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The AIH Transcript for February 17, 2021

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: Cold comfort. Millions of Texans are in dire straits after that snowstorm that knocked out power and water in much of the state. Our guest says that now she and her neighbours are running out of food.

CH: The corridors of no power. An oil and gas reporter in Texas tells us her state has been walloped not just by winter weather, but by a series of political decisions that made this week's grid failure all too predictable.

CO: Clawing back their profits. Last year, Mi'kmaw fishermen fought for their right to trap lobsters out of season. Now a Nova Scotia chief is going to court to push the province to let his people sell what they catch.

CH: Falling through the snacks. Quebec's premier announces that movie theatres will be open in time for spring break but one cinema CEO says if the province won't let him open concession stands, he can't afford to open his doors.

CO: A different drummer. The late Johnny Pacheco was at the centre of the salsa explosion in New York in the 60s, not just as the life of the party, but as the host of it as well.

CH: And calf au lait. Visitors to a nature park in the Ozark Mountains are able to see a rare animal that pales in comparison. Now that a white baby bison has joined the herd. As It Happens, the Wednesday edition, radio that hopes the Rangers will be thoughtful about revealing its exact location because discretion is the better part of power.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Texas Family Impact

Texas Family Impact

Guest: Patti Feddersen

CH: The situation got bad, fast, and for millions of people in Texas, it's been getting slowly worse since. On Sunday, the state was hit by a snowstorm that took out electricity for millions of people. More than three days later, Texans are still in the cold with very few answers about when things will go back to normal. And in the meantime, people have been left to fend for themselves with many burning furniture or sitting in their cars to stay warm. Patti Fedderson is one of the millions without power. We reached her in Rockport, Texas, southwest of Houston.

CO: Patti, what is your situation there with electricity and water?

PATTI FEDDERSEN: It is getting better than what it was from the beginning, I believe this all started on Sunday with a drop in temperatures and we first lost power and then we lost the water service. We don't have any cell service. We're just on our own as far as Wi-Fi. We just have the cell phone communication with other people. That's probably the situation for everybody around here.

CO: Right. And what are you hearing from your neighbours? I know you mentioned before we began that you have a generator because I was worried about your cell phone being charged. But how are your neighbours doing?

PF: From talking to other people, they're supposed to be having rolling outages, but the majority of people have been out from the beginning. They have not had their service put back online. Then some have. Most everybody's been trying to help other people. We offered our house for showers until we lost our water and now we don't have anything and other people have offered it to us that have it. But again, like I say, I don't understand the rolling blackout portion of it because for most people it's been out since the beginning.

CO: And that's what they said right? The utility company or at your energy provider said they're warned there might be rolling blackouts. And they said an hour here, a few, maybe a few hours. But did you have any anticipation that you would be so completely locked out of power and water?

PF: No, we never expected that. We've dealt with hurricanes before to where we knew that we were going to lose power. And with this, we knew we were going to be cold, but we didn't expect the power to go out. So this has been quite a surprise. The only advantage, I guess, now with us is we don't as of now haven't lost any food for ourselves because it's cold enough that if your refrigerator is not running, you can set it outside. Your food is still OK temporarily. But again, the temperatures are going to be going up. So now, the issue is just that we are running out of food and water. The grocery store, we only have one in town which is an ATB and it was open until yesterday. I believe they closed because of the no water issue. And their shelves are basically empty because they're not able to get trucks in. So people are running out of fuel for their vehicles right now because it's not being able to be transported in. And then the food in the grocery store is also.

CO: OK. And I have questions about how people are surviving all of that. But how cold is it like what's it like at home right now? Do you have a way to get warm?

PF: Yes, well, we do here right now, but from the beginning, no, we didn't. It just stays cold outside temperature, I think, for us got down to about nine degrees and we are from Texas and we're not used to that. We're used to 100 degree weather. So anything below 40 for us is usually cold, but tolerable. This one digit temperature is totally different than what any of us expected.

CO: Right. What you're describing, just for Canadians to translate, that's a minus 12 Celsius. So we know from that, that is cold. And how much snow did you get?

PF: We actually did not get any here in south Texas, but I believe they did an hour north of us, maybe 30 minutes north of us. They did see it. We saw sleet and ice in our area.

CO: Are you getting the freezing rain that others are getting?

PF: We did get it, but not today because our temperatures are above freezing today. I think we're going to go back down tonight to below freezing. But this should be the last night of that temperature.

CO: When you said the trucks aren't getting into the grocery store to bring supplies. Why not?

PF: I believe from the road conditions that they're not able to travel.

CO: So outside of your area, they can't get in. We've seen pictures and it's a lot of ice.

PF: There's a lot of bridges in between us and one of the sources or the traffic just can't get through, not just the trucks, but anybody. People that I don't know of jobs that are still going on. I'm sure there are some that the majority of people aren't even able to get to work.

CO: Have you ever gone through anything like this before?

PF: No, never. And I'm 61 years old, so no, ma'am, I've never gone through anything like this as far as ice, we've been without power again because of hurricanes. Our city was a direct hit to Hurricane Harvey a couple of years ago, but we were able to evacuate and we knew it was coming. So you prepare and you prepare your home for it. This you can't leave. You can't go anywhere. You're just here to fend for yourselves.

CO: Who do you blame?

PF: Right now as far as Texas, it's probably whoever is in charge of the power grid. There's something that went wrong.

CO: That's the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, ERCOT, right?

PF: I would say so. There's something definitely wrong there that they were not that prepared. I think, though, we've never experienced anything like that. So something needs to change.

CO: Right. And what do you have any idea how much your energy bills are going to be at the end of this?

PF: No. And at this point, we really don't care because we just want to keep warm and keep healthy, because that would cost a lot more if we got sick.

CO: So what are your plans for the next few days?

PF: We just stay here. We are not able to get out to go anywhere. Nothing's open. There's no restaurants, there's no stores. So we're going through our cabinets to see what we can eat, what's left over here and just staying at home.

CO: What's for dinner tonight?

PF: We have some leftover food from what I had cooked previously that was in the freezer that we're thawing out.

CO: And you can eat that cold?

PF: We can if necessary.

CO: Patti, it sounds awful. And you'll be in the dark again tonight.

PF: It will be here, yes. And no water.

CO: I hope it all changes soon for you. We know what it's like here in Canada, to lose all your power. And so we wish you best. And thanks for speaking with us.

PF: Thank you. Appreciate it.

CO: Bye.

PF: Bye.

CH: Patti Feddersen is amongst the millions of Texans without power or water. We reached her in Rockport.

Texas Energy Grid

Guest: Rachel Adams-Heard

CH: For people like Ms. Feddersen, answers remain nearly as scarce as basic utilities today. Lawmakers across the state are promising enquiries and investigations into this week's power outages. But critics say that politicians' efforts to deregulate the Texas power grid are a huge part of the problem and that despite rolling blackouts following a devastating winter storm 10 years ago, too little was done to prevent this week's suffering. Rachel Adams-Heard as an energy reporter for Bloomberg. We reached her in Houston.

CO: Rachel, we just spoke with a woman in Rockport, Texas. She said that they can send people into outer space. Why can't they keep them warm during a cold snap? What would you say to her?

RACHEL ADAMS-HEARD: Well, I think that's what a lot of Texans are wondering, especially folks who live in places like Rockport, because I'm in Houston, we prepare for hurricanes all the time and the drill has been, you know, ingrained into everyone's minds. Go to ATB, get your water, go get your non-perishable food items. And we just were not told that we were going to be without power for so long. And so I think a lot of folks are wondering why we were so unprepared for this event.

CO: You know, you could no one could have prevented the weather event that you got hit with the extreme weather. But was the collapse of the infrastructure preventable?

RACHEL ADAMS-HEARD: You know, I think a lot of folks say that it is because we had a winter storm a decade ago, that really tested our grid, and we realised that we needed to make a lot of upgrades and enhancements and a lot of pieces were done, but not to prepare for a storm that was greater than that one. And what you saw was just system wide failure. It wasn't just, you know, politicians are boiling it down to, was it wind, was it gas but at the end of the day. That was the result of so many different things going wrong and really a systemic failure.

CO: And we'll tell people as they listen that the crackling on the phone, that we may lose you because for the same reason everything else is down that you are down to not much cell contact, but now your grid operator in Texas, the Electric Reliability Council, is that a bit of a misnomer at this point?

RACHEL ADAMS-HEARD: That's the joke. I've seen people call it Bercot who because it's so cold. But, yeah, there's a lot of frustration with ERCOT. There's a lot of frustration with the utilities, folks just want to know who messed up here, why we are on day three of these blackouts. At this point the main concern today has become water. Houston and Austin were under a boil notice because the water pressure was dropped to low. The water utilities and the power utilities are intertwined. And when you lose one, you raise the risk of losing the other. And like I said, a lot of people just didn't know to prepare for something like this. And there isn't bottled water at their homes. And you can't boil water if you don't have power, and you have an electric stove. So this is quickly turning into a very dangerous situation.

CO: I want to play a clip from the governor of your state, Greg Abbott. He was on FOX News blaming wind power and slamming the idea of a green new deal. And here's some of what he had to say to Sean Hannity on Fox.

GREG ABBOTT: Sean, this shows how the green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America. Texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy, such as natural gas and oil and nuclear, as well as solar and wind. But you saw from what Trey said, and that is our win in our solar, they got shut down and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid. And that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis. That was power that was spread out by that ERCOT organization, the organization that you were talking about as a result, it just shows that fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas as well as other states.

CO: All right. So that's the argument. What do you say to your governor?

RACHEL ADAMS-HEARD: Well, I'm glad that you play that clip, because I actually haven't had enough power to stream the whole thing so I've just seen the read out of it online, but the pushback to that has been that it wasn't driven by wind. Yes, the wind turbines froze. But the main surprise to a lot of folks who watched the Texas power market is that natural gas came up short and that's a fuel that we consider to be reliable. We are an oil and gas state. At the end of the day, that's what Houston was built on. And we saw natural gas freeze offs well out in West Texas and other places where we produce that fuel. And then we also saw power plant failure as well.

CO: But and so another part of it is that how much of it was the physical structure failing and how much of it was the financial structure for power generation in your state where there's a kind of emphasis on cheap prices over putting, investing in infrastructure and there's a lot of deregulation, free markets really govern your system there. So how much of it was the financial structure?

RACHEL ADAMS-HEARD: I think this is going to be a major focus moving forward as we figure out what exactly went wrong and what we need to fix. Certainly, Texas is unique in the fact that we have a deregulated market. I sometimes forget that it's unusual that when you leave some place, like Huston, you don't see power companies, billboards everywhere competing for you to pick them. But from what I heard from folks yesterday, they didn't seem to think that we are anywhere near getting rid of our deregulated market and that that's probably going to stick around for quite some time. The question is, how do we make upgrades to our system to ensure that we're better prepared for major storms like we're seeing this week?

CO: The woman we spoke with said that she doesn't care how much it would cost. She just wants to have the electricity back. But is she because it's based on use and the price of electricity is skyrocketing. Is she likely to have quite a sticker shock when she gets her next bill?

RACHEL ADAMS-HEARD: I think that's an outstanding question. And certainly there are going to be a lot of anxious people waiting for that bill. There's actually one power company in Texas where you pay in wholesale prices. So you don't have the protection of the company taking on some of that risk. So, you know, most of the time you're paying rates that are a lot lower. But when you see prices hit that crazy 9000 dollars figure, you're really exposed. And I'm sure that's going to be a major focus. Like when you get your bill and you're trying to figure out what exactly went wrong there, I would assume that there are few folks who are not willing to take on that risk after the storm.

CO: Yikes, well, Rachel, I appreciate that you'd use a bit of your cell service to bring us up to date on this story. Thank you.

RACHEL ADAMS-HEARD: Thank you. Have a good one.

CO: Bye bye.

CH: Rachel Adams-Heard is an energy reporter for Bloomberg. She's in Houston.

[Music: mystery music]

Quebec Movie Theatres

Guest:Vincenzo Guzzo

CH: Yesterday, Quebec Premier Francois Legault had some good news for anyone bored with the small screen. Cinemas he said would reopen by February 26th in time for the winter school break. But maybe he was too quick to roll the coming attractions because one of Quebec's major theatre owners is saying not so fast. When he isn't testing entrepreneurs on CBC TV's Dragons Den, Vincenzo Guzzo is running Guzzo Cinemas, which have megaplexes in and around Montreal.

CO: Vincenzo, the premier of Quebec, has said that he has talked to his, quote, friend, Mr. Guzzo, before promising to open movie theatres for a spring break. So he seems to have consulted you. Why would you now say you might not reopen?

VINCENZO GUZZO: Well, the truth of the matter is, you have to remember we consult amongst each other, not because, you know, the premier or public health needs my approval to do anything is because they are not theatre operators and they need to understand the restrictions they want to impose. Can they be applied to a movie theatre business and does it make sense? Is it viable or not? So, you know, we've had these discussions with public health, you know, every week, you know, since we've been closed. And, you know, we've had to regretfully always hear that from public health, that they never asked for the closure of cinema. And in fact, when Dr. Arruda went to the National Assembly, he did admit that his recommendations were to keep restaurants open and that the decision to close them was a political one. He seems to have forgotten that the theatres were also involved in that. But that's fine. I mean, you know, the message was out. That basically for three months. Our premier lied to us by saying it's not me, it's the public health. It wants to close the restaurant.

CO: Let's go back to the cinema. So your big issue is the popcorn. Right?

VG: So as I was going to say to you, because of that experience, we speak to public health. So we have gone over what we would call the new restriction. The new restrictions are basically from wearing a face mask. You now have to wear a procedural mask. And unfortunately, there's an eight o'clock curfew that we have to contend with, unless we can convince the premier to bring it to 9:30. Those are the only two new things that were being brought to the table. Everything else was supposed to be exactly like July, August, September, when we were open. So there was no mention of food. And so yesterday's clip or yesterday's ad campaign, you know, saying what the restrictions were going to be referred to three restrictions, which is the mask, two metres and the 250. Today in their press release being added in the food requirement or the food restriction. It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't work in the context. And public health knows that.

CO: OK, sorry, about that, the health minister, Christian Dube in Quebec said that people would take their masks off to eat their popcorn, and that's a health risk. What do you say to him?

VG: Well, I say to him, if I remember well, his academic background is he's an accountant. So let's stick to being an accountant. Let's let public health and Dr. Aruda, who's an expert in pandemics and is actually reading the science as it evolves, says that it's OK. So, you know, I don't know. You know, the biggest problem we have in Quebec is we're paying Dr. Arruda. Three hundred thousand dollars to be our public health expert and a minister gets, what, maybe one seventy five? And now I'm going to listen to an accountant who happens to be minister of health. I am not convinced of that. I mean, I'd really like to have Dr. Arruda back at the National Assembly and let's ask him the question, is he the one imposing this? And if he says no, that will be the second lie. We openly catch this government on.

CO: OK, so you're willing to comply with all the other regulations, but you're drawing the line at not being able to sell popcorn and soft drinks?

VG: Exactly. Because the truth of the matter is, if public health had brought that up, we would not even be discussing the opening of theatres. It would be a condition that we could not abide by. So we just say, look keep us closed for a few more weeks. But I guess because, you know, they need the babysitting service during spring break. I guess they wanted the theatres open, but they thought that we were so desperate to open, that we would take any condition. The truth of the matter is we're already losing half the revenue because the day is cut in half because of the confinement. And then we're losing another half of what we have left because we have no concession sales. So about 25 percent of business doesn't make sense to open under those conditions. It's actually a money losing proposition. We don't even have the big blockbuster movie. I don't even think we can comply with, you know, certain of the first run requirements that we may have.

CO: OK, but if it's the last straw, the final line you can't cross is not being able to sell the food. How much money do you make from popcorn?

VG: Fifty percent of our revenue comes from the sales of foodstuffs in movie theatres.

CO: OK, so that's why you don't like us to bring our own food.

VG: Exactly. And you have to remember that the funny thing is not only this time do I have to make sure you don't bring your food. I have to also make sure you don't eat your own food while I can't sell my food.

CO: So you think the premier Legault, his whole point of trying to get you to open is that he wants someone to take care of the kids during winter break?

VG: Well, he did say that we must give children a place to go with their families. And he did not open the live theatres and they're asking themselves why they didn't. And I think the lady who represents that group did mention that, you know, kids also like to go to live theatre. I think that the premier's intention was, you know, going to the movies is a seven year experience for kids. You know, going to live theatre may be more of a twenty dollar experience. So there might be an issue there. You know, it's pretty clear that he's doing it for, you know, finding something to do for the kids. And I'm all fine and OK with that. But my real concern is, you know, you cannot selectively refer to public health when you want to and abide by their recommendation and totally put aside their recommendation.

CO: Vincenzo, it's good to talk to you. Thanks.

VG: Thank you.

CO: Bye.

VG: Bye bye.

CH: Vincenzo Guzzo is the CEO of Guzzo Cinemas in Quebec.

[Music: pop music instrumental]

Johnny Pacheco Obit

CH: Salsa means sauce, and it takes a great chef to make a great sauce in the kitchen or in the case of salsa music in the recording studio, and Johnny Pacheco was one of the greatest. The Godfather of Salsa died on Monday. He was 85. He was born in Dominican Republic and moved to the Bronx at age 11. By the time he was a teenager, he could play harmonica, violin, flute, clarinet, saxophone and timbales. And in his 20s in 1963, he co-founded Fania Records with a guy named Jerry Masucci. Under the Fania Banner, Johnny Pacheco methodically assembled one of the most amazing rosters of talent ever Hector Lavoe, Celia Cruz, Ruben Blades and Willie Colon, to name a few. Nevertheless, the early days of the label were tough, as he told interviewer Aurora Flores in 2003.

AURORA FLORES: Those first initial records. How did you operate? You didn't have an office. You guys were riding around in your car tell me a little bit about that.

JOHNNY PACHECO: I had a 180 Mercedes we used to put all the records in the trunk. The car was like this. And then we used to go to the record shop. I used to deliver records on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and Jerry used to do, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I remember going down to the 42nd street the record [inaudible] downstairs and would make a delivery. It was cool like hell. And my nose was running and one guy said look at Pacheco making deliveries. [inaudible].

AF: So those are fun times.

JP: Yeah. Then I started looking over, you know, looking when we got money together, I started looking for talent. The first guys were like Bobby Valentine, Andy Harlow and Willie Colon. I'll only go along and we started building up the company. One of the things that I... That I liked about it, that we treated everybody like they're like family. They got paid royalties. They got paid for recording. And then it became such, there was so much harmony in the company that if you needed somebody to work [inaudible], there was never any jealousy, which is a beautiful thing to have.

CH: Fania artists quickly became the centre of the salsa scene, with Johnny Pacheco serving as bandleader, producer and musician on many of the label's albums. In 1972, Fania released the album Celia and Johnny, his collaboration with the great Celia Cruz. He knew it would be great from the start. As he said, when you make a sauce, you have different ingredients. And when I saw the band and the singer, I thought, this is what we got. We got salsa.

[Music: Salsa music instrumental]

Part 2: First Nations Lobster Suit

First Nations Lobster Suit

Guest: Chief Wilbert Marshall

CH: Last year, Mi'kmaw, fishermen in Nova Scotia asserted that they had a right to trap lobster, even though it was outside the normal commercial season. There were tense standoffs and even violence as non-indigenous fishermen objected. Now two First Nations have launched legal actions against the Nova Scotia government, saying they have a right not just to catch lobster, but to sell it. Wilbert Marshall is the chief of the Potlotek First Nation. We reached him in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

CO: Chief Marshall, why did you feel that a lawsuit was the best way to get the province to recognise your right to sell lobster?

WILBERT MARSHALL: I don't think they were taking this any seriously, really, we just got tired of our own people, our own fisheries getting left out like the differences between the commercial fishermen and the livelihood fisherman. There's a big difference in price, big gap.

CO: Now, last year, your members tried to sell their lobster catch to buyers and processors in Nova Scotia. What happened then?

WM: The province sent a letter to all the buyers saying they're not allowed to buy [inaudible] products or any lobster.

CO: So no one would buy your lobster then.

WM: Nobody would buy lobsters, no the buyers, wouldn't. They wanted to but they couldn't. They were scared of repercussions.

CO: Right now, when you refer to the moderate livelihood fishermen and the commercial fishermen, that's the two different groups you're referring to. Moderate livelihood are the indigenous people who've had their right to fish for a moderate livelihood by the Supreme Court. That's what you refer to?

WM: Yes, it was that reaffirmed by the Supreme Court.

CO: And can you just explain why you think that that moderate livelihood that the Supreme Court recognised extends to being able to sell the catch to commercial processors outside of the commercial season?

WM: It's not outside of the commercial, it's our season. It's our plan, which they told us to come up with a plan and we did. They just didn't like the seasons. They wanted to fish side by side with the commercial fishermen. But before that, when it happened, before we had so much animosity, you know, what happened before when we first started fishing way back 20 years ago? [inaudible] fighting fish [inaudible]. Every time we went to go get fish, there. Our traps were cut or burnt or both were vandalised. So couldn't make any money, your own plan.

CO: OK, so you're saying that it's not outside the season because you've established your own season.

WM: Exactly. [inaudible] the government. They call it outside the commercial season, but it's our plan how we want it.

CO: OK, but again, going back to because you're referring to when you said 20 years ago, this is just after the Supreme Court made that decision based on the rights of Donald Marshall Jr. It was a landmark case, very important.

WM: And I was just reading your example there. What happened. We had such a brief look like people were vandalising our gear and our guys did want to see that happen.

CO: Well, in some parts of the province, there was violence and threats just this past year. So is that possibly...

WM: There wasn't, there wasn't,[inaudible] but we had no violence where I lived though.

CO: Now, the Nova Scotia government, though, has said that the issue is clearly a federal responsibility under the Fisheries Act. And so they're standing aside from this outside of enacting the parts that are their responsibility. What do you say to them?

WM: That's just politics. And so they don't want to get involved with Republican elections coming up pretty soon? I don't want to get their hands dirty. That's all. That's all this is just a stroke of a pen. That's all we can do.

CO: But it is a federal responsibility, is it not?

WM: The fisheries, but still you could still buy their product. I just don't see why they couldn't. All of a sudden it's making our guys feel like criminals when they go sell their lobster. We've been waiting twenty years now.

CO: If it's Ottawa that has this responsibility, why are you suing the Nova Scotia government?

WM: Because they sent the letter to all our buyers not to buy our fish, not to buy your lobster. They should be buying. You should have the buyers want to buy. Some of the buyers want to buy it. But they're scared of repercussions from the province.

CO: Right. But at the same time, the Nova Scotia government says it's a federal responsibility.

WM: No! they just don't have the balls to do it. That's all. It's all just politics.

CO: Yeah. Is politics for sure. So how can you get around those politics? I mean, the goal is for you, to be able to fish and sell what you catch. Right. So is this leading you to that?

WM: We want to get a fair, fair market value for it. Also right now, it's not. Making our guys go behind the scenes. Selling their lobster and our guys shouldn't be like that, you shouldn't feel like a criminal to make a living. And it's not compared to commercial fish. Where they get 250 traps. My guys only got seventy traps each.

CO: But do you want to increase those numbers of traps?

WM: We wouldn't mind. but right now it's 70 traps each per person.

CO: During the concerns of this Digby area last year. The issue was that the commercial fishermen were saying that they were worried about the sustainability of those lobster stocks, that if...

WM: If they're worried, why don't they put a quota system on the lobster fishery or do a trap reduction, you get 250 traps, you get what you get, but you've put a quota on your lobster. There you go. Or trap reduction even.

CO: OK, but there are limits on how many traps you can have.If I understand, could I just get this straight? You want to see the commercial fishermen have a trap reduction and to allow for the traps that your fishermen will have?

WM: Well, that's one solution.

CO: And how do you think that will go? How do you think that will go down in your community?

WM: I don't know you'll have to talk to the commercial fishermen.

CO: There is a lot of tension, as you know, in the southern part of Nova Scotia. Do you worry that you might have those tensions in your community now?

WM: I hope not, anyway. I hope not.

CO: Chief Marshall, we'll leave it there. Thank you.

WM: All right. Thanks.

CH: Wilbert Marshall is the chief of the Potlotek First Nation. We reached him in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

[Music: calm music]

Scotties tournament of Hearts

Guest: Laura Walker

CH: Curling teams from across the country are getting ready to compete for the Canadian championship in Calgary, and by getting ready this year, I obviously mean confined to hotel rooms as per the tournament's strict covid protocols. Matches begin on Friday, but the pre bonspiel bubble is already underway for the 18 teams who are, of course, prohibited from contact with anyone outside their bubbles. Those bubbles include all the adult athletes and a baby. Laura Walker is the skip for Team Alberta and a new mother. She told the CBC what this year's Scotties tournament of Hearts is going to look like for her family.

LAURA WALKER: We are heading straight to the bubble for our second covid test, so everybody had to get a negative COVID test within 72 hours of departure. So we weren't even allowed to leave our home city before getting a negative test. And then we head straight to the testing site, get a test and then go to our hotel rooms to isolate on our own until we get those results back. So the first couple of days are just going to look like a covid swab and some time in our room.

DAVID GRAY: Can you take your baby with you?

LW: I can. So there's a stipulation in our covid rules that the only person who's allowed to enter the bubbles who is not an athlete, coach or official is a nursing mother and their infant as well as a caregiver. So my little guy’s only five months old. So I'm able to bring him, I'm his source of food, so I'm able to bring him and my husband as well will take care of him while I'm playing.

DG: That's a memorable first year. So how has Team Alberta been training for the Scotties? Were you able to curl it all during the pandemic?

LW: In the early fall, we were able to get together a couple of times for some training weekends and then kind of early December when some of the more stricter restrictions came into place. We weren't on the ice at all. So we were off the ice for about two full months until last week. So as of last Monday, we were able to get an exemption from AHS and curling Albert has to practise. So we were on the ice Monday through Saturday, but as of Saturday night, we had to strictly isolate even from other members of our household for 72 hours before we left for Calgary. So we got about six days on the ice before we left.

DG: So we're feeling a little rusty?

LW: A little bit, yeah. And I'm sure there's going to be lots of others in the same boat. That's kind of our saving grace here, is that most of the country has been in a similar position, going to be quiet and a little bit sad, but we're just so grateful to even get to play at all that know what we're going to take we can get here at this point.

DG: Well, look, best of luck. I know that the Scotties run to the end of the month. You'll be in the bubble for almost ten days. Could be longer for your husband, Jeff, because I think he plays with Team Newfoundland, doesn't he?

LW: He does, yeah. So they're Team Canada at the Briar and he's staying into the bubble for the briar and then staying when I come back to compete for mixed doubles. Should they win the brierty, he stays for the men's world. And then there's two slam events after that. So he could potentially be in the bubble for about eight or nine weeks straight without leaving that hotel.

CH: Team Alberta Skip Laura Walker, who's bubbling in Calgary with her baby and her husband in preparation for the Canadian curling championships. She spoke with the CBC's David Gray today.

[Music: folk guitar instrumental]

UK LGBT Soldiers Medals

Guest: Carl Austin-Behan

CH: They are, in many cases, military heroes. Soldiers awarded medals and commendations for astonishing rescues and tremendous bravery. But thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender veterans in the UK were stripped of those honours after dismissals over their sexuality. Now the government says they can apply to have their medals reinstated more than two decades after the country's ban on LGBTQ military service was lifted. Carl Austin-Behan is a Royal Air Force veteran who saved a colleague's life and was awarded a medal for bravery and a commendation from the queen before he was suspended for being gay. We reached Mr. Austin-Behan in Manchester.

CO: Carl, what does it mean for you to know you'll be allowed to wear your bravery medal once again?

CARL AUSTIN-BEHAN: I'm really excited. I think, you know, it's been a long time coming, but I'm really pleased that I now have the opportunity to wear it when possible. And I just think that for the amount of LGBTQ plus veterans, the amount of wait, this amount of time, you know, it's great to see it happening. I just wish it had happened earlier.

CO: Yeah. Tell us about the incident that led you to being awarded this medal?

CARL AUSTIN-BEHAN: Yes. Back in 1992, there was an aircraft crash at R.A.F. [inaudible] and it crashed on the runway. The first pilot managed to eject as it crashed. Unfortunately, the second one tried to jet that he was trapped in the aircraft. So when we got there, I was on one of the fire rescue vehicles. And even though the aircraft was like a fire bomb, I've still managed to get in there. You know, I remember vividly the pilot's face, the burnt teeth as the mask around him. And I had to lift him up and we managed well. I managed to get him out, pass him off to my colleagues, but unfortunately he died 11 days later.

CO: Oh, sorry.

CARL AUSTIN-BEHAN: Now, unfortunately, because the aircraft itself was like a time bomb, it could have blown at any time that I was on there. So I received the British Humane Society Burns Award for bravery.

CO: And then just not many years later, 1997, you were dismissed from the Air Force, right?

CARL AUSTIN-BEHAN: Yeah.

CO: Tell us tell us how that came about.

CARL AUSTIN-BEHAN: What happened was on the 15th of April, 1997, the Air Force called me in and the RAF police were there. And they just asked me the question, do you have homosexual tendencies? And before thinking, I looked again to sort of, about to ask them why they asked again, and I just burst into tears because it made me realise that I had to be true to myself. I was 24 years old. I've been living a double life for the last six years, and I just felt that I had to be me. I'd recently signed on to be a corporal and I realised that my whole career now was just ended. My life changed completely. I lost all my friends. I didn't know how my family would react. I'd lost my job. Everything just changed that one day. They did say at the time that I could go to military prison, but because of my exemplary service record, they would suspend me while they carry out their investigation. Obviously, their investigation found it to be true that I was gay and I tried to fight that. I wrote letters to Tony Blair, to Graham Stringer my local MP and they all just basically said that unfortunately, within the guidelines, being homosexual is incompatible to service life. So I was discharged. And to me, I find the word homosexual more offensive than many other words.

CO: But this was going on that hundreds of men and women were thrown out of the British military up until the year 2000, every year, hundreds that were thrown out because of their sexuality and lost their medals, right?

CARL AUSTIN-BEHAN: That's right. Yeah. And it's sort of the worst thing was I was one of the last ones to get kicked out in 97, and it's taken 21 years to put this injustice right. And I'm really grateful for Johnny Mercer [inaudible] veterans and obviously the work that they're doing with the charity Fighting with Pride but twenty one years have been lost. Why wasn't this done so pretty much straight after the ban had been lifted in 2000?

CO: But it's extraordinary that though, I guess, the rules said that you couldn't be gay and serve in the British military. It doesn't mean that you didn't do what you did in the early 90s when you went into that flaming plane and rescued someone. I mean, that still happened.

CARL AUSTIN-BEHAN: And that's the same for everyone who was awarded with any medal, whether that was a medal for bravery, whether it was a medal for services, whether the time served, you know, you still did that. So I don't, I could never get my head around why you would have your medal taken from you when you've achieved that medal. You've worked hard, fought battle, and it's been given to you. It was it's not like part of your uniform. It's not like part of what you would get on a day to day basis, you'd earned that medal. So I can't I could never see the logic in why the medal would be taken from you and being stripped. And some people literally, literally ripped off their chests.

CO: And people went to prison. Right. The last one, in 1996 was the last person, someone went to prison and also I understand they went to great lengths to follow people to investigate and to look into their private lives before they would charge you with your sexuality. Is that right?

CARL AUSTIN-BEHAN: That is correct. I was actually told by the RAF police that I could go to prison. So I didn't know that the rules had changed in '96. So I've always been led to believe up until quite recently that I could have gone to prison for six months because that's what they told me. But they would, they would go through your clothes, they would go through your socks, your underpants, your photographs. And, you know, it doesn't take a scientist to work out. You've got all these men and women together in barrack blocks, you know, it was a ticking time bomb just to start investigating so many people. And, you know, so many people did have to try and justify who they were and not be able to be their true selves.

CO: Did you ever get the impression that those you served with had a problem with your sexuality?

CARL AUSTIN-BEHAN: Not at all. And this is the ironic thing. So I've done quite a few TV and radio interviews and the amount of support I've received from people who I've served with or were in the armed forces at the same time and knew of me and knew the work I've been doing. They've sent some really nice messages, don't have anything other than respect and support. And I don't have a problem with the armed forces at all. My issue is very much or was very much with the government because it was them that could have made the decision to sort of change that back in the early nineties, if not the late eighties.

CO: Well, Carl, I'm glad that you are able to wear that medal again, and I appreciate you telling us the story. Thank you.

CARL AUSTIN-BEHAN: Thank you very much. Take care.

CO: You, too.

CH: Carl Austin-Behan is a Royal Air Force veteran who can now wear his bravery medal freely. We reached him in Manchester, England, and you can find more on this story on our web page at CBC.ca/AIH.

[Music: upbeat techno music]

Baby Bison

CH: You think you have your footing in this world, you might not know everything, but you know what you know. The sky is blue a lot of the time the grass is green except when it's dead and bison are brown, big and furry and majestic and brown. I know that for sure, which is why I, for one, will definitely be avoiding Dogwood Canyon Nature Park in the Ozark Mountains, because that's where a new member of the resident bison herd is making a mockery of the known knowns. You knew, you knew, but can now never unknow. A bison calf, which is white. Well, more of an off-White with golden honey highlights, but still it's not brown and it's not the first one. White bison have apparently been part of the natural diversity of bison since well before habitat loss and overhunting drove them to near extinction. The uncommon ungulates appear in the traditional teachings of the Lakota and other First Nations as a symbol of peace and good fortune. In the beginning, they were very, very rare indeed. But today they're more like medium rare. Now that ranchers frequently cross-breed bison with cattle, which is where little white Takoda of Dogwood Canyon came from. Still, visitors to the park have given Takoda their stampede of approval, delighting in the mysteries of nature and breeding programs that have helped bring bison back from the brink. Because even if it messes with our sense of certainty, we could all use a dash of bovine intervention.

[Music: Country guitar instrumental]

Security trouble

Guest: Kim Crevatin

CH: Like so many families, Kim Crevatin's has been struggling with separation during covid-19, but their woes are amplified by the fact that her father, who suffers from dementia, isn't just staying in a hospital. He lives in one. That has made visiting difficult all through the pandemic and impossible since New Brunswick entered an orange phase on January 6th. Before that transition Ms. Crevatin's 80 year old mother was able to enjoy the occasional visit with her husband. Trouble is, those visits didn't always go according to plan. And now, Kim Crevatin is speaking out about one situation in particular.

KIM CREVATIN: What happened was, and this was very kind of shocking to me because my parents, obviously, they've been married for 60 years. It's very hard for my mother not to hold his hand, to go up close to him, you know, to touch him, especially since that's our only form of communication with him. And honestly, depending on most of the nurses in that unit were fantastic and very understanding. But there was a couple that were very into just the rules, you know, following the rules. So you get one nurse that would be like, you know, yeah, you know, go over and give them a hug. It's fine. I'm not going to, we can look the other way. And then you'd have other ones that were like, no, no, you can't. So my mother a couple of times got caught by a nurse that was very strict into the rules for being too close to dad. And one time this was just after Christmas, she actually sent security up to escort my 80 year old mother out of the hospital. And nobody knew this at the time because we're not allowed to go in with her. Right. You can only go in like one person at a time. So here she is, this 80 year old woman. She did comply with the rules. She went back and sat down and the security guards were escorting her out of the hospital. She's crying her eyes out because, you know, this is really embarrassing for her. And she feels like, you know, she's done something wrong, that she's a criminal. The one of the security guards was actually really embarrassed and kind of said, like, you know, just so you know, like I'm just doing my job. Like, I don't necessarily agree with what I have to do here. I don't know. It's just the whole thing just seems so crazy to me that something like that could be done in the first place. But at least I was reassured that it wouldn't happen again to her. And I'm hoping that it wouldn't happen to anybody else.

JONNA BREWER: Right.

KC: Anybody else's elderly parent that was visiting there, you know, significant other in the hospital.

CH: Kim Crevatin says her 80 year old mother was escorted out of the Moncton hospital by security after holding her husband's hand during a visit earlier this year. She spoke with the CBC's Jonna Brewer this morning. Ms. Crevatin says after that incident, she complained to the patient advocate and was told there would be an investigation and nothing like that would happen again. In a statement to the CBC, Horizon Health Network said no visitors are allowed during New Brunswick's orange phase, with few exceptions.

[Music: calm music]

Part 3: UK Human Challenge Trials

UK Human Challenge Trials

Guest: Peter Openshaw

CH: Researchers in the U.K. are looking for volunteers aged 18 to 30 willing to be exposed to the coronavirus. Their search began after the UK's clinical trials ethics body gave the green light to the world's first human challenge study to research covid-19. It's being co-lead by Imperial College London. Peter Openshaw is an investigator and a professor of experimental medicine there. We reached him in London.

CO: Professor Openshaw, aren't there enough people infected with this virus? Why do you need to purposefully give it to them?

PETER OPENSHAW: Yes, that's a very good point. There are a lot of people infected with this virus, especially in Britain. But I'm delighted to say the rates are dropping and within a quite short time, I think we will see very, very low rates of infection. And it then becomes extremely difficult to do clinical studies of the sort that we need in order to take us to the next level in terms of vaccines and to discover new treatments and to really find out some very, very basic questions about the immunology and the biology of this virus.

CO: But if the numbers of infections are going down, you're doing a very good job in your country, and are getting people vaccinated. So what we're worried about now are potential variants. So what exactly are you going to infect them with?

PO: We're not going to use one of the new variants, the variant that we've chosen, which we've now grown up into, very clean, well titled Stock is one which was circulating back in June of last year. And this virus, obviously, we know an awful lot about it. We've got a vast amount of clinical experience of what it does and how to really be sure that it's going to be as safe as possible in the volunteers that we select. You know, if we were to go for one of the new variants, like the B1.1.7, which has really swept the country, what we're afraid of is that that is a little bit more severe in terms of the type of disease it presents. And it seems to actually be able to extend down the age range more proficiently. And we don't think that that would be a safe thing to do. We just want to get going with the safest possible virus that we know most about.

CO: Well, and how do you do this safely? I mean, how do you give people any amount of this virus? We know what people go through. We've interviewed them. They've described how awful this is. How do you do this safely?

PO: Yes. You know, to be completely honest, there is an element of risk involved in these sorts of studies. We've been doing these studies for many years with influenza and with some other common cold viruses and where we have been weighing up the advantages of the information that you can gain by doing these studies against the potential detriment. And the ethics committees and the volunteers all are very fully informed and agree that the potential benefit of doing these studies is so great that even despite the risk, it's still worth going ahead.

CO: And who are the people and how many of them have you recruited for this?

PO: Well, at the moment we are still actually recruiting. There is quite a movement of people who want to volunteer because they see it as a way that they can contribute to the greater understanding of the disease and to ultimately the benefit of mankind. There are thousands of people who have actually subscribed to this one day sooner website and are following this movement. I mean, we are very careful to recruit people who are level headed, who are doing this for the right reasons, who are not doing it because they're absolutely desperate for the money.

CO: How ill will they get?

PO: That's not our aim to make anyone ill. The aim of these studies is to very cautiously increment the dose of virus starting at a dose that we think is so low that it's very unlikely to cause any illness whatsoever in the first volunteers. The aim of the study is just to establish viral replication in the nose. And then we at that stage start treatment immediately with remdesivir, which is this antiviral drug, which doesn't actually seem to have much of a benefit in people who become severely ill. But in the very early stages in these controlled conditions, we do think that that's very likely to limit the viral infection and terminate any infection that does occur.

CO: What else do you hope to learn from this?

PO: We're hoping to learn about the way in which the virus is able to get a foothold in some people and not in others, and also to be able to study the very early stages, really, before the virus has started to multiply. Now, what is it that happens in the moist lining of the nose that determines whether the virus gains the upper hand or the immune system manages to defeat the virus before it ever really starts replication? Subsequently, once we've established the model very cautiously, we can then begin to develop a model for developing new types of vaccine and for testing variants of the vaccines that will be produced over time.

CO: And what about the possibility that these people in this human challenge trial will infect others? I mean, will they be able to go home?

PO: No, they won't no, they're committed to staying in for 17 days. So two days before the virus is given and then the 14 day period during which we do a lot of tests every day, it's only once we can establish that the virus is absent and non-infectious that they're actually going to leave the facility.

CO: And how long a period of time will you be studying them?

PO: The total study will go on for 12 months. So we're going to follow up all the volunteers right through to the end. And the compensation that they receive depends on staying for the whole duration of the study and coming back to be sampled repeatedly and to and to be assessed.

CO: How much money do they get?

PO: So at the moment, it's going to be about four and a half thousand pounds. So this is an amount which has been agreed with the regulators, agreed with the ethicists as a reasonable compensation without being an undue inducement. You know, we're not setting this up as a study out of which people can make themselves rich in any way. And in fact, some of the volunteers have already said that they will take the money and give it to a charity because they don't want any appearance of personal benefit.

CO: For a lot of people forty five hundred pounds is about eight thousand dollars, it's a lot of money. I mean, you're not worried that people will be doing something that will be putting themselves at some risk for the money.

PO: There's quite a rich culture of volunteering for medical experiments. I don't know what it's like in Canada, but in the U.K., it's something which, you know, people do. Our experience is that they are to a very large degree, people who are committed altruistically to the advance of medical knowledge. And they have a great curiosity about the subject. So, you know, financial gain is not normally something that we see high on the list of motivations for these studies.

CO: Professor Openshaw, we'll leave it there. Thank you.

PO: Thank you very much.

CO: Bye bye.

PO: Bye bye.

CH: Peter Openshaw is a professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London. He's also a member of the UK government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group. He was in London.

[Music: electronic piano sound]

Edmonton Mayor

CH: It is hard to stay warm in Edmonton right now, and for a group of people sheltering inside a public transit station, the local police are not helping. On Sunday night, an indigenous community watch group was at the Central Station LRT distributing food. They posted a video on Facebook showing the police ordering people out and into the cold when Mayor Don Ivison saw that video. He called for a review of the city's extreme weather protocols. Here he is speaking with CBC Radio.

DON IVESON: Well, it's very upsetting. And by the time I saw it, I also saw the avalanche of public reaction and dismay to what people were seeing and what was happening to these fellow Edmontonians of ours in very, very cold circumstances after a cold snap that we're all tired of. And I think I appreciate that if you are without a home in this city at this time, it's a very perilous time to be. One of these questions that came up last summer, which is, you know, are we dispatching the right resources to calls for service around what many people have described as criminalised poverty in this case and, you know, would train social workers or a different kind of team or response be more appropriate? Because that exists already?

MARK CONNOLLY: 211 right?

DI: Exactly. And so, you know, where is the disconnect in interpretation of the policy and interpretation of the city's expertise and leverage of the resources we put in place? And so those are the elements that I want reviewed. And that will precipitate a conversation with the police service about their participation and approach to assisting vulnerable people, especially during cold weather events. It's a little bit tricky because I can't hold the police to account directly. That's the police commission's task. And there's separation between city council and politicians and the people who are granted the monopoly on violence in our society. And I support that distinction. But an inquiry allows our administration to have that conversation, which has already started. I understand in light of this, I think we've all gotten the same impression. And to their credit, the police released a statement and indicated this was not consistent with their own expectations.

CH: That was Mayor Don Overson speaking with Mark Connolly, host of Edmonton AM today. As the mayor mentioned, the Edmonton Police Service has responded and said the officers, "should have done a better job at communicating our role in helping connect citizens to the city's services, whose goals are to keep vulnerable citizens safe and warm".

[Music: guitar instrumental]

Deep Marine Organism

Guest: Huw Griffiths

CH: A few years back, some researchers were working on an Antarctic ice shelf. They wanted to secure a sample of the sediment very, very, very far below them. So they drilled through 900 metres of ice and went through hundreds more metres of seawater only to unexpectedly hit a boulder. They did not get the sediment sample they were after, but they did discover something else and they passed it on to Huw Griffiths, who has called the finding slightly bonkers. Mr. Griffiths is a marine biologist with the British Antarctic Survey. We reached him in Cambridge, England.

CO: Huw, your colleagues' research didn't go to plan when they ran into that boulder, but what did you get out of it exactly?

HUW GRFFITHS: So for them, it was, oh, we wasted weeks of work trying to get to the bottom of the ocean. But for us, it was amazing because we only have a handful of glimpses through similar boreholes underneath ice shelves. And these ice shelves cover a huge amount of the Antarctic continental shelf, up to a third of it. And so we know nothing really about what's going on under there. And as biologists and what they'd done was found the first rock that anyone had observed underneath a borehole and so on, that was the first life that's attached to a rock. So a hard substrate community, and that included filter feeding animals like sponges. In a normal environment that would be quite a normal thing to see. But where we were looking, it was really strange to see animals that are dependent on filter feeding.

CO: Why is that the case? Why would you not find them in this particular place? Just maybe describe would it be like down there?

HG: So this is like living in the biggest cave you can imagine. There's 900 metres thick ice roof to the whole thing and you're 260 kilometres away from the nearest open water, which is where the food is being produced in the daylight. So you're towards the back of a huge cave and you're waiting for the food to wash into you. So the further away from the daylight you get, the less likely you are to have a good regular supply of food. So if you're living there in the back of the cave, you're probably better off being the sort of animal like a fish or a shrimp type animal that can move around and go to where the food is if it does come in, whereas these animals are stuck to a rock so they can't go anywhere and they're dependent on food literally floating into them, like bumping into them. So if they missed that food, then they can't go after at all. And so we don't know how far this food can travel on the currents that come in, but we do know it will gradually sink out. So the further back you go. There's less and less food. So these animals have got the opposite lifestyle to what we'd expect to find this far into the ice. We wrote a paper about a year ago as an international team of experts saying we don't expect to find these things quite far back under ice shelves. So to actually be staring them in the face in this video and thinking, well, how have you got there and how are you even surviving? What are you eating? How long do you have to go between meals? Could it be weeks? Could it be months? Could it be decades beyond that? How did they get there? Are they specially adapted to living under ice shelves? Will we only find them there? Are they a new species? So, yeah, there's a lot of big questions, but only having the video, we can only go so far with answering those questions.

CO: Well, and they didn't answer your questions, I presume these sponges?

HG: Sadly not. But they do show us that given the area that I was talking about that's under the ice shelves is about one point six million square kilometres. So it's a huge area, bigger than loads of countries. So to find out, there's life thriving there that we didn't expect to thrive there. I mean, if we've only seen one boulder and there potentially thousands or millions of boulders lying about on the seafloor, we could be looking at a whole community that we've completely got no idea about and hidden biodiversity and potentially even hidden role within the health of the Antarctic ecosystem that we don't fully understand. So these questions are big, but they're exciting as well. And it really pushes us to try and understand how we can go further to explore this world.

CO: You say that it's possible that these sponges are a new species, that what you may have discovered isn't just the unusual thing of finding or I guess the unprecedented thing of finding these where they are, but also that there might be something you have never seen before.

HG: Yeah, I think we have a habit of finding new species in Antarctica anyway. About 10 and 20 percent of what we pull up from normal areas is new to science. And if we go into the deep sea around Antarctica, we're looking at 80 to 90 percent of the species being new to science. So those are kind of crazy numbers anyway. But this environment is even harsher than some of the deep sea environments we look at. So I'm guessing you'd need to be specially adapted to survive there. Almost living on the ultimate low calorie diet where there's not much food coming along. So my best guess would be these are probably going to be new to science. And judging from the images, we don't even know what type of the types of animals we see on the rock are, but. Is there such vague shapes on the videos that I wouldn't place any bets on even what type of animal they are, the two of them are definitely sponges.

CO: And so will you be able to study them further?

HG: I think it's going to take a huge leap in our understanding of how to study them even. We have a couple of choices. These things are very far under the ice shelf. So we can either get smarter robotics that can we can program in advance to go off hundreds of kilometres under the ice on their own because it's very difficult to communicate with something once it goes under the ice or we start shrinking down our technology so we can make it small enough to fit down these boreholes, which are only about a foot across. So we have to make everything a lot smaller if we want to send our science equipment down to do more detailed work through the boreholes. And in the meantime, we can use some really cool emerging techniques is something called environmental DNA, where we collect water samples and blood samples. We can run a genetic analysis on any DNA that's left in the water or the mud. So we may not get what the sponges are, but we might be able to pick up bits of what they're eating. So what is the dead or dying food that's floating past them and things like that? So there's a few things we can do like that now. But I think if we're going to do this properly and do it without destroying the animals we're trying to study, then we'll probably have to invent some brand new technology to do it.

CO: What was the reaction amongst your fellow marine biologists when you made this discovery? You told them?

HG: I told a sponge expert actually over two weeks ago before the embargoed press release and things are out. I said, I've got a secret to tell you. And he was shocked. And that was kind of what I was hoping for, is that we could show the people who study these animals everywhere else. There is still something to learn because I'm not a sponge expert. And looking at those images, I was just like, wow. But if you spent 20 or 30 years of your life studying these animals and not really knowing that they were capable of these things, it's a fantastic opportunity to bring in a whole international team of people and really get them on board with the idea that there are mysteries to solve in Antarctica that nobody even knew existed as mysteries, let alone then how we solve them.

CO: Wow, Huw it's great to talk to you. Thanks for telling us the story.

HG: Thank you very much.

CO: Bye bye.

HG: Bye.

CH: That was marine biologist Huw Griffiths in Cambridge, England. He's the lead author of research published this week in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. For more on the story, head to our web page, CBC.ca/AIH.

[Music: piano instrumental]

Angelo Kelly

CH: It sounds like the perfect summer night, the sun setting at an open air concert while a father son duo performs a heartwarming rendition of Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World. Well, by most accounts, that was the scene back in 2019 when German folk singer Angelo Kelly brought his four year old son William on stage to perform that classic feel good song, which a Bavarian court found to be a feel bad song. It just slapped Mr. Kelly with a 4600 dollar fine for that performance on Friday. The court found the singer guilty of violating Germany's strict child labour laws, according to the DPA news agency. The court ruled, "During this performance, the child William stood for at least 30 minutes on the stage where he played along, sang along and interpreted his own song. This is considered work by the Youth Labour Protection Act". According to the law. Children can take part in musical performances for up to two hours a day, but only with government approval and only between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.. Mr. Kelly's lawyer says they'll appeal. And on Facebook, the singer wrote, "As a father, the well-being of my children is the most important thing for me. William was and is never obliged to appear with us at our shows. If he did it, it was because he wanted to". It's a tough lesson for Mr. Kelly and for William. First, he learnt the lyrics to the song and now he'll learn the letter of the law.

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February 17, 2021 Episode Transcript

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