach we’re taking. All My best to your husband and to Paris and glad you’re doing well.
and here is the Prime Minister of Canada.