Canada During COVID19: Where We Are Now

NARRATOR: March 2020 marked the beginning of an entirely new and unwelcome era for Canadians and billions of other people around the world. Even after all this time, we as Canadians are still trying to figure out what the new normal is. The Canada During COVID-19 Living Archive was created in 2020 as a record of Canadian life during the pandemic. We shared stories from Canadians across the country, documenting their challenges, successes and ways of coping. For some, it’s back to business as usual, but for so many others, the pandemic continues to have lingering and damaging effects.

We’ve reconnected with a few Canadians to discuss what’s changed, how they’ve grown and what they’ve lost. When we met with Heather, she was homeschooling her kids with her husband, whose work in the music industry was put on hold. Then, Heather got sick with COVID during the first wave.

HEATHER: When I look back at that, it was sort of kind of a more innocent time because I still thought that I was going to recover. I’m mostly bedbound; I have two young sons, so my day just revolves around trying to retain enough energy so that I can drive them to school. Going up and down my stairs is difficult now; my husband has to help me get out of the bath; I can’t prepare meals for myself anymore. I went from being, having an underlying condition and being moderately functional in society, to as soon as I got COVID, my life just crumbled, essentially, and unfortunately, it might be a period of time where my kids have memories of their mom mostly being in bed. We just try and find the little moments, and that’s what gets you through.

NARRATOR: Mélissandre has spent the last two years on the health care front lines as a home care nurse.

MÉLISSANDRE: I love my families, my patients’ families; the caregivers are essentials. I also think they should be recognized for their roles, we need to help them more. So I think we should value them more. I would say that I’ve learned to value the family, the relatives, the caregivers, the neighbours more. As home care professionals, we realized the importance of the relatives, the importance of the family. But I think the impact we had on our patients, and the fact that we were able to develop very rapid connections, made it so that they — we were able not to feel abandoned. I think they felt listened to, they could say: “OK, I am taken care of by my nurse, by my social worker, and some services will be implemented.” We were able to add a little bit of happiness, compassion and empathy to what they were going through.

NARRATOR: Photographer and HIV activist Justin was using his skills to share stories of Torontonians experiencing homelessness and from Black Lives Matter rallies.

JUSTIN: Photography has always been important for me because it’s a way of bearing witness. A lot of the injustice that we experience in this world, the oppression, the inequalities that happen are the result of people simply not seeing. I couldn’t do anything that I normally would do, and as a person who loves to work and finds meaning in work, I felt very lost. When I started, like, photographing the pandemic, it’s like I kind of felt my identity as photographer coming back, and that kind of helps me deal with like the depression.

NARRATOR: Amber is a teacher and artist who painted murals outside of her school and at a local nursing home.

AMBER: So I started painting positive things, something that they could connect to, and I’d have residents who would sit on their balcony and they would watch me with their morning coffee and I’d be there painting a flower or — it was just, it was a cool experience. And sometimes those experiences were hard, right, but nothing that music and art couldn’t help us through.

NARRATOR: Mother of two and teacher Tuyet used journaling as a way to help her students express themselves.

TUYET: Fifty years later, when you are an old man and an old woman, you can go back and say, “Hey, you know, I was a kid and this is what I went through with my family.” The kids are young, but they’re in it. I want it to be real for them, that we’re not just watching TV, that people are putting masks on, people — the mall is bare, the bars are shut down, like, you’re part of this. And I think I feel really nice that they had that chance to be part of history.

NARRATOR: When Cogie graduated from high school mid-pandemic, they created a virtual valedictorian speech uniting students worldwide. But when they entered university the following year, they were stuck behind a screen once again.

COGIE: It was obviously disappointing that I didn’t get to have that typical graduation ceremony. I accepted that reality because I thought, you know, come to September, I’m going to be in class, and I’m going to be meeting all these new people, and it’s going to be like the best time of my life. And obviously, you know, that didn’t quite pan out. My first year university was entirely online. The pandemic just kind of put into perspective how quickly things can just like go off the rail, and I think what that made me realize that I need to do what, you know — what I’m passionate about and not just do something because society tells me that’s what I should be doing.

NARRATOR: In many ways, the pandemic highlighted the things we took for granted. We were given a new perspective on how our society works and what is truly important.

JUSTIN: I think I was at a point where I really, really hit rock bottom, and I didn’t feel inspired, I didn’t like how the photos were looking, which is why I stopped. But something inside me said, “Go back to Gambia, you need to go back.” I used to live there, from 2015 to 2017, but I actually hadn’t gone back in five years. Because that was actually the place I contracted HIV. So kind of doing that, it really healed my spirit. I was able to go back to a place where the worst thing in my life happened, and then go, to go back and then help others.

TUYET: I think every family also felt more connection because you’re locked in the house, and I remember just spending more time with my kids, because it was like you can’t go anywhere. And I think the kids will remember that Mom did have more time.

AMBER: An incredible realization about the pandemic is that some kids, their safe places is— it’s at school. Right, they’re safest here, so when they’re logged in at home and we have these big conversations, sometimes it’s hard for them to fully engage because they’re so worried or so uncomfortable.

MÉLISSANDRE: I would like us to remember that we are capable of working together, of teaming up to try and support health professionals, to try to support people who are vulnerable and help them. I want us to remember that. I think you have to be able to see it to say: “Hey, we’ve lived through a war, a war against a virus, and we were able to come together and work together to try to minimize its impact.”

HEATHER: At the beginning, we were all like, “Oh, we’re in this together, we’re all in the same boat.” But as time has gone on, it’s really much more that we’re all in the same storm, and we’re definitely not all in the same boat; some people are drowning.

COGIE: One thing I’ve noticed within other young people, especially around my age, Gen Z, is that coming out of the pandemic, we’re more eager, more passionate than ever to get started and to make an impact.

NARRATOR: Find the Canada During COVID archive on The Canadian Encyclopedia and add your own stories at www.canadaduringcovid19.ca.