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The AIH Transcript for November 24, 2016

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

CO: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

JD: Good evening, I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight:

CO: Kevin help us. Reality TV star and investor Kevin O'Leary sees only one figure powerful enough to lead the Conservative Party, defeat Justin Trudeau, and take on Donald Trump… and it's Kevin O'Leary.

JD: Strahl tactics. To deflect questions about a pay-to-play fundraiser, and a dubious donation to the Trudeau Foundation, the PM says everything's cool because Chuck Strahl is a Foundation director. At which point Mr. Strahl resigns.

CO: Re-tally ho. After a coalition of security wonks raises red flags about the way some electronic votes were cast, there could now be a recount in some key American battleground states.

JD: Wrong, to the nth degree. An advisor to Donald Trump told us why NASA's climate-change research should be scrapped… Tonight, our guest refutes pretty much everything last night's guest said.

CO: I don't care what you say anymore, this is my bike. Turns out Bruce Springsteen exchanged words with Billy Joel after the former's motorcycle broke down… because the latter built it specifically for the former.

JD: And...stuffing and nonsense. Post-election, Americans are experiencing gravy misgivings this Thanksgiving, and a father and son who voted differently explain what it's like to have more than a turkey between them.

As It Happens, the Thursday edition. Radio that hopes they can put the "cope" in "cornucopia".

[Music]

Back To Top »

Part 1: Kevin O’Leary, Election recount, Thanksgiving dinner

Kevin O’Leary

Guest: Kevin O’Leary

JD: For months now, Kevin O'Leary has been publicly toying with the idea of running for the leadership of the federal Conservatives. And now, the investor and reality TV star is putting forward another reason he should join the race: Donald Trump.
Mr. O'Leary believes Canada needs someone like him to stand up to the President-elect of the United States. But skeptics don't believe the former CBC personality is up to the job of Conservative leader. Or that he really wants to do that job at all.
We reached Kevin O'Leary in Toronto.

CAROL OFF: Mr. O'Leary, We keep hearing that you might run. Now, there are some reports that you've had conversations with strategists and possible backers. Are you running or not?

KEVIN O'LEARY: I'm keeping my options open, obviously. But, there is a deadline on this. It's Feb 24. So, to keep that optionality, I'm doing some structural work and some investigations. I'm also watching as the landscape changes, obviously. The American election was a surprise to everybody and puts Canada in very perilous position now because the policy we see being formulated south of the border is going to make Canada a very uncompetitive jurisdiction. I think that's going to open up a huge opportunity in the next election. We simply have the wrong leadership to guide us through what's about to happen...

CO: Well we know that you're very good at building drama and suspense. You've seen that on TV, so is your reluctance to reveal or show your cards, is it part of the plotline?

KO: No not at all. Good leadership equals good management. And I'm trying to manage a process here. I'm trying to determine what the probability of success is. Clearly, if you had asked me just 90 days ago — before the American election — what the probability was that Trudeau would have a second mandate, I would have said 99%. Today, I think it's less than 50. So, that's got the competition very excited. We have 12 declared candidates in the Conservative party, as many as three more to be rumoured — excluding me. That's a very crowded field. And all of them have to find a way to get their name out there — I don't have that problem. They all have to find a way to raise money — I don't have that problem. So, the best strategy for me is to simply wait until that herd gets culled. And that means I wait longer. So, I want to find out who the last four or five are going to be. If I'm going to jump in, I'd wait until then. Then, I can really assess the competition and decide what I want to do.

CO: That's kind of a strategy. I wonder about your motivation. I mean you have no political experience. You joined the party only about six months ago. You don't speak French. So why would the party choose you as the leader?

KO: The fact that I have no political history is an advantage. I have no baggage. Canada and all the things we enjoy in health care and education in our society are unique globally. But it doesn't work on zero GDP growth. And so all of a sudden we find our country in a situation where there are no new jobs for millennials, there's no economic growth there's no wage inflation, and we have policies mandated by our new leadership, quite young still, but that are completely at odds with what's happening all around us. Clearly if the United States decides that they want to lower corporate taxes to 15 percent and encourage economic growth by reducing taxation, reducing carbon taxation, that's exactly opposed to what our leadership's doing right now. So Justin Trudeau, Mr. Morneau. They’re weak leaders, they don't understand that. Facing 180 billion dollar deficit proposed by this government, that’s insane. That's doing to the country what the old Trudeau did. He buried three generations in debt. I don't want this juncture to go did the same thing to my children. It's got to be stopped.

CO: I believe it was a Liberal government that pulled the country out of debt that did the difficult things. I'm not sure entirely you can dump this on the Liberals. There have been… and the Mulroney government took on a fair bit of debt too. I think you know that.

KO: I’m agnostic to party I want better management. I don't care if it's conservative or liberal or it's green or it's the goat party. We are just not served anymore in this country by good managers. Look at what's happened in Alberta. Hundreds of thousands of jobs lost under the –

CO: Conservative government.

KO: No no no no no. Listen. Right now we have a childlike incompetence running Alberta. That is one of the growth engines of this country. She doesn't know what to do when the price of oil collapses. Instead she goes to New York and claims she's going to raise corporate taxes, raise carbon taxes. Scares capital away from that capital intensive industry, and hundreds of thousands of Canadians lose their job. That's called incompetence. It doesn't matter what party she's with. She's destroying that engine of growth in this country. I'll give you another example. Look at what's happening in Ontario. We’re 308 billion in deficit. We lost thirty six thousand one hundred jobs in July after Kathleen Wynne imposed a carbon tax. I'm talking about weak leadership.

CO: OK but obviously, if you were the prime minister, you realize that you would have to get along with premiers like these two women that you just criticized.

KO: No no. Those two are going to be gone. The chances of either of those get a second mandate is zero. If I was lucky enough ever to become prime minister of this country, I would want to try and find better managers for those giant growth engines. That's why I'm so active in Ontario making sure that Kathleen Wynne has no chance of being re-elected. And I'm going to do the same thing in Alberta. Jason Kenney wants me to sponsor him, I'll do it.

CO: You identify with Mr. Kenney. Do you identify with Mr. Trump?

KO: Listen, Trump is dealing with completely different problems than we have. I mean there’s some similarities. We’ve both worked for Mark Burnett in reality television, but when I'm talking about now is a completely different problem. But what he is going to do to us is force our country to be more competitive or completely lose out. Let me give you an example that’s very easy to understand. Let's say you're a car company. You want to spend a hundred million dollars building a new plant. Are you going to put it in a jurisdiction like Ontario, which used to boast a great place to manufacture when taxes are now 50 percent higher and we have a carbon tax? And regulations are steeper? Or are you going to go 17 miles south to Michigan where Mr. Trump is making it easy to make that investment, make it much more profitable have it grow and create jobs there?

CO: So, do you think you and Mr. Trump would work well together?

KO: Listen. I mean I'm being very clear about this. I think Trump versus Trudeau is Godzilla versus Bambi. It's going to end very badly. You need someone that can negotiate. You need someone that has run businesses — that has pivoted when they know the environment’s changed. Unfortunately, Mr. Trudeau has never run a business. Mr. Butts has never a run a business. They've never made payroll. They're going to get crushed. It's just depressing.

CO: I think people will want to know more about what you stand for — what your values are. Those who watched you on television, on The Exchange on CBC with Amanda Lang, will know some things you’ve said. I want to just play one clip that I recall very clearly and see how you respond. This is you on The Exchange with Amanda Lang.

SOUNDCLIP

AMANDA LANG: The combined wealth — this is according to Oxfam – of the world's 85 richest people, is equal to the 3.5 billion poorest people.

KO: It's fantastic. This is a great thing because it inspires everybody — gets the motivation to look up to the 1% and say “I want to become one of those people. I'm going to fight hard to get up to the top.” This is fantastic news and of course I applaud it.

CO: Alright. The idea that poverty is an incentive. That it's fantastic news that 3.5 billion people are living in poverty. Is that something that you could defend on the campaign trail?

KO: Good for you for playing 30-seconds out of a four-and-a-half minute conversation. That's not what that was about. That was about celebrating entrepreneurialism and supporting young people that want to grow companies and take risks on their own and create jobs all around the world. Now, good, you've taken out a 30-second slice of it and tried to make a point. Good for you. But, that's not factual. I don't celebrate poverty. That's ridiculous and everybody knows that. At the end of the day, the way to get someone who is in a difficult situation, to make it better for their lives, is get them a job. That's what we're not doing in this country.

CO: I did hear you many times on the show, when there were discussions about wages and minimum wage. You felt that keeping wages low was good for people because it would give them an incentive to pick up their socks and work harder. Did you not ever say that?

KO: No, no, no. I don't like government imposing wages on anybody. I like businesses to pay market wages for people. The best way to solve for wages is to grow the economy. It's always the best solution. You can't tax your way to success. It doesn't work and that's what we're trying to do here. My guess is the reason we see so many candidates competing for this next leadership race with the Conservative party is they smell the blood in the water. Trudeau is a one-term guy. He's going to be gone.

CO: Mr. O’Leary, thank you.

KO: Take care. Thanks.

JD: Kevin O'Leary is a Canadian investor who stars on the American reality TV show Shark Tank. He was in Toronto. You can find that on our website, along with video of Mr. O'Leary's full exchange with Amanda Lang: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Election Recount

Guest: Barbara Simons

JD: Green party presidential candidate Jill Stein wants to set the record straight on what she's calling "voting anomalies" after the U.S. election. And it looks like she might get her wish.
Ms. Stein plans to request recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. By this afternoon, she had already raised 4 million dollars U.S., and counting, through a crowd-funding campaign.
The push towards a recount started in earnest with a small coalition of computer security experts. They noticed that in those three battleground states, the vote count between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was extremely close. They also noticed some irregularities.
Barbara Simons is one of those experts. She's an advisor to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. We reached her in Stony Brook, New York.

CO: Ms. Simons, how do you react to the news that Jill Stein will officially request a recount in some key states?

BARBARA SIMONS: As somebody who’s been working in this area of election integrity for well over a decade. I've long been concerned about how the machines work and the fact that we typically don't check the results afterwards even though the results are declared by computers. And as a computer scientist I know that there could be software bugs or potentially hidden malware in computers. The United States, and I must say parts of Canada as well, have become very dependent on computers in our elections, and we have a tendency to accept what the computers say as true even though we know from personal experience that's not necessarily the case.

CO: Let's talk about the machines that are in question in these key states. What are you… let’s talk about Wisconsin. What are your concerns there?

BS: Well it's all of these machines. For example in Wisconsin, there are two types of systems that are used. One is the kind that we computer scientists consider to be the best at the moment, which is paper ballots fed into a scanner. The other is a touch screen machine where the voter makes his or her selection on the machine itself and the machine records the vote internally in memory. In the case of Wisconsin these machines all have what's called a voter verified paper audit trail that in theory the voters are supposed to examine when they vote to see if it records their vote correctly. But in most cases they don't, so it's not terribly reliable. In both cases the results are determined by computers. And as I just said, with computers you need to check them. We don't have any kind of national check. And some states have laws that make it essentially impossible to recount.

CO: But is there some sense of some discrepancy noted in these states in this last vote for president that leads people to believe that there are questions to be asked. Is it because of the particular voting trends in those counties that raise these questions?

BS: Obviously people noticed that the polls predicted different outcomes and that raised questions in people's minds, especially given there had been no nation hacking around the election. Certainly the Democratic National Committee hacking, the hacking of the Hillary Clinton campaign e-mails. And we also know that that in two states, Illinois in Arizona, at least, there was hacking into the voter registration databases, which are the lists of people who are eligible to vote. So I think some people asked the question, well why the Russians would stop with all these related areas and not hack the election itself. That doesn't mean that the Russians hacked the election, and I'm not saying that. But independent of that, we should be checking the voting machines in every election, after every election. We simply should not accept the results that the computers declare without checking them first, because the computers could be wrong.

CO: In the questions concerning Wisconsin, in one example, is that there were disproportionate winds that were racked up by Mr. Trump in counties using electronic voting, compared to those where there was only paper balloting. Is that something that raises some suspicions?

BS: Actually that theory turns out to have been somewhat wrong because the person who came up with it didn't consider it one of the variables, so we don't know in fact that that's true. What we do know is independent of whatever theories people may have, anywhere that computers are used, they can mis-programmed, somebody could do things like, say you're supposed to mark this location for candidate A and this location is for candidate B. If you mis-program the computers, it might record votes for candidate A as being for B or B for A or something like that. This has happened, there are cases when this happened. You know, it's just an innocent mistake, and it can change the results of an election.
So in systems where there are no paper ballots, the only thing you have to do is to do a forensic analysis of the actual machine, which A, is almost impossible legally to get permission to do which is also crazy, and B, is very difficult to do even if you get legal permission.

CO: And the reasons for doing this, not just to find out who actually got the most votes, because it's not clear that even if they do find discrepancies, that it will make any difference to the outcome. In fact it seems doubtful it will, why is it important to do this?

BS: Because you want to be able to convince the losers, and the losers’ supporters, that they've truly lost. So long as there's any question about their results, and there are clearly questions in this election that are being asked by a lot of people. Let's assume that the election result was correct, and so long as people have doubts about it, it makes the government appear possibly illegitimate in the eyes of some people. You need to be able to prove that the declared results are correct and we don't do that. And in fact neither do the municipalities in Canada that used computers by the way.

CO: So, I want to just finally ask you about Canada, because you mentioned a couple of times about how we are making this turn toward using computers and that even the idea of having internet voting in order to increase numbers of people casting a ballot. What concerns should Canadians have Canadian government have, about making that change?

CO: First of all, the notion that Internet voting increases the number of people who vote, is not true. And there was a study done for the British, B.C.’s government, that basically found out that the same people who vote over the internet would have voted anyway. It doesn't even increase participation by young people because people young cannot vote so much. On top of that, if you want to have the elections hacked in Canada, the best thing to do is have internet voting, because that makes it really easy to hack them from anywhere. A nation state has enormous power to do that. Doesn't have to be Russia, in fact with a lot of these Internet voting systems, a smart kid can do it, because they're not secure. I have to tell you something else. Internet voting vendors will not make their systems open to testing by anyone from anywhere. Because that was done in Michigan in 2010, and a team from University of Michigan which was led by Alex Halderman, who is also involved with what's happened now, broke in almost immediately. They had total control of the system. Since they showed how easy it was to break in, no internet vendor, including all the ones that sell their wares in Canada, will allow independent experts to try to break in from anywhere. They won't do it, because they know the systems are insecure.

CO: Ms. Simons, very very useful information. I appreciate you giving us your analysis. Thank you.

BS: Thank you.

JD: Barbara Simons is an advisor to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. We reached her in Stony Brook, New York. For more on this story, visit our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Accessibility Promo

[Music cont’d]

JD: Carol, we have some big news. Can I get a drumroll please?

CO: I do not have a drum.

JD: Copy that. I'll continue anyway. Starting today, you can find text transcripts of As It Happens on our website. We’re going to post them the day after every broadcast. And we've already begun: if you check our website right now – cbc.ca/aih – you'll find a full transcript of yesterday's program.

CO: And each transcript has an audio player embedded right on the page, so you can read along as you listen.

JD: Yeah, our friends over at The Current have been posting transcripts since February. They've already been viewed over a hundred thousand times. It's a great way for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing to access CBC Radio content. Its’ also a useful tool for English Language Learners.

CO: If you know someone who could benefit from this project, please let them know. We've posted all the details on our website, which, again, is at cbc.ca/aih. And big thanks to the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund for their support with our ongoing initiative to make CBC Radio accessible to all Canadians.

[Music]

Thanksgiving dinner

Guest: Michael Mower, Christian Mower

JD: Thanksgiving. It’s a chance for people to catch up, to eat too much, and then lie around with their pants undone, groaning together, as a family. Most years.
But right now, it's Thanksgiving in the U.S., in the year 2016 and after a bitterly fought, divisive election campaign. And millions of people are lying around groaning, but they are groaning about even having to be in the same room as some of family members.
Michael Mower is a Republican who is the deputy Chief of Staff to Utah's Governor. His son Christian is a college student who volunteered with local Utah Democrats. We reached both of them in Salt Lake City.

CO: Michael we know it's Thanksgiving. The table set-up you posted on Twitter is very interesting. Can you describe it for us?

MICHAEL MOWER: Well we had it split down. We had the Trump supporters in the living room, the Clinton supporters in the dining room, and the McMullin supporters in the kitchen. My wife however, is a good kind-hearted person, and she said we're going to try to mix it up a little bit and just hope that everyone gets along and doesn't talk too much about politics.

CO: Yikes. Your wife is very brave.

MM: She's very brave. She's a great hostess. She was one, she was actually, I was back at the Republican National Convention this summer as a cruise alternate delegate from Utah. She never got on board the Trump train and is part of the Clinton coalition here at our House today.

CO: And so she wants to be able to sit with any one of the families who wants to. She doesn't have to sit in the dining room with the Clintons.

MM: No, she's happy to be with the Clintons, and we all love each other and we all get along, but we're all pretty political and pretty partisan. As I count it, we will have three people here who supported Trump, five who supported Evan McMullin who was a third party candidate. And that leaves two, three, four, five, six, seven who voted for Clinton or actively supported her.

CO: Right. So actually the kitchen caucus is going to be quite large then?

MM: Well but we merged. My wife says we're going to merge the kitchen with the living room.

CO: So at least we’ll have all the pro-Clinton and the not quite so pro-Clinton groups dividing up at our house in about 15 minutes.

CO: All right. And so, who is home? Is your son Christian home from college today? Hello Christian.

CHRISTIAN MOWER: Hi. How are you?

CO: I'm OK. How are you feeling about being home for Thanksgiving?

CM: Happy to be home for Thanksgiving. It's been rough and emotional for a lot of people for a couple of weeks here, but it's good to be back with family, and hopefully we can, you know, start the healing process.

CO: Which room will you be sitting in?

CM: You know I missed what… the ones my dad said. I'll go wherever I'm supposed to. I'm happy to sit with my grandparents or whoever I can to hopefully help relations between the families.

CO: Well I understand the Clintons the Clinton supporters are in the dining room.

CM: That sounds about right. That’s where I’ll be.

CO: And Michael, you'll be in with the Trumps in the living room.

MM: Oh I'll be in with the Trump and the McMullin folks. I'm a good Republican and Christian is an ardent and active Democrat. I always say as a parent, you always hope when you're raising a small child, that they'll grow up to have you know a mind of their own, until they do grow up and have a mind of their own. And I love my son dearly but we have very divergent political opinions.

CO: Christian, joking aside, how… you said it's been painful. How difficult has this election period been for you and your family?

CM: You know it's really been a rough one. It's difficult to understate. I'm up at University here in the state and of course with younger people, it's a much more liberal group, but I know the day after election day, class was more like a group therapy session in a good way. But it's been a tough time for us and now is just trying to become acquainted with the country that you feel somewhat unfamiliar with, but still love, and are just trying to move on.

CO: And what do you say to your father, about his choice to support Mr. Trump?

CM: I love my father no matter who he votes for. I have nothing against Trump supporters by any means. I think they see things a little differently than I do, and they have different experiences than I do and have different priorities. But I still love them as people and we're all Americans. And Thanksgiving is about coming together with those people and giving thanks for what we have.

CO: Michael, if there is… Michael being the dad… if there is a discussion, if it does get political, where will the fault lines be? What are the differences of opinion between these two?

MM: It's pretty much generational. I have a couple of nephews who are both very conservative. We have a daughter that lives in Brooklyn. She and her husband are very pro-Clinton, a daughter from, who came back from college in Illinois. She's very liberal. Social issues she drove a lot of it in the family. And you know, my parents were Trump, just because they were concerned with the direction they felt Clinton would take the country. Some of us in the family were for McMullin because we had questions about some of Trump's statements during the campaign. Everyone's acting in what they feel are in the best interest of the country, but there were some very serious divisions, not just in our family, but across the country. And you saw that in truly how close this election is.

CO: Did it affect you or your wife? The remarks that Mr. Trump made about women, Latinos.

MM: Very much so. Very much so. My wife never did support Trump even when we were back in Cleveland at the Republican National Convention. She had some real concern. My parents, who were the local Trump supporters of the group, feel like, hey everyone makes mistakes. You know, Mr. Trump's not perfect, but then again Bill Clinton wasn't when it came to personal moral issues. No one subscribes to some of the crass statements that he made but they felt like he would be a better… all things… that aside, he would be a better leader for our nation. And he's who we needed.

CO: Christian, you’re being very quiet.

CM: I have been for a few weeks now.

CO: And you're continuing to be very quiet. I can hear this continuing on as the mashed potatoes get passed.

CM: Hey if nothing… if grandma's mashed potatoes can't heal this, then I don't know what could. So…

CO: If things do go pear shaped, are there… is it your mom or is there someone in the family who kind of stitches things back together, just finds the common ground and shifts you there? Do you have those? ‘Cause those are important to have in a family.

CM: If it comes up tonight, hopefully we can keep it in jest, and we can we can deal with it through humor and try and move on and not have it turn into a… you know, your classic Thanksgiving fight. We’ll do all we can to keep it from that.

CO: Michael and Christian, Happy Thanksgiving.

MM: Thanks so much.

CM: We love our friends up north in Canada.

CO: All right, thank you very much. Bye.

MM: Take care.

JD: That was Michael and Christian Mower – a father and son who voted for different candidates in this year's U.S. election. We reached them earlier today in Salt Lake City.

Back To Top »

Part 2: Chuck Strahl, Trump climate follow-up

Chuck Strahl

Guest: Chuck Strahl

JEFF DOUGLAS: Justin Trudeau needs some new back-up.
The Prime Minister was in Liberia today, but he was still dogged by questions about a party fundraiser that he headlined in May. The 1500-dollar-a-ticket event featured a group of wealthy Chinese businessmen with ties to China's communists. And afterwards, two of them made a million-dollar donation to the Trudeau Foundation and the University of Montreal.
Mr. Trudeau explained to reporters that he stepped down from all family-related responsibilities when he was first elected. Then he said this.

SOUNDCLIP

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation on its board, in its operations, has drawn on leaders from all political persuasions in this country, including people like Chuck Strahl and Megan Leslie, who currently are part of the Trudeau foundation. So I'm sure they will reassure you that they are very much separate from anything I do as a prime minister or as leader of the Liberal Party.

JD: So that was Prime Minister Trudeau, Justin Trudeau, referring to former NDP MP Megan Leslie, and former Conservative MP, Chuck Strahl. The problem is Mr. Strahl has now resigned from the Trudeau Foundation. We reached Chuck Strahl on vacation in Maui.

CAROL OFF: Mr. Strahl, what do you think when you hear the prime minister mention your name in relation to the Trudeau Foundation?

CHUCK STRAHL: Well I mean, I can't tell you how upsetting that is, frankly. I mean I just, you know, this is an ongoing story about a political problem that the Liberals are experiencing. They're not being fastidious about separating their personal political and government business. You know, this is an ongoing story, but to drag my name into it, and put me up kind of as a foil for what they're doing, is just it's just not acceptable. I'm not I mean I'm not… I'm happy to work and I have been happy to work with the Trudeau Foundation, but they can't trot my name out and say that because I've helped that the Trudeau Foundation, which does some good work, that that excuses the rest of their behaviours. That's just not acceptable.

CO: Mr. Trudeau is saying that we can… the public can contact you to hear that, as a politician, he is not involved with the Trudeau foundation. Can you confirm that that's the case?

CS: Far as I know, he's not involved at all day-to-day. Of course, the whole foundation is built on a family connection. The family picks the directors and how it all works there. It's a family thing. But as far as I know, he has removed himself from it since he's been elected. The problem that they've got, you know, the Liberals have, it’s the same kind of problem that Hillary Clinton faced. You know, you get accused of mixing your personal, political, and government business, and instead of addressing it… you know, you don't need a smoking gun, you just need to see the [unintelligible]. And what's happened right now, there's just too many well-heeled people who are getting too much access to too many cabinet ministers. And that's what should be addressed. They don't need to drag me into that to try to fix that problem. That should leave me out of it. But the fact that they haven't done that means that I have to step down from the foundation and then I can then speak to it. But it's just not fair, it’s not fair to the Trudeau Foundation, it's not fair to Canada 2020, and it’s certainly not fair to those of us that retired from politics, and just trying to help out.

CO: At the heart of this the issue, is that there was a $1500 a ticket event dinner attended by a group of wealthy Chinese businessmen among many others. They have ties to the Chinese government. Afterwards two of them made a contribution of a million dollars to the University of Montreal and to the Trudeau foundation of which you are you were on the board, and the money that went to the Trudeau foundation included $50000 earmarked for a statue of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Foreigners are not able to make donations to political parties, so these businessmen didn't contribute to the Liberal Party. But the appearances is that they made this contribution to the Trudeau Foundation just shortly after they had attended this event, this $1500 dollars a ticket event access dinner with the prime minister. Did you know about that?

CS: No I didn't know about it. But I wouldn't have. I mean the Trudeau Foundation management deals with donations and with, you know, the day-to-day running of the affairs there. So I wasn't aware of it, but you know I wouldn't… It's not like I would have been normally anyway.

CO: But wouldn’t directors of a foundation know that there was a million dollar… I guess, in this case was a $250,000 contribution to the Trudeau fund from Chinese businessmen?

CS: Again it's not a secret. There was… the management dealt with it. They used apparently a press release at the time but I don't get copies of all the press releases and I didn't know about it. That's just the way it's done. It's just considered… most organizations, I think, a donation comes in, and unless it's flagged as controversial, I guess it just is accepted by management. So the directors don't approve each donation.

CO: But there was.. it was no secret, right? You’re saying there was a press release and including the $50,000 earmarked for the statue of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

CS: Apparently, like I say, I didn't see it, I didn't know about it, but you know, the management made those negotiations, had those negotiations over the last year or more, as far as I understand it. And that's what we settled on.

CO: I’m just trying to determine that your resignation from the board… is it because of what you've learned about this event dinner tied to the Chinese businessmen, tied to the donation? Is that the reason for it, or is it because Mr. Trudeau and some of his members are pointing to you as an example of someone who doesn't have a problem with this?

CS: Second point, which is that, you know, these things, I'm not… I wasn't, you know, I observe all these things from afar. I'm trying not to get involved in day to day politics anymore. But when they drag your name into the floor of the House of Commons, and say, you know, this is all OK, this is like the Great Oz, there’s nothing happening. don't pay any attention to that man over there, there's nothing happening. And then use my name as an excuse or as an example of someone who can point to how it's all above board. Well that's not what I signed on for. I signed on to help a charitable organization do educational work in the humanities and I'm not going to be used as political cover for whatever activities they’re involved in. I'm just not prepared to have my name dragged on to the house. I'm not there anymore to defend myself. So if they're going to do it that way, if that's how they want to treat people as foils for what they're doing, then I did what I had to do, which is pull the pin. I can't be there to defend myself. Explain myself. So all I can do is say, well if that's how you're going to do it, then I quit.

CO: You also say that you think that this pay-to-play is gotten out of control and that this has to be looked at very seriously. I just want to play the clip. This is Dominic LeBlanc defending the whole fundraiser thing today. This is him in the House of Commons today.

SOUNDCLIP

DOMINIC LEBLANC: The opposition house leader knows very well that only Canadians can make donations to Canadian political parties. And Mr. Speaker, I would assume those are the kind of Canadians that attended a $500 a ticket fundraising event with Joe Oliver on May 19th 2015, or maybe the $500 a ticket fundraiser with Jason Kenney on January 30th 2015, or maybe the $1500 dollar a ticket fundraiser with former Immigration Minister Chris Alexander at a private home in Toronto. Maybe those are the kind of events that he’s familiar with.

[Sound: Yells and exclamations from the house audience]

CO: All right, as if you need any reminder of what it's like to be in that question period, I’m sure you’re trying to forget that.

CS: And then you and then you wonder why I left.

CO: No I don't actually. But the reference there, the pay to play is saying that it’s been going on for some time. Is that the case?

CS: You know, my sense is that it has become increasingly under scrutiny. You know what. When I was there, of course, we removed corporate donations. Corporate unions were no longer allowed to donate to political parties and reduce the amount that people could give as an individual per year and so on. So this thing has been trending a certain way for quite a long time. What the Ethics Commissioner is now saying is that what's going on right now with this cash for access stuff, is an unsavory trend, I think, is the words that she used. It's just too pervasive, too often, for too many ministers, for too many wealthy individuals. And when it happens repeatedly often, when your ethics commissioner raises concerns about it, not the opposition, then you know there's no use pointing back to the way things used to be.

You could, I guess you can do that, that's what they're doing today. But it doesn't deflect from the real issue. The real issue is you know, if this is trending, too often, too consistently and too much of a pattern, then you need to fix it.

CO: Mr. Strahl, we'll let you get back to your holiday and thank you for speaking with us.

CS: Thank you.

CO: Bye bye.

[Music]

JD: Chuck Strahl is a former Conservative cabinet minister, and now a former director at the Trudeau Foundation. We reached him in Maui.

[Music]

Climate Trump follow-up

Guest: Phil Plait

JD: The political climate is about to undergo drastic change. And it’s definitely caused by humans. On yesterday's program, you may have caught our interview with Donald Trump's advisor Robert Walker. He was talking about the incoming administration's proposal to scrap NASA's research on climate change. If you missed it, here's a bit of what that interview sounded like:

SOUNDCLIP

ROBERT WALKER: What they are skeptical of is the idea that this is largely a manmade phenomenon. And so that's what has to be proved.

CO: You said elsewhere you think about only about half of scientists actually agree with the consensus on climate change.

RW: You're using the term “scientists.” I'm using the term climatologists, and climatologists are divided in that particular analysis.

CO: What's the source of that fact?

RW: I don't remember exactly where I've seen it, but it is something that I have read somewhere along the line.

JD: Many in the scientific community are unimpressed with Mr. Walker's plans. Including Phil Plait. Mr. Plait is an astronomer, and a science writer at Slate.com. We reached him in Boulder, Colorado.

CO: Mr. Plait, what did you make of Robert Walker's — and by extension, Donald Trump's — plans to cut NASA's research into climate change?

PHIL PLAIT: What I make of it is that it is a disaster waiting to happen. This is a horrible, horrible plan that will spell nothing but trouble for people in the coming years.

CO: He says NASA is supposed to be dedicated to exploring space. It's for the space program; it's not for this kind of research. There are other organizations like NOA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) that are doing that. It's not necessary for NASA to be involved in this — what do you say?

PP: This is just wrong. It's part of NASA's mission to study the Earth. The Earth is a planet in space, like Jupiter and Mars, and all the rest. We’re a planet and by studying our own planet we learn about the other ones and vice versa.

CO: So what is lost then if NASA stops doing its research into climate change — and as I understand this is principally satellite research — what happens to our understanding of climate change?

PP: Well, it won't grind to a halt necessarily because there are other people studying this all around the world. But this is a major, major blow. There are many satellites observing the Earth and we have to observe the entire planet. That's what NASA is studying. We have satellites that are measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the amount of water vapour, where the winds are blowing, how the oceans are behaving — all of these things are pieces of a global puzzle, and when they fit together that's what is telling us the story of human-generated climate change. This is not political. This is not left. It is not right. It is not neutral. It is just a fact.

CO: Mr. Walker says there is not a consensus among scientists that global warming is happening or that it's man made. You heard in that clip before we began, he couldn't cite sources for his statement during the interview but he did later tell us where he gets them from. He sent us an email where he says that the National Association of Scholars has reported that 40 percent of scientists with a speciality related to climate do not ascribe to anthropogenic warming. What is the National Association of Scholars?

PP: What that is, is a group funded by right-wing sponsors. Going through a list of what they say, it sounds like the typical kind of right-wing Fox News talking points. He also says that he got his numbers from the Centre for Climate Research. There is no such organization I can find online anywhere. Today, if you don't have a footprint on the web, come on. So I don't even know if that place exists. And it doesn't matter. The numbers he’s quoting are simply wrong.
Over the years many people have done surveys of papers published in climatological journals, they've talked to climatologists who have rated themselves on where they stand on human-caused global warming, and what they find over and over and over again is overwhelming consensus that humans are the ones doing this. They talk about the 97 percent climate consensus. This goes back roughly 15 years. There have been several studies including looking at abstracts of thousands of papers, and these papers again, are coming from the position that it is humans causing global warming.

CO: And he said that the Center for Climate Research is the… in the email he sent us, he said that that proves, that organization proved, that there wasn't a consensus of 97 percent, and he said that the 97 percent figure includes social scientists, and he was looking to see what climatologists had as a way of consensus. In that 97 percent figure which is used quite often who does that include?

PP: That includes climatologists. They didn'–

CO: But exclusively? Or does that include, as he says, social scientists?

PP: We’re talking about climatologists. Scientists who study the climate. And when you do that, that's where the consensus comes up. In fact, and again the hypocrisy here is so thick. One of the talking points is that, oh there's this other petition that shows that scientists don't believe this. When you look at the people who signed that petition, those are not climatologists. So when you talk to the climatologists, what you find is consensus: human-caused global warming is real.

CO: The third source he cites for us is something called Open Sources Science and Solutions. Do you know of that organization?

PP: I looked that up. That is an aggregator. That's not an actual… as far as I can tell, that is not a group that is doing the research, they are looking to see what other people are doing. So if you go there, you can find lots and lots of papers talking about human-caused global warming and how it's real. But there are also links to other groups that deny this. A lot of them are funded by fossil fuel industries. So yeah, it's like saying it's like going to the web. It's like, ‘I looked on Google and I found somebody who says that it's not real.’ It's like, yeah but that doesn't matter. What matters is what the scientists are saying. What matters is what the science is showing us. And what that is quite clear, that we're the ones behind this.

CO: If this is the direction that the Trump administration will take, do you see that you and other science writers are maybe not back to square one, but back to some beginning point of having to have these arguments actually defend climate change as a real thing?

PP: Yeah, sadly. Marshall Shepherd who was part of the American Meteorological Society, calls this “the zombies of climate change,” “the zombies of global warming,” these ideas that are undead. We have to kill them over and over again. That yes the world is warming up. Yes it's due to carbon dioxide. Yes the ice is melting. Yes we're causing climate change. Yes we're seeing extremes in weather. We're seeing the strongest hurricanes getting stronger, we're seeing droughts and floods and wildfires. All of this stuff is real and what we're seeing is from the Republican side. And we're going to see this from Trump and from his administration, because he's already putting climate change deniers in his cabinet. We're going be seeing the same claims made over and over again. I really fear for the future of science, for the future of government, for future of scientists. And honestly, the future of humanity. I read that there was a military advisory board that calls climate change a national security threat, and it's being ignored and downplayed when it's not being ignored, by our incoming government. This is a terrible, terrible disaster.

CO: Mr. Plait, we will leave it there. Thank you very much for coming on the program.

PP: Thank you.

JD: Phil Plait is an astronomer and a science writer for Slate-dot-com. We reached him in Boulder, Colorado via Skype. And you can find more on this story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Joel / Springsteen bike

JD: Guy goes into a fancy motorcycle shop. Wants a custom job. Owner of the shop tells him, "You're The Boss." Gets right to work. Builds him a classic Italian – a Moto Guzzi, with its classic four-stroke, air-cooled V-90 twin engine. Sixty-four horses. Customer loves it. Owner and customer shake hands, slap shoulders. Owner watches the guy drive off. Gets a wistful feeling. Wonders if he'll hear from the guy again. Has a feeling he will.
Flash forward a bit. The bike shop owner finds out one of the guy's motorcycles broke down. Guy was stranded in New Jersey until some other bikers showed up and helped him out. Owner's got a bad feeling. Calls the guy up.
"Heard about the bike," he says. "Hope it wasn't the one I built you."
"It was," the guy says.
Owner says he's sorry. Guy says it's no problem: he met some cool bikers, had a beer with them.
"Don't worry about it, Billy Joel," the guy says.
"Well, okay, Bruce Springsteen," the bike shop owner says.
Now of course, the bike shop owner's got lots of songs of his own. I mean, he is Billy Joel. But on Monday night, by way of apology, he plays one of Springsteen's songs at one of his monthly sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. Little ditty called "Born to Run." True story.

Back To Top »

Part 3: Sandra Jansen, Vancouver carfentanil, rap battle

Underwear Hero

Guest: Daniel McConnel

JD: He's a long-haired, shirtless, pantless, Australian. And he has been dubbed the "underwear hero.” Daniel McConnel's Internet stardom started at two a.m. today, when he heard a car slam into a neighbour's fish-and-chip joint. Mr. McConnel rushed out to confront the car's driver. And later on, he had this to say to a TV crew that showed up to interview him.

SOUNDCLIP

DANIEL MCCONNEL: I was lying in bed, and I was sleeping and me wife come in and said, “Oh, the shop’s been hit” and I was like, “Oh what?” And I've come outside, and I’ve seen all this commotion over here. And I was in me jocks. And then I saw the man that crashed into the scene. I seeing him run away and then come back to the car and I'm like, “What are you doing, mate?” And he's like, “I fell asleep behind the wheel. But he didn't look like someone that had just fallen asleep behind the wheel. Like and, all I had was me [unintelligible], and he started to take off up the street, and I said “What are you doing, mate?” And I started following him. He’s like, “Don't be a hero.” And I’m like, “I’m not being a hero, mate” And then he started taking off, so I come back to my house and I grabbed me Highender XL, and then started chasing him up the street and then he went down the backstreets, and um, I sent in the coppers, and I said, he's going down the back streets, and then they end up apprehending him, and I ended up just watching. All that commotion here at the shop.

JD: That was the Australian, Daniel McConnel, the "underwear hero." He’s being called that after chasing down a driver who crashed into a fish-and-chip shop near his house.

[Music]

Sandra Jansen

Guest:

JD: It was a difficult statement to hear. And it was difficult for Sandra Jansen to deliver.
This week, Ms. Jansen gave her first statement in the Alberta Legislature as a newly-minted NDP MLA. She began by reading the comments she'd received from some Albertans since her departure from the Progressive Conservatives. A warning: this clip contains some strong language.

SOUNDCLIP

SANDRA JANSEN: What a traitorous bitch.”
“Another useless tit goes NDP.”
“Dead meat.”
“Sandra should stay in the kitchen where she belongs.”
“Fly with the crows and get shot.”
“Dumb broad. A good place for her to be is with the rest of the queers.”

JD: Last week, Ms. Jansen crossed the floor from the PC party. She says she left that party because of the harassment and intimidation she faced at a party convention earlier this month. She now has a security detail – the only provincial politician, besides Premier Rachel Notley, to receive that kind of protection. We reached Sandra Jansen in Edmonton.

CAROL OFF: Ms. Jansen do you fear for your safety?

SANDRA JANSEN: No I don't. I'm well taken care of here. We have a wonderful security team and I have a pretty fantastic caucus to work with and they have faced a torrent of abuse in the year and a half since they took their positions in office, and so the support has actually been quite wonderful.

CO: So why do you have a security detail?

SJ: Well, you know, certainly there are some angry folk out there. I have, you know, recieved some alarming emails, and I have folks who are taking care of it.

CO: Why is it that you have turned this to this direction? Why is it necessary? Just tell us a bit about what you are experiencing.

SJ: Well I think I first started to see the rhetoric amp up when I entered the PC leadership race in the fall of this year, and, you know, have a record of speaking out on LGBTQ rights and women's reproductive rights. And for folks on a more socially conservative side, they didn't like that at all. And so the sexist rhetoric was got worse and worse as time went on. And finally when I made the decision to step out of the race, you know, I stepped out of the race because I went to a policy conference for the PC party and I was chased up and down the hall by anti-abortion protesters. And I really left that weekend shaking and that's when I pulled out of the PC leadership race and just came to the realization that weekend can do that that party wasn't a fit for me anymore.
So when I finally made my decision to join the new Democrats, it really sort of reached an apex. And things got to the point where you know, there was some very violent language being used, you know, “fly with the crows and get shot,” “Dead meat,” “You should be stoned to death.” And then other very sexualized, unbelievably violent kind of messaging that was out there, the worst of which I certainly didn't say on the floor of the legislature, but that kind of offensive material was put on my Facebook page and my Twitter feed every day.

CO: What you're referring, this is your introductory speech in the Alberta legislature as an NDP MLA. What you did read out, it was quite extraordinary, shocking people in the house. So you are actually telling us now that that was not as bad as it actually is. You have not told the public some of the worst stuff?

SJ: Well actually, it wasn't anywhere close to the worst, but I've taken screenshots and put it on my Twitter account, of some of the worse things. And so there is an opportunity for people to have seen it and they saw it in the last number of months and they still continue to see it to this very day. So it's still out there. But I'm not the only one who faces this. I mean, in the days since I spoke those words in the chamber, I have received thousands of messages, direct messages on Twitter, messages from Facebook from female legislators, from mayors, from [unintelligible], from women in political life across this country who said “I'm experiencing that too and thank you for standing up.”

CO: You said after you quit the PCs, you said that the party had been taken over by extremists. Who are you referring to?

SJ: Well I think it's no secret that one of the candidates, Jason Kenney, is very socially conservative. And the element of people that were coming after me at that policy conference were his supporters. And certainly the rhetoric that I saw there was extremely concerning. That's not my Alberta, that's not the narrative that I want to see going forward. People were coming up to me in the hallway, anti-abortion protesters, who were telling me they joined the PC party to make sure that I was not successful. And they came up to me and said that to my face. So it was a very adversarial and very unpleasant.

CO: This was all, the policy convention where you say that they pursued you down hallways, they wrote things on your poster, I believe you had the C-word written on your nomination papers. Do you believe that the people behind that attack on you that forced you to leave the running for the leadership were Mr. Kenney's supporters.

SJ: Well the people certainly who were pursuing me up and down the hallway, the anti-abortion protesters, were wearing hats that said Jason Kenney. So, I mean, it's not really hard to make that determination.

CO: He says he's not responsible for his people or not. He would never tolerate that. He would never condone such behaviour. What do you say to Mr. Kenney?

SJ: Well I would say that certainly the proof is in the action. I'm not sure that too many people went out of their way to curb that kind of behavior at that event. So, you know, I would say I'm not very confident in that assertion.

CO: Your opponents are saying that you left the leadership race and the party because you didn't have a chance of winning against Jason Kenney. What do you say to that?

SJ: Well, you know, he certainly is a machine, and if the majority of people support the kinds of things he talks about, then it isn't my party. If the conversation is going to be about limiting women's reproductive rights, about outing gay kids in schools, then yes, I don't have a place at that table. And I realized that I was, you know, speaking to a group of people who weren't at all interested in listening to what I wanted to say.

CO: And if a woman needs to have a security detail in order to go to work each day as a politician what does that say about women in politics, and the opportunities that exist or don't exist. Well it doesn't say a lot of positive things right now but what it should say is, here's an opportunity for legislators to stand up and say I'm going to make sure that that doesn't become the norm in Canada. And right now, my biggest fear is really there is a whole generation of young women who were saying, “what an unattractive proposition politics is right now. Why would I want to get involved in it?” And those are the critical voices we need to have at the table. They're the ones who are going to put together the future policy and legislation that make life better for women in this country.

CO: Ms. Jansen thank you for coming on the program.

SJ: Happy to talk to you. Take care.

JD: Sandra Jansen is an NDP member of the Legislative Assembly for Calgary-North West. We reached her in Edmonton.

[Music]

Vancouver carfentanil

Guest: Janice Abbott

JD: Fentanyl overdoses have already been called a crisis on the streets of Canadian cities. Now, in places like Vancouver, there's a new, even more deadly drug on the scene. It's called carfentanil. And it's a hundred times more potent than fentanyl.
Janice Abbott is the head of an organization that provides housing for women in Vancouver. In the past ten days, three tenants in her buildings have died – and many more have been saved after overdosing. We reached Ms. Abbott in Vancouver.

CO: Ms. Abbott, how are you and your staff coping with three of your clients’ deaths in ten days.

JANE ABBOTT: With difficulty. It's been a struggle.

CO: Can you tell us a bit about what happened?

JA: So while we don't have final cause of death from coroners, we believe that all three of the deaths were overdoses. Two of the deaths happened in the community, so we're not even really sure where the where the women overdosed, and joined them in the hospital when they were on life support. So it's difficult, especially when you know women well, and you lose them unnecessarily.

CO: How unusual is it for you to have this many deaths and overdoses in such a short period of time?

JA: Profoundly unusual. If we have three deaths a year, even, that’s high.

CO: Why do you think this is happening?

JA: Well we believe that there’s bad opiates on the streets, so women, well tenants, both men and women don't have control over what they're using. They don't always know what they're using and they're taking even women and men who have used for a long time are taking stuff that they're not used to.

CO: There's something that is now much in the news, carfentanil. What can you tell us about that?

JA: Only that it's recently come to Vancouver, and that it's a powerful high for people. So we do actually have tenants who seek fentanyl and carfentanil because of the impact of it without maybe completely understanding the risk.

CO: I understand it’s 100 times more powerful than fentanyl. It’s used as a tranquilizer for elephants.

JA: Yeah.

CO: What are you able to do for people? I mean you have naloxone and you've got things of that nature. What can you actually do for people who are overdosing and these kinds of drugs?

JA: So all of our staff are certified to administer Nalaxone, and there's a number of tenants who have been certified by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. So we were busy this week putting up stickers in all our hotels, putting stickers or asking tenants to put stickers on their doors so that people know where help is available. So our staff have to do… we're doing more rounds. We did round's hourly but now we're having to check bathrooms and nooks and crannies where tenants, guests might be. Sometimes, most often it takes two or three doses of Naloxone to revive somebody or to reverse an overdose. And we're doing that seven or eight times every day over the last couple of weeks.

CO: And once again, is that unusually high?

JA: Yeah, yeah. So typically over the last year, our staff has been trained to administer Nalaxone for about three years, and up until recently, it was that many a week.

CO: I want to ask you about the women who died. I know that you knew them. Can you tell us a bit about one woman in particular I know you were quite close with?

JA: Yeah she was… in her late 40s. Someone that had a huge presence in our organisation was well known across our organization. A big, gregarious lass, a big personality. Someone who will be missed by everybody who knew her, and she was well known in the community as well.

CO: All three of the women who overdosed you dealt with in the past 10 days, they were all indigenous women is that right?

JA: Yes they were.

CO: So what can you do to try and protect these women, your clients, from these kinds of drugs? What can you possibly do?

JA: It feels a little bit like what we are doing is a Band-Aid in the way of posters. We have conversations with women, we ask women to let us know if they're going to use, and to make sure that they don't use alone. Everybody knows that we have Nalaxone in the office. But as I said, two of the women who died didn't die at home; they died in the community somewhere so all of this feels in some ways like a Band-Aid, not a solution.

CO: We spoke with Sarah Blythe's the other day. And she is operating now, or they are operating two emergency tents, emergency health centers, or places, emergency centers, for people who are overdosing in the downtown east side. I asked her if it's even legal what she's doing, and she says “If it's not,” she says, “Bring it on. If you want to come down and challenge me, what I'm doing, bring it on, because we're in the middle of a crisis here.”

JA: That's true. And I, you know, at the end of the day, you do what's going to save a life and you worry about the consequences, after, whatever they may be. So, if, you know, if it's against the law, it's against the law. But again, if the choice is between breaking the law and saving the life, you choose the latter what do you need.

CO: What do you need? What are people who are working in downtown east-side trying to help people who are addicts, what do you need?

JA: We need better drug policy. Prohibition isn't working. People are dying. So we need better drug policy and we can't wait five years or ten years or two years or one year for the policy to be changed or to be improved. And that will go a long way to solving this problem as opposed to putting Band-Aids on it. And in the immediate, you know I were I worry about my staff. I worry about what it's like to feel responsible, so responsible, for so many lives. And you do carry that weight.

CO: And if you say, you don't need prohibition, what do you need instead of it?

JA: Regulation. We need, you know, people need to be sure that what they're buying is safe and pure, and has a seal of approval, because what they're buying now is killing them.

CO: And how likely is it that governments, any government would pass laws that would change street drugs from being something that is illegal to something that is regulated.

JA: I believe unfortunately that it's a long haul. I don't think it's something that's going to happen quickly enough.

CO: Ms. Abbott, I'm sorry for the loss of your friends and for the struggle that your that your fellow workers are going through, but I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

JA: Thank you.

JD: Janice Abbott is the head of Atira Women's Resource Society, which provides housing for women in Vancouver.

[Music]

Miriam Toews

JD: Her fiction achieves a nearly-impossible balance of humour and heartache. And, last night in Toronto, Manitoba-born writer Miriam Toews did the same thing in person, as she accepted another accolade. The author of "All My Puny Sorrows" and "A Complicated Kindness" received the $50,000 Writers Trust Fellowship for 2016. It's an award that honours exceptional creative ability and outstanding promise. Here is some of what Ms. Toews said.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: applause]

“Woah. All these feelings. Plus wine, plus menopause, plus social media. Am I right? Thank you. I'm going to read something. I tried to write a poem for this occasion.
I've never written a poem except for once when I was 16 and my boyfriend had determined that he would be happier with a girl named Terrapin. He told me I was more of a Molly or Jodie. But is that important? I asked him. He said, unfortunately it was.
When I got home that evening I sat in my father's easy chair like Lucy Jordan in the Marianne Faithfull song, except in the song she says “In my daddy's easy chair,”and I don't call my father Daddy. All I remember from that poem was a line about the fridge turning on and turning off and something about the night and about silence. So this is my second poem. And I'm dedicating it to writers. It's called “Surrender.” It's also called “Don't surrender.” It's also called “Easy Chair.” It's also called “A Man and a Woman and a Terrapin are One.” It's also called, “What Even is a Terrapin?” It's also called “Love.” This is the poem:

Writers, can you hear me? You saved my life.

Thank you.

JD: That was Miriam Toews, the recipient of this year's Writer’s Trust Fellowship. She was speaking last night in Toronto.

[Music]

Rap battle

Guest: Jonathan Emile

JD: Five years ago, hip-hop star Kendrick Lamar contributed a verse to a Montreal rapper's song. But when the song came out, Mr. Lamar's representatives accused him of copyright infringement -- and ordered him to take the song down.
Now, Jonathan Emile has won a David-versus-Goliath battle for damages in small claims court. We reached Jonathan Emile in Montreal.

CO: Mr. Emile, at the center of this copyright dispute is this song you wrote, “Heaven Help Them.” What inspired that song?

JE: The song was initially inspired by the death of Fredy Villanueva. He was a young man who was killed by the police in Montreal. Basically what I wanted to do was to just talk about police brutality as a theme at the time, but also through the ages as well. And that's what really inspired it. And as the list of police brutality victims grew and grew, you know I took even more inspiration from that and you know, felt the song was still as relevant as the day I wrote it.

CO: And, how did the American hip-hop star Kendrick Lamar become involved in order to write a verse for your song?

JE: Well, it was the equivalent of a cold call. We sent an e-mail with some of my previous work, the song in question that we wanted him to feature on, and his management team agreed to go ahead with the recording.

CO: And were these some original lyrics, or is it something that he had written already? Something that he already had in a song?

JE: No these were original lyrics. So this was an all new verse that he was contributing to the song. And in hip hop, you know, it's really common for people to do collaborations like this, at a distance, you know, in their respective studios. But to come together on the theme and the final product.

CO: And now, did you have direct contact with Kendrick Lamar?

JE: No never. In fact, it was my manager dealing with his manager, and that was the only contact.

CO: But it was great to get Kendrick Lamar involved I guess.

JE: Absolutely.

CO: Well his star was rising at that time and it was my guess, I’m sure hard to get, to nail him down. But you felt that you had an understanding. That it was all… the deal was it was clear. Is that right?

JE: Well yeah. We were given certain assurances that never came to be, just in terms of their commitments to finalize all the paperwork and get everything done. So we went into it pretty confident you know that things would work out. Paperwork is just a formality after the artist created. So we were left sort of sort of hanging after. Our lawyer trying to get in contact with his lawyers, management trying to get in contact with his management again after the transaction was made, and the song was delivered.

CO: But you paid Mr. Lamar for his role. Is that right?

JE: Yes definitely.

CO: So you felt that it was settled.

JE: Yes absolutely. And I was given an assurance that it was so.

CO: And so how surprising was it to find out that it wasn't?

JE: It was quite surprising. The amount of resistance that we faced when we informed them that the song would be released and the song… when the song went up was not something I expected.

CO: And this was “Heaven Help Them” was going to be featured on your new album, The Lover/Fighter Document. So what happened with the album?

JE: Well the release of the album was delayed for sure because I had to start talking with more lawyers and less musicians for a while. So we delayed the launch of the album until the fall of 2015. But the album did come together.

CO: But did you have your song, “Heaven Help Them.” Was that part of it?

JE: Yes it was, yes. So it did appear on the album because as my lawyers indicated to me, and as YouTube and SoundCloud confirmed, I had the right to distribute this after making that transaction and after getting that agreement.

CO: How much grief did Mr. Lamar's people give you?

JE: It wasn't a lot of grief. There was about two or three conversations altogether, and just a wall of silence afterwards. So you know, in their minds, I guess they felt it was resolved. They cut the momentum and cut the ability for me to promote the song by overreaching and abusing their close partnership with YouTube and SoundCloud. Because they are major label, they were able to basically snuff it out.

CO: You took this to Quebec small claims court and you won.

JE: Yes.

CO: How does that victory feel?

JE: I'm not sure. At this time you know, it doesn't really feel like a victory. It feels like a vindication. It feels like I was right in feeling that my moral rights were stepped upon.

CO: But because it's Quebec’s small claims court, the award was small. $8,000 dollars.

JE: It's not about really about the money for me. It was more about making a statement about who I am as an individual. And you know making a statement for independent artists because it is the norm for major labels to snuff out, silence, to impede the progress of independent artists if they don't have a vested interest.

CO: All right, well I thank you for speaking with Mr. Emile.

JE: Thank you so much, Carol.

JD: Jonathan Emile is a Canadian rapper who won in small-claims court against his one-time collaborator, Kendrick Lamar. We reached Mr. Emile in Montreal.

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Nov. 24, 2016 episode transcript

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