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The Current Transcript for June 9, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

If you see the ransom note, you can see, oh, they try to reassure you about Bitcoin. Like, we've got screen shots, or here's a link to some kind of a guide that talks you through the whole process.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Even in the midst of an extortion, cyber criminals can be helpful: offering how-to guides on Bitcoin payments, making sure they return and unlock files once they get their ransom. But should they get that ransom? The University of Calgary's decision to pay $20,000 for encrypted staff and faculty emails has raised both the frequency of cybercrime and questions about how well institutions protect themselves. We're looking at that in just a moment. Also today, first they placed her under house arrest, now she's in Tehran's Evin prison.

SOUNDCLIP

She is purely academic, and so we're all very baffled by what is going on and why.

AMT: The family of Concordia professor Homa Hoodfar worries for her safety as she becomes yet another Canadian born in Iran who inexplicably finds herself in the custody of the revolutionary guard. We are on her story in an hour as we follow up on Iran's latest actions. And the doctors told him he was colourblind, his classmates ignored him because he was Aboriginal, and his addictions cost him marriages and money. But Roy Henry Vickers always had his art.

SOUNDCLIP

Creation and inspiration were my life rings month after month for many years.

AMT: Today, he has recovered from his addictions and his life and art are full of strength and hope. BC artist, carver, designer, and storyteller Roy Henry Vickers joins me in half an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current.

Back To Top »

Ransomware threat attacks hundreds of Canadians

Guests: Chester Wisniewski, Sharon McKeil, Avner Levin

SOUNDCLIP

We made the decision to pay the ransom because we do world class research here, and while we have a good understanding of people who were impacted, we don't know everyone who was impacted. And we did not want to be in a position that we had exhausted the option to get people's potential life work back in the future if they came today and said I'm encrypted, I can't get my files.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: That was one of the University of Calgary's vice presidents, Linda Dalgetty. This week, the university announced it paid a $20,000 ransom to hackers after a ransomware attack left them locked out of their own computer network because the files were encrypted. Cyber criminals have been using ransomware to blackmail hospitals, businesses, even cities such as Detroit, Michigan. Private home computers are also being targeted, something our next guest knows all too well. Sharon McKeil runs a dog rescue charity in Ottawa called BARK. Last month, her computer was hacked and all her files were held ransom. We've reached her in Ottawa. Hello!

SHARON MCKEIL: Hello.

AMT: Tell me what happened.

SHARON MCKEIL: Well, what happened was about a month ago, I was in another room next to the computer room, and I heard this big booming voice coming out of my computer. It sounded like a robot. Said we have now encrypted all your files and all your pictures and your website. Please follow instructions. So I ran in the room and there were these bright lights flashing in my computer. So I unplugged the computer. I called my computer guy, he came over immediately, plugged it back in. He cleaned the virus out of the computer, but the files were all encrypted, everything, everything we owned was encrypted.

AMT: Meaning you had no access to anything.

SHARON MCKEIL: No access to anything.

AMT: What was on that computer?

SHARON MCKEIL: 15 years’ worth of documentation for BARK, and files. Every picture that's ever been taken of every foster dog, of every adopted dog, a lot of my own personal dogs, and our website.

AMT: Okay, so they encrypted your files and they told you they wanted you to pay?

SHARON MCKEIL: Yes.

AMT: What did they want?

SHARON MCKEIL: 500 U.S., but it had to be in Bitcoin.

AMT: Okay, and were you aware of what Bitcoin was and where you might get it?

SHARON MCKEIL: Well, we knew what Bitcoins were. From our perspective, they were shady Internet currency, but they were extremely hard to buy. The computer guy and I worked on it for three weeks. We were able to buy 0.1 Bitcoin in Brazil and 0.1 Bitcoin in Italy, and we needed two Bitcoins. It wasn't going very well.

AMT: So you didn't pay the ransom on time, obviously. So what happened?

SHARON MCKEIL: Then it went up to 1,500.

AMT: And what did you do?

SHARON MCKEIL: Well at that point, we were panic stricken and we thought, okay, everybody we've talked to in all the big IT companies, anybody we have talked to had all said the same thing. And some of them, were we were quite surprised. They said pay the ransom. But I mean, that was very difficult for us. An anonymous donor came forward and offered to pay. The computer guy had discovered there are three Bitcoin machines in Ottawa.

AMT: Like an A.T.M., almost.

SHARON MCKEIL: Like, it is an A.T.M. It looks exactly like an A.T.M. We would get the Bitcoins, we'd feed the money into the machine, they would convert it to Bitcoins. And we had already set up a Bitcoin wallet, and it would go into the wallet, and then as soon as we put our smartphone on, it would pay the ransom and then they would send us the code. So the night before this happened, we agreed to meet the next morning at 10:00, the computer guy or myself. He sent them a message, basically saying, you know, you think you're just hitting big companies and large corporations, well, in this case, you're not. You're going after a small dog charity who are just trying to make their way, and you've basically crippled them.

AMT: So he told them off.

SHARON MCKEIL: He did tell them off. And they sent back, you know, he sent a big sob story about all the hard work we doing. They sent back a message saying, okay, go back to the original price, which would be half the price. So they actually gave us a discount. [chuckles]

AMT: Wow.

SHARON MCKEIL: Which is, I know.

AMT: So the next day, you head off to the Bitcoin A.T.M.?

SHARON MCKEIL: Yeah, the next morning I went to the bank, got the money. We headed off to the Bitcoin machine. It said it was a spa, outside it said it was a spa. So we went in, it was pretty dark in there and then in the corner, there was this Bitcoin machine. So we were looking around to see who else was there, and there was somebody else there. There was a woman who was running a spa, I guess.

AMT: Like a spa that we, you know, people getting massages and their nails done? And facials, no?

SHARON MCKEIL: Yeah, not like any spa I've ever been in.

AMT: Okay. [chuckles] So you find this machine in the corner?

SHARON MCKEIL: Yeah.

AMT: Okay, and?

SHARON MCKEIL: We punch in our codes that they gave us, we put the money in the machine. Within less than 30 minutes, every single file was back where it was supposed to be, all the pictures were back, and our website was back.

AMT: It happened that fast, then?

SHARON MCKEIL: It happened that fast.

AMT: But so in the meantime, what's the length of time from when you first get the voice on the computer to when you get to the A.T.M. there to pay?

SHARON MCKEIL: Almost a month.

AMT: And so during that time, how panicked were you? What were you thinking, what were you feeling?

SHARON MCKEIL: I was totally panicked. All I could think of was, can we live without these files? We have to take a hard, hard look at that. Can we live without 15 years’ worth of files? The answer was no.

AMT: Did the dogs that you rescue, were there any of them that were affected, that suffered because of this delay, because of this encryption?

SHARON MCKEIL: Absolutely. I was unable to post dogs on the website, and that's how we get our dogs adopted. Or how we advertise other people's dogs, it's how we do everything.

AMT: Okay, well Sharon, thanks for talking to me today.

SHARON MCKEIL: You're very welcome.

AMT: Bye bye.

SHARON MCKEIL: Bye.

AMT: Sharon McKeil, owner of the dog rescue charity in Ottawa called BARK. Last month, her computer was hacked, her files were held ransom. Her experience is all too familiar to hundreds of Canadians. To get a sense of the scope of the problem here and around the world, I'm joined by Chester Wisniewski. He's a Threat Researcher at Sophos Canada, which is an international software security company. And Chester Wisniewski is in our Vancouver studio. Hello,

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI: Good morning.

AMT: How often do you hear stories like that one?

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI: All too often, sadly, and many of them are very similar to Sharon's story. I mean, the truth is almost all of us have things on our, whether it's our laptops or our phones or computers that are precious to us, whether, you know, pictures of our children's birthdays, whatever it is, things that are irreplaceable if we don't have backup copies.

AMT: Can you shame the ransomers the way they did?

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI: Well, to a degree. [chuckles] I mean, clearly that work for Sharon, at least getting, she said, you know, cut in half. And we've heard similar stories from others where, you know, Bitcoin is a virtual currency, and as a result, it's not the most stable thing in the world. It's monetary value fluctuates quite a lot. And I've heard of other people as well where their ransom was $500 yesterday, and because the change in the ransom currency changes to where it becomes $700 tomorrow, and the crooks actually seem to feel bad for victims. They go, ah, you know, we'll take the $500, it's okay. [chuckles]

AMT: I guess they didn't know they were going after puppies on this one, eh? [chuckles]

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI: Well, yeah, maybe that's part of it. And actually strangely, one of the first times we've ever seen this in computer viruses or malware ever, a few weeks ago, one of the ransomware groups, a group behind a ransomware called Teslacrypt actually threw in the towel and gave the encryption keys up and actually said we're sorry, which is astounding to think that the criminals had some remorse, I guess.

AMT: Wow. So how big of a problem is this in Canada and around the world right now?

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI: It's a huge problem. It's really hard to gauge because, of course, unlike a mugging where on the street if your wallet is stolen, of course you call the cops and you report that and there's a record of it. Most victims don't tell us when they have this type of infection on their computer, they just try to deal with it themselves, so there's no good measures. But you know, looking at the at the broad amount of money that we see the criminals taking in, easily there's well over 100,000 victims a month of this, and certainly Canadians are a huge part of that. I mean, the English speaking world is most predominantly hit, although this ransomware doesn't ignore anyone. I mean, it does target all languages, but certainly English language was one of the first hit and seems to be one of the most prominently hit. So certainly, Canadians are a big part of that.

AMT: And are they discriminating in who they go after? They'll take anyone, are they looking for big institutions and companies?

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI: It doesn't appear so. The vast majority of it appears to be what we would call opportunistic, right, they're just hitting every computer they possibly can, and they know that almost every computer has something valuable on it, and so the victim may be willing to pay. But they're certainly not targeting you, or your aunt, or your uncle, or, you know, any specific person or institution. We have heard of a few times where they seem to have recognised when they've hit a very high value target. A few months ago in the news, there was lots of stories about hospitals being hit, and it seems to be maybe when they know they have a particularly high value target, they change the ransom. So instead of asking for the equivalent of five or six hundred dollars, maybe they ask for $10,000 because they can.

AMT: So did the University of Calgary do the right thing by paying 20,000?

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI: Well, do the right things the tough question, right? I mean, anyone would have a hard time suggesting it's a good thing to continue to fund a criminal operation, right? I mean ultimately by paying the ransom, you're giving in to the criminals and giving them incentive to target more victims. So from that perspective, obviously we don't like to say that it's a good thing, but on the flip side, the cost of the university of the ransom compared to the cost of losing the valuable research and whatever else may have been on the systems that were attacked, it's up to them to decide. Now what's sad more when it's an institution like the university as opposed to individuals, is you would have hoped that they would have had backup copies of all their sensitive stuff. I mean, most businesses have policies around backing up sensitive data so they don't need to pay a ransom when this type of thing happens. But I don't think it's fair for any of us to judge, clearly the university had a very difficult decision to make.

AMT: And so where is the money going, what role does Bitcoin play, and who are they?

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI: Well, if we knew who they were, I would be more than happy to be in a patrol car with whichever policing agency in whichever country knocking on someone's door right now. So sadly, we don't have an idea of who they are. Often these crimes are perpetrated from overseas, and that makes it very difficult for even when we do identify specific criminals, to apprehend them. So we don't really know. Bitcoin, obviously is a very convenient way for them to take payment. And that's kind of an interesting evolution in that we saw similar crimes to this type of ransomware happening about five or six years ago where the criminals would impersonate the RCMP and say you needed to pay a fine because you had been downloading illegal movies and music, this type of thing. But when they perpetrated those crimes, they were taking the victim's funds in Mastercard, Visa, American Express. They were using credit cards. And that was hard for them, right, because it's more traceable, you can talk to banks and decide who's behind accepting in these credit card purchases. Whereas Bitcoin's a more anonymous currency. It's certainly not entirely anonymous, but the idea behind Bitcoin is it's a digital representation of money and you don't necessarily know who owns any given Bitcoin. It's very similar to cash that way. So it's easier for the criminals to launder the money and hide.

AMT: Now, you actually tried to help a New York Times reporter Alina Simone when her mother's computer was hacked. In the process, did you did you have success trying to communicate with these guys? Did you learn something more about them and how they use these systems?

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI: A little bit. In the communication, actually, it turns out Alina's mother is a computer scientist from the former Soviet Union, and so she actually speaks Russian, and the criminals also spoke Russian. So we were hoping there was maybe some kind of a bond there that we could speak with them in a way that they may be willing to talk. But like Sharon's story, they did lower the ransom price, because it had raised up while her mother was scrambling trying to figure out how to purchase Bitcoins. By communicating with them, they did agree to lower the price to a previous amount that was what her mom had bought in Bitcoins. But sadly, when we asked them if they would be interviewed by the journalist just simply to write a story to tell a little bit more of what's behind all of this, they used several expletives and pretty much told us where to go.

AMT: A little publicity shy.

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI: Yeah, yeah, they're not necessarily proud of, I think, they're doing-- do I call it a profession?

[both chuckle]

AMT: I don't know, I don't know. But they actually do, when people pay, they do give the stuff back, eh?

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI: Yeah, generally, they do. And this is another thing I'm somewhat hesitant to say on the radio, which is if you pay, you'll probably get your files back, but that's the truth. There seems to be a reputational element in that they've hit so many victims that word gets around if they weren't to, say honour, you know, giving you your files back. So they want to make sure that people are aware that if you pay up, you'll get your files back. And most the time from what we hear, that's true.

AMT: Honour among thieves, so they say. Okay. Chester Wisniewski, lots to think about there, thank you.

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI: Thanks for having me.

AMT: Chester Wisniewski, Threat Researcher at Sophos Canada. He's in our Vancouver studio. Well despite the stress and pain of having your digital files held for ransom, our next guest says there's reason to stand up against ransomware. Avner Levin is the director of Ryerson University's Privacy & Cyber Crime Institute. He's in our Toronto studio. Hi.

AVNER LEVIN: Good morning.

AMT: So as you listen, what do you make of what you hear, like, these ransom people on the other end, what are you thinking?

AVNER LEVIN: I'm thinking that their business model is for people to pay the ransom, so the more we hear about people paying the ransom and getting their files back, the more it encourages more people that face this problem to pay the ransom. And so the criminal business model is actually working quite well, and that's where you get both that excellent customer service and the discounts and all those things. It's treated very much sort of like almost a retail product that you purchase. So I think we need to sort of look at the ethical, not to mention the legal dimensions of all of it, and really sort of pause and think: should we be contributing to this business model and having more and more people become victims of it?

AMT: And as Chester Wisniewski said, it really depends on what you think they have. Like, we contacted the University of Calgary to hear more about their ransomware attack. No one was available to discuss the issue. What do you think, should they have paid?

AVNER LEVIN: No, I don't think they should have paid. I think as Chester was saying, it's a very tough decision, a very tough call, but I think they are a public institution and I think they had a public role there to really make a stand and say we're not going to pay. I appreciate their problem, and Chester mentioned the issue of backups, and we're talking about a lot of individual faculty members that aren't really sort of rank and file that take marching orders. They back up, they don't back up, it's a problem across sectors. So that's a known problem, but you sort of want to make a stand as an institution and say, you know what, we're not going to pay this and we're just going to have to deal with the consequences of not having access to the files, even.

AMT: Does the fact that they did pay point to some weakness in their own network security?

AVNER LEVIN: No, not necessarily, because they were concerned I think about a lot of their individual users. And part of the problem here is that you can have very knowledgeable IT information security staff, the same at our university, for example, but they're dealing with hundreds if not thousands of users that are all more or less aware of all of this and don't really have a clue and click on something or go to some website, and then the problems begin. So it's very difficult for them to control it.

AMT: And this one, they actually said, apparently, the reporting is that it took faculty and staff e-mails.

AVNER LEVIN: Yes.

AMT: Not faculty-- like, not other documents.

AVNER LEVIN: Well--

AMT: How significant is that?

AVNER LEVIN: Well I think the issue, if it's just emails, then it really sort of raises the question, and that's what everybody's sort of trying to figure out, and I'm looking forward to hearing more about it. Because it just seems odd that if it's just e-mails you would pay $20,000, which is quite a high amount, in ransomware. Perhaps what they're not telling us is there were other files that were encrypted that had to do with research, with data, with personal information about research subjects, with things that they just valued more and that the faculty members or the researchers did not back up properly, and that's what they were concerned about.

AMT: Now in March, the Ottawa Hospital with hit with ransomware. It didn't pay a ransom, wiped its drives. What do you make of that?

AVNER LEVIN: I think that was a good decision. And I was listening to Sharon even before, and she said, well, I just decided that I couldn't live with those files; but the reality, Sharon, is that you lived with those files for a month. And so you really had to think, well, can you not just walk away from it if you want to, spend $500, buy a new computer, start from scratch. It's a tough decision, I don't envy anyone making that decision. But really, I think the hospital made the right call there in terms of saying, we're just going to move on. We're just going to realise that that's the problem, and we're going to just turn over a new page and start again.

AMT: And so what would you advise a business that's been hit with ransomware?

AVNER LEVIN: I think Chester said before, you really have to try and back up as much is as possible, but you have to really sit down, you know, with yourself or with the group that makes the decision, and make that tough call of whether you can move ahead or not without having access the data anymore.

AMT: And private individuals, same thing?

AVNER LEVIN: Same thing.

AMT: Think about what you've got in there.

AMT: Yeah.

AVNER LEVIN: Because they're not going to use it against you, they're just going to encrypt it. They're not actually looking to do that.

AVNER LEVIN: Well, in recent cases they've sort of threatened, when they see that they're running into some public institution, oh, they'll disclose it, they'll post it on the web, they'll do this and they'll do that. But for most individuals, it's just, I can't get access to it. And Sharon was saying, I don't have my website, my website is on my computer, nobody can see me on the net anymore. So that's the pressure points that they find, people's old photos, those kinds of memories that people are really sentimental about.

AMT: And our public institutions, hospitals, military police, are they adequately sufficiently protected, in your view?

AVNER LEVIN: Again, it's the sort of question where the staff probably have more and more awareness, the information security people, the I.T. people, but they have so many users that are accessing the systems that are at a lower level of awareness there. And we could do a better job in Canada, as well, just like sharing information between institutions. We've just launched, the federal government launched earlier this year what they call the Cyber Threat Exchange, which is supposed to be this kind of form for institutions and businesses to come and just share a lot of the details of the attacks. What we're trying to get out of the University of Calgary, without being worried about being sued or all those kinds of things, and that's a new initiative. And I am looking forward to seeing of that succeeds, because we need more of that information sharing to really find out about these threats.

AMT: Okay, well, thanks for coming in.

AVNER LEVIN: Thank you.

AMT: That's Avner Levin, chair of the Law & Business Department at Ryerson University and director of Ryerson's Privacy & Cyber Crime Institute. He's in our Toronto studio. We want to hear from you on this. Have you ever had your computer files held hostage by ransomware at home or work? Did you pay a ransom to get the files back? Get in touch, go to our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent, click on contact, let us know. Do not attach anything. You can find us on Facebook, or on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current.

Back To Top »

Artist Roy Henry Vickers on making art, beating addiction and turning 70

Guest: Roy Henry Vickers

AMT: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: theme]

AMT: Still to come, a Canadian professor is under arrest and in prison in Iran. We will speak with one of her relatives in Montreal. But first, the art of great storytelling.

SOUNDCLIP

I call it the river K'Shian. That's the name. They don't use that very often, mostly Skeena River. I’ve been trying to get this K'Shian for a long time with the older people, you know. At last, there's an old women down here who explains the meaning of K'Shian. The meaning of that is the juice of the cloud makes the river stronger.

AMT: Chief Jeffrey Johnson, talking about BC's Skeena River back in April of 1963. His voice was recorded by CBC Journalist Imbert Orchard, who travelled across the province gathering thousands of hours of tape from pioneers and First Nations residents. Those recordings have been important to many people, including Roy Henry Vickers. He's an artist, carver, and author. His work can be found in galleries and museums around the world. He’s just turned 70 and he’s released a book called Peace Dancer. Roy Henry Vickers lives in Hazelton, BC, but he is with me in our Vancouver studio. Hello.

ROY HENRY VICKERS: Hello, Anna Maria. It is a pleasure to be here.

AMT: Well, it's a pleasure to have you with us. I'm wondering, as you listen to that, what's it like to hear that recording from Chief Johnson.?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: Oh, it reminds me of when I was a young boy in Victoria wondering where Kitkatla was and how am I ever going to get back home. And I found the BC provincial museum and I found this book that was published that was called Paddlewheels on the Frontier and along with that was oral history of BC in Imbert Orchard's recordings. And that little clip that you just played, I listened to over and over and over until I could say K'Shian. Yeah. [laughs]

AMT: So why do we say Skeena? We should say K’Shian, shouldn’t we?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: That’s right. K’Shian, K’Shian. The way was spelled in the early days phonetically was K-S-I-E-N, so who knows where Skeena, S-K-E-E-N-A, came from. But in our language we call the clouds, that I'm looking at with the CBC window right now, [speaks other language], and we called the moisture from the clouds [speaks other language]. So, then that is shortened to K’shian.

AMT: Well, I want to keep going with the tapes, then, because they do mean so much to you. But let’s hear one more clip. This is Martin Starret talking about how a famous mule packer Cataline came to be called by that name.

SOUNDCLIP

Cataline wasn't his name. His name was Jean Caux, but he used the name Cataline. For instance, if there was a string of horses going along or mules on the trail and they’d come to a hill and there'd be about 10 of them up on this hill, they'd stop and get their wind when they got of wind there. They'd all be standing there. Well, then that’s holding the whole darn train up. Cataline would be sitting back there and when it's time for mules to start again he'd say, Hey there, Cataline! And the old mules would flip their ears back and forth and they'd start then when he’d holler Cataline. So, that’s the name he went by.

AMT: Well, storyteller Martin Starret. How were recordings like those important to you then, as you searched out your heritage, Roy Henry Vickers?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: Well, when I was 16 years old my family moved from Hazleton to Victoria and we had lived in Hazleton from when I was 9 years old. We moved from the village of Kitkatla to Hazleton, so horses became important to me and the land, being out on the land, so when I was in Victoria and came across those recordings I listened to them over and over and over again. And they always kept me close to the north country and it's not surprising that that's where I live today. I moved back there 12 years ago.

AMT: Now, so when you were 16 years old-- You weren't aware of that when you were younger, growing up?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: I was not, no. Life was just about horses in the north country and fishing out on the ocean with my Grampa. And when I got to Victoria I came across discrimination for the first time in my life and I didn't know what it was. And when I discovered that it was people in the city who didn't know First Nations Peoples, I started to look at myself differently and realize, well, I guess I am a First Nations person and what is that? So my life became a journey of discovery of the Tsimshian and the Haida and the Kwagiulth, all of who are part of my ancestry. And so that led me on a journey to be an artist to teach people the culture and the art of the Northwest coast and here I am still doing it today.

AMT: You were the only First Nation kidding around at some point. You didn't feel different until they made you feel different?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: That's right, yeah.

AMT: How old were you?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: I was 17 years old. I was an Oak Bay High School in Victoria and when I looked at my class picture there are all these white faces and this one little brown face and that was me.

AMT: What would they say to you? How would they discriminate?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: It wasn't any spoken word. I was just excluded, instead of included. And I guess it was part of the generational abuse left over from residential schools. And I refused to give in to it and it actually got me to study the culture and become an educator.

AMT: And, of course, you didn't start there with a career in art. At first, what were you doing? What were you working on?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: I was wanting to get through high school and get into the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and make my living riding horses all over the world. And I failed my medical in Victoria. At the age of 19, it was discovered that I am partially colour blind to all colours. And in those days you had to be five-foot ten and in perfect health. And someone who is partially colour blind was not in perfect health. And it destroyed the dreams that I had from the time I was a little child. And so I became an artist, colour blind and all.

AMT: You were a firefighter at one point too, though, weren’t you?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: I was. I was. My art teacher William West at the time said, Roy, what do you plan to do now? And I said, well, I'm going to make my living as an artist, I guess. I'll go to university and study fine art. And he said, well, do an old man a favour and don't study fine art. If you have to go to university, study anything but fine art. And I asked him why he would say that, because he was an art teacher. And he said, that's exactly my point. I wanted to be an artist. I went through the whole program and I got my Master's in art and by then I was married with children and had to get a job and I became a teacher. So, if you want to study art, you study what who you want to study, not what the academy tells you you should study to get a degree. And if you have the fortune to find out who you are and create images from that special place, because every human being is special, then you may be creating something that only you can create. And you will know when that happens because people will come up to you and say, I was out fishing the other day and looking at the water and I saw your water, or I was looking at the sun going down and I saw one of your sunsets. And when you hear that you will know that you are creating impressions on people and helping them to see the world the way you see it. And I've heard that thousands of times in 42 years as an artist.

AMT: That people say, I see your water, I see your clouds?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: Yeah. Yeah.

AMT: Well, your style of art is easily recognizable. How did that develop?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: I struggled with the realisation that I am a First Nations person who is half English - I have grandparents from Scarborough and Birmingham in England - and how do I express myself as a whole person? And how do I reach people and teach them about the Northwest Coast culture if they're not interested in traditional design. So I began-- I did a piece called The Creation of Eve. I did a piece called Seal Hunters. And those images look traditional, but the subject matter was not First Nations. And so I gradually broke down the barriers of my isolation, so to speak, and began being a bridge between cultures and that desire to express myself eventually led me to work with something fearful, and that was colour and sunsets and blue skies and green. And how am I going to do that if I'm partially colour blind?

AMT: I was just going to ask you - how do you do that if you’re partially colour blind?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: Well, I just paint what I see and apparently people like it.

AMT: That is a great answer. So, before we go further on the art, what happened to firefighting? You were a firefighter for a while, were you not?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: I was and the seven years that I spent in the Saanich fire department in Victoria, of those seven years, every month someone in the fire department said to me, hey, chief, I don't know why you don't make your living as an artist. You're wasting your talent working here in the fire department. So I heard that over and over again and after seven years, in 1973, I finally got a leave of absence and I went to art school in Hazelton, of all places, and began studying seriously the traditional designs of the Northwest coast.

AMT: When did your career really take off?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: As soon as I left Ksan in 1974 the very first pieces that I did sold out. And so in two weeks I made more money than I was making in the fire department in a year. And so that kind of gave me the courage or the knowledge that I was going to be able to do this. But in 1987, an original painting called A Meeting of Chiefs was given to Queen Elizabeth here in Vancouver and that put me in a place that very few artists in the Commonwealth get to be and that's when everything changed.

AMT: Well, you are at the dinner with Queen, sitting next to her, were you not?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: No, I’m sitting at a table with a bunch of other people with tuxes on and she's sitting up at a head table.

AMT: Okay, but it's a pretty big moment. Because your work has been chosen to give to the Queen.

ROY HENRY VICKERS: And it sat on a tripod and when they sang God Save the Queen, I did what I'm doing right now, I just broke down. I couldn't believe that I was singing God Save the Queen and there she was. Yeah.

AMT: But what we couldn't tell, if we were looking around in that room with you in the tuxedo and your emotions, that something else was going on. What was going on in your life?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: I was struggling. I was struggling with the notoriety or the success. And from 1987 to 1992 I went through three marriages. And in 1992, my most successful year as an artist making a living, the most money I had ever made, I was close to the end of my life and just feeling like I was a failure, totally. And there were some people who convinced me that it was possible to make my life a work of art. And so I've been working at that ever since.

AMT: You were struggling with addiction, huh?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: Yeah, yeah.

AMT: And you kept creating?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: Oh, creation and inspiration were my life rings, month after month, for many years.

AMT: And when did you finally reach out to get help?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: 1992. On Valentine's Day I hit the end of my rope. And I have a wonderful sister, Patricia, Dr. Patricia June Vickers, doctor of psychology in education, and she was the one that steered me to a place called The Meadows in Arizona and I went down there and began a journey of recovery and rediscovery.

AMT: And what did you learn about yourself in that process?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: I learned that I was a beautiful person, that I could stand in the strength and the truth and the beauty that my ancestors have given me and be the person that I was meant to be in this world.

AMT: And how are you doing now?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: I'm doing very well. I'm assured that at 70 years of age, if I have 30 more years to live, that that time is going to go by so fast because there is so much to do and so much to share and sharing the stories and the legends and my story are healing. There's a saying that the ointment of the healer is telling stories. So if I'm going to be a healer to myself, then I share my story with those around me. And I have been doing this long enough to have met people who heard me 10 years ago or 15 years ago and helped them to change their lives and they've come up to me and told me in person. So, I have this assurance that I'm well-travelled on this path of recovery and I have no intention of being any other way than I am.

AMT: And stories and storytelling and creating art keeps you in the place you need to be, so that the addiction can be kept away?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: Well, addiction is what people turn to when they are not comfortable with their emotions. And so the addict is someone who is trying to get away from their emotions. I don't want to be away from my emotions. Fear teaches me that something, there is some danger present, and when I process the fear I'm given wisdom. Pain helps me realize that there's a pain that everyone carries and the more that I work at knowing where the pain comes from the more healing comes to me. And the more healing that comes to me the more healing I have to give to others. And that's what life is about, is giving love and respect to the world around us.

AMT: I want to ask about stories, because they are so important in your telling of stories, and now you have a new book – Peace Dancer. Tell us about the legend told in this book.

ROY HENRY VICKERS: Well, the people had lost their way and there was an example of a young boy who was trapping birds and he trapped this crow and pulled feathers from its wings and he took a line and attached it to the crow's foot and let it go to see if it could fly. And he kept doing this till crow couldn't fly anymore. And then he laughed and made jokes about it and left the crow to die on the beach. And as the story goes, the Creator - Sm'ooygit ts'm laxhaga is what we call God - and Sm'ooygit ga ts'm laxhaga literally means the chief of the heavens or the chief in the sky. And Sm'ooygit ga ts'm laxhaga looked at this and was angered and brought a storm. And the storm came and the rains came and the village was flooded and the people got in their canoes and they went to the closest mountain to the village, Anchor Mountain, and they anchored there. And they cried and they prayed and they cried and they prayed and they asked, why is this happening? And as the story was told to me, this old lady fell asleep tired from her praying, and when she fell asleep she had this vision and the vision was these people who had lost their love of the land, their love of their ancestors, the love of the old ways, the respect for the land, to take care of our Mother Earth so she can take care of us. And so they promised to return to the laws of the land. The flood, the storm went away and all of the birds that were flying in the rain and their feathers were falling to the waters because they were bumping into each other, the Creator looked at this and said, why should these birds suffer because of the misgivings of the wrong ways of the people? And now they've promised to change their ways. So peace came back to the world. And when this happened, after they got back and they rebuilt the village, the people decided that they would create a dance that would be danced forever at every Potlatch and the dance was called [speaks other language], which literally means the real healer and it would be a chief who is a healer who was chosen to do this dance where you shake the Eagle down out of your headdress to remind the people of the feathers that were falling to the lands, to the waters when the flood happened and never to go back, to always stay in the love of the land and respect for the world around us.

AMT: Why did you choose that story?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: It's a story that I've told over and over again because it's one of the most powerful stories that was told to me. And I heard it not only from the Bible, but from the people in my village. And it's a beautiful story that is so fitting and it's as important today as it ever has been. Maybe it’s even more important to share with the world today because we, with all of our technology, as people on the earth we have the ability to bring destruction to this little blue planet that we live on.

AMT: You have your own experience with a falling feather.

ROY HENRY VICKERS: I do and that experience brought me to the ability to put my shyness aside and my introspection aside and use my voice to speak as I'm speaking here to whoever is listening out there. It was the year of my recovery and I had been through many things and I was out on the ocean and going into this little place and an eagle came out of the fog - and I'm making the story very short here - the eagle came down out of the fog and over my boat and I whistled. I made an eagle call to it. And it turned and as it turned it dropped a feather. And I decided that I could get my boat underneath that feather and catch that feather. And as I got close to it I realized this was going to happen and as I reached out to grab it, it went over top of my hand and landed on my chest. And I put my hand over the feather and as I pulled it away from my chest I looked at the white tail feather of a mature bald eagle. And days later, three days later, I discovered that that feather was for me to begin to speak in the world. Because feathers are used in our culture and when the feather is handed to you it's time for you to speak. So I heard this voice in my mind: It's time for you to speak, Roy. That's why the eagle gave you the feather. And you are an eagle. You were born into the Eagle clan. So this is what you have to do. And I made a deal, at that time, and said, well, if people will ask me, I will speak. But I always used to say pictures worth a thousand words and if you want to hear what I have to say, you go look at my pictures. And that all came to an end in 1992 when that father landed on my chest and I promised to use my voice.

AMT: Sometimes you need a thousand words.

ROY HENRY VICKERS: [Laughs] Yes, that's true.

AMT: So, at the age of 70 – author, painter, carver, designer, speaker. Are you going to slow down?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: Yeah, I guess, one day. I hope it's 30 years from now, but, to me, retirement is when you stop breathing.

AMT: I like that. I like that a lot. So, Roy Henry Vickers, what do you want us to know about what you think about? After all you've been through and the changes you made and the stories and the art that you create, you find some peace and a way forward with that. What should we think about?

ROY HENRY VICKERS: Well, I know that peace comes from knowing that you are being the best person that you can be on the face of this earth. I know that money cannot buy happiness. Happiness comes from the knowledge that you are being loving and respectful to the world around you each day. I know that there is only one race of human beings on this little blue planet and we all walk on two feet. And racism is an ignorant term that's used day after day in the media, everywhere, and it perpetrates a difference between us when we are all one family and we are children of Mother Earth. And the more we can understand that the less there will be problems in this world.

AMT: Roy Henry Vickers, it is wonderful to talk to you. Thank you.

ROY HENRY VICKERS: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

AMT: Roy Henry Vickers is an artist, carver, designer, and author. His new book is Peace Dancer. And he was in our Vancouver studio. Head to our website to see some of his art, cbc.ca/thecurrent. Piya Chattopadhyay , you’ve snuck in.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: I did. [Whispers] I tiptoed. I tiptoed.

AMT: You know, I'm a little verklempt here with Roy Henry Vickers.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Beautiful, eh?

AMT: It’s just such a wonderful story about the eagle feather landing on his chest, and the fact that when he was younger the doctor diagnosed him as colour blind and as an artist, it doesn't matter.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Interesting how a moment becomes a lifetime, you know, a work of inspiration.

AMT: Yeah, exactly. Roy Henry Vickers. Go to our website, see his stuff. Peace Dancer is a book, ostensibly, for children, but it's a beautiful book. Your kids would like it, Piya. Anyway, stay with us. Coming up next, sexual violence and the search for justice in Brazil. We'll be talking to Stephanie Nolan of the Globe and Mail. She's been covering the story of a woman who was gang-raped in Brazil and the reaction of the public, the reaction of the police. It's quite the story. Piya will be here to go through your tweets, your posts, your emails. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, and online on cbc.ca/thecurrent. What? What?

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: [Laughing]

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Canadian professor detained in Iran prison

Guests: Amanda Ghahremani

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello, I’m Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Once they do learn something, or do feel connected at the zoo, then they can move forward and take action to do something for their wild counterparts.

VOICE 2: The push towards changing post-secondary education to job factories is quite toxic to the idea and maintenance of a just, egalitarian society.

AMT: A taste of the week that was on The Current. It's time to get some of your reaction to the stories we've aired over the last week and to follow up on stories we have been tracking. Joining me today to read through your mail is our Friday guest host, Piya Chattopadhyay. She is here with me. She is also the of CBC's new program Out in the Open. It’s not been a good week for journalists.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: No, it’s been a tough week. A friend, a colleague of ours, David Gilkey, a photojournalist was killed in Afghanistan last weekend. I had met David quite a few times when I was living in the Middle East working there, and he was just a great guy. He was full of stories, and passion, and life, and commitment to covering troubled spots in the world. He and his interpreter were killed in Afghanistan.

AMT: It’s a very volatile country still, we don’t hear—

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Yeah, it’s still a really dangerous place to live in and also to work in.

AMT: Even more unsettling are developments in the case of, in Iran a Canadian detained in Iran, Piya. Homa Hoodfar is a professor of anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal. Yesterday, we learned she is in the infamous Evin Prison, the same place where another Canadian woman, Zahra Kazemi, died in 2003 after being sexually assaulted and beaten by prison guards. Homa Hoodfar’s troubles began in March. She was arrested in Iran while researching the public role of women in that country. She was released on bail but prohibited from leaving the country. Essentially, she was put on house arrest. This week, she was detained again and she was taken to Evin Prison. Her niece, Amanda Ghahremani joins us now from Montreal. Hello.

AMANDA GHAHREMANI: Hi, thank you for having me.

AMT: What can you tell us about the circumstances of your aunt’s arrest?

AMANDA GHAHREMANI: On Monday she was summoned to Evin Prison for more interrogations and she wasn’t released. They did not give her lawyer any access to her. Her lawyer was not allowed to witness the interrogations, and they haven’t given any access to her family there. We have very little information about the circumstances of her arrest, what the charges are, where exactly in the prison she is being detained, whether she is in solitary confinement and any other aspect of her imprisonment, and we are very concerned.

AMT: What more can you tell us about what she was doing in Iran on this visit?

AMANDA GHAHREMANI: My aunt travelled to Iran in early February. She went for personal reasons, she went to visit family and friends. Her husband recently passed away here in Montreal and her plan was to spend some time to grieve in private, and go back to the country she loved dearly, and she was also conducting some research in the archives of the Iranian parliamentary library. Her plan was to go for a few weeks or a month and then come back. Two days before her scheduled departure, she was taken in for interrogation. Her computer and other belongings were confiscated and her passport was taken from her, so she was not allowed to leave the country. For the last three months, she has been repeatedly summoned for interrogation.

AMT: She’s a leading scholar on women and gender in Islam, that’s the kind of work she does in terms of what her research would be, yes?

AMANDA GHAHREMANI: Yes, she is a leading and renowned scholar on gender, and also on women’s issues and the daily lives of women. She has done a lot of work on public health and other facets of trying to improve women’s lives. Her work is also is not just specific to Iran. In fact, most of her work has focused on contexts outside of Iran, across the Middle East, so we are very baffled right now about what the charges could be and what could have prompted the current circumstances.

AMT: I was reading that the authorities were saying she was co-operating with a foreign state against the Islam Republic of Iran. Do you make any sense of that? Do you know anything about that statement?

AMANDA GHAHREMANI: These are accusations amongst many that have come up over her interrogation, but there have been no formal charges that we have been aware of. We’re not aware of precisely what those charges are, whether it is sedition or something else. Over the course of the last three months that she has been interrogated, her work has been scrutinized and particularly her work on feminist issues, but she is an academic, she is not an activist, she is not political, she is purely academic. We are very concerned where these accusations are coming from.

AMT: How is her health?

AMANDA GHAHREMANI: Well, my aunt is 65-years-old, she suffers from a degenerative neurological condition for which she needs medication. She also suffers from chronic tension headaches and she has not had access to that medicine since her detention on Monday. We’re very concerned about her health deteriorating and the circumstances of her detainment and her not having access to these.

AMT: Do you know what the motivation would be for an arrest?

AMANDA GHAHREMANI: I’m not sure, to be honest. To be very clear here, it is the counter-intelligence unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that were interrogating her and that have arrested her. I don’t know what, in her body of work, what would prompt this investigation. She is a very balanced and even-handed academic, but also those who know her personally know that she does love her country Iran even though she has been living outside of Iran for many years. She has always been very balanced about approaching what is going on in Iran and has given to credit government and government policies when credit was due for some of the policies they have enacted that have been beneficial to women’s daily lives in Iran.

AMT: In her interrogations, do you know if she has been physically harmed?

AMANDA GHAHREMANI: Until her arrest, I do not think she was physically harmed, though she had been interrogated for nine hours at a time; long interrogations that are psychologically draining. However, since Monday, since her arrest, we have absolutely no idea what the circumstances are and we are incredibly concerned.

AMT: It’s pretty intimidating, I would imagine, to be questioned by the Revolutionary Guard. SO, you have reached out to the Canadian Government for help. To what degree has the Department of Global Affairs been able to help you?

AMANDA GHAHREMANI: I did reach out to the Canadian government. They have been helpful. However, because Canada does not have diplomatic relations with Iran because of decisions that were made by the previous government, this has been detrimental to the current situation. There is no dialogue and there is no open line of communication with Iran and so it is very difficult in Canada. It is very limited in what it can do. While I appreciate that everything is hopefully being done that can be done, it is really important that there is a dialogue; there is engagement with Iran, and I also think it is very important for the Canadian government to be more transparent about what they are doing, at the very least with the family, if not publically. They are doing what they can, I hope.

AMT: You have been trying since March, but obviously are coming up against barriers to get her out of there.

AMANDA GHAHREMANI: Yes, since March we were shocked and baffled by the news of her original arrest and the interrogations. We wanted to respect domestic Iranian judicial procedures, and we were confident that with enough interrogation, with access to Homa’s scholarship, and any other information that they have had access to, they would see that this is clearly a misunderstanding; that she should not be arrested, and that there is no basis for any allegations, and we were hoping this would be resolved but unfortunately, this has not been the case and we have no choice but to go public and to pressure and exert some sort of pressure on both the Iranian government and the Revolutionary Guards, but also on the Canadian government to move quickly and swiftly.

AMT: Okay, well Amanda, we will stay in touch with you. Thank you for speaking with me today.

AMANDA GHAHREMANI: Thank you very much.

AMT: Amanda Ghahremani is in Montreal. She is the niece of Homa Hoodfar, Concordia University professor detained in Iran’s Evin Prison. We will continue to keep a close eye on this story.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Let’s go to another story, this one in the United States, and one that has received a lot of attention around the world, in fact. Last month, Harambe, a gorilla in the Cincinnati Zoo was shot and killed in order to protect a four-year-old boy who had fallen into Harambe’s enclosure. This led to questions why the gorilla was in that zoo in the first place and we debated whether captive breeding is a necessity in today’s world and what role, if any, zoos should play in our society.

SOUNDCLIP

My take is that we shouldn’t be doing captive breeding, and if you look at the autobiography, or biography of Harambe and his family, they were taken from the wild, brought into a cage, and then made to reproduce more animals that would then spend the rest of their lives living in a cage, and may also be forced to reproduce. And so, yes, I’m against that.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: That was Marc Bekoff, he’s a professor emeritus in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of Colorado, and he is also the author of Rewilding our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Co-existence.

AMT: The debate continued. Dave Cunningham wrote this from Calgary: Time to quit making money off of captive wild animals. Zoos are a 19th century anachronism, completely unnecessary given our current tools to see these animals in the wild and completely wrong headed.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Sandra Scofield writes in from Kingston, Ontario: I have read for years that animals in the wild are in constant danger from poachers, elephants for tusks, rhinos for horns etcetera. Also, gorillas are killed and have their hands and paws cut off. If we don't keep some in zoos, we may lose them all. And I have one more for you, Sharon Lax has this suggestion from Deux-Montagnes, Quebec: Why not invest in ending the destruction, say, of the habitat of the orangutan, where their forests are being burned down to plant palm oil producing trees? Why not invest in tourism over war in 'bushmeat' eating areas? It's time to turn away from zoos and aquariums and look at what's before us, in our own backyard and preserve that.

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Gang rape of 16-year-old Brazilian sparks protests

Guests: Stephanie Nolan

AMT: Now we are heading to Brazil. Protests are taking place across Brazil over violence against women after a 16-year-old girl was gang raped. On Sunday, police in Rio de Janeiro made public a cellphone video taken by one of the alleged attackers showing the victim pleading for them to stop. The next day, Copacabana beach was covered by 420 pairs of red and white underwear, that number chosen by the NGO Rio de Paz, to mark the number of women raped in Brazil every 72 hours. Stephanie Nolan is the Latin America Bureau Chief for the Globe and Mail. She joins us now from Rio de Janeiro. Hello.

STEPHANIE NOLAN: Good Morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: Now before we look at the public reaction, just bring us up to speed on the story. It first came to light through social media, what happened?

STEPHANIE NOLAN: About three weeks ago now, Brazilians started to notice a very widely shared group of tweets, one of which contained a video and the video appeared to show a young woman slowly regaining consciousness, and there were also some still photos, selfies that men had taken next to the torso of this naked and obviously physically damaged young woman, who was unconscious. These were being shared on social media with incredibly vulgar phrases and the implication that she had just been raped by 30 men. I saw them. I woke up that morning and saw the tweets from people, most of them saying could this possibly be true? The initial set of tweets had 500 likes before Twitter took them down, and later on that day, we learned that the young woman who was the subject of the video and photographs had actually gone to police and registered a case of sexual assault. That was back on the 26^th of May and it turned out that the assault had taken place three or four days before that but she had only become aware of it when a neighbour had approached her family to say that these pictures were circulating.

AMT: And since then, the police have released a second video. What does it show?

STEPHANIE NOLAN: The second video is really interesting because it is obviously somewhere around the same time, the same room, a number of the same men, but in this one it is a much closer frame on the young woman’s face and you can clearly hear her asking, although in quite a weak voice, for them to stop, for them to not rape her. Because a huge amount of the conversation that had been happening here about whether this could be really considered sexual assault because of who the woman is and the circumstances where it took place, the fact that she is clearly asking them not to do it as they do it, somewhat changed the tone of that conversation.

AMT: You say the fact of who she is, who is she?

STEPHANIE NOLAN: She is 16 years old and she lives in a low-income area of the city, and the area is next to the favela, which is the Brazil-specific word for a low income community, a slum, the one where the assault took place, where she went to a party, is called [indecipherable] and it under the control of a drug gang called Commade de [indecipherable], which has operated as a parallel state there for years and years. I know we’ve heard a lot about the areas, the communities in Rio, the favelas that had been retaken from these gangs and occupied by community police forces, that’s still only a handful of communities in Rio, and a great many others remain under control of these gangs. She is a high school student, she is also a mother. She has a three-year-old, which leads a lot of people to suggest that clearly she is sexually active and so that contributed to the perception here that she wasn’t really a victim. It took the police officer in her case to point out that to have a three-year-old at 16, she was already a rape victim since the age of consent is 14. The other thing that we know about her that is important, is that she is really strong. When she took to social media the day after this happened, she changed her profile picture to a symbol of the fight against violence, she did a TV interview in which she defended her right to claim that she had been raped, and countered the narrative that because she associates with gangsters and goes to these sexually charged dance parties, that she couldn’t be a rape victim. We also know that she is pretty tough.

AMT: We just talked about what was going on in the public demonstrations. Give us more of a sense of the public reaction.

STEPHANIE NOLAN: There have been two kinds of demonstrations here. There have been some very loud, angry demonstrations by feminists and activists and women of all kinds coming out to say that this country has a real problem with rape culture, and a real warped understanding of consent. There were also some demonstrations, especially in the community where the assault took place, from people saying she is no innocent, she is not a victim, it was not a rape, essentially implying she was a willing participant. The police now say that the people who took place in those demonstrations were intimidated into doing it by the gang in charge of the favela. Leaving aside the demonstrations, certainly on social media and on TV programs, there has been no shortage of people questioning if this is rape. If she goes to one of these dance parties, if she does drugs on this occasion or others, then how can she possibly claim—she took part in a consensual sexual encounter and then later saw the pictures and was embarrassed, and so she claimed rape is sort of the counter-narrative.

AMT: It is so extraordinary the universal denouncing of a woman who has been brutalized sexually.

STEPHANIE NOLAN: I have to say I feel I have seen this before in other places. The fact that for a couple of weeks now this has been a really big conversation in Brazil reminds me a lot of my last posting which was in India where one of the last big stories I covered, you will probably remember it by the shorthand, was The Bus Rape. A young woman who was on her way back from a movie, from seeing Life of Pi on a Sunday night with her boyfriend, and who was essentially abducted by a group of men on a public bus on her way home, and was raped with iron rods, so that she was effectively disembowelled and later died, although not before making an incredibly important police statement. The conversation that it set off in India reminds me a lot of this one. A lot of people lined up to say, why was she out of the house? Why was she out at night? Why does she have a boyfriend? Why was she going to the movies? If she hadn’t been at the mall, if she had been home with her parents, this would never have happened. Before India, I was in South Africa at a moment when South Africa was trying to come to grips with incredible rates of sexual violence and there too, there was lots of discussion about how girls who stay home or only go to church don’t get raped [laughs]. I hear this in a lot of places.

AMT: There are stories of yours that I cannot get out of my mind, Stephanie, because you go back and you talk to these women after. You did a story on a woman in Rwanda who was held captive for more than a month by soldiers. How do you react to all of these stories? You go to different countries, we’re seeing more discussions in North America, and more people refusing to take the official line that this happened because a woman “brought it on”, quote unquote. I’m wondering how you react to this because it is everywhere.

STEPHANIE NOLAN: Certainly, I have an awareness. People in and outside Brazil lined up outside—I got a lot of comments on this story when I started covering it from readers saying, oh my God, Brazil is barbaric and why are we sending our athletes there for the Olympics? To talk about this as though it is some sort of Brazil specific problem, or an India specific problem, or a South Africa specific problem, I mean it’s—[laughs] I guess what interests me is the conversation, and the debate, and the demonstrations that happened after Jyoti Singh’s death, and the conversation that is happening here now. Those cases are different I think from the one you mentioned, the story about the girl held captive in Rwanda during the genocide because sexual violence has been a factor of every one of the dozens of wars that I’ve covered. When that happens, there is the ability for people after the war ends to say that was a momentary aberration; that was a thing that happened in that war, we’re not really like that. When a woman dies of injuries she sustains from rape on a bus on the way home from the movies, or when a woman is raped by 30 men after a dance party in the second largest city in the country, and then people have such a sense of impunity for their actions that they tweet it when they’re done. They post videos and share them on Facebook and you think, no, actually, that is not an aberration. This is who we are and this is what we do, so that’s the conversation that we need to have.

AMT: Stephanie Nolan, it’s important to hear from you, thank you.

STEPHANIE NOLAN: It’s a pleasure.

AMT: Stephanie Nolan, Latin American bureau chief for The Globe and Mail. She is in Rio.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Alright, let’s move onto another story, one that is back here in Canada. There are calls to make co-op placements an internships a mandatory part of post-secondary education. A round table composed of business, education, and industry leaders says there are too many students graduating without the practical skills that employers are looking for.

SOUNDCLIP

It could be anything from communications skills, from team work, from problem solving, customer service, so those skills come to the fore when you are working in a diverse environment with many challenges. It’s not that you are studying one subject, you’re all of sudden working as part of a team.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: That was Anne Sado, co-chair of the Business-Higher Education Round Table and president of George Brown College speaking to The Current on Monday.

AMT: Well, this brought back memories for some of you. Shayna Plaut thanks her co-op placements for helping her succeed in her career. She shares this from Vancouver: By the time I was 21, I had worked in a cubicle for a state agency at a refugee shelter, at an arts organization, and teaching English to Spanish-speaking, mostly Mexican, women in the barrios of Chicago. The skills I learned are invaluable but perhaps most importantly was the knowledge of what I didn’t want to do. Kim Gowryluk of Winnipeg taught a program giving students exposure to a variety of occupations. She shares this from Winnipeg. My kids learned self-respect and job expectations through a lot of guidance. Most of my kids left school knowing their potential and employer expectations. Students need job experience at all levels. Ancient hunters and gatherers taught their kids in the same way and they were successful.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Ruth Kereliuk is hesitant about using Europe's model for co-op placements. She writes in from Lethbridge, Alberta: My own experience in the UK is that too often the class system comes into play determining whether or not a student goes on to higher education. I came to Canada with a Grade 10 education, was accepted into university and received an English degree with great distinction. In the UK, this would have never happened.

AMT: James Bone is wondering where all these placements will come from. He posted this on Facebook: According to StatsCan data from 2013/2014, there are more than 2 million post-secondary students in Canada. Even if half of those were already in a placement, where exactly are we going to find another million positions? In a best case scenario, those put into internships and co-ops will be taking entry-level employment away from those currently looking for work at potentially minimal cost to the employer. But some businesses are in favour of the proposal. The BC Technology for Learning Society tweeted: We've offered paid work experience for 18 years. It's core to our business model and key for youth applying what they've learned.

[Music: Theme]

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Now it's time to give credit where credit is certainly due. The week that was on The Current was produced by: Idella Sturino, Shannon Higgins, Ines Colabrese, Sarah Grant, Lara O'Brien.

AMT: Pacinthe Mattar, Sujata Berry, Liz Hoath, Willow Smith, Marc Apollonio, and Karin Marley. The Current's writer is Howard Goldenthal. Our web producers are Lisa Ayuso and Sarah Claydon. Our technicians are Gary Francis and Jennifer Rowley.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Our senior documentary editor is Joan Webber. Our senior producers are Richard Goddard in Toronto and Cathy Simon in Vancouver. And the executive producer of The Current is Kathleen Goldhar.

AMT: To add anything you hear on The Current, weigh in by tweeting us @TheCurrentCBC. And if you want to join the conversation about our season long project Ripple Effect, make sure to use the hashtag @rippleCBC. You can find all our Ripple Effect stories by going to our website and clicking on Features. That's at cbc.ca/thecurrent.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: While you're there, subscribe to our podcast or email us your thoughts by clicking on the contact link. Or post on Facebook, you can find us by searching for CBC Radio:The Current.

AMT: Piya Chattopadhyay, Friday host this week, as well as the host of the new program Out in the Open. It airs Saturday at 3:00, 3:30 in Newfoundland, also available online. That is today’s edition of The Current.

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June 9, 2016 full episode transcript

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