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blue-sky (verb)
: to offer ideas that are conceived by unrestrained imagination or optimism.
Hosted by Erin O’Toole, President and Managing Director of ADIT North America. Erin is the former Member of Parliament for Durham and former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. The Blue Skies political podcast explores issues facing Canada and the world in a format that brings together thought leaders for an informed and engaging conversation.
Erin O'Toole (00:01.452)
Welcome to Blue Skies. I often say we live in a very strange time of polarization, of isolation. We have a loneliness epidemic, as outlined by the previous Surgeon General of the United States. We have solitary influencers who talk about no need to have relationships when you can just have yourself. We have a sense that society is a bit frayed.
And that there's some challenges to our social cohesion. So, what do we do about that? Do we despair? Do we let anger and other things rage? Or do we try and take the temperature down? Do we try and build bridges? Do we try and build understanding, particularly in these years after the pandemic, when it seemed that all of these pressures in our society reached their absolute peak?
Erin O'Toole (02:54.712)
Today we're joined by Dr. Alika Lafontaine. Growing up in southern Saskatchewan and now a practicing physician, anesthesiologist in northern Alberta, Dr. LaFontaine was the youngest and first indigenous physician to be president of the Canadian Medical Association. His timing was a stressful one in 2022 to 2023 in the heart of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
That's when I first encountered the doctor after many people had said you really need to speak to him. He's got a good finger on the pulse of the country and of our challenges. He has been an associate professor at the University of Alberta, an author, and we're going to speak about his his book today, a speaker, husband, father. Welcome to Blue Skies, Doctor Alika Lafontaine.
Alika Lafontaine (03:46.689)
Thanks for having me.
Erin O'Toole (03:48.876)
So I'm gonna do a couple of plugs because you did spend a lot of time writing a book and and we need to talk about that, The Outrage Cure, which I first read about in The Globe and Mail, and then I read it myself. It's an incredible book, but I wanna learn a little bit about the author first. You were the first indigenous, the youngest president of the CMA. Tell me a bit about your journey and what made you want to become a physician.
Alika Lafontaine (04:19.787)
You know, there's a there's a lot of different reasons why I think people pursue a career in medicine. I I think from a very young age my parents really instilled in us this desire to go and pursue higher education. They really saw that as a path to moving us from our lower end middle class life to having greater stability.
I think a big part of it too was the experiences that I could see my family members going through as they went through the healthcare system. I was the first person on either side of my family to get into anything medically related. and so we would go into the hospital whenever we'd have problems and we'd have no one to talk to about our experiences, no one to help us to understand both the good and the bad of what we're going through. And so those two things really pushed me towards medicine and I think
one of things that I I talk about in the book is the whole experience of being labelled developmentally delayed and being told with a learning disability I just would not go on to further school. And so pursuing medicine was something really hard that I felt I could do to push back at all those folks who said, you know, you you can't be these things. my parents weren't
just people that gave me aspirations. They also gave me a strong desire to push back at folks who said that I couldn't do certain things. And so, you know, all those things together kind of put me on the path to medicine. Now as far as everything else, I've been very lucky to run into folks who have given me opportunities. My very first leadership experience, I was volunteering to join a committee and then the person who gave me the opportunity kind of walked away, just assuming that
I'd do what they asked me to do, which I did end up doing, but I did not have any sort of structured, you know, plan to end up where I am. And I have to say it was a lot of lucky mentorship along the way.
Erin O'Toole (06:15.778)
Well, it's clear from the book that some of that mentorship was your father and his role. Because obviously going from being labelled as as developmentally delayed to becoming a physician and then an anesthesiologist, you've certainly shown that there was no barriers in terms of your abilities. But then to go on and want to take leadership roles within the profession, you're already a busy professional, you're you know, you've got a family, you're married.
Why take on the additional responsibilities and first help lead the Indigenous Physicians Association and then go on to the CMA? Where did that sort of public service leadership on top of your profession come from?
Alika Lafontaine (07:02.214)
I think like a lot of folks, you look around and you see problems, right? And I would say that both with my role with the Indigenous Physicians Association in Canada and then also with the Canadian Medical Association, I had colleagues that I knew well that I saw were struggling. And one of the big challenges of leadership in any space, I think today, is that you're so busy with doing the work that people don't have time or don't feel like they have the bandwidth to do the leadership.
And I remember both times with those leadership positions thinking about putting my name into lead and
around both I really saw what people were struggling to go through. And, you know, I really wanted to do something to help. You talked about my dad as one of the mentors in my life. My dad was the classic example of a a father who if he was away from home he was he was out helping other people. You know, whether it was folks who were struggling with with housing, he was a part of a organization called Nambrin Housing Corporation for, you know, years. he did a lot of volunteer work inside the community just helping folks
who are going through mental health crises and need help with counseling and then in his day job he you know helped people navigate the the legal system as you know executive director of the Aboriginal core worker program in Saskatchewan and so you know I I felt a strong obligation because of that history of service that I saw with my dad but you know I I really saw a lot of people suffering and I I felt like I could do something to help contribute to to making that better.
Erin O'Toole (08:37.752)
Well, that's very admirable because it's very easy to become a professional and have the success and almost a little bit of prestige from that and not go that extra effort. So you want something done, give it to a busy person is the old adage, and you sound like you sound like one of those. I'm gonna transition into the book now because plug number two, the outrage cure. because what you said
About serving at CMA and the Digenis Physicians Association, you saw where people were struggling; I think you mentioned you saw challenges. In the intro to writing this book, you believe the audience will be people
Who feel that something's not sitting right in their life? That's in your introduction. You know this book will be will be read by people that are struggling with something in their life and feeling unsettled in this age of isolation, loneliness. what really led to the out outrage cure and some of your own personal experiences that
led you to need to revisit some of these traumas in your own life.
Alika Lafontaine (09:51.627)
No, when you read through the book, I learned in the writing to really let people in to kind of what I had experienced over my lifetime. I I had always approached writing prior to writing the book as, you know, someone who wrote about policy or, you know, problem solution fits when it comes to healthcare systems. And so it was a very professorial type of approach when I ever approached a topic. And so
Writing the book was a very different experience with me because it required me to, you know, open up to the reader. One of the things that
My editor over at HarperCollins kept on reminding me through the process of writing the book was that someone always picks up a book expecting a promise, right? So if they're picking it up, what are they going to get out of it? And when I wrote the introduction to the book after finishing the chapters, I really spent a lot of time thinking about what someone might take away from all the stories and things that I I've shared in the book. And it's a very personal approach to the topics of anger, outrage, and indifference rooted in my own personal stories, both professional and personal. And I imagined
someone who was upset as I was back in twenty sixteen when I had a workplace incident that made me feel incredibly unsafe. I put myself in the mindset of how I felt for the first time when the whole experience with Tom that's at the root of the book, my best friend, and the falling out that we had over our experiences with what was going on kind of at the peak of a lot of tension within the pandemic. I imagined
Alika Lafontaine (11:38.059)
you know, myself as a kid, you know, being labelled learning disabled and then being told like there is no path for you. You're not gonna go anywhere further. And I think what I hope people take away from the book is learnings that they can they can kind of map across their own lives. I've personally found that the the most useful stories for me as I've gone through my problems were hearing other folks kind of confronting the same sorts of issues.
And I I think especially today, there's a lot of folks who are feeling unsettled with the tension that exists within relationships where it didn't exist before. You know, there's the really old piece of advice that when you sit around Thanksgiving, you don't talk about religion or politics, right? Now it seems like we can't talk about anything. You know, people get very upset at things that used to be small.
Erin O'Toole (12:25.56)
Yeah.
Alika Lafontaine (12:30.766)
And I think one of the messages that I came back over and over again with writing the book and something I I still think about on a daily basis is what are we trading away in the course of being upset and going through these really powerful emotions? You know, are we trading away the things that actually matter most to us and that give us the most meaning in order to have the ways that we feel just kind of unleashed in the way that they do nowadays?
Erin O'Toole (12:58.166)
Yeah. Well we're gonna get into to Tom.
Which I found the most fascinating part of your book, that that personal journey of a relationship and the strains of the COVID era. But let's talk a little bit about that workplace incident that you raised, because it wasn't just a little incident. It was a hangman's noose being hung in the hospital where you worked. And the fact that you had to not only confront that on behalf of yourself and a and a colleague,
But just what that said about society, about the role of a hospital, which is where people come to be to be safe and to be healed. Talk about that for a moment, because I thought part of the raw honesty of of your book was the most important part of the journey.
Alika Lafontaine (13:50.366)
I I think what the incident today means to me is that we live in systems where we bring forward actual harm and the systems just aren't equipped to deal with them anymore. And as a result of us bringing forward things that we really feel are important and not having these systems respond to them in the way that we always thought they should, we end up having that strong feeling of
You know, maybe the the system is broken. You know, maybe the people within the system don't know what they're doing. Maybe they are just not good people. You know, I I think when you talk about healthcare systems generally, there's there's a lot of experiences of patients across the country showing up in emergencies and waiting for days in order to receive care. That is not the way that we were told healthcare was supposed to work. Right? when you go and receive care, sometimes folks feel like the person across the table just isn't listening to them.
Right. there's the common negative experience that I I hear from patients where they say, you know, they'll only let me talk about one problem. You know, I have twenty problems that I've been waiting months to talk to someone about and now I have to book, you know, another appointment. And so I think this overall feeling of systems just not working and not responding in the way that they're supposed to, it's created this this generalized feeling of
Erin O'Toole (15:01.603)
Mm-hmm.
Alika Lafontaine (15:15.209)
you know, anxiety and frustration and people really questioning the value of a lot of these shared systems. Now, when you look at my own experience in chapter three with the Hangman's noose, I I thought prior to that experience, you know, what you do is you report and then people investigate and people get a fair shake at being able to talk about why things happened the way they did and, you know, you you provide some sort of resolution within the context of the actual experience. And, you know, that was very different than what I experienced.
You know, I I reported of what had happened and I sat there for years waiting for someone to respond. And it wasn't until three and some years later that someone ever reached out to me. And as a result, I I questioned things in the same way that anyone would question a system that that's not responding the way that it's supposed to. And you know, I I think the whole experience taught me a lot of different things about anger and taught me a lot of things about
outrage. You know, as a as a physician, I'm very mindful of all the signs around the hospital that say, you know, this is a zero tolerance environment for, you know, folks who are upset and, you know, verbal abuse will not be tolerated. That that's not just something we project onto patients. It's also something that's an expectation of people who work there. And so, you know, for me to take something that I felt was so serious and
to try and figure out in my head like square what I was expecting versus what I actually ended up having happen from my perspective. it was tough. It put me into a downward spiral of being really, really upset about the situation, questioning whether or not the things that I believed that were good about the healthcare system really existed. And it it was it was a really tough time. It was a very tough time for me.
Erin O'Toole (17:09.16)
And that outrage piece you often say goes from people that were angry but then feel that they're unheard and betrayed by a system. And in this case, systems like healthcare, hospitals, schools, these are places that are our institutions that we trust are there to take care of us. And so when you're feeling unheard and and ignored, it erodes that trust and that can turn anger into outrage. but I want to talk about
Where I felt a resonance with the book, and that was your breakdown of your friendship with Tom. Now, Tom is not his real name, the but he's a very important feature of of the book. And your inflection point, as you called it in your friendship, came during your time as CMA president, and
as a lifelong best friend, you would sometimes get feedback from him on your media appearances and you'd shoot the breeze. And it was probably I have many similar situations with my friends that would watch my media interviews and things and give me the up and down and you looked, bad tie, you didn't sound clear, you know, that sort of thing. But in the heart of the
convoy period and when trust was eroding in vaccines in some pockets of society and people were kind of fatigued by the restrictions and the lockdowns and things like this, you called to seek that sort of positive affirmation from a friend and you got the absolute opposite when you told them your concerns about
Erin O'Toole (19:02.456)
the the convoy and and and it basically taking over Ottawa, he said, and I quote, people like you make me want to vomit. Tell me about how that for you already stressed trying to lead an organization and trying to provide some hope and trust in people that were listening to the message of their physicians. How did that make you feel and how did that whole
episode with Tom leave an impact on you?
Alika Lafontaine (19:36.894)
You know, it it's probably not a surprise, especially with the book called The Outrage Cure that I was really mad. You know. to have someone who I really viewed as well, I still viewed throughout the whole book and, you know, today that Tom's one of the smartest people that I know. So some folks have asked, you know, is Tom a mixture of different people? Tom's an actual person, right? and he's he's he's not a composite. He he's one of the most
Erin O'Toole (19:41.599)
Yeah.
Erin O'Toole (20:00.502)
Mm-hmm. He's not a composite, no.
Alika Lafontaine (20:06.139)
amazing sharp minds that I know. And I've depended on him throughout my lifetime to to give me honest advice. You know, one of those folks that you could really have a strong discussion with, maybe even on the edge of like getting into a fight about something. But the reason why is because you're really getting into real issues. It's that friction that comes out of really close relationships where you know the person actually cares about you more than the problem.
Right. And I think when I was talking to to him during the whole the whole description of the falling out, I was I was treating the relationship like that, but not really recognizing what was under the surface. And maybe that was, you know, the unfamiliarity with, you know, being the national voice for Canada's physicians or like the acuity of what was going on. There was a lot going on in that time.
You know, and I was talking to him as, you know, my medical leader hat when he was talking to me as like the friend, you know. And one of the things that I really struggled with in the course of starting to write about things, and I started writing about these experiences long before they became, you know, the book, was reconciling the fact that to him
Erin O'Toole (21:16.685)
Mm-hmm.
Alika Lafontaine (21:32.293)
he really felt like I had personally failed him. And it it actually wasn't unreasonable for him to feel like that because I was a national medical leader. I was supposed to be out there fixing these problems. Right. And when when he said what you said in the quote, you know, that really cut me to the core because it wasn't just him saying that I had failed him as a leader. He also was saying I failed him as a best friend.
You know, and that's that's something really, really hard to take. And I I think generally people can understand that the person the people closest to you are telling you that you failed them. That that cuts to your very core. And there were a lot of things going through my mind at the time that I was experiencing it and immediately after after he hung up on me, where I was I was trying to fight
my good memories of of Tom with the really, really bad experience that I just had. You know, and then trying to reconcile what I think a lot of us do when we have these these ruptures in personal relationships. Like whose fault is it? Am I supposed to apologize first? Is he supposed to apologize first? And, you know, days turned into weeks and then months and then years and, you know, we just never reconciled.
over the thing. And it it was always it's always interesting whenever I think about it, and it's still true today, both of us didn't actually have really deep entrenched feelings about the truckers convoy. Right? Like I had my personal feelings that in a lot of ways it wasn't a good problem solution fit. Like it wasn't really changing the things that people were upset about. These other problems were still lying at the root of things. You know.
I thought there were a lot better solutions to to solving some of those problems. I appreciated what people in Ottawa were going through. I was being told personal stories, but it wasn't as if I had another friend like Tom living in Ottawa who is, you know, connected with me in the same sort of way. And neither did Tom. And it was it it still is I think a really great example of how you trade
Alika Lafontaine (23:42.587)
letting out these really powerful frustrations at people who are closest to you and you think you're getting something out of it, but what you've actually just lost is that closest relationship. You know, someone who had always been there for you and was there to support you. And throughout the book that's like a tension that I try and work out as we move from, you know, that experience through the other experiences that I talk about.
Erin O'Toole (24:07.04)
Yeah, that was interesting. I I I found that in COVID, particularly in that period, as the vaccines were being rolled out and there were efforts to have the vaccine hesitant vaccinated and to try and get as high a vaccination rate as possible.
There became almost different conversations that were happening in the country. There were what you might call elected officials and and professionals, which some people, and I'm not speaking for Tom, but would view as the sort of people on the pedestal telling them what to do. And then there were their conversations that they unfortunately weren't having in many Tim Hortons, although some provinces you could
Alika Lafontaine (24:47.156)
Mm-hmm.
Erin O'Toole (24:55.222)
they were having them online and they were not trusting what was coming because there had been promises about, you know, social distancing would be the cure and we'd break the the the first or second wave and we could go back to normal and it seemed like
There was going to be no end to this period of uncertainty and lockdowns. I found it in my own caucus where I could see people over the course of the pandemic changing from hey, we're conservatives, we have to support a sort of ordered liberty, we we have to try and participate in social distancing and and respecting your neighbor and
Towards the end, people drifting away from that and feeling it a any of these health restrictions were an attack on their on their fundamental liberties. How can we learn from that period, Alika?
you know, everyone wanted to just turn the page on COVID, me included. I lost my job in the middle middle of it. But I really think we do a disservice for society for not sort of doing a lessons learned to say, how could we communicate better so that Tom and and other people wouldn't feel unheard or betrayed?
Alika Lafontaine (26:01.62)
Yeah.
Erin O'Toole (26:20.3)
I still think it was a huge mistake for Mr. Trudeau to call an election on the vaccine mandate and to just pressurize these issues even more. Any thoughts on how we can learn from that period? because as people that read the book will see you do
come full circle and have a have a healing and a cure to the outrage with Tom. But I think there's a lot of families that are still struggling from that period as is almost the COVID hangover that some for some people things will never go back to normal. Are there any learnings, any reflections you've had beyond the book on how we can try and get the balance better next time?
Alika Lafontaine (27:06.578)
Yeah, I I think whenever whenever families or communities or societies go through times of extreme instability and you're trying to create that order, you're trying to create that safety, right? one of the things that I I talk about early on in the book is just this there was this big contrast between what I was experiencing and what Tom was experiencing, right?
And I work in anesthesia and as part of that, I'm in the operating room, you know, if someone has a failed ability to breathe, right? We're the people in the hospital who are best equipped to actually go in and fix that problem, right? And so I was seeing things from the front row, you know, the harm that was happening during the pandemic and
you know, the very serious complications that were happening early on before anyone was vaccinated. You know, you had a you had a group of folks who had you know, this this widely spreading disease where there was no immunity, right? And as a result, people were getting really, really sick. And I was watching people die at a rate that I had never seen before.
You know, and that was compounded by all the stories that I was hearing from all my colleagues. So I wasn't just experiencing what I was experiencing, I was also experiencing hundreds of other stories through other folks. And Tom doesn't work in healthcare, and so he was removed from that.
Erin O'Toole (28:33.73)
Mm-hmm.
Alika Lafontaine (28:33.788)
Right what what he saw was the very real effects that it had on on personal life. And you know, I still feel at the whenever you have a catastrophe that you just don't know what's going on, it is actually important to have some sort of centralized control in the beginning, right? 'cause people are trying to prevent greater harm. And it's interesting thinking about everything in retrospect now, how in the very early days everyone was willing.
Erin O'Toole (28:49.624)
Mm-hmm.
Alika Lafontaine (29:02.588)
to do what they were asked because they could all feel that something was happening that truly felt out of control. You know? And Canada is one of the I think it's actually the only country in the G7 that hasn't gone back and done a review of what happened during the pandemic and kind of learned some of those lessons. And
I think that there's a few very clear lessons. The first is is that people are generally all in to try and fix problems that they can see right in front of them. Right? If people can see a fire, if they're told to run away from the fire, they'll run away. You know what I mean? Like you can you can see kind of that cause and effect. I think another lesson that I've seen both from a personal, a professional and you know, a leadership point of view.
is that you you have to bring people along. You know, I I think there's always been this sense that, you know, some people aren't sophisticated enough to hear about what's actually happening. I think that was a mistake in some parts. And I don't know if it was a mistake that
people could have predicted, except in retrospect, you know, in the midst of kind of dealing with this stuff. I I think the mistake would be taken over and over again. It just was not an experience that people had gone through before. We had not had a pandemic like that since, you know, the Spanish flu back in the early nineteen hundreds, right? And so I think that was another lesson. I think the promises that things were almost over. I think to a great degree that that probably was wishful thinking.
Erin O'Toole (30:13.966)
Mm-hmm.
Alika Lafontaine (30:39.025)
You know, and I think it more expressed an aspirational desire of what was gonna happen versus what was actually happening. And I think that the final lesson that I think about lots is, you know, once once things started to turn, I think there was a real fear within the healthcare system that if you did tell people that things were starting to turn, that things would turn back to how bad they were before. And I think that could have definitely been navigated differently. I I think people were
Erin O'Toole (30:39.159)
Mm-hmm.
Alika Lafontaine (31:08.539)
They weren't given that value exchange that they thought was gonna happen with vaccination. And I think that led to further distrust. People were told if we can all kinda commit to this, then we can kinda start to turn once we can see the data starting to move in that direction.
and I could understand that with from within the healthcare system. We're comparing everything towards the worst things that we've seen, and then from the public, they're starting to see that it's not happening in front of them anymore. And they there was just there wasn't
There wasn't effective approaches at the time to kind of resolve those two different worldviews, you know. But I I I do think that that retrospective review was is something that that still would have impact today. You know, I I think it would have to be there'd have to be some efforts to to make sure that doesn't become politicized, 'cause this was probably the most political politicized moment in, you know, healthcare at least over the last century.
Erin O'Toole (31:46.306)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alika Lafontaine (32:09.127)
But yeah, there there's there are a lot of things that we can we can definitely learn. And that after effect that comes from feeling intense mistrust to a system and feeling like the system kind of turned back on you, that hasn't gone away. And I I think because we haven't taken the time to look back and really be honest with ourselves about what people were going through and the things that were done right and things that were done wrong, we've really allowed
Erin O'Toole (32:25.326)
Yeah.
Alika Lafontaine (32:38.359)
a lot of the anger, which was rooted I think, in really trying to solve actual problems, transform into outrage because people now feel ongoing betrayal from systems that were supposed to do certain things and they just feel like they didn't.
Erin O'Toole (32:53.036)
Yeah. Well listen, I think this I'm jumping ahead now because this is a perfect time to talk about some of the outrage cures you talk about. That is the name of the book, The Outrage Cure, plug number three, Alika. because you talk about part of the paths
to the cure is to apologize, to to to come to terms with with areas where people or systems fell short. You talk a lot about the your work with the CMA on their apology for their role in residential schools, but also shared grief. I don't think we've had collective grief from the pandemic yet. and and and maybe we'll never have it because it was so polarizing
As you said, the physicians and many of the politicians, myself included, had the pressure and fear of what we were seeing. Like you were seeing the reports we were hearing from the chief medical officer and others, and we were wanting to do as much as we could to avoid another outbreak at a senior's home and and deaths. But then other people had a fear from the unknown and their children not going to school and not really seeing any real impact in their
rural or suburban community not having a firsthand glance at what COVID-19 could do. And so they felt that this unnecessary level of restrictions was impacting them. There's also the the class dimension. Stephen Harper talked about the somewheres and the anywheres, you know, the laptop class
that were the professionals, the consultants, the lawyers that that could work from home, set up their home office, use Zoom, and weren't impacted. Whereas the service industry people, people that were not essential services, manufacturing, they were kind of locked out of their jobs and worried that there would be one. we almost need to not only understand
Erin O'Toole (34:56.886)
We almost need a bit of shared grief to rebuild the trust from COVID. Any thoughts on that and that being part of this malaise we're having in the years since?
Alika Lafontaine (35:10.503)
You know, in in writing the book, there were three emotions that that came out of the experiences that I'd I shared. the first was anger and and anger has its its roots in loss, right? Like you lose something and you get upset because you're trying to call out to other people and tell them, Hey, I need help, right? This problem is too big for me to solve myself. I I see this in clinical care all the time. You know, I'll I'll walk into
you know, a a place where a patient and their family are and they immediately start yelling at me. And I think early on, I used to feel a lot of like friction when when folks yell at me. Now now when I I sit there as someone who's been in medicine for a long time, that's just a normal part of what people go through, right? Like they're trying to get attention for what's what's going on with them. And anger, like we were
like we're saying, turns into outrage because of that feeling of betrayal. And that betrayal is rooted in us feeling like people don't know what they're doing, or maybe they're just not good people making good decisions. when you feel betrayed, you're not really looking at trying to solve problems anymore. You start to look at trying to to call for reform for these systems and value exchanges that you feel just aren't delivering on what they're supposed to.
And I I think that reform over time has to be continually fed by new feelings of betrayal. And I I talk about in the book how like reform at some point becomes an identity and you stop actually thinking about the problems that you're trying to solve and you instead just wanna see things change. Sometimes that means removing somebody, sometimes that means that the systems, you know, are are broken down, but but for whatever reason
It's a very natural human response, I think, for people to feel like systems aren't working and just feel like, well, maybe these systems shouldn't exist. now when you lash out like that, the systems themselves lash back. And I experienced that when I reported, you know, the news that we talked about earlier on.
Alika Lafontaine (37:21.231)
And you reach a point where you start to not believe change can happen anymore and you realize that trying to cause change actually hurts you yourself. And so you just kinda back off and say, Well, if things won't ever change and it's just causing me greater harm
maybe I just shouldn't worry about change at all and at that point you become indifferent. Right. And I think when when we talk about in the context of, you know, the the different problems that we're are going on in the world, whether it's the pandemic or a lot of the other things, not being able to afford to
Erin O'Toole (37:38.915)
Yeah.
Alika Lafontaine (37:52.763)
you know, pay for weekly food. Like who who could have imagined that we'd be in this sorts of situation, you know, fifteen years ago, right? Like people would have to budget, I think, who and once again I grew up in a lower middle class, you know, socioeconomic kind of level and we we were always very, very careful. We grew
food in the garden and we canned things and we did like a mix of buying stuff and, you know, figuring out other stuff through food storage. And that was just a thing, but people can't even do that and find ways to survive in a lot of cases today. And so it you know, the problems keep on getting worse and people feel more loss and more betrayal, you know, and everyone's lashing out trying to get attention for the problems that are there.
And I think right now all that betrayal is kinda like it's collapsed almost into a single point for a lot of people. You know, you ask some folks why are you so upset? And you get a list of twenty, thirty things. You know, and I imagine as somebody who who led politics at, you know, some of the highest levels in the country, you can't solve twenty problems all at once. Right? And you can't
solve problems all the time at the same time 'cause sometimes one solution is actually gonna cause other issues to come up. And so I I think a lot of the cure comes with matching where people are at emotionally.
You know, are you actually solving problems when people are angry, when they're outraged? Are you actually responding to their call for reform? 'Cause you can solve problems when people are outraged, but not actually have them feel any better. You know, because they they need that faith restored in the system, in the people that are supposed to be there. One of the things that you know, Tom actually told me years ago when I was working through some of these these issues before I started thinking through the specifics in the book is that
Alika Lafontaine (39:47.699)
You know, sometimes you have to go into places and just let people get upset, you know, let them yell at you. You know, and there's there were a lot of experiences over the time that I was CMA president that I still have in some of my leadership positions, where the best thing you can do as a leader is sit there and just let people un unleash their emotions on you and in the course of listening to what they're saying
try and tease out like what are you actually asking for? You know, are you asking for reform? What types of reform are you looking for? What kinds of problems are you trying to solve? And then trying to match that. And it's not always the same across a group. And I think that this is one of the big mistakes that we make in the way that we discuss things nowadays, is we label everybody as this big homogeneous
like group, right? Even within those groups, people have a lot of reasons for why they're upset. And some people are benefiting from where these emotions are taking us and a lot of people aren't. and I think the the biggest dissonance today for me
Erin O'Toole (40:35.341)
Yeah.
Erin O'Toole (40:45.23)
Yeah.
Alika Lafontaine (40:50.02)
is that group of people who aren't having their problems solved based on how they're they're feeling about things. Like that outrage is not carrying them closer to getting better health care, better education, feeling more secure in their communities, having greater affordability. it's it's taking them in a direction that benefits a lot of other people, but not themselves.
Erin O'Toole (41:09.816)
There were a lot of elements of of your book that reminded me of my time as v veterans minister and winning back the trust of veterans. I used to joke, it was a joke that I would use almost self-deprecatingly, that no one got yelled at in more legion halls across the country than me, because I would go into the room
Alika Lafontaine (41:28.738)
Ha ha ha.
Erin O'Toole (41:33.128)
And this was when there were veteran lawsuits and office closures, and you could almost feel the palpable anger. And at times some of my staff got almost worried. But allowing that venting, allowing that group to be heard was part of the leadership required. And in in some cases, I remember a legion in Mississauga at the end.
We're all having coffee and and shooting the breeze about our little military stories like we were old pals, but an hour and a half earlier, a few of them were giving me the six hundred Psi finger. you you you talk quite a bit about this cycle of anger, outrage, and then indifference. And then if we get into indifference,
Alika Lafontaine (42:12.102)
Yeah.
Erin O'Toole (42:24.546)
That's when social cohesion can be at risk because the trust is gone. you have a quote I'm gonna read that really, really struck me in in what is the difference between anger and outrage. On 83, you said angry people still believe change can come from within. Outrage, however, is different. Outrage does not negotiate, it does not wait, it does not trust the system to correct itself.
Instead, it demands those in power to dismantle the structures that uphold them or be removed. When anger is compared with outrage, anger is much more tolerant and patient. Anger asks for change sometime soon. Outrage demands change now. That almost reminded me of the trucker convoy, right? Where you saw that tipping point between anger, fear, frustration, and almost.
revolutionary type or or angry action. talk a bit about how we can head that off to avoid it going all the way to indifference. You talk about making sure that that that transition to outrage never occurs, meeting it head on, people being heard. Is there something you could have done with Tom, or is there something that we can do earlier to avoid
the outrage and temper the anger.
Alika Lafontaine (43:54.107)
I I look back on that falling out with Tom that led to the years of us not talking to each other and you know, I definitely could have done a lot of things differently. You know, I I think the the biggest mistake that I made in that situation was not recognizing just how existential he felt some of the problems were.
You know, like we we talked about earlier, I was seeing different issues in front of me than than Tom was. And I was so focused on the things that I was going through, which once again I I think was a very human response, that I didn't hear or provide sufficient weight to what he was going through. And he really felt that. And I think that that was probably the biggest betrayals that he felt from me, that
I was someone in a position to actually make a difference and I just didn't care. Right. I I think that that's what he took away from that conversation. That's what led to him responding so strongly and negatively to to what we had had gone through. Now when you're looking at solutions, if you match them to emotions, one of the things that that I tell leaders now when
You know, I'm invited to give talks or other things. We shouldn't shy away from the angry. The angry are actually the people who are making a difference, to tell you the truth. Right? Now you have to tease out the angry from the outrage, because it's two different emotions. but you know, when when people are upset, they actually are very motivated to help change things for the better. You know, and I think we do a real disservice to people nowadays by having our reactions to anger
Erin O'Toole (45:29.304)
Mm-hmm.
Alika Lafontaine (45:37.626)
just be, well, it's great that you're angry, but you have to calm down or else we can't talk. You know, like I I think leaning into that anger is is one of the things that that signals to folks that we take them seriously, you know, that we're ethical and that, you know, we're competent as well. Like that's where the faith starts to falter.
When people are outraged, you you you have to give them an avenue to release that negative energy, right? And find a way for you to restore that trust. When you're angry, you just have to solve problems. You know, if you have a room full of people who are yelling at you and they say, you know, solve X, if you go off and solve X, everyone in the room's not going to be mad anymore. Right? They move on, they may move on to the next thing they're upset about, but they at least are not upset about that that initial thing. When when people are outraged
Erin O'Toole (46:21.646)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alika Lafontaine (46:27.175)
You can go and solve those problems, but you still have the core issue that they don't trust you. Right? They don't trust the systems. And people need that that connection with folks to see that the system is not some faceless, you know, autonomous thing that's just kind of pushing them through. They need to feel like they're connected to someone or something. And, you know, I think that that's one of the most valuable things that comes out of social cohesion is that feeling that.
Erin O'Toole (46:32.492)
Yeah.
Alika Lafontaine (46:55.567)
you're a part of something, you know, that someone in the system actually cares. And, you know, when you go back to the healthcare system, you know, people used to feel like they were attached to someone. That that was the family doc. You know? when you go to emergency, if throughout your feeling of being faceless, there's a s even a single person who you feel like really saw you, whether that's, you know, a nurse or, you know, someone who is pushing your bed around like a porter.
Erin O'Toole (47:06.988)
Mm-hmm.
Alika Lafontaine (47:23.267)
Or like a physician or whomever else, it's that feeling that you are not hidden and that people aren't seeing past you that I think creates that opportunity. Now, when people are outraged, you can create that relationship, but if you don't solve the initial problems, you're still gonna go back to outrage. So you you can't just solve one without solving the other. in order not to slide into indifference, I think people really need to feel like
Their outrage is being heard and they need to see changes. It's kind of like the stakes continue getting higher. The things that you have to do end up being greater. Problems are the easiest thing to solve. They're like the lowest energy investment of time and resources. You know, sitting down and having people feel seen again, it it takes a lot of time. Like you
You were describing all the time that you spent with veterans across the country as, you know, minister. I I experienced that as CMA president. I had to spend a lot of time sitting with physicians and patients across the country for people to feel like I actually understood what what they were going through. Absolutely. And indifference I think is the most dangerous emotion. I try to communicate that in the book 'cause, you know, people get so fixated on anger and outrage because they're very loud emotions.
Erin O'Toole (48:27.842)
Heard. Yeah.
Alika Lafontaine (48:40.783)
Right? Like you know people are angry, you can feel that they're outraged, you can see what they're doing. Indifference is just someone pulling back and just giving up on the system altogether and
You know, at least with anger and outrage, people are motivated to do something. Folks who are indifferent just are not motivated to do anything because they don't feel like anything will ever change. And so you you need to have an even bigger moment where they feel like something might have changed. And you know, we we were talking about the the retrospective review on on you know the the pandemic that Canada never had. That's an example of, you know, something really big.
Where people can sit there and go, Well maybe me feeling like no one cares was the wrong read. Right? Maybe someone does because they're actually having this in depth conversation that they never had before. And I I think that's lateralizable to a lot of the situations that that folks are feeling today and a lot of different issues.
Erin O'Toole (49:38.85)
Yeah, and we've seen where it can be an important part of the healing journey, as we saw with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where there were very, very difficult personal stories and and tragedies and traumas told as part of a journey. you talk also about Darvo deny attack
reverse victim and offender, and that being part of the betrayal cycle. You you also talk I I loved it how you talked about how sometimes people try and use bureaucratic delay or gaslighting or issue framing as as ways to to deal with the outrage. And that can sometimes make it worse, like in your situation with the news where the bureaucratic
delay actually turns your anger into into outrage. So heading these things off at the pass, I think, even if it's difficult, let the anger be vented so that we avoid that that outrage and indifference cycle. the one thing I would like to to to end talking about the book on a on a positive note.
We talked a lot about Tom and and why he's a central figure in the book, but your last line in the book is Tom is my brother. So that talked about healing. I know Tom was there for you when you lost your father. the shared grief you had over that loss was part of your outrage cure as friends, that love one another.
Talk about that because I do think it's easy for us to talk about this age of polarization and outrage, but there are stories of hope, like you and Tom at the end.
Alika Lafontaine (51:29.989)
You know, I I purposely didn't frame it as a close familiar relationship at the beginning of the book. 'Cause you know, when when I wrote it, I didn't want people to feel pity for me and Tom. And maybe that was more a personal thing, but you know, what happened to us could have happened to anyone. It didn't require, you know, that sort of blood relation to to have it have it happen. And
When I was writing the book, I wasn't actually sure whether I was gonna tell him what I was writing. I because we weren't talking, right? and with each passing day, and the more that I put down on the page, I'm just like, how is he gonna react to this when I actually tell him what's going on, mixed in with all of the, you know, anger, outrage and indifference I was feeling about our relationship during that time. And, you know, I I talk about really
Erin O'Toole (52:06.157)
Yeah.
Alika Lafontaine (52:27.237)
big moments in in chapter seven when I talk about the the CMA Apology to Indigenous Peoples for Historical Harm. You know, I talk about the the transformation movement that we had with the Indigenous Health Alliance in in one of the preceding chapters as well. And you know, I had all those examples of how to do it properly, but I just I didn't have that moment where I felt like I could say the words out loud. Like it felt like something so heavy and it was almost
It was it was a feeling that it just wasn't weighty enough. You know? Like you know when you have a long period of time away from someone that you said something that that you wish ha you had not said or you didn't speak up when you felt like you should have. that gap it just feels like it gets bigger and bigger and you're kinda like, How am I supposed to close that? What was what was required at the beginning is so much less than what's required now because I let all this time pass.
When my when our dad passed away, you know, I was I was sitting there thinking to myself, like, what am I doing? You know, this is among the most important relationships in my life, and I'm letting these feelings stop me from saying things to him. And
You know, the that chapter eight was a very emotional chapter, right? Not just because I was relieving the loss of losing my dad, you know, unexpectedly. but I was also going through like all the time that I had lost with Tom. You know, and I suddenly everything was was put in proper perspective. You know, I'd let all this time pass over something that
I don't think any of us really like either of us really cared that deeply about. You know, obviously the issues that were underneath were very serious, but neither of us were so attached to that specific event and that specific framing that we should have turned our backs on each other, you know, and just kinda let everything fall apart. And so, you know, coming coming full circle and realizing all of that and then using that opportunity of of that shared grief, I think was
Alika Lafontaine (54:45.346)
It it was it was a moment that that taught me at a very personal level that when bad things happen, it's it's an important opportunity for you to look at your life and reaffirm what's most important to you and then make sure that you reach out and and hold on to those things. You know, there there's nothing more important than the relationships that are at the core of who we are.
you know, there is no issue, in my opinion, that makes up for losing what those sorts of relationships give us. And that used to be true, you know, ten, fifteen years ago before the world really started to spiral when it came to a lot of these problems we're all feeling today. And I I think it's a real disservice to us as individuals and also as communities and just Canadian society for us to forget
You know, those problems are really out there. They affect us, but having that close relationship with the people that we love day after day and all the the good things that it brings to us, that's so much better than getting stuck on these these issues and making them so big that they they fracture the things that are most important to us.
Erin O'Toole (56:00.76)
Very well said. I know of so many families that have had fractures coming out of COVID. I spoke on a few occasions about one very prominent MP, not a conservative MP, who spoke to me after COVID about how she lost the relationship with her brother over a lack of trust on
vaccines and lockdowns and having lost her parents, he's the only living member of her immediate family. And she was at a deep loss on how to how to regain that loving relationship, how to move past that indifference and outrage. And I think your personal stories of sharing your journey with Tom, sharing your own personal journey from
Anger, outrage, and then the cure through shared grief and through understanding allows us to remind people that you need to be heard. When when I said as the horns were honking after I was voted out as leader, I used a Latin phrase, Audi Alterum Partem, hear the other side, because we have to make sure people are heard.
or they could get into that cycle of outrage and indifference. So thank you very much for sharing your journey and and your cure for outrage. I think it's a great read and I've really appreciated the conversation today.
Alika Lafontaine (57:37.314)
Thanks so much for having me.
Erin O'Toole (57:40.354)
Dr. Alika Lafontaine, his book is The Outrage Cure. Let me know what you think. Let me know if you're going to reach out to that member of your family or that friend that you've become estranged from and how you can make sure that they're heard and how you can help us rebuild trust in some of our institutions as we get through this COVID hangover. Great discussion on Blue Skies. I'm Erin O'Toole. Tune in next time. Thank you.