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The Current Transcript for September 7, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE 1: The whole town was on fire at that point, you could see all the buildings burning from one end of town to the other.

VOICE 2: There was smoke everywhere, there were flames coming up everywhere.

VOICE 3: Driving through flames is pretty crazy. You feel the heat right through the windows.

VOICE 4: When you see an entire town go up in flames in half an hour. Wow.

MATT GALLOWAY: And that's what happened in Lytton in British Columbia on the 30th of June, the same week the town had the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Canada, almost 50 degrees. Hundreds of people escaped with very little. But from the destruction comes hope for the future.

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VOICE 1: All these times that they burned and always came back, and that's exactly what we're going to do.

VOICE 2: It's too late for the last version of Lytton, but it's not too late for the new version of Lytton.

MG: Also today, the hope and challenges that go with a new school year. But we start in Frasier Canyon. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

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Survivors in Lytton, B.C., talk resilience and rebuilding after devastating fire

MG: The first thing you notice when you're driving towards Lytton, British Columbia is the smell. It's kind of like a campfire, but stronger, familiar, but also overpowering the kind of smell you feel in the back of your throat. Then it's the signs on the highway, the big yellow one that says no stopping. It warns of respiratory risk. You have to keep your windows closed and the air on recirculate. It's been more than two months since the fire and what's left of the town is hidden behind blue fences. The highway cuts right through the middle security guards at each end, making sure that no one stops five blocks of almost complete devastation, burned out cars, shells of buildings, brick chimneys, the only thing left standing, blackened trees. It's almost impossible to take it all in. I'm on my way to the other side of the river, to a hobby farm perched on the edge of a valley with sweeping views of dramatic rock formations. This is where Tricia Thorpe and Don Glasgow used to.

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MG: Hi.

PATRICIA: Hi.

MG: I'm Matt.

PATRICIA: My husband Don, Welcome to our house.

MG: Hi, Don, great to meet you.

DON: Well, you'rein living room, almost where we're standing right now.

MG: The wind is gusting just like it was on the 30th of June.

PATRICIA: We were sitting outside here having coffee with the dogs and the puppies and kind of remarking on how nice it was to feel a bit of a breeze. Little did we know.

MG: Around 5:00 p.m., a call came in. Dawn was needed to drive a school bus to help evacuate people from the village of Litten. A wildfire was moving very quickly and Tricia drove him to the school.

PATRICIA: We never thought I mean, I on the way out, I had text. A friend said, you need a place to stay. A friend that lived in town thinking, you know, four kilometres away, river in between. We were perfectly safe. I thought anyway, we couldn't get back in across the ridge because the fire had already jumped and was on the ridge. So we were trapped on one side of the fire and all the animals on the farm was on the other.

MG: That night, they escaped to a nearby town. They were getting conflicting reports about whether any of their animals had made it. It took a few days, but Tricia finally talked her way through a police checkpoint.

PATRICIA: And I'm coming down the driveway and I'm just at this corner. Three of the dogs met me and yeah, it was amazing. And I got out and a lot was left of the lawn area and I started counting puppies and there were nine. All nine had made it.

MG: Tricia found a hole in part of her garden that didn't get burned. And she thinks one of the adult dogs dug the hole and kept the puppy safe there.

PATRICIA: And that was the best.

MG: But it wasn't all good news. The buildings were destroyed, the house, the barn, the brand new shop that Dawn had just finished. Still, that wasn't the worst of it for him.

Speaker 6: Maybe I'm just numb, but it doesn't really bother me if it's all gone. I miss my animals more, they died and- all this is just material things and it can be replaced.

PATRICIA: We lost all six of our goats, three sheep, all of our chickens, our peacocks, our guinea fowl. We lost a couple of cats. We lost two adult dogs. We lost the puppy's dead, when we got in and rescued them, he was alive. But we lost him en route to Kamloops.

DON: That was the biggest blow of all.

PATRICIA: Yeah, it was like...

DON: And we got to Kamloops and he'd gone. That was the worst. All the stuff I don't care about pollution and thunder It's a huge blow.

MG: Sorry. Don distracts himself with the cleanup. They're here almost every day. Today, he's driving a backhoe.

DON: Oh, I told this old car, pull away and get rid of it.

MG: Where the home used to sit is just a field of black ash. A charity helped clean out the twisted metal and debris which is now piled on the side of the property. They didn't have any insurance. Many people didn't have insurance in this area. And they say they're not getting any government help. They think they fall between the cracks because they're not in the municipality of Lytton or on the first nation. But that is where strangers have stepped in.

PATRICIA: They don't know us. And that's what I'm talking about.

DON: The contrast between government and private individuals or private little companies is staggering. The local people and strangers gave us so much.

MG: So much, including building materials, tools, a fridge, a small shipping container, even two goats.

PATRICIA: When we first came back, it was devastating. Looking at it was overwhelming. You didn't know where you could possibly start. And I think we kind of picked away at it a little bit. And so now when I look at this, I see the possibility of a really great backyard and not what I saw before, which was just overwhelming.

MG: Tricia and Don are staying at a friend's place across the river with the animals, of course, and they feel lucky being so close to home. About 800 residents of the village and almost 500 from the Lytton first nation registered with B.C. Emergency Support Services. Hundreds remain scattered throughout the province, still not able to access their homes, start the cleanup and even think about rebuilding. Gordon Murray is one of them. I spoke with him just after the fire. He recorded this video.

GORDON MURRAY: You just feel numb. There is no way to process what's happened. That was it was two days after and now it's two months after and it doesn't really seem that different. It's still pretty surreal and it seems very hard to kind of grasp it in any kind of solid way.

MG: Now, he's 250 kilometres away in East Vancouver. He lives in one big room with his partner, Carol Moscovitch. It's an old fire hall converted into a studio space. Now they're home for at least a year. There's a little garden outside with sweet peas and a plum tree that's dropping fruit. And they say it's mixed emotions being here. They're protected from the extreme climate of Lytton, but they miss it, too.

GORDON MURRAY: We had become so acclimatised to not only the the climate of letting, but the geography, because there it's wild with humans kind of clinging to the edge.

MG: What do you miss the most about being in Lytton?

CAROL MASCOVITCH: Yeah, the night the crazy weather, which of course is what destroyed the whole thing, but the mountains, the rivers, incredible landscapes.

GORDON MURRAY: And that's what that's what we really miss, is that being surrounded by that being having that be your what you wake up to and what you experience every day?

MG: Gordon is wearing a pattern shirt with a tank top underneath. It's literally the clothes he had on his back the night of the fire. The shorts are new or new ish. They're from Value Village. He didn't grab much that night. The one cat that they could find and their Chihuahua Babalu Babalu still runs and hides when they light the barbecue and he smells smoke. Other than that, Gordon grabbed his computer, Carol, a sketchbook. She's an artist and she lost a lifetime of work.

CAROL MASCOVITCH: All of it. Nearly all of it. That's awful. Yeah, the hard part is learning to live with that.

GORDON MURRAY: How do you do that?

CAROL MASCOVITCH: I'm not sure yet

MG: They both talk about the trauma of that night.

GORDON MURRAY: The idea of losing everything and almost being lost ourselves to the flames. So my way of dealing with it is I'm...

CAROL MASCOVITCH: Working, working, working.

GORDON MURRAY: Yeah. Trying to deal with it by...

CAROL MASCOVITCH: Avoiding it.

GORDON MURRAY: Yeah.

CAROL MASCOVITCH: Yeah.

GORDON MURRAY: So I haven't really I haven't come to terms with that, but it's something that is a huge block for it. At some point I have to confront.

MG: Gordon has been back to LITTEN once. This was a bus tour organised so residents could see what was left, but they weren't actually able to go onto their properties because of fears of toxins released by the fire. They're waiting to sift through what's left. He's frustrated watching residents of other places burned in B.C. going back within days. And he's already worried about the plans being made for how the town might look in future.

GORDON MURRAY: It seems to me that they're the way that they're thinking about is how can we recreate the village kind of instances so that it looks the way it was. But it's fireproof. But there doesn't seem to be a kind of deeper thinking going on about how how can we actually do this in a way that acknowledges the land and the people that are there. The indigenous style of building of houses underground is that's what they're doing in Australia. They're building houses underground. There seem to be skipping a lot of steps and just saying we want to do it the same way. And that, you know, so far that hasn't worked very well. It's not the first time the town is burnt down. It's not the second time. It's not the third time. It's the fourth time. There's been a major fire that destroyed the centre of the village. And they always rebuild it at exactly the same way on the same grid. And so the fire just gets sucked down these roads.

MG: He pauses when he's asked about what he wants to see from politicians at all levels of government.

GORDON MURRAY: There has to be more of a commitment to make real structural change and to decarbonise the economy to decolonise the way we deal with indigenous people, because those two are tied together and they're tied together with climate change.

MG: Jan Pohlman is the politician closest to this disaster. He's the mayor of Lytton, a part time job that pays about twenty dollars a day.

JAN POLDERMAN: Yeah, I spent a fair bit of time and then the last the last little mobile office pretty well.

MG: And he drives me on the same route he took the night he heard his town was on fire.

JAN POLDERMAN: When I came in this house right here that's sort of in the embankment, it was totally engulfed right about here. I was totally, um, enclosed in the smoke. I couldn't tell even where I was going. I got through to about here. It turned around, you could sort of see, but it was just flame everywhere coming through here. All these buildings were on fire.

MG: Are you surprised by the speed of it?

JAN POLDERMAN: Definitely. When you see an entire town go up in flames in half an hour. Wow.

MG: You can hear it in your voice. I mean, it's really affects you. Yeah, well,

JAN POLDERMAN: I almost didn't make it out. So like it when you can't see three, four feet in front of you and you're driving through the smoke, you don't know what you're going to head. You know, that's, that has an effect on you.

MG: In between the front seats of his van, he has a little notebook with pages and pages of names and phone numbers, different pages of calls, people he's called and people he still needs to call.Well, these are all people and not all of those people are happy with the job he's doing.

JAN POLDERMAN: And I and I totally understand. People are frustrated. They're seeing you and I. We drove downtown, but it's too dangerous for them to go back to their own properties. I'd be upset about that as well. I think a lot of people think the mayor says something suddenly happens. That's just not the case in our town, you know, that doesn't have the resources to rebuild itself. So you're dependent on other layers of government and some you know, some things they just take times to, you know, to get done right.

MG: The environmental report is one of the things taking time. There's concern about toxic substances and the rubble. And until that report is complete, no one is allowed back. Once people are allowed in, all the debris needs to be cleared. Then the hydro lines will be buried, sewer lines fixed and then the rebuild.

JAN POLDERMAN: What I'm hoping to see is a town of the future, a town that is as fire resistant or fireproof as possible, a town that is less dependent on outside energy sources to produce the the heat and the cooling needed to keep people comfortable in their houses. What I would hope is, is that we will be used as a model.

MG: He imagines solar sidewalks, wind turbines, geothermal energy, some where people would visit and study to see how to build towns prepared to deal with climate change.

JAN POLDERMAN: I'm not saying it's going to be fireproof or it will never burn down again. All I'm saying is, is we need to build one that's less likely to burn down.

MG: Council has already passed first reading of a building bylaw outlining what kinds of homes could be built, all with the goal of net zero and fire resistance in mind. The mayor admits this is not going to be cheap and not everyone will be able to afford to rebuild. And there is the concern from people like Gordon Murraythat the plans aren't ambitious enough, not taking into account the First Nations knowledge in the area.

JAN POLDERMAN: I know there have been complaints about, oh, we haven't had any input. But the thing is, is we're not even really ready for the input. It's sort of like complaining about the car before you've got the wheels and the tires on it. Right. We're just so early in the process. I know it's 61 days and counting, but when you look at, you know, Fort McMurray, Slave Lake and a number of these other communities, these rebuilds take a couple of years.

MG: A couple of years. That means Katrina Sam and Joseph Justice could be living here for a while.

KATRINA: So this is this is our fifth wheel and this is our home.

JOSEPH: That's home away from home. Now we can go anywhere.

KATRINA: Yes. Home on wheels. Yeah.

MG: A fifth wheel trailer parked in the driveway of Katrina's mom's home. It was donated by a volunteer group,

KATRINA: The BP Disaster Relief Network. I so grateful because it put a lot of ease on my honey because I know he was really stressing and I could see it in him. He was trying to save every single penny.

JOSEPH: Yeah, I wouldn't go out shopping and nothing to stay in the room.

KATRINA: Yeah.

MG: And this will be home for them and two of their kids.

JOSEPH: It's something to get used to. You know,

KATRINA: I feel like we're camping every day.

MG: Yeah. We go inside Katrina's mom's house to talk where there's more room. So how are you? How are you? It's been pretty tough.

KATRINA'S MOM: It's been pretty tough, yeah.

MG: Few weeks, tough couple of months.

KATRINA'S MOM: For sure.

MG: A tough couple of months is an understatement for this family. Joseph, you notice Katrina calls him my honey was diagnosed with stage four cancer just a month before the fire. They were at home on the Lytton first nation when the fire started. And by the time Joseph got the hose out to the fence line, the flames were already in the backyard.

JOSEPH: That was the only thing I was in my mind was saving my home because that was my grandparents home. You know, they left that to me. I couldn't do it. I thought water. When did you realise that you finally had to go? As soon as the pressure went down. And then my whole shed blew up and that's what caught the house on fire. And we just had to get out of there. And then the houses around us were all burning.

MG: From the blast. Everything was scattered. Joseph was allowed back two months after the fire. His grandmother's crystal was melted together, couldn't find his grandfather's war medals, the guns he could find were destroyed, hunting season is in jeopardy anyway with so much of the land burned.

JOSEPH: I had a good cry before I walked in and one of the members was there with a hand drum and he he starts singing songs while I was there. And that made me feel a lot better. You know, it's something when you have to walk into a place, it used to be nice and beautiful and then you go in there and it's just levelled. And I was pretty sad.

MG: There is a lot of sadness. Katrina is a pre-school teacher and she worries about the kids who will now be driving through a burned out town twice a day, getting to and from school. She's thankful their two youngest kids were out of town visiting relatives the day of the fire. But it's still been tough.

KATRINA'S MOM: They did come home the first time and they their hearts were broken. And on her way back to Kamloops, our little boy hunter had a good cry because he was pretty upset. But, you know, he he shared some great words and made my heart so happy. And I had happy tears coming out because he's so strong and he goes, we just need to be strong together. And that's what he said. And we're going to have a new Lytton

MG: The plan is for their corner of the new Lytton to be bigger and better, more space for the kids so they stay close to home and build to withstand the elements.

JOSEPH: I was saying to my mom here who spent the whole yard and paint green, put little flowers here and there and oh yeah, make it real fireproof, but make it beautiful too. As you know, we got a really good spot there and overlooks the river, the two rivers and the bridge and the beautiful mountains. I cannot wait to get back to where I grew up.

MG: He's confident the rebuild will go smoothly, that the village and the first nation can work together, be resilient in the face of climate change. It's something we talked about with a lot of people from Lytton who lost so much how a town and the people in it can come back from something so devastating. For some, like Carol MAscovitch and her partner Gordon Murray, the future is not at all clear.

CAROL MASCOVITCH: I don't know if I would die. I mean, face that fire once. I'm not sure I'd ever want to risk that again. Not sure.

GORDON MURRAY: At this point, I still feel like there is enough of a possibility of doing something differently that is worth going back to Lytton, but I can also see that it's too much, too hard, too soon.

MG: Mayor Polderman is sure about where he'll stay.

JAN POLDERMAN: I've been here for 32 years. Yeah, I plan on staying here till I die.

MG: It's the same for Don Glasgow on his hobby farm. His family goes back generations in this area and he and his partner, Trisha Thorpe, are wasting no time digging fenceposts. Today, the dirt flies in her face as she digs. She's almost put in a dozen already and more than a hundred are left to go.

DON: Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal. We see a new house sitting over there.

TRISHA: Yeah, it's going to be totally different than what you see now. I mean, it's already totally different than it was a month ago.

DON: It'd be fabulous view and have a patio out there. It'll be awesome. Life is good.

TRISHA: It's just going to take a little time and ingenuity.

MG: And Don thinks they can be in their new home by the end of October. The concrete forms are ordered, as is the tin roof. Tricia is a bit more realistic. She's hoping to be in for Christmas.

TRISHA: I'd say we're very resilient, but then we have each other, Don and I, our partnership, and we have a community behind us, whether that community be people in Lytton or people all the way across Canada, they're there. And we can do this. We got it. We have a fence post in.

MG: We'll have more stories from our trip to BC's interior in the days to come and explore that theme of resilience from a tourist operator, a cherry grower and a first nation all grappling with how to adapt to climate change. Your CBC News is next. And then Andrea Constand on her fight to bring Bill Cosby to justice. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Andrea Constand says she'll fight to 'close the legal loopholes' after Bill Cosby's conviction was overturned

Guest: Andrea Costand

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, cast your mind back to when kids were first pulled out of the classroom when this pandemic was ramping up, we all thought maybe it was just for a few weeks, maybe a few months at most. Well, now it is the beginning of a third school year disrupted by the pandemic. And that has taken a toll on students and educators alike. How to get kids back on track in about 30 minutes. But first, a basketball star, a Canadian and a sexual assault survivor.

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MG: A warning that this next story deals with the subject of sexual assault.

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NEWSCASTER 1: It's been a stunning fall from grace and today, Bill Cosby, whose star once dominated the entertainment world, looked old and frail as he was hopped into a Pennsylvania courthouse.

NEWSCASTER 2: Mr. Cosby is charged with aggravated indecent assault. This is a felony of the first degree.

MG: That was a report on CBC's The National in 2015. The arrest of Bill Cosby for sexually assaulting a former Canadian basketball player was stunning. Now Andrea Constand is telling the story of her fight for justice. Her new book is The Moment: Standing Up to Bill Cosby and Speaking for women, Andrea Constand. Good morning.

ANDREA COSTAND: Good morning. Thanks for having me today.

MG: Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. That news report is is from more than five years ago. What's it like for you to listen to that now?

ANDREA COSTAND: Oh, it's just kind of like taking in, you know, an audio playback back in time, you know, to a moment that's a familiar moment and it's a little less surreal to hear it, you know, today.

MG: Tell me how you first came to meet Bill Cosby.

ANDREA COSTAND: I came to meet Bill Cosby when I was working at Temple University in the women's basketball department. I was the director of operations there. And so part of my job was to get as many people in the stands as possible. You know, there were many supporters at the university. They'd often come to games. We had alumni. We had people who were donating to the programme. A lot of people, you know, for me that were new people, obviously being from Toronto, I was in Philadelphia, but I came to meet Bill Cosby at a basketball game about a year after arrived on campus.

MG: What were your first impressions of him?

ANDREA COSTAND: My first impression of him was that he was somebody important. There was a little bit of a buzz kind of around the gymnasium. I didn't know where he was sitting or I didn't know where he was until one of the trustees and good friends of mine, John Ballut, came over and introduced me to him. He wanted to see the new outfitted locker room that we had just done. And, you know, and so I went along on a little tour with some other people that were in the building at the time as well.

MG: And in the book, I mean, you admit that you didn't really have a sense as to how big of a deal he was.

ANDREA COSTAND: No, you know, obviously, I think he was a household name at that point, so I did know a little bit about him, but I never, I didn't really tune in to the, you know, the Fat Albert Show or The Cosby Show. I knew his name and I really didn't know much about his star power.

MG: I mean, this is a professional relationship. How would you describe that relationship with him before the 6th of January 2004?

ANDREA COSTAND: So it was very professional, but it became very friendly at a certain point, I would say probably within months. At that point I felt comfortable. I had no reason not to trust him, and I felt comfortable opening myself up. You know, about me personally. You know, there was an interest in my family. There was an interest in what I studied and, you know, playing basketball in Europe and how that was. And I found myself more and more over time disclosing more personal details about myself. And so I think there might have been a clear point where I thought, you know, I'm on a personal level with this person who is also showing interest in my own career.

MG: This is difficult. And so I know that you've written about it, but it's got to be really hard to talk about. So say only sort of what you're comfortable in saying. When did that start to change? There are weird moments that happened in the book. You write about how you brushed aside those initial weird moments.

ANDREA COSTAND: I didn't really judge him either. I thought, you know, it was foolish that he was like a grandfather to me or he had become like more of a mentor or somebody I really trusted. And a couple of them, I just really brushed them off. And I was never scared. And I was able to stand my ground and kind of let them know, you know, I'm really not interested in that. I really didn't come here for that.

MG: What happened on the 6th of January 2004?

ANDREA COSTAND: On the 6th of January 2004, I had, you know, I ended up making my way up to Bill Cosby's house. We were going to talk about, you know, where my career was going, how I was interested in kind of coming back home and pursuing the line of work that I had so deeply respected in my father being a health practitioner and also kind of the stress of having to tell my boss that, you know, how was I going to kind of let this job down gently. So I had a lot on my mind. I had a lot I just wanted to kind of hash over and and talk over and and that's not what happened. That came to be the night I sat down and accepted three small blue pills, which I thought were herbal remedy from Cosby. And I ended up on the couch that night, unconscious in and out of consciousness with the most disturbing things happening to me on that couch and, you know, awaking many hours later, you know, and that the feelings that came over me, you know, the shame and disgust and just really wanting to get out of there and and getting in my car and heading home and starting January 7th, a completely different person.

MG: A completely different person.

ANDREA COSTAND: Yeah, I think the impact of what happened to me probably was most shocking, you know, overnight, but but I think it took processing. What it actually happened to me took its toll on me over the over the course of the year when when I remained silent and in when it was still a secret to me. But I think overnight I had just lost my trust, lost my faith in people and, you know, had to deal with the aftermath immediately of what happened to me. Yeah.

MG: I'm sorry for what you went through. Thank you. You had a dream about drowning in the wake of that. Can you tell me about that dream?

ANDREA COSTAND: That was one specifically, I think that really came to my consciousness and there was really no avoiding it. There was really no running away from that because my dream, I was kind of like trying to stay afloat and swinging my arms and trying to kick my legs. And I realised that the seas were just a little bit too rough for me. And so I could see like a little wooden boat far off in the distance. And as I got closer, I started to see that there were like something sticking out from the wood and it looked like barnacles. It was all like shells and just something I could hold on to, something that I could grab onto. But I realised as soon as I grabbed on to them that they were only really making me heavier. And if I continued to grab onto them, that eventually I would just carry the weight of that barnacle with me and I would sink and there I would go. And I had that dream. And I think I woke crying from the dream. But I, I knew what that dream meant.

MG: That you were carrying something for a long time.

ANDREA COSTAND: Yeah. And if I didn't tell somebody about it honestly, that it would kill me, that it would be the big secret that I took. Like that dream was like, if you don't help yourself now you're going down.

MG: You went to the Durham police in Ontario in 2005 to report the assault. And in the trial that followed, I mean, Bill Cosby's defence made a lot about the delay between the 6th of January and then 2005, a year later. Why did you wait a year?

ANDREA COSTAND: Well, I don't think it's that uncommon that sometimes people don't report right away. I think that's a whole other subject within itself. But I think for me, there was nowhere for me to go. There was nowhere for me to run to because I had come to know just what an important person Cosby was on campus when Temple staff, when we go to the hospital, we go to the Temple hospital. You know, it's a whole community within itself. And I just couldn't imagine myself showing up at the Temple Hospital saying that Bill Cosby had just sexually assaulted me. It just didn't even cross my mind. You know, I think I copped a lot with, like fear, with a lot of shame, with being being intimidated, you know, not having the support. And I think that was something that I processed for a whole year, you know, different feelings, I think that that survivors go through. And I think that was something that is all too common. My whole experience of the one year that I didn't report and I just I suppose I could probably chalk it up now to say I just didn't have the courage. I just didn't have the courage to come forward. And I think many people stay silent. And so that was that was a whole year of processing for me to be able to muster up the courage to finally come forward and and tell my mother.

MG: There's an incredible scene. I mean, your mother calls up Bill Cosby. Can you tell me about the conversation?

ANDREA COSTAND: So I was on the call for that very first call. It was a very odd call where, you know, my mother was confronting him about what medication he had given me. He wanted to clarify, you know, what I was saying. And so I jumped on the line and ended up being a conference call for a big chunk of the call where I was literally saying, this is what you did to me. And every bit of what he did to me on that couch rolled off my tongue. And I just confronted him about everything he had done and my mom just listened. And so for me, that was a moment where I could at least get it off my chest.

MG: After you went to police, the district attorney in Montgomery County in Pennsylvania did not bring charges against Bill Cosby. You ended up bringing a civil suit against him and you settled and had to live under a nondisclosure agreement. What was that like?

ANDREA COSTAND: Ah... Well, I think I walked away from that civil settlement with an even bigger secret, and that was that Bill Cosby had drugged women and give them Quaaludes to have sex with them. So I felt like, you know, I was just trying to. Move on with my life, I was just trying to take it moment by moment, signing the non-disclosure agreement, you know, it protected me. You know, a lot of sexual assault survivors don't want details of their abuse out. And I felt it really was going to give me the privacy that I wanted in order to move on with my life.

MG: As you mentioned, you learnt that other women had had similar experiences to you. And I'm wondering, given what you had gone through, what did that bring you, knowing that you weren't alone in this?

ANDREA COSTAND: It brought me added pain because, you know, when you understand a little bit about trauma, I think to know something like that, it hurts because you know, you know the devastation, you know the damage, you know, for the survivor, but also for everybody in the world of that survivor. That's just how trauma is. But I have to say that, yes, knowing that I wasn't alone, knowing there were other people out there, it gave me hope. It gave me hope that at some point we could get together and try to heal together. But, yeah, I didn't feel so alone. And that did help me a lot

MG: in the wake of the NDA kind of exists out of the public eye that this has happened. And it's pushed aside until October of 2014 when the comedian Hannibal Burress appears on stage. I want to play a little bit of what he did when he was on stage. Take a listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

Bill Cosby has the smuggest all black male personhood and I hate it. [Unintelligible] black people on TV in the 80s. I can talk down [unintelligible] successful sitcom. It was great women, Bill Cosby. So. Sit down [unintelligible]. Oh curse on the stage. Well, yeah, you're right, we saw.

MG: That video went viral. What did it do to your life? It changed your life in many ways.

ANDREA COSTAND: Yeah, it was literally like a rumble of thunder underneath my feet. That was really hard. I just, you know, especially because what he says after that is going Google Bill Cosby rapist, that's going to have so many more hits than me. I think Hannibal might have been on the spot with with his routine. But I think for me, when people go and Google Bill Cosby rape, ultimately my name would come up there to, you know, along with many others because there was stuff that was in the press that was covered. And so for me, I felt vulnerable. I just didn't know what was going to happen. But I felt like that just for that was that was a little rumble underneath my feet. And it did cause me a little bit of anxiety, looking back.

MG: It also led to the prosecutors in Pennsylvania. People started digging. And what came out of that was prosecutors asking if you were willing to work with them on a criminal case against Bill Cosby. Were you prepared for that?

ANDREA COSTAND: I think over time, you know, just the sheer number of women that started coming out, you know, probably eight months after that Hannibal Burress video, there was just women coming out in in droves. And Gloria Allred was doing press conferences with them. And so the floodgates opened up. You could see these women coming forward, lives changed. But ultimately, I did know that once all the women started coming out that it was it was bringing attention to to something. And once I got a call from the district attorney, from from my counsel whether I would cooperate, I knew something was going on.

MG: Your counsel asked you before this moved forward whether you were ready for this. What do you think your counsel was asking? And were you ready for this?

ANDREA COSTAND: You know, my heart dropped out in that moment because I thought, well, yeah, I'm ready. But for what? I really didn't know. But I think, you know, something came over me where it was like, I will rise up to the occasion for justice to see justice served. And and I think in my mind, I was ready.

MG: I mean, in some sense, your counsel was asking you whether you were ready for what was going to happen on the stand as a survivor of sexual assault in a high profile trial. And the questions that would be asked of you, could you have ever imagined what that would have been like? Because the way that you describe it in the two trials is really, really hard to read. And I can't imagine what it would have been like to be there.

ANDREA COSTAND: Yeah, it was a lot of damage. Of course, both the trials were very, very different. But I think having had the experience that I did with the civil settlement in 2006 and doing the depositions there, I think I felt less afraid. I think I knew it was going to be new damage, you know, but I had already had a taste of just how poisonous and how toxic Cosby's world was. And the biggest thing that I had to think about was, am I going to be diving deep down into this poisonous, toxic world? And it was something I had to juggle in my mind and say, well, I've already experienced it back in 2006. How much worse could it possibly get? But what I never could dream of is that they would just try to absolutely destroy my family's reputation and my reputation and that there would be the bar would be set so low for that that ultimately I never saw that coming. However, I wasn't surprised.

MG: The first criminal trial against Bill Cosby ended in a mistrial. How did you cope with that verdict?

ANDREA COSTAND: Oh, it was so difficult. That was just a really tough trial to walk away from because I had seen so much anxiety and stress, the jurors were really having a very difficult time. You know, they were sacrificing time away from their own families. They were sequestered. And and so it was really painful to watch at mistrial, you know, hearing the mistrial, knowing that everybody had sacrificed so much time personally and, you know, trying to come to a decision. It was really tough, you know, for everyone. I don't just consider myself I was just one person there, but I was also an observer.

MG: Before the second trial, the Harvey Weinstein scandal erupts and the meta movement explodes into something that it wasn't before. What did that mean for your case?

ANDREA COSTAND: Ultimately, you know, I think it brought a new consciousness, you know, a new awareness of the magnitude of sexual assault and sexually sexual harassment, particularly in Hollywood, because I think what flowed from the Metoo movement was literally it was a domino effect of the horrible atrocities of sexual assault happening in Hollywood. So I think it was shining a light on that. I think there might have even been some education, you know, whether it was on social media, you know, being informed. Many people are were saying people, you know, stay silent. This is how survivors behave. And I think, if anything, what the movement did was it brought a new awareness and a new consciousness. And I think even going into the second trial, it was a very different jury. They were informed in a different way. And so I think, you know, that momentum of the metoo movement and going into the second trial, the energy was very different outside the courthouse and inside the courthouse as well.

MG: What was it like to hear the judge read the jury's verdict in that second trial?

ANDREA COSTAND: I was really in shock, I think I might have even just been levitating out of my seat. It was very surreal in that moment, actually watching the four person deliver the guilty verdict in. And it was just I was hanging on every word for one guilty verdict. And ultimately, when it was three, I just I just couldn't believe it. It was just a very surreal moment.

MG: You write that members of the jury came up to you and told you we believed you. What did that mean to you to hear that from the jury members?

ANDREA COSTAND: Well, I think it was the only one of the only times maybe there were a couple that I really cried throughout the whole ordeal. I just it meant everything to me. All I ever wanted to do was to be believed. That was a very powerful moment, I think. I think I had tears streaming down my face and my body was just vibrating on a whole other level because that was really what I needed to hear in order to truly start my healing process. I just needed to hear that that I was believed.

MG: In June of this year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned Bill Cosby's conviction, saying he should not have been charged or prosecuted because of a deal that he'd made with a prosecutor. What message do you think the court sent through that ruling?

ANDREA COSTAND: I think the message that they sent through that was that they need to close the legal loopholes so that district attorneys don't feel that they can give people that have been convicted of crimes immunity. Judges should be able to give criminals immunity. And you know what? I think that's something that legally needs to be put in place so that it never happens again. All we can do is learn from these decisions. Obviously, it was a very tough decision. They did take a lengthy time to get to that ruling. But I don't think district attorneys should be able to make decisions based on a handshake and give criminals immunity. This was just something that the Supreme Court ultimately honoured. And I don't think I'll ever understand why completely. But it's not for me to try to understand why people make the decisions that they make. It's up to me to be an advocate, to start to fight, to change the laws, to put legislation in place so that something like this never happens again.

MG: You write in the book, I do not wish suffering on Bill Cosby. How did you get to that point, given everything that you have gone through over these years, how did you get to that place?

ANDREA COSTAND: Well, getting to that place has taken a lot of time. I've had to really dig the deepest part of me to get the courage to forgive Bill Cosby for what he did to me. You know, I just knew that in order to get the healing that I really needed to get the closure. As I sit here today, having been through so much, I think ultimately being believed by the jury really helped kind of set that healing process in motion. But I really realised I can't continue to be in his world. And, you know, I just have to continue to move forward, you know, to be an inspiration to others, to help others, you know, to be of service, you know, in new ways, anywhere I can be. But this is what healing looks like. This is what closure looks like.

MG: You read at the end of the book that we must speak up again and again and again until we arrive at a moment of real change. And there are many people, I think, who thought, as you were saying earlier, that perhaps the meta movement was that moment or that catalyst for real change. What will it take to get to that place, do you think?

ANDREA COSTAND: I think what it will take is hearing stories. Storytelling is very, very powerful and and I think we need to be not be afraid to tell our stories. We've come too far. I think the Mitu movement was great momentum to set a platform for storytelling. And I also think that we need to continue to fight and to speak up and not take a back seat to abuses that we've suffered, harassment that we've suffered, where I can be a voice and where I can fight for change and be a voice for change. I will. And part of that is really fighting to change laws. And I think it goes without saying in order to get to the next stage of me to we have to fight and stand behind survivors and get laws changed.

MG: It's an incredibly powerful book. You've been through a lot, and I'm sure writing it is not easy, but it is important for the story to be there and important for people to read it. And I'm grateful to have the chance to talk to you. Thank you very much.

ANDREA COSTAND: Thank you.

MG: Andrea Constand book is The Moment: Standing Up to Bill Cosby Speaking Up for women. It's out today. Well, coming up after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

I didn't think that another school year would come by and we would actually be in the same position. I feel that we're in worse of a position with this fourth wave.

MG: Yesterday on the programme, we spoke about the covid threat as Canada heads back to the classroom. Coming up, we'll take a look at how that fourth wave is getting in the way of actual learning by Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Back in 90 seconds.

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How to help students get back on track as pandemic disruptions continue

Guests: Graeme Hopkins, Yusra Ahmad, Tracy Vaillancourt, Donna Aljam

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current. There is excitement in the air, you know, the kind I'm talking about, students reuniting with classmates and teachers in person and hoping for a clean slate as they begin a new grade. But there is plenty of trepidation as well. Learning during this pandemic has not been easy on anyone. For some, it's taken a heavy toll not only on their marks, but on their mental health as well. In a few moments, we'll hear from a lead researcher on pandemic learning loss and how to get back on track. We'll also talk with a psychiatrist about how to support kids as school resumes. But first, Graeme Hopkins, grade 12 student in Saskatoon, has launched a petition asking high schools to return to the regular semester system they operated under before covid. Graeme, good morning.

GRAEME HOPKINS: Good morning.

MG: It's been a minute since I've been in school, but as I remember, the semester system had students taking four courses for half the year and then four courses for the other half of the year. How did that change in Saskatoon during covid?

GRAEME HOPKINS: Well, in Saskatoon and the 20 to 20, 21 year are our local school division implemented a timetable called the timetable, and in this we would take the same number of courses we would usually take, which is 10. So a couple more than Ontario, but we would take. Two courses in each day and each course would occupy about two hours for the better part of the year, and we would have about two months with each set of two classes before switching out to a new one. So there were five points of the year in each grade would last about two months.

MG: What did that mean in terms of learning and what would happen if, for example, you know, it's a lot more compressed, but if you started to fall behind in one of those classes, what did that mean?

GRAEME HOPKINS: If you were to fall behind, especially in some of the heavier courses, more academic courses such as the maths or sciences, it could mean catastrophic results for you and for your grades. And those effects would start to appear almost immediately because there is no time given almost for you to recover from anything or for you to prepare for anything, because these courses are going by so quickly, you would have a unit that would normally take about a few a few weeks to complete. And now you're doing it in a couple of days. So if you're behind on something, if you even realise you're behind, which may not even happen in and of itself, but if you realise you're behind, you have an extremely narrow window to correct whatever mistake has been made or whatever lack of understanding you may have.

MG: What happened with your grades last year?

GRAEME HOPKINS: I passed with high marks in a few classes, but in a few others, I passed with a 60 percent in one 50 percent and the other and I failed another class.

MG: That sounds really stressful.

GRAEME HOPKINS: Yeah, it was. It just consumes every part of your life and you have you don't have time for anything else, and it's really draining on you and on your peers and. It's just a very. A very toxic thing for your mental health and for your education as well.

MG: Were you offered any extra help to the board or your teachers give students anything different, given the fact that, as you say, the timeline is so compressed and if you start to slip, you're behind the eight ball before you even notice it?

GRAEME HOPKINS: Yeah, so, at least for my school, I imagine this is the case for other individual schools as well, but when it came to giving students extra help or support to allow them to adapt this timetable, it was all up to the teachers. And if a teacher doesn't have time for you for any reason, then he hits it. It's going to be catastrophic for you. And even if the teacher is able to give you extra help, there is no structured support systems in place. There were none that year. And unfortunately, it looks like that is also the case. But this year, I think once again, they're not implementing any support systems.

MG: I was going to say, what sort of supports would you want this year, given the fact that you have this petition? But the school board in Saskatoon hasn't changed its position on semesters. So what supports would you want?

GRAEME HOPKINS: If they are so convinced that they want quarters, I would, I would compel them to do the necessary work to accomplish what what they want. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. If they want to alter the timetable so drastically, they need to understand that that is going to come with some sacrifices. They're going to have to divert some funding towards structured supports. I think more school counsellors, structured homework help sessions, even paying the teachers for the extra time they're going to be undertaking to help their students. I think any one of these things, and especially them in concert with each other could really make a difference. But unfortunately, it doesn't look like that's going to happen, at least not anytime soon.

MG: Just before I let you go, you're in grade 12. It's a big year. What do you think this year's going to look like for you schoolwise?

GRAEME HOPKINS: It changes every day for me. I'm having to really take a close look at the courses I'm taking because I now have the understanding that it is essentially impossible for any students to, for most students, to take any of the maths or sciences. So it may be that I will drop those courses entirely and take them again next year. It may be that I take them in a private school. I haven't decided yet, but I do know that I will definitely not be taking any of those courses in this Quadmester model they've devised.

MG: I wish you the best. I mean, it's a lot. And just school difficult to the best of times. Grade 12 is a big year, but you have a lot on your plate. So good luck.

GRAEME HOPKINS: Thank you.

MG: Graeme Hopkins, grade 12 student, he was in Saskatoon. Falling grades, soaring stress for many students. These are just as we're hearing some of the By-Products of covid-19 school disruptions over the past 18 months. And it's not just students saying that more supports are needed. Educators are saying that as well, and that they're needed right now to cope with the effects and set kids up for success. Tracy Vaillancourt is a Canada research chair and children's mental health and violence prevention at the University of Ottawa. She's also a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada, and she helped author a recent policy briefing on children and schools during covid-19. Tracy, good morning to you.

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: Good morning.

MG: It's interesting, Graeme used the word catastrophic a couple of times in your policy briefing. You say we are on the cusp of a generational catastrophe that requires swift action to mitigate the harm. That's a really stark warning about what's going on right now. What concerns you the most about what's unfolding in the schools over the course of this pandemic?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: My concern was so well articulated by Graham. He really, really said what our concerns are. It has effect covid-19 and school closures and the disruptions to education have affected virtually all aspects of development. So it's not just my concerns with mental health, the deterioration of mental health or the peer relations, the isolation and the like, but also what happened in schools, the learning gaps that we're seeing, 90 percent of the world kids were out of school, five point seven million Canadian children were out of school at some point. And these unprecedented, unprecedented disruptions in education led to disengagement, chronic attendance problems, declines in academic achievement, decreases in credit attainment. And this was an impact that was borne disproportionately to those who are already at risk before the pandemic was declared as such.

MG: Do we know yet to what extent kids in Canada have fallen behind? I mean, anecdotally, you'll hear that. But is there evidence yet showing how far kids slipped because of the disruptions in the school that you were laying out?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: We do have some evidence. So the world evidence is actually better than the Canadian evidence. We don't have a national data set where we can we can compare provinces and territories. And that's a real mess on our part. But we do know from school boards who have looked at this, so there's been like these little pockets of information that we can gather from and what it looks like, it seems to be that there's going to be a learning shortfall and it's widening. It's going to be greater for students who had lower achievement before the pandemic. And so we're looking at about three to three and a half months of of a gap in learning for typical performing children and youth and a one year gap in children and youth who were lower performing before the pandemic.

MG: It's not to suggest that that this hasn't created incredible stress. We just heard it from Graeme there. But does it help? That everyone's in the same boat in some ways, that that all students are a majority of students found themselves. I mean, there are different situations but found themselves in an unusual situation.

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: There should be it should help having a shared reality does help. We know from the research that offshoots and atypical cases tend to be there's the stigma attached to that as well. That can be quite problematic. But that said, what we need and what Graeme, your first guest, was suggesting is that we need to intervene and we need to intervene quickly to address these educational gaps. And so he made a number of suggestions and we made a number of suggestions in our report. And our report is extensive. Our report deals from everything from ventilation to to how to manage inequality and and how to access free Internet in Canada. So, I mean, we need to be thinking about this quickly, broadly and in a systematic fashion.

MG: I want to come back to the marks in a moment, because that's a lot of parents and students obviously feel that if they see their marks slipping. But you also talk about the emotional disruption here and say that children have a fundamental need to belong and that this has disrupted that in some way. What is the emotional effect and the emotional disruption that not being in the classroom with your friends and your colleagues has over the course of many months?

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: I think we've made the mistake of thinking that schools are just about reading, writing and arithmetic. And they've never been just about the three hours we argue that. The first hour of education is relationships. So just just broadly, what the schools do and then I'll talk about the need to belong. So schools provide opportunities for learning and engagement. We know this, but in areas that we don't think about traditionally, like the arts, the natural world, current events, sexual health, digital literacy, they provide food for school, food, resources for children and youth. When they're in need, they provide disability support. They constitute a rich setting in which to develop social competencies and social competencies are inextricably linked to doing well in school. So the tasks of learning are socially mediated. And what we did during the pandemic with all our school closures is we took away that, right, that social context. And so now children are learning in isolation at home. They're lonely. Their fundamental need to belong is not met. Their mental health is declining for many. And and then we expect them to do well and and then they don't do well. And we should not be surprised.

MG: And so in the last couple of minutes that we have I mean, many of us parents were hoping that this would be a more normal school year. And whether that unfolds in that way will remain to be seen. But the concern is that given that learning loss, will kids be able to make up ground? What needs to happen immediately to ensure that kids don't fall further behind emotionally and when it comes to the the education piece.

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: So my concern is that we're going to be so worried about learning achievement gaps that we're going to come in and ignore all the other things that need to be addressed. I think the first thing we need to do is attend to the social emotional needs and their mental health. And once we get everybody comfortable and and ready to learn, then then we need to to start developing programmes. We have programmes already in place that actually they don't need to be developed, but we should be having programmes that are meant to to combined with what we're already doing in order to get them caught up. And so I say this again, was a lot of caveats because we don't want kids to be staying after school in their desks to learn more. We don't want them sitting in summer school to learn more at a desk and not experiencing their world and not having fun and the like. So we need to be mindful of how this is going to look. And so what we've proposed is that we should be doing things like small group offerings during the school day, virtual supports provided before or after school summer camps with a combination of play high quality recreation and academics. We've been doing this before. We can do it again. I just don't want to deliver to imagine if everybody, all the kids in Canada had to go to summer school. It just would be. I can't imagine that being the way to go when they're already stressed. They've already given up so much during this pandemic. I don't think we should be asking for too much more. And what we do ask, we need to always keep in mind that learning how. And relationships.

MG: Tracy, good to speak with you about this, a lot to think about is the school year gets underway. Thank you very much.

TRACY VAILLANCOURT: Thank you.

MG: Tracy Vaillancourt is Canada research chair in Children's Mental Health and Violence Prevention at the University of Ottawa. Also, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada feels like a lot to handle, especially considering it's only September. Taking care of students and staff at mental health is going to be more important than ever this year. Dr. Yusra Ahmad is a psychiatrist, clinical lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Doctor, good morning to you.

YUSRA AHMAD: Good morning,

MG: Matt. This is not a normal school year and the pandemic is in many ways the elephant in the room as the school year gets started. What do you think teachers should be thinking about when it comes to addressing the emotional needs that students have as this year kicks off? We just been talking about how you can't separate in many ways those emotional concerns from education concerns.

YUSRA AHMAD: That's correct. And so on that note, I would encourage all educators to create space early in in as people return to school, as students get back into the classroom to have a conversation about the effects of the pandemic on our kids, to allow them the opportunity to speak up and to share the ways in which they have already been coping with this challenging situation.

MG: What about parents? Do you think parents need to check their expectations, given the reality that students are facing right now, that they might have seen Mark slip perhaps over the last, you know, year, year and a bit? But we're in a different situation right now. And so what do parents need to be thinking about?

YUSRA AHMAD: Yeah, I think a healthy amount of compassion all around is what we need as a society and as parents as well. Compassion and understanding for the adversities that are our kids are facing, as Graeme so beautifully articulated. And I'm so proud of someone like him for, you know, advocating for the needs of himself and his peers in that way. So, yes, what what matters most at the end of the day is our health and safety. And so let's prioritise that. And then in terms of other issues, such as the learning gaps that have emerged, those will correct themselves in time. But let's let's really focus on health and safety, especially emotional well-being.

MG: Do you worry that that's the learning gaps will dominate the conversation, that that the balance will be tipped in favour of that and that perhaps some of those emotional gaps may be not taken as seriously or with the weight that they deserve?

YUSRA AHMAD: I am concerned about that because that's the easiest piece to be talking about. And I think people tend to jump to things that can be measured. And so if we're looking at grades, these are numbers and you can see the decline. And so it's something, you know, relatively easy that you can point to and talk about. But it's the intangibles that really matter. And I love what Tracy had to say, which is the importance of relationship. I mean, in in terms of the quality of our lives, there's a direct correlation between that quality and the quality of our relationships.

MG: What would you say to students if you're speaking with Graeme or other students who have a lot of anxiety as they get into this new school year? What would you say to them?

YUSRA AHMAD: I would, first of all, acknowledge that it's OK for them to be experiencing anxiety, for people to be struggling. It is, in fact, to be expected, given the nature of what we're facing. I mean, really, this, Matt, this has been a global trauma that everyone is experiencing in different ways. And it's touching people's lives in all kinds of different a different manner. So I would respect that people are struggling. That's the first step, acknowledgement and acceptance of the situation. And it's only then that you can start to address it.

MG: And it's not just students and it's not just parents, but it's educators as well who are also feeling the weight of that stress.

YUSRA AHMAD: Absolutely. I think teachers for a long time have had to be more than just teachers. They've had to be mentors and social workers. And they're so critical in the development of our our children and our young people. Any one of us who's gotten to where we're at, including myself, it's because of amazing teachers that helped us along. And now there's this added pressure of, you know, making sure the classroom is in, you know, clean and people are engaging in proper hand hygiene and taking care of the added anxieties of social distancing. And as well as in some classrooms, people are doing concurrent virtual teaching while while doing in-person as well. There's a lot to handle here for teachers.

MG: We just have a minute or so left. I know that you also lead a mindfulness group therapy programme. What is focussing on the breath in a moment like this where there's a lot of stress, what does that give teachers and students and parents as well?

YUSRA AHMAD: It's extremely powerful because first of all, with a lot of us wearing masks, we may not be breathing as deeply as we used to. We may be engaging in shallow breathing, and that tends to increase the carbon dioxide in our bloodstream, which can actually trigger the chemo receptors in our brainstem to send red alert signals to our body that heighten anxiety and tell us that were deprived of oxygen. So learning to deep breathe, breathe deeply is actually very helpful in a moment like this. In addition, it helps us to anchor ourselves in the present moment, which is a useful strategy when our minds start to spin out of control because you can't breathe for the past and you can't breathe for the future, you can only breathe right here right now.

MG: Something worth remembering as the school year gets set to begin right here, right now. Doctor, good to speak with you. Thank you.

YUSRA AHMAD: You're very welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

MG: Dr. Yusra Ahmad is a psychiatrist, clinical lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and she also is the creator of Mindfully Muslim, a group therapy programme.

[Music]

MG: We started the programme today in Lytton, British Columbia, the village destroyed by fire this summer. This is a symptom of a much larger problem. 2021 has been BC's third worst wildfire season on record in terms of the area burned. I spent last week travelling through the interior of that province, hearing stories about what that meant for the people who live there. Also spent the day in the Skeetchestn in First Nation near Kamloops. Their territory was devastated by the Sparks Lake Fire. These communities, Litten, Skeetchestn and others in the region there the definition of resilient, perhaps not by choice, but certainly by necessity. Resilience is a theme that we will explore in depth this season on The Current. You'll hear a lot more of these sorts of stories and stories about people being resilient in other ways as well. We're going to be in Halifax next week talking about health care issues. We'll continue to cover the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and the stories of those who've left and are trying to rebuild their lives. And all of this is about how resilient we are as people and as Canadians. I want to leave you with that thought, but don't take it from me. This is something that a small community just outside of Lytton knows all too well

Speaker 5: [sc]

[Foreing speech]

And I'm Chief Donna Aljam. Presently I am the chief here at Nicomen Band.

MG: The wildfire came right to the doorstep of Donna Aljam community. Just describe what we're looking at right now.

SOUNDCLIP

DONNA ALJAM: So when I say the city block, this is how close it got to my house here. So using it as an example, this is my house and how close it got to my house.

MG: you wouldn't want it any closer.

DONNA ALJAM: You definitely don't want to close no identifiers closer to it or not. And I know how hard they get to so but there are spots that came out of that embers that came out over that. They came down into the community where the firefighters seen it burning, figured, OK, well, we'll just burn it off and then it won't be there anymore and it will be a consideration.

MG: Chief, Aljum believes traditional mitigation measures, things like fuel management and fire breaks, all helped protect houses and left Nickman standing. She gets our last word today. I Matt Galloway thanks for listening to The Current and see you tomorrow.

SOUNDCLIP

DONNA ALJAM: So what Nicomen did is that we took the trees and fuel management, we limned delivered them up so high so that there's no overhanging branches. A lot of the dead branches that are on the bottom, we removed those two because that's fuel as well, too. We removed all of the needles and the sagebrush and pine cones on the bottom so that there's not a lot of fuel on the ground because that's what it takes to move across the ground and move to the next tree. We spaced out the trees as well, too, so that they're not clumped in together to do as they call candling. So that's a major thing that kind of blows it over to another spot and then that spot starts again. So the wood piles, we're trying to educate people to have them at least 10 metre buffer zone so that even if the pile goes up, it it doesn't potentially cause a hotspot for the house, because as long as the hotspot is far enough away from the house, it won't combust. So that's what we're trying to eliminate.

MG: Are the steps that you're taking, are they enough if the fires are going to continue or is it just sort of you can't prevent the fires so you have to figure out some way to almost how to live with the fires?

DONNA ALJAM: It's basically living with the fires because as ancestors and history is done, we've done pretty burns already in the past. And it was to either cultivate or to nourish an area or to open up space for items to happen so that you could have hunting or you would have a Bery pick in place or something like that. And we would do four year turnaround. So we would do this area one year and then we would leave it and let it rest for four years or three years. And then from there, that's that's how we adapt it with it. But with the forestry practises, you can't do that anymore. You have to basically do what they say. And, you know, they they want to keep their wood and timber and stuff like that, but they don't want to see, OK, burn this area and we'll get back to it.

MG: But the success of this community in this fire should should be an example.

DONNA ALJAM: Yes. Yes, we are an example. What we've done to date saved the community.

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Tuesday September 7, 2021

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