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The Current Transcript for February 9, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: theme]

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[Cheering and applause]

HILLARY CLINTON: Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18,000,000 cracks in it.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: When she lost the Democratic presidential nomination the first time around in 2008, Hillary Clinton’s message to her loyal female supporters suggested they'd still made gains that could make it possible for a woman to reach the White House perhaps next time around. Eight years later, expectations that this one would easily be hers and theirs, have been sideswiped by the growing popularity of Bernie Sanders. So, as they prepare for the New Hampshire primaries, are Democratic women raising hell or finding a special place there? In a moment, the dilemma in this demographic, Democratic divide. Also today, laid off one week, at a job fair the next week.

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Last week the whole world came crashing down, but tomorrow is a new day and you try to keep on going.

AMT: That New Brunswick man is holding on to his optimism, but increasingly the Atlantic Provinces are facing distressing economic numbers and predictions that an entire region will find itself cut off from the rest of the country. In an hour we'll hear ideas on how to turn that around. And when healthy veggies aren't.

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The major recall tonight, bagged salad now being linked to a listeria outbreak that killed at least one person and sent 11 others to the hospital.

AMT: Close to half of all food-borne illnesses come from fresh produce, and leafy greens are at the top of the list. While many of the recalls begin in the US, critics here say Canada's response to such outbreaks lags behind. We'll tell you more in half an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

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Waves of feminism collide between Clinton and Sanders supporters

Guests: Karen Murphy, Anoa Changa, Mireille Paquet

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[cheering]

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: We can tell our story about how we climbed the ladder and a lot of you younger women don't think you have to—it’s been done. It's not done. Hillary Clinton will always be there for you and just remember, there's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other.

AMT: Well, some tough words there from the first ever female US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, as she introduced the would-be first ever female US President, Hillary Clinton last weekend. But, Ms. Clinton's nomination battle has been much tougher than expected. Heading into today's big New Hampshire primary, she's lacking support she might have expected from a critical voting group: young women. And Madeline Albright is not the only one criticizing that generation. Here is a clip from pioneering feminist Gloria Steinem speaking with television host Bill Maher last Friday.

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[Television show]

GLORIA STEINEM: Women are more for her than men are and—

BILL MAHER: But not younger women, they're more for Bernie.

GLORIA STEINEM: It depends where you ask, but I do—

BILL MAHER: America [laughter]. No really. It's just true.

GLORIA STEINEM: First of all, women get more radical as we get older. And when you're young, you're thinking, where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie or—[laughs]

BILL MAHER: Ooh, now if I said that, "yeah, they're for Bernie because that's where the boys are", you'd swat me, now come on. [laughter]

GLORIA STEINEM: No, I wouldn't.

AMT: Well, Gloria Steinem later apologized for her comments about her frustration with so many young women lending their support to rival candidate Bernie Sanders, is palpable. For more on what's behind the seeming generation gap I'm joined by two Democratic Party supporters. Karen Murphy is a 53-year-old co-chair of a Hillary Clinton volunteer group in Montgomery County, Maryland. We reached her in Kensington, Maryland today. Anoa Changa is a core member of Women4Bernie, a grassroots network of Bernie Sanders volunteers. Anoa Changa is 34 years old and she is in Atlanta, Georgia. Hello to both of you.

KAREN MURPHY: Good morning. Thank you for having us on the program this morning.

AMT: Karen, let's start with you. There's been a lot of chatter online about those comments from Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem. What do you think of what they said?

KAREN MURPHY: Well, you know I've been hearing the quote from Secretary Albright for years. I mean, it's nothing new and I don't think she specifically started out with meaning Hillary, you have to support her. I mean she just said in general that given the fact that women only have 20 percent or less representation in Congress and that we've never had a woman president, and there are very few CEOs running big corporations, we need to support each other if we're going to lift up half of our world's population. And she's seen this all over the world, not just here in the States. So, I don't think we should specifically point fingers at her and blame Hillary for this.

AMT: But she said it on the weekend in relation to Hillary, did she not?

KAREN MURPHY: She did, and I was at that event in New Hampshire actually. I drove a bus full of young college students up to go and campaign in New Hampshire and quote rightly got a lot of cheers. I mean, we think that women should support each other and I have no problem saying that, but I’d like to mention that one quote that also relates to this discussion is something that Susan Sarandon said a week or two ago, where she accused women of voting with our vaginas if we’re supporting Hillary. As a working mom, actually an unemployed mom of two young teenagers, I was incredibly offended by that. There are so many other issues that are on my radar, and so many other reasons that I'm supporting Hillary. That is way down the list.

AMT: So, why are you supporting Hillary Clinton? Tell me briefly.

KAREN MURPHY: Well, I'll give you one story that I've been sharing for years. My son Brandon was born with developmental delays in 2002, and he didn't sit up until he was 13 months old. He was two before he walked, but the programs he started getting help from at the age of 18 months were put in place partly because of the research and the drive that Hillary had straight out of Yale Law School to work for the Childrens’ Defense Fund. She knocked on doors, she found out why children weren’t in public schools and she found that children with disabilities were unable to get an education because schools weren't supporting their special needs. She fought for laws that were passed in 1975 and then the ADA and such. Because of that, my son started getting therapy. He had three years of special preschool and by the time he was five, he was ready to join his peers in kindergarten.

AMT: Okay. Okay.

KAREN MURPHY: He’s in seventh grade now and he is making honour roll.

AMT: Okay, let’s just hold it there then, and we’ll go to Anoa Changa to get her perspective on this. First of all Anoa, you are a Bernie Sanders supporter. What is your reaction to what Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright were saying in Alaska?

ANOA CHANGA: I think part of the issue has been for a lot of us who are women supporters of Bernie Sanders, we get a lot of backlash. Like you mentioned, I am a core member of Women4Bernie. I serve as a state admin for all of our state page admins across the country. We have approximately 140 women who volunteer to run social media accounts for the organization, and then also do research for the group. Part of the problem has been we continuously get, whether it's men telling us we’re feeding into patriarchy because we're supporting a man. We get so much backlash for not supporting the woman. So while I definitely understand the position that it can seem offensive to others who do support Secretary Clinton, that oh you're only doing it because she's a woman, we on the flip side, we get a lot of flak because we're not supporting her because she's a woman. This gender issue has become for some, the dividing issue: are you going to vote based on gender? And, in terms to the Susan Sarandon comments, that is an outgrowth of the backlash win win win. Many of these women, Bette Midler, Susan Sarandon for example, have announced their support for Bernie Sanders. The backlash has been you're not standing with your sisters, so it could be possibly that the word choice or their phrasing was not necessary the best. But, there is the sense, even the comments, to get back to this weekend from Gloria Steinem, Former Secretary Albright, that we're supposed to stand with women. And, so I mean, it's hard to say on the one hand, no I'm not saying you're supposed to vote because she's a woman, but then on the flip side you're supposed to support women because we don't have more women in office. And, with the comments this weekend, I am a young mother, I was a single mother going through college and I could have very easily been a statistic having to struggle to raise my children. Thankfully, I've benefited from access to various social programs when I was at Ohio State University that allowed me to complete my degree with two small children and then go on to law school. So, when I'm listening to commentary like young women are only there for the boys, that's absolutely not true. We have plenty, similarly as women are supporting Hillary Clinton because they have certain values and issues that she speaks. Young people today in general, and young women are in many ways, no different than their young male counterparts. We're concerned about being saddled with student loan debt, our generation and the cost of going to school, the interest rates levied upon us. For those who are coming behind us who are trying to go to college and their families being able to even afford to pay for college, there are so many issues. So to say that we just are doing this because ha-ha-ha boys are cute, that's insulting. And to say that only older women are more radical, that's also not true. There were comments a few weeks ago by Debbie Wasserman Schultz that young women aren’t as engaged, or we don't pay attention. And it's not that we don't respect the struggle of women before us, that's absolutely not the point. They struggle so hard so that we did have the ability to make choices—

AMT: Okay, let me let me get Karen in there. Go ahead, Karen.

KAREN MURPHY: Now you mentioned the social programs that helped you get on your feet helped you a great deal, but I think we're forgetting that most of those programs were fought for and put in place by the women of my generation. We have some women and states around the country who still have reproductive choice. That's quickly being eroded and I think part of Steinem’s comments stem from the frustrations she's seeing at the failure of our daughters’ generations, to not pick up that baton and keep fighting it. Women in Alabama, Louisiana, even down in Georgia, they’re quickly eroding what's left of our reproductive rights and, I'm sorry, but she's human, she’s probably getting pretty frustrated after 40 or 50 years of fighting. We're just not seeing that engagement in these issues. Reproductive choice, equal pay, violence against women at the hands of their intimate partners—

AMT: Okay,[crosstalk]Karen Murphy, you just heard Anoa Changa, she is a young African-American woman who has chosen [crosstalk]--Let me ask a question. Hang on, Anoa [laughs]. She's a young African-American woman, she's supposed to be on the Hillary roster according to you, and she's not so what have you done wrong?

KAREN MURPHY: I’m not saying that at all. I’m not saying she is supposed to be anything. This is a free country. She's allowed to back who she wants, but at the same time, I got called a fossilised feminist on Facebook last night by somebody who supports Sanders or supposedly supports him. I understand there are a lot of GOP operatives and Republican interns down in DC working away in their cubicles trying to so put a wedge between us—

AMT: Okay, let's just stick to the issue here, though. Anoa, Karen says that her generation has fought for stuff that your generation isn't quite picking up the ball on. What do you say to that?

ANOA CHANGA: Well, I think that is an over-exaggeration and a misstatement of the activism that actually exists with young women today. There are plenty of women who are on the forefront in dealing with issues in terms of Planned Parenthood funding, when we talk about reproductive justice, not just choice [crosstalk] in which there are young women--I'm still talking. There are women, yes, yes, the generation of my mother and your generation did establish and do these initial fights. However, there are many people who moved on and became complacent with their various positions that they then acquired and left us to come pick up the pieces. We are now basically, almost in some places, we're almost starting from scratch with trying to address issues that should have been resolved before. So, we're still active and engaged. To say that young women are not carrying the baton, that in itself is part of the problem we're having. There's this assumption that you little girls don't know what you're talking about, you don't know what we went through. With all due respect, we have our own struggles that we're also going through and there are plenty of people, regardless of whether they're working full time or they're taking underpaid non-profit positions instead of doing other things to work and engage across many issues, not just traditional women's issues.

AMT:[crosstalk]Okay, we're almost out of time.

KAREN MURPHY: These are not traditional women’s issues—

ANOA CHANGA: Senator Sanders is focusing on all issues that affect women including raising the minimum wage to—

KAREN MURPHY: Can I get a word in?

AMT: Okay. Okay, we can’t hear either one of you so I'm going to moderate here. Karen Murphy, you have exactly 20 seconds, go ahead. 20 seconds.

KAREN MURPHY: I've been on the front lines since the eighties. I’ve lobbied for the ERA in the seventies and I'm sorry, but complacent? No. You know, as far as Planned Parenthood goes, we’re not the ones who called them establishment, Senator Sanders did.

AMT: Okay, we have to leave—

KAREN MURPHY: So, please don’t pretend that we dropped the ball and you guys are starting from scratch.

AMT: Okay, Karen Murphy, thank you. Anoa, you've got 20 seconds, go ahead.

ANOA CHANGA: Real quickly, across the board, there are more and more older women who are in more established positions. They do not have the same struggles that many of us do, but then there are older women who stand with us as well because they acknowledge that there is progress that needs to be made. Knowing this in regard to the past, but the same time we're looking forward, and there are many opportunities that Senator Sanders is bringing to the table, such as the fight for [indecipherable], supporting a $15 minimum wage, and a union which is the call of many—

AMT: Okay—

ANOA CHANGA:--workers who are disproportionately women of colour, and underwage workers across the country. So, those are the issues that—

AMT: I’m going to apologize to both of you, we have to end it there because we have someone else waiting in the wings. It's important to hear both of your voices. I'm sorry we overlapped a bit there, but we did get to hear what you're thinking. So, Karen Murphy, thank you, co-chair of a Hillary Clinton volunteer group in Montgomery County, Maryland. And Anoa Changa, member of Women4Bernie. She's in Atlanta, Georgia. Listening in is Mireille Paquet. She is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Concordia University and I'm really interested to know what you're thinking, Mireille. Hello.

MIREILLE PAQUET: Hello, Anna Maria.

AMT: What do you think? You hear the divide there.

MIREILLE PAQUET: Yeah, absolutely and I was reflecting on the issue yesterday and listening to the debate actually, just confirming what I was thinking which is that, in addition to the fact the comments this weekend, to me appear quite awkward. They might have been reflecting some underlying tensions, but the way they were framed were quite unfortunate. There are two things that seem to be going on right now. One is a clear generational tension between, you know, what some people would call boomers and a younger generation and some kind of misunderstanding over to the way the younger generation is thinking about politics. But, it also, that debate really seems to be reflective of differences between, or inside feminism, like feminism or feminist movements. Especially when it comes to ideas about political representation and what it means to represent women's interests.

AMT: It's really a second and third wave feminist divide because we heard two very passionate women who care there.

MIREILLE PAQUET: Yeah, and I think that women would actually label themselves as feminists. And there seemed to be a major difference and so we generally would think that the second wave would consider that there is such a thing as a unity and a solidarity between inside the women’s group, and you can see that you know, with some comments that Madeleine Albright did or said over the weekend—

AMT: And remind us what the second wave is briefly.

MIREILLE PAQUET: Well, the second wave is really feminism that started, and the mobilization that started in the sixties, with work towards equality, and really an idea of substantial equality focusing on reproductive rights, sexual harassment, reproductive freedom, sexual freedom, equality of work, and it really brought forward this idea that females in office, so having somebody like Hillary Clinton as president would mean that there would be female interests represented in politics and that the presence of women in politics just generally would also change the approach.

AMT: And the third wave is what?

MIREILLE PAQUET: The third wave, that's an excellent question and still a very contentious label, right? So, we're talking about people that tend to be more focused on issues related to diversity, intersectionality, so the meeting of different kinds of social differences, questioning of essentialism related to gender, and so in that group of people it is still a huge, complex group of people. There is really a questioning of what it means to fight for women's interests, right? So, there's kind of an explosion of that woman's interest. But also a questioning of what it means to be politics and what are actually the central channel, or the traditional channel of politics, are to best way to affect social change.

AMT: What about those who would say this is classic divide and conquer? And in fact, the status quo will run up the middle?

MIREILLE PAQUET: Well, I think at the end of the day it is still politics and it's interesting that we're kind of seeing that we're making this into a woman's issue or a feminist issue, but the same kind of division has been going on other things in the primary, right? Over social costs, over ethnicity, over religion, so yeah I think that it is still an issue.

AMT: It's interesting, it's not solely playing out on the issue of the sort of the traditional quote unquote “women's issues” as you point out, it has become a class war. That's really characterized by the Trump-Sanders debate, right?

MIREILLE PAQUET: Absolutely right.

AMT: So, all of this is playing in at the same time.

MIREILLE PAQUET: Absolutely, it is really I think, also just talking about the fact that we're really seeing this generational tension. The fact that the second wave feminism, a lot more women would identify with second wave and think that female interests should trump other interests, whereas the centre supporter kind of said, raise ethnicity, social class should be taken into account when it comes to politics, so that's more of a third wave way of looking at things.

AMT: It's also interesting generationally because there is this kind of view that this is the last chance if she doesn't get it. But that's not necessarily the view of people who are much younger.

MIREILLE PAQUET: Yeah, absolutely. I think that also this speaks of the experience. Albright did speak also in her speech about all the work that's been done to get there, and I think for a younger generation, the experience of politics and the experience of just generally, social life, professional setting, is not one where they experience the same kind of glass ceiling as an older generation. That doesn't mean though however, that it is doesn't exist. Sometimes research has shown that when women, and especially when younger women, end up having children and start to experience the challenges of dealing with family and work at the same time, then they tend to align a little more with second wave concerns.

AMT: Oh, okay, and just briefly then, how do you think the conversation would change if Hillary Clinton takes the Democratic nomination.

MIREILLE PAQUET: Oh wow. I think that at the end of the day, Democrats first and foremost, are concerned about winning. If Hillary actually wins, depending on how much she wins in, and if she can actually gather some of the support from senators, I think that this question will probably partially go away. Hillary has been able to attract a lot of older voters, as well as a much broader, racially diverse group of supporters, so I think she has the potential to appeal to third wave.

AMT: Okay, Mireille, we have to leave it there. Thank you for your thoughts.

MIREILLE PAQUET: It's a pleasure, Anna Maria.

AMT: Mireille Paquet, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Concordia University. She joins us from Montreal. We want to hear your thoughts on this. Is supporting Hillary Clinton something all good feminists should be doing? Are you a feminist for Bernie Sanders? Let us know even if you're doing it vicariously because you can only vote in Canada. Send us an e-mail through our website. We are at cbc.ca/thecurrent or you can tweet us, we're @thecurrentcbc. Find us on Facebook as well. And stay with us this is the current on CBC Radio One.

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Listeriosis outbreak in packaged salad highlights risk of lettuce

Guests: Michael Doyle, Jeremy Langemann, Keith Warriner.

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Dole Foods is withdrawing packaged salads from Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada, and more than 20 US states. It's due to a listeria outbreak.

AMT: Well, that was in the news just last month and when it comes to food safety most of us try to take extra care with the seafood, poultry, and beef in the kitchen. Rarely do we eye those prepackaged bags of salad with suspicion. But after a massive recall of the leafy greens in late January that may be changing. A listeriosis outbreak hit both sides of the border making at least 11 Canadians sick. Both the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the CFIA, are currently investigating what happened. And a Dole facility in Ohio is suspected to be the source. But to food safety experts, the most recent scare is an important reminder that leafy greens can carry real risks. Rick Holley is a distinguished professor at the University of Manitoba’s food science department.

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I'm very concerned that we're not doing all that we should in order to prevent future outbreaks of foodborne illness caused by produce. We don't have comprehensive statistics in Canada to know where we are relative to the evolution of foodborne illness frequencies caused by produce. But if the trend in Canada continues the way that we've seen it over the last 25 to 30 years develop in the United States, you can be sure that we're going to have more and more frequent cases of foodborne illness caused by produce.

AMT: We'll hear more about the situation in Canada, but first, for more about the trend that Rick Holley mentioned in the United States we've reached Michael Doyle. He's the director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety. He's in Griffin, Georgia. Hello.

MICHAEL DOYLE: Good morning.

AMT: What should people know about produce when it comes to food safety?

MICHAEL DOYLE: Well, produce has risen to the top of the list when it comes to foodborne outbreaks here in the United States. More and more people are eating produce. There are lots of potential points of contamination in the production and processing of produce and so there's a bit of concern about the safety of produce here in the United States.

AMT: And how does it compare to foodborne illnesses in poultry or other meats?

MICHAEL DOYLE: When you include nuts, fruits, and vegetables all under that category of produce; it is the leading vehicle of foodborne illness over the last four or five years. It's responsible for about 30 to 33 per cent of the foodborne outbreaks that we can trace back to a single source.

AMT: And is this becoming more acute? Is it a bigger safety problem than it was in the past?

MICHAEL DOYLE: I think in part it's because our Centers for Disease Control and our state health departments are doing a much better job with new surveillance techniques in identifying the sources of foodborne outbreaks. And secondly we've been encouraged to eat more produce and so produce consumption continues to grow.

AMT: What kind of illnesses are people getting?

MICHAEL DOYLE: Listeriosis, E. coli infections, salmonella infections, those are the dominant three types of pathogens that are causing illnesses associated with produce in general.

AMT: And we know E. coli can be very serious, it can even affect a kidney if it’s a really bad case. How serious are the other two in terms of what they do to a person?

MICHAEL DOYLE: Well, listeriosis is very serious too because the mortality rate for individuals who develop listeriosis is in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 per cent. That's the bad news, the good news is it's largely people who are immunocompromised or have some immune weakness, such as elderly and the very young, that are most affected by listeriosis. In the United States we don't see a lot of cases of listeriosis; it's usually about between 1,200 and 1,600 cases a year that are being reported. In terms of salmonellosis, that varies. It depends on the strain of salmonella and how many salmonella are present in terms of the severity of illness. It also depends on if you're immunocompromised as you would be more severely affected.

AMT: And E. coli?

MICHAEL DOYLE: E. coli can be very severe. It can cause kidney failure, especially in kids. The infectious dose for certain types of E. coli, like E. coli 0157, can be very low, less than 100 per serving. So that's one were also very concerned about.

AMT: When you talk about produce, how much of this is attributed to leafy greens?

MICHAEL DOYLE: Leafy greens kind of lead the list under the produce category. My best recollection is about a quarter of the produce related breaks are associated with leafy greens.

AMT: How does that happen? How does it get contaminated?

MICHAEL DOYLE: Well, there's lots of different ways that can happen. Animals in general can carry these harmful bacteria in their intestinal track, and when they do they shed the bacteria in their feces. So if feces from these animals, the manure, gets onto the crops through contaminated irrigation water, manure that's directly used as a soil amendment to fertilize a soil, and even people, sometimes people can be infected and carry these organisms. And when they touch the vegetable, like every head of lettuce is cut individually off the ground and so there's a variety of ways in which these harmful microbes can get into the produce. Also processing water, especially in some of the developing countries where water can be polluted. If potable water is not used as a processing agent then that also could be a source for contaminating the produce.

AMT: Okay. So it's on the surface, what if we just wash our leafy greens really well?

MICHAEL DOYLE: Well, it really sounds good when you say it fast, but the reality of it is the bacteria can adhere well to the surface. And if the surface is cut, as cut produce in a bag is, the bacteria can get into the tissue very readily. And once it's into the tissue, then you can't wash it away.

AMT: So what do you do?

MICHAEL DOYLE: Well, with bagged salads, I don't eat them for that very reason. But the good news is the industry sells billions of bags of this per year and we don't hear about a large number of outbreaks associated with these types of products. The bad news is when it does happen, as we saw with the Dole bagged salad, it can be serious. If you cook produce, if you heat it in some way, to kill salmonella and E. coli 0157 then you're safe. What we do, and we eat quite a bit of salad in our family, we buy the iceberg lettuce because when the harmful bacteria are present they're usually on the surface. And then when you remove those outer leaves, two or three layers, you're removing the harmful bacteria in large part. Then you wash your hands and then you cut up the lettuce.

AMT: So any lettuce that you can buy, like some kind of a head of lettuce where you can actually peel off the outer layer, is a safer bet?

MICHAEL DOYLE: That is.

AMT: Okay. But you're making the point that you can't just wash off these contaminants with water, that's not how it works, right?

MICHAEL DOYLE: I'm talking about in the bag salad.

AMT: Yeah, in the bag.

MICHAEL DOYLE: It's often advertised that once it's been double or triple washed, you don't need to wash it anymore, it's ready to eat. Well, it's true you don't need to wash it anymore because if you did you’re likely not going to remove any of the bacteria that are present. When the lettuce is prepared in the processing plant, it comes in from the field, and it's washed usually through what we call a flume, which has chlorinated water. The chlorine is not a high level of chlorine and the purpose of the chlorine in these facilities is to kill the harmful bacteria that may be present in the water so that it doesn't transfer to the lettuce throughout the entire batch. But what's on the lettuce, especially if it's been cut, it's not going to affect those bacteria. If it does it's not going to kill a lot of bacteria. So you can't rely on that.

AMT: Is there anything that can or should be done by the industry then to minimize the risk of contamination?

MICHAEL DOYLE: Well, there are more advanced type of disinfectants that could be used. They cost more, but they're not going to be 100 per cent effective, but they'll raise the bar, if you will, in terms of enhancing the safety of the fresh produce.

AMT: What about good agricultural practices?

MICHAEL DOYLE: That's an important part of it. Here in the US, we have a new law going into effect called the Food Safety Modernization Act. It has a produce rule and part of that addresses those points of when you can or should not use animal manure to fertilize the fields and what should be done for testing irrigation water that's applied to the crops.

AMT: So, is animal manure even allowed to be used to fertilize, for example, lettuce crops now?

MICHAEL DOYLE: It is, but there has to be a waiting period because the bacteria tend to die off with time. And so if you wait long enough after the manure has been applied to the field then it should be safe.

AMT: Okay. So we're talking about different kinds of produce, what would you recommend to people, should they should stop eating lettuce? How should they think about produce?

MICHAEL DOYLE: I'm surprised quite frankly that people eat raw spinach. When I was a kid growing up my grandmother made the best spinach and it was always cooked in vinegar with a little bacon added. And we always thought that the raw spinach was for the rabbits; that wasn't something humans ate. But we’ve changed our ways of doing that. We have had several outbreaks now associated with eating raw spinach. I do not eat raw spinach knowingly.

AMT: Okay. I actually do, so this is interesting. What about other things, like what about carrots? What about packaged carrots and other kinds of produce that people eat raw?

MICHAEL DOYLE: Well, with packaged carrots, the processor usually removes the skin from the outer parts of the carrot and that's where you would likely find the harmful bacteria. By removing or peeling carrots and other types of the produce like that, you would remove, in large part, the harmful bacteria that could be present.

AMT: And what about other produce, something like sprouts for example?

MICHAEL DOYLE: Many of us food safety scientists feel that sprouts are probably among the most hazardous of foods there is. And the reason is because we've had many outbreaks associated with sprouts. In fact, they had a major outbreak over in Germany and France that was associated with fenugreek sprouts and an E. coli strain that put almost 1,000 people in the hospital with kidney failure and 50 people died from it. But what happens with sprouts is the seeds can be contaminated and it's often only a few seeds so you can't really test enough of the seeds to determine if contamination is present. Then you take the seeds in growing sprouts and put them into warm water and the nutrients within the seed enable not only the seed to sprout but of the harmful bacteria that are present to grow. It's at an ideal temperature for growing harmful bacteria, so that conditions for sprouting have no what we call inhibiters, or any points of intervention that would prevent these bacteria from growing.

AMT: So you would actually avoid them altogether?

MICHAEL DOYLE: Well, I'll tell you what I do; I like pho, the Vietnamese soup. When I eat pho, the water that comes out is often close to boiling and so you put the sprouts in first and that would be hot enough to kill the harmful bacteria.

AMT: Okay. Any other warnings for us? Any other advice?

MICHAEL DOYLE: The key is to focus on the outside of fruits and vegetables. Peel it, and if you can cook it, all the better.

AMT: Okay, Michael Doyle, thank you.

MICHAEL DOYLE: You're welcome.

AMT: Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety. He is in Griffin. Georgia. Well let's go into a professional kitchen to see how the country's best chefs keep their diners safe. Producer Suzanne Dufresne met with Chef Jeremy Langemann, culinary arts instructor at Red River College in Winnipeg.

SOUNDCLIP

I learned about the dangers of produce as a young cook. I remember we had to wash all of our produce. We had a sink in the back that had a rinse and everything had to be washed, everything that we used had to be washed. At that time there was some salmonella outbreaks, I remember particularly in cantaloupe. What I teach my students about produce is first and foremost, their station has to be set up sanitation. They have to have their sanitizer liquid on their boards, their knives have to be laid out in a certain way; and that's even before you get into dealing with the food. The art to cleaning produce is gentle hands. You don't want to be too hard on the food, right? Very delicate. People, I think, are turned off when they see a bug in their lettuce or something, which you know that's fresh, right? What you don't want to see is rusty leaves out of a package that you open up that has a lettuce mix or something. Most important over all the fundamental training we can give them is knowing the sanitation behind it all. Specifically, produce these days, there's a lot in the news and I think for the most part they're all very aware.

AMT: Okay. Chef Jeremy Langemann in Winnipeg. For more on the produce that makes its way into our grocery carts and our kitchens, I'm joined by Keith Warriner. He's a professor in food safety at the University of Guelph in Ontario and that's where we have reached him. Hello.

KEITH WARRINER: Good morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: First of all, how critical of an issue is produce safety in Canada?

KEITH WARRINER: Well, we basically import 80 per cent of our fresh produce into Canada, so we’re very reliant on those exporting nations to make it safe. The problem is, when you rely on other people to do the job right, more often than not they don’t. With a lack of control, and as Mike said, the increasing consumption we are susceptible or open to foodborne illness outbreaks [indecipherable].

AMT: Because if the packaging goes on somewhere else, the safety standards are the US or elsewhere.

KEITH WARRINER: Well, a big concern is actually the growing of the crops. Typically, what you'll have is contamination in the field and there’s an interesting outbreak going on in Mexico at the moment from Mexican cucumbers. We had a recall here in Canada last September and the fact is we don't know what's going on there. It seems to be going on for months and months so really what we rely on is those producers in Mexico to do the right thing; don’t use contaminated irrigation water, and clean containers. When you have that disconnect between control and obviously the consumer that’s where problems arise and that’s the big issue with fresh produce is that more often than not something happens, which somebody misses and obviously the net result is a lot of people get sick.

AMT: Okay. Let's just stick with the Mexican cucumbers for a minute because I don't know about that. How do we find out about that, how do our own regulators monitor something like that so that it doesn't come in if they've got concerns?

KEITH WARRINER: This is a big key. It’s a lot of trust systems. So, essentially, as Mike was just saying, we've moved to a new system called [indecipherable] Safety Modernization Act. Under that act, really what the government is saying is, look produce, look retailers, it’s up to you to make sure the food’s safe. So what happens is the retailers under a program called the Global Food Safety Initiative, send auditors down to Mexico, to the plants, just to say, yes, everything's good here, everything’s safe. Rarely would government officials go down. Now the problem with auditors, the third party auditors, more often than not when we do have an outbreak, and we go back to the audit records there are scores of five stars or 98 per cent. So the problem we have at the moment is this, I would say almost a transition to a privatized food inspection where we rely on people to do the right thing. In Mexico with the cucumbers, it’s been going on since really July from last year, there’s been three recalls. All the government can do or the CFIA and Health Canada can do is just issue a recall based on that evidence rather than go to investigate the system themselves. It's a very puzzling one but a very concerning one.

AMT: Are you telling me that people who actually end up bringing the produce into Canada are the ones who go down and inspect, the very ones who are going to then bring it?

KEITH WARRINER: You’re exactly right. This is the problem with the North American food system. Essentially the growers, the processors, and the retailers are literally all in it together because obviously when money is being talked about they’ve got to produce things that are a good price at the right time. This contrasts to Europe because with Europe it seems as if there’s more of a sort of separation between a grower and a buyer. But here in North America, we have this integrated system and some people suspect a conflict of interest.

AMT: We called the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, no one was available for an interview, they did send us a statement and it reads in part and I'm quoting: “When potentially unsafe food is identified the agency acts quickly to inform the public and verify that industry has removed recalled products from store shelves.” Is that good?

KEITH WARRINER: Well, it’s a classic CFIA statement, isn’t it? [chuckles] So what they're really saying there is well if companies make us aware that they've got contaminated products on the market, then we will issue a recall which is thankful because probably the company has done that. The way the systems used to be set up and these days is that companies do voluntary recalls. What would happen is that in this case, for example in the Dole and listeria case, the CDC would’ve done their epidemiology and saw a common factor that, oh yes we suspect lettuce and we suspect Dole, so Dole would basically issue a recall or what they call a mock withdrawal to make it sound good. The CFIA actually have the power to do mandatory recalls now. So an inspector can go in and demand a recall, but they rarely use that power. Basically, they’re being reactive. Essentially what we’re depending on is industry to identify the problems and then bring them to the awareness of the CFIA.

AMT: I’ve got another clip for you, Keith Warriner. This is Rick Holley, the food safety expert from the University of Manitoba, we heard from him a little earlier, listen to him.

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We have rudimentary data on really significant foodborne illness, it’s spotty, and it is not comprehensive. Well over half of foodborne illness outbreaks, the agents that are responsible for causing the problems, are never discovered. We just don't have very good forensic epidemiology in Canada that can be brought to bear on the issue of foodborne illness outbreaks.

AMT: So is he saying there that we don't even know what it was when we get sick sometimes? Officially, we don't know?

KEITH WARRINER: The way the system works at the moment is that we base our sort of surveillance system on getting product from the supermarket shelves. We depend on people coming to hospitals so they can get a confirmed foodborne illness pathogen accounted. Then we depend on people getting all that evidence and put into a package to say yes there is this actually an outbreak going on and that we should do something about it. Now the problem we have is not everyone goes to a hospital or goes to the doctor when they get ill, they’ll just suffer it out. So that’s under-reporting but what worries me more is what Rick was saying, is the fact that when we try to investigate outbreaks more often than not we hope time will just let it fade into people's memory. There was good case, an example of that just last year. We had something like 13 cases of E. coli 0157; the one Mike was saying could potentially kill you. What happened was they had these spiking cases but because of a delay in gathering evidence, because of the delay to even issue a recall, they ended up just saying, well, we're not sure what it is it could have been leafy greens but we're not sure.

AMT: Okay. Let’s just take that forward because I have another quote from the CFIA, and they also told us in their statement that work on new safety regulations is moving forward with a focus on, “Preventive controls,” on areas of highest risk. But how can they do preventive controls if they don't know what it is?

KEITH WARRINER: Well in the terms of foodborne illness cases, all they have to do is try and identify the source and then do a recall, which they rarely do. The preventive controls are slightly different because what we're saying with preventative control is we go to the processors or the grower and say, you've got to convince me that you've got your lists under control. You know, they’re just standing back and not really assisting systems and see if they are assisting in the process. Ordinarily it’s fine because you think, well if you prevent something like irrigation water which was contaminated and things like that, you’re going to be good. But the problem with the fresh produce sector at the moment is that they’re being very reluctant to put in actual interventions. It’s all down to testing and testing isn’t good. But they're very reluctant to put in certain processes that could enhance safety due to one reason or another.

AMT: Well, lots of worrying answers from there. Keith Warriner, thank you for speaking with me today.

KEITH WARRINER: Thank you.

AMT: That is Keith Warriner. He's a professor in food safety at the University of Guelph and we reached him in Guelph, Ontario. Let us know what you think of this conversation, you can tweet us we are @thecurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook or go to our website www.cbc.ca/thecurrent.

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Atlantic Canada's grim economy worse than Alberta, in need of intervention

Guests: Richard Saillant, Mark Austin

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Alberta and Albertans have contributed tremendously to Canada's growth, particularly over the past ten years, and our economy right across the country has benefitted. Now Alberta and Albertans are facing challenging times and, quite frankly, Canadians help other Canadians when they're facing tough times. That's just how Canada works. And that's exactly what we're going to do.

AMT: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Alberta last week offering some sympathetic words and pledging some tangible support for the province. Of course, Alberta’s economy has been hit hard by the oil price slump. It is not the only region, however, with a struggling economy. And even as the prime minister observed that Canadians help other Canadians some in Atlantic Canada say they're starting to feel a bit neglected. Last month's closing of a major potash mine in New Brunswick was just the latest instalment of bad news for the region. It made for a busy scene at a late January job fair.

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VOICE 1: Can I have your name?

VOICE 2: John Kierstead.

VOICE 1: So what are you expecting here today?

VOICE 2: Hopefully, a job. There’s a lot of people looking for the same thing I am, so it's tough times, but it is what it is, so. Last week the whole world kind of came crushing down but, you know, tomorrow is a new day and you try to keep on going. Yeah. I mean, I won’t lie to you. It was probably the best job I ever head, but, you know, circumstances allow for that to happen. So now Irving has sort of stepped up to the plate and hopefully we can continue on.

AMT: His story is just one of the many across Atlanta Canada. So, before we focus our attention on how to help the economy there here’s a quick survey of the lay of the land.

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VOICE 1: For the first time in 2014, New Brunswick had more deaths than births.

VOICE 2: Across Atlanta Canada the population is aging and economies are struggling.

VOICE 1: in Newfoundland and Labrador the unemployment rate stands at 19.1 percent.

VOICE 2: Compare that to Calgary where the unemployment rate stood at seven percent in December as the oil slump hit hard.

VOICE 1: In New Brunswick the new budget projects the total debt will rise to 12.6 billion dollars by the end of March.

AMT: Well, we've got a lot to talk about when it comes to the economy in Atlantic Canada, even if Alberta has been the focus of much attention lately. I'm joined by two guests. Richard Saillant is the director of the Donald J. Savoie Institute at University of Moncton. His latest book, which will be published later this year, is A Tale of Two Countries. He’s in our Moncton studio. And joining us from his home where he is snowed in Irwin Lake, near Truro, Nova Scotia, is Mark Austin. He is the former director of research and communications for the Ivany Commision, which was looking into Nova Scotia's economy. He currently consults on economic and community development. And he operates a wild blueberry farm. So Mark Austin and Richard Saillant, hello. Welcome.

RICHARD SAILLANT: Good morning.

AMT: And, Mark, how bad’s the snow? [laughs]

MARK AUSTIN: Oh, it's not bad. It’s a blessing. It’s beautiful. [laughs]

AMT: Okay, okay. Well, there is an optimistic way to start this whole conversation. But, Richard, I want to start with you. The federal government has made a very public declaration of support for Alberta's wavering economy with a cash infusion of more than 700 million dollars. What kind of attention is being paid to the economic situation on the East Coast right now?

RICHARD SAILLANT: Well, I’d start by saying that obviously Ottawa right now is responding to a dramatic setback in Alberta and that’s understandable. The oil price shock had had a very different impact across the country, but at least Alberta’s situation is cyclical in nature and with oil prices eventually recovering economic activity should pick up again eventually. In Atlantic Canada the problem is way more structural in nature. It's not cyclical. And it's been happening-- That problem has been with us for almost ten years now. Essentially, what's happening is that we tend to view as the Great Recession as the moment where, you know, the Maritimes, we never really recovered from that, but at the same time there was something very special that has transformative consequences on the Maritimes economy that was happening and it's the first baby boomer reaching retirement age. In 2008 and 2009 the first baby boomers started retiring and that has a tremendous impact on our economy over the past generation two-thirds of our growth was related to labour market developments. First of all, baby boomers entering the workforce in the seventies and the eighties and after that, women. The steady march of women in the workplace, they caught up with men in terms of participation rates and in the economy. That was the engine of growth for the region. About two-thirds of our growth was related to that. In 2008, well, first of all, women stopped converging with men and, secondly, baby boomers essentially started retiring. Therefore, not only no longer adding to economy growth, but subtracting from growth. So, our long term economic prospects have gone down from we could expect our economy to grow by about 2.7, 2.6 percent annually. Now we're down to 0.6 and we can't expect that to change over the next generation.

AMT: Okay. Well, Mark Austin, working with the Ivany Report for Nova Scotia, some of this you can see it coming; it's a slow march, the demographic march of aging population. What-- Were there opportunities missed? Were there things that people weren't looking at? [short silence] Are you there, Mark?

MARK AUSTIN: Yes, I am. Sorry, can you hear me now, Anna Maria?

AMT: Yes, I can. Go ahead.

MARK AUSTIN: Yeah. I wouldn't say I missed. In fact, the central messages on the, kind of, the gloom side on our demographic peril and our economic performance over the last 20 years, these weren't new messages that were delivered by the Now or Never Report, which was the name of the final report of the commission. But I think that we communicated them in a way that it grabbed people's attention. And we really delivered the message that we have to figure out a way of generating more economic activity that suits this place and to deal with those twin elements, that vice of the demographic, the aging, the lack of the labour market development impact for growth that Richard described, as well as the fact that we have had a bit of a stasis in our own entrepreneurial development, that we actually have to create economy. Like I said, it’s not it a new message, but it’s one where we try to galvanize the people in our province to come up with new ideas and new solutions.

AMT: And what was the reaction, Mark?

MARK AUSTIN: Well, I think the initial reaction- surprisingly, because our starting point is kind of one of cynicism with government reports and consultants’ report- but it was generally well received. By now, two years in, there has been rolling of eyes as everything has various causes and directions are dipped in in that report’s name and tried to be legitimized but-- And we are perhaps getting right on the edge where we've squandered that opportunity of it being the discourse of the day because I think we have moved in a direction led by this government more of an austerity response than one of speaking of resilient prosperity.

AMT: Okay, because what we're talking about here is that you're both identifying a problem that is there, that seems to be marching forward, and you're both kind of raising the flag to say this has to be dealt with. Richard, your book that you're working on right now that’s coming out later this year, A Tale of Two Countries, what are you trying to tell us?

RICHARD SAILLANT: Well, the subtitle is How Canada's Great Demographic Imbalance is Pulling the Country Apart. So, essentially, what I'm arguing is that East of the Ottawa River, but to a greater extent in the Maritimes in Newfoundland and Labrador, we have entered, what I call, an age of diminished expectations on the economic front. We can't expect growth. We must continue to struggle to grow the economy sustainably, but we can't expect the same kind of growth as we had in the past. At the same time, right now we have one out of five Maritimers and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who are senior citizens and 20 years from now it will be one out of three. So it's a perfect storm where, essentially, you have slower growth, slower growing means to cover health services and elderly care services that are just going to multiply, amplify over time. And you know what? This is not a situation that shared across the country. Population aging will affect all of Canada as regions but to a much lesser extent west of the Ottawa River, particularly in the Prairies. So the Prairies will be able to sustain the status quo. They’ll only have one out of five residents in 20 years from now they'll be senior citizens, i.e., the same amount as we have right now. So maybe the Prairies, west of the Ottawa River, they’ll be able to maintain the status quo. At least population aging will not destroy health care as we know it. East of the Ottawa River, I'm predicting that in ten years from now- not east of Ottawa River in Quebec, necessarily, but Atlantic Canada- health care, free and universal as we know it, will no longer exist. And I am assuming—

AMT: Why? Because?

SRICHARD SAILLANT: Because there won't be any-- With the resources, the type of the health care spending as a percentage of GDP will be twice as high as it is right now and it's already, people are already saying that it's straining public finances. It's forty percent of provincial budgets at this point. Imagine when you double that amount of money. Because population aging means a lot more spending on health care because older individuals cost much more to this system.

AMT: Okay. So, of the four Atlantic Provinces, Richard, who, which provinces are leading this rather grim march you're talking about?

RICHARD SAILLANT: You know what? The horse race is extremely tight. We all have the same demographics. Newfoundland and New Brunswick are essentially almost the same at 19 percent of senior residents. The median age in Newfoundland right now is close to 45 years old. It's about close to ten years higher than Alberta. So imagine, if you walk down the street in Newfoundland, the median, the average person is 45. In Alberta it’s ten years younger. So what you're seeing there is two countries emerging. And unless Ottawa intervenes at some point, it will challenge our very notion of what it means to be a Canadian.

AMT: Okay. Well, that's what I wanted to ask next. Okay. So what can you do to turn that around? Is that a federal-- First of all, I guess, that's many multi-tiered, right?

RICHARD SAILLANT: Yeah.

AMT: You have to have many tentacles. So talk to me a little bit about what you think is needed.

RICHARD SAILLANT: Well, two things here. Obviously, at one point there will have to be a federal response. We’ll have to revisit fiscal federalism in order to make health care sustainable in this country.

AMT: What does that mean?

RICHARD SAILLANT: Well, federal transfers, right now, the way we have structured equalization, which is very important, that's what helps us in our depressed economy. Equalization only takes into account revenues. It doesn't take into account needs. And in 20 years from now our needs will be close to two times greater than in the rest of the country, particularly in the Prairies. So we'll have to figure out a way to transfer money not only on the basis of how much money we have in terms of revenues, but also our needs. And, frankly, if you look at what's been happening over the past decade or so, not only under the Harper government, but also the Chretien government before, there's been a shift towards per capita distribution of funds outside equalization and equalization has been cut. So the federal government is less redistributive than it was before. So we're headed in the wrong direction when it comes to helping provinces that are in dire need.

AMT: Okay. What do you think needs to happen, Mark Austin?

MARK AUSTIN: Well, I just first want to pick up on that last point that Richard was making. You know, there are three forms of federal transfers and two of them, rather than being fiscal capacity based, are social and health transfer with very strict criteria on how the money is used. And as he was alluding to, these are now calculated on a formula of per capita or on population, rather than on the demographic nature of that population, which, of course, in our case is that we have greater health care costs and less fiscal capacity. And so that really has to be re-addressed, how that formula works. But beyond that, we really need to look at the portion of- I like the word that Richard used-transformative ideas on health care which is approaching half of the spending budget of our provinces in this region and is only heading upward. So that absolutely, on the spending side, is the nut to crack and are there opportunities there for actual entrepreneurial development.

AMT: I was just going to ask. Okay. So you can talk about federal money and I haven't even asked, but should there be, like, a big pile of infrastructure money infusion now, first of all?

RICHARD SAILLANT: If I may, Anna Maria, in terms of federal money, before we talk about infrastructure, as I started at the outset I said that, you know, this is a big country with different needs. Alberta may be in a difficult situation right now but it still has to build schools- last thing I heard was about 50 schools or something like that- so it has infrastructure needs. In the Maritimes, we have different issues. In New Brunswick, some people are proud of the fact that we have the longest stretch of four-lane highway per capita or something like that. So we have an abundance of infrastructure, in my view, to assert some form of infrastructure and we have a lot of deferred maintenance on that. So when we look at assisting the country, the various regions in the country, we should be looking at the various specific needs and, I would say here, maybe we need different infrastructure, maybe some form of social infrastructure to try to draw more immigrants, different types of innovative activities and less bricks and mortars. This is just a thought, but, you know, we don't need more highways to maintain down the road.

AMT: You need more people who are having children.

RICHARD SAILLANT: Yeah and that's going to be difficult when the median age of your typical female is above 40. So, you know, we need immigrants, but we shouldn't delude ourselves. Immigrants are just like Canadians. They will go where economic opportunities are to be found.

AMT: What about innovation? What about new companies? Mark Austin, what about, like, new ideas and trying to get people to create new businesses?

MARK AUSTIN: Well, I think we absolutely need to move in that direction and instead of the status quo, which is which is largely been a reliance on cheap labour and abundant labour and abundant raw materials. So we need to continue looking at diversification, value-added, and finding our niche, and so forth, while we, in the realm of trade, for instance, look at not just reaching out to global markets, which we need to do, also solidifying the value that we do have in our economy and looking at import substitution, for instance, and real localized economy. Not in a way that just circles the wagons, but in a way that’s a leg up for start-ups and supplying are our own needs. I'll leave at that.

AMT: I want to ask as well, there are those who suggest that, if not all the Atlantic Provinces, then the three Maritime Provinces should unite politically and economically. Mark Austin.

MARK AUSTIN: Yeah, that's always a good one for bringing up, you know, at the dinner table. There is religion and then there's Maritime unification.

AMT: [laughs]

MARK AUSTIN: These are the topics we like to bring up at family gatherings.

AMT: Would it help? Or would it not?

MARK AUSTIN: Well, I don't know. It kind of-- Would it help to merge the Leafs and the Canadiens right now? Would we be, you know, just doubling up on weaknesses or would we be strengthened? I'm not sure. We've worked—There’s been a lot of progress and various collaborative efforts and mechanisms and, you know, sector by sector, but mostly in terms of efficiencies and alignment of regulation, service delivery, and so forth. Whether we go a next step and form a new Acadia or something like that, I think it's definitely worth discussing. People are sensitive about loss of identity. But I think we should be wary of loss of identity when, if we’re in such a vulnerable position that we just say yes to absolutely everything. I just also want to say that we're using a regional lens right now, but I think we should be sensitive to the fact that all across Canada in every regional economy there are those striving and those struggling and so, you know, it's not all bleak here. And it's, but nor are we prospering in a shared way at this point.

AMT: So how do you build on the non-bleak side? How do you take the people who are successful- they're still going forward with their companies, they're still trying to grow- how do you advance that?

MARK AUSTIN: Well, we have a real issue with not only the spending that we've been talking about, but on accessing capital here and on mechanisms that really ensure that the growth that we do experience that the prosperity is shared and that the ownership is retained in a way that we have a long term benefit from our development. So we have a very, in the Maritimes generally, just cultural attribute of creativity and so that needs to be tapped into to help us reimagine our economy at all times and more efficient ways of spending, but not just the contraction of the status quo.

AMT: But some of this was covered in this report that came out two years ago, was it not, Mark?

MARK AUSTIN: Yes, it was, but, you know, it's a report; it's words and pictures and graphs. So people have to figure out a way to connect. So if you're not, if you feel that you're somehow left out or if you become jaded in your view of, say, the government's role in stimulating economic environment, you need, you can say, all right, I'm in, but there has to be a route to get in and so far I think we've really struggled. It’s been an effort across the province of local communities cross-spectrally, gathering and trying to figure out inspirational ways to move forward. But largely, it's been unfortunately pulled within government and strangely enough we had a budget shortly after the delivery of this report that basically gutted one of our areas of wealth creation, which was our cultural institute and film and television industry. And I know that it was sold as we can’t afford this. I think we cannot afford to not be pursuing areas of our economy that actually create investment and new jobs and viable livelihood.

AMT: And Richard Saillant, as you listen to what Mark Austin is saying, what are you thinking?

RICHARD SAILLANT: Well, on this very note, there is one opportunity in New Brunswick and in Nova Scotia that we have so far decided to say no to and it's the exploitation of shale gas resources. And this is a very tricky issue because we do accept gladly money coming from Alberta and Saskatchewan, which is the result of fracking activity over there. So it's a bit hypocritical for us to say that we do not want to exploit our shale gas resources for environmental reasons and various concerns that we have, but we take the money on the other hand. And this is very problematic because down the road at one point we'll have to go hat in hand, I'm sorry to say that, to Ottawa, and that's going to all Canadians, and say that if we want to maintain one Canadian social citizenship, we'll need more help. In order to do that, we have to help ourselves first. So we have to develop aggressively, pursue economic growth. We have to have a situation where we're spending our dollars better. Right now, the student educator ratio is much higher in east of the Ottawa River, meaning that resource intensity in schools is higher because we failed to close schools as population declined. So now we have schools have about two dozen students and, you know, people will not look kindly on that. And we need to put our house in order before we can have a meaningful conversation with all Canadians as to what it means to be a Canadian in this age of the great demographic imbalance.

AMT: It all comes down- I was just going to say, the demographics- it all comes down to population, doesn’t it, Richard?

RICHARD SAILLANT: Absolutely. Population is key. Human capital is key. And you know what? What I like to say is that we should never-- We like to take credit for our good fortune, even if that fortune is due to chance, and when we're down on our luck, we know, people tend to blame us for what's happening, but we can't blame the current generation of Maritimers and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians for how the baby boom unfolded or for the forces of economic gravity that have existed in Atlantic Canada since Confederation. So we need to have a conversation as a country about what it means to be a Canadian, the powerful forces that are at play, and I think, on the eve of the 150th anniversary of Canada, this is the perfect timing to do so.

AMT: So how do you convince more people to move to Atlantic Canada, Mark?

MARK AUSTIN: Well—

AMT: I mean, there's been a request that new immigrants be given some incentive to go to Atlantic Canada, has there not? Through some leaders?

MARK AUSTIN: We’re working hard on that and I give kudos to the provincial government and the federal government for engaging in that realm. And I think there's, you know, we’re doing a little better that way. There are still about 98 percent of the new arrivals come to Halifax and either stay there or move on to other parts of Canada, but we're working on that. But I don't see it entirely as a population issue. I think that the way to get people to come here is to have them visit here. But the question that we ask ourselves more often is how do we keep people from leaving? And it's typically-- Right now, there is a depressing series of farewell to Nova Scotia blogs out there of people leaving the province. Many of the ones that I read have to do with the film industry. But, really, the only way to have people stay here is for them to have career opportunities and choices and viable livelihoods. But once again it comes down to productivity that’s found in our innovation and collective efforts rather than in the cheapness of wages.

AMT: Okay. Well, we have to leave the discussion there, but thank you both for speaking about this today and giving us a wider perspective. Thank you.

RICHARD SAILLANT: Thank you.

MARK AUSTIN: Thanks, folks.

AMT: I've been speaking with Richard Saillant. He's the director of the done all the Donald J. Savoie Institute at University of Moncton. His latest book, A Tale of Two Countries, will be published later this year. He joined us from our Moncton studio. Mark Austin is in Irwin Lake, Nova Scotia. He’s the former director of research and communications for the Nova Scotia Commission on Building Our New Economy, often referred to as the Ivany Commission. He consults on economic and community development and he operates a wild blueberry farm. If you feel hard hit by the economy, especially if you're in Atlantic Canada, but not solely, let us know your experience, what ideas you have to turn things around. Do you think your part of the country is getting the attention and support it deserves? Tweet us @thecurrentCBC, post on Facebook, find us online cbc.ca/thecurrent. That's our program for today. We started today by talking about Hillary Clinton's campaign for the US Democratic presidential nomination, the fact that so many young women are supporting her rival Senator Bernie Sanders. It is a generational divide, some say, comes down to a generational divide within feminism itself. So we'll leave you today with Hillary Clinton talking about feminism in an interview with the actor and writer Lena Dunham. She's the creative force, of course, behind the HBO series Girls. And she starts by referring to readers of her newsletter which is called Lenny. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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LENA DUNHAM: I think the question on every Lenny’s readers’ lips is do you consider yourself a feminist?

HILLARY CLINTON: Yes, absolutely. You know, I’m always a little puzzled when any woman of whatever age but, particularly, a young woman says something like- and you've heard it- something like, well, I believe in equal rights, but I'm not a feminist. Well, a feminist is by definition someone who believes in equal rights. I'm hoping that people will not be afraid to say-- That doesn't mean you hate men. It doesn't mean that you want to separate out the world so that you're not, you know, part of ordinary life. That’s not what it means at all. It just means that we believe women have the same rights as men-politically, culturally, socially, economically. That's what it means and if you don't believe that about yourself as a woman, please go ask yourself why. What is holding you back? And it's not going to be good for you as a woman to be denying the fact that you are entitled to equal rights. And so, yes, I'm a feminist and I say it whenever I'm asked.

VOICE: Hallelujah.

LENA DUNHAM: Woo! [laughs] That was a beautiful definition for anyone who's confused about what feminism actually means.

HILLARY CLINTON: Right.

LENA DUNHAM: Which seems to be three quarters of young women who are asked in Hollywood.

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah.

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Feb. 9, 2016 Episode Transcript

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