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The Current Transcript for December 8, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

I hope we never have to use this bill. I hope that we've sent a message to Ottawa that we will vigorously defend our constitutional areas of jurisdiction and they should just butt out.

MATT GALLOWAY: It has been quite a run so far for Premier Daniel Smith's Alberta Sovereignty Act. It was the cornerstone of her leadership campaign. She introduced it last week. Observers immediately declared it unconstitutional and undemocratic. She's since retooled it to take on some of the most contentious elements before it finally passed last night in 30 minutes. One of the architects of the act on why he believes Alberta's relationship with Ottawa is broken and why he thinks the province would be better off outside Canada. And we'll hear from NDP leader Rachel Notley on what this whole discussion says about the state of Alberta. Also this morning,

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This is a brutal violation not only of international law, but of common decency. How can you steal our children and try to hide them somewhere in Russia?

MG: Thousands of children from Ukraine have been taken to Russia over the course of the war. In an hour, the CBC's Briar Stewart on why the U.N. aid agencies and parents are saying some of those children are not, in fact, orphans and that they've been abducted and given new identities and families. We begin, though, with another hike in interest rates and what that means for those already struggling with a cost of living crunch. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Bank of Canada hikes interest rates again

Guests: Armine Yalnizyan, Derek Holt

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MG: Our mortgage broker said, You know what, variable stays low for a very long time and eventually you pay less in the variable. So we said, okay, let's go for the variable. One seems like a better choice and I literally feel like I should pinch myself. But they didn't. Why did I? Why did I listen to all these people? I thought like, you know, these are all really good informed choices and all the experts are saying the same thing. So we should listen to them. You know.

MG: That's Rabia Shumayal on CBC News last night. She was reacting to the Bank of Canada's latest interest rate hike. The increase is aimed at bringing down this country's high inflation rate. But as those interest rates go up, so does the economic anxiety of many Canadians with mortgages or debt. Armine Yalnizyan is an economist and Atkinson fellow on the Future of Workers. Derek Holt, vice president and head of Capital Market Economics at Scotiabank in Toronto. They both join us now. Good morning to you both.

DEREK HOLT: Good morning.

MG: Derek, a seventh interest rate hike, is this necessary now?

DEREK HOLT: Unfortunately, yes. And that's where we're paying the consequences for the fact that central banks and governments kind of misread inflation risk earlier on in the pandemic. They did what they had to do to avoid a much darker scenario for world economy. And so we have them to thank for that. But the flipside of it is that all this stimulus and all the damage to supply chains around the world caused this massive surge of inflation. Now we have to take our medicine in order to try to cool it down. Given the history lessons with respect to the costs of allowing inflation to go on like this.

MG: Can I ask you more in just a moment about how we got to this point? Armine, from your perspective, you spoke with the governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem interview in The Toronto Star today, and he talks about the plan and says, in his words, the plan always works. Walk us through what he calls the plan.

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: The plan is that we raise interest rates and we tame inflation. And it did work in the eighties and it did work in the nineties at enormous cost to the economy. But it did work. It's just that the Bank of Canada didn't do that in the fifties when we had inflation. It didn't do that basically in the seventies. And I don't know that we can any of us can be so confident to say that it will work now when the underlying conditions that create the inflation we are currently seeing are not easily tamed by a lockstep increase in interest rates, not just in Canada but around the world. It may be true, but I think it's not backed up by evidence at this moment.

MG: Those underlying conditions, Derek, were referenced in a report from Scotiabank that was released yesterday saying that something like 85% of the rise in prices has been driven by external pressures outside of our borders. What's going on?

DEREK HOLT: Well, to a degree, that's always the case for Canada. We get too much of our lot in life handed to us by global developments. And so that's not a particularly new factor, but it is also not one that we can ignore. And so if we allow this kind of inflation, whether imported and or domestically derived, and I think it's a bit of both to go unchecked, then the risk that it presents is that it ignites wage pressures, it becomes ingrained in the psyche, people start to expect it, and inflation builds upon itself further. And you never get it under control unless you do what you have to do to cool demand and bring it in line with these damaged supply chains. And I think that's an unfortunate price that we're paying, but it's a necessary consequence.

MG: What about the cost of the pandemic? There is a political narrative that certainly has developed saying that government spending has played a role in where we find ourselves now. What role did government spending play, do you believe?

DEREK HOLT: I think it did play a role, but it's kind of a tough one to argue because had we not done this going back to March and April of 2020, we would have probably faced with a depression and deflationary scenario, and it would have been very, very dark circumstances for the economy. So we have central banks and governments to thank for their initial rollout of all the stimulus until vaccines started to arrive, until behaviour changed, until technology could adapt. And so that got us to that point. But they held onto it for too long in excessive amounts and pivoted far too late in the game. And that's why we're seeing high inflation now. They ignored all the warning signs throughout 2021.

MG: Armine, do you think the government spent too much during the pandemic and contributed to the inflation and the rate hikes that we're seeing now?

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: No. But I do agree with Derrick that what they did during the early stages of the pandemic, which was to contain the contagion and make sure people didn't go hungry or lose their housing, was exactly what put Canada at the front of the G7 pack in terms of rebounding the pandemic. We were the first to recoup our headcount in jobs. We were the first to recoup GDP growth. And currently, looking at our debt requirements, we are the lowest in the G7 in terms of deficit to GDP and borrowing requirements, net debt. And so, you know, we done good. We done real.

MG: Good. But do we did we do good for too long, I guess?

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: Well, what happened was, to Derek's point, that there was so much purchasing power because it wasn't eroded from exactly what we did that permitted businesses to get back on their feet after two and a half years of pandemic. There was so much purchasing power that it morphed from, you know, things like lumber. Inflation is a shapeshifter. It started off with things that were totally discretionary, like lumber during the first year of lockdown. And now it has morphed into the basics of food, fuel and housing. And nothing about these rises in interest rates are going to help supply catch up unless OPEC says, oh, look, we're raising interest rates in Canada, so we will open up the floodgates for oil and gas on global markets, or that Russia decides to stop invading Ukraine and we can restore wheat production and fertiliser shipments to global exports. These these things, I just don't think square up particularly well. And the real problem right now with housing, which is the most interest rate sensitive and the most demand specific, is that more people are losing their mortgage, just like your person that was at the front of this show and people that thought they would be able to get into the housing market and have decided they can't afford it. So now we're getting crowding in the rental market, which was already unaffordable before this whole thing began. And so I think it's really important for us to understand where inflation is an inconvenience. For some people, it is life and death issues for others. And I think we are assuming that the Bank of Canada can fix the situation. It is not the only player in this story of stability and prosperity that we can offer each other.

MG: Derek, how worried are you from the bankers perspective about what we heard into our point, what we heard at the very beginning of our programme? Ravi Schmale talking about how, you know, they bought a house, they were told a variable rate mortgage was the best way forward. Now they're going to find themselves paying a whole lot more. And you could find people not particularly hurt, but others who may find themselves underwater behind the eight ball, whatever metaphor you want to use, and unable to, to to pay that debt.

DEREK HOLT: Unfortunately, there is going to be some further pain going forward. We know that we're forecasting a mild recession in the Canadian economy. We think that will start in the first half of next year. We do think that there are some underlying supports for the economy to oftentimes get glossed over, like the fact that we are benefiting from high commodity prices. 30% of this country's GDP is exports. We are we are benefiting from demand diversion from a lot of those commodities, everything from grains to oil to base metals. People are buying it from Canada now because they can't get it from many other parts of the world. We also have ongoing fiscal stimulus followed by cereals, cereal spending, federal and provincial governments that don't know when to stop in some respects. But it's it frustrates the inflation battle, but it's a support to growth. We've raised immigration targets to almost a half a million per year. That's like adding another city of Ottawa or city of Edmonton every couple of years in the context of really no supply in the housing market. And so there are a lot of supports alongside very high household cash balances, excellent corporate balance sheet strengths to help mitigate some of the pain here. But there's no way around this in our in our assessment, this is a relatively small share of the mortgage market that is going to be the most pressured. It's not everyone. Many people are are in much better position. One third of households are renting. They don't have a mortgage. One third of households in Canada have have a home, but they don't have a mortgage anymore because of the ageing population. And so it's a tale of the one third of the population that owns a household with a mortgage that is most vulnerable, who took out the mortgages at the peak of house prices and the trough for interest rates, and they are going to face an adjustment going forward. But listen, I mean, that's that's the whole essence of tightening monetary policy. There's got to be some pain if it's going to work.

MG: Armine, can you just go back to the renting part of this? Because, again, we talk a lot about mortgages, but to your point, there are a lot of people who are renting and the rent is on a. Affordable in major cities and well beyond.

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: I think Derek has spelled out precisely what the pain point is going to be. Look, housing for those who have a mortgage or renting is the biggest cost in your budget. Whether you're rich or poor. It just takes the biggest bite out of your budget and it is going up. The interest rate hikes are pushing more people into the rental market. Those people have got cash. Some of them are plunking down a year's worth of rent and crowding out whatever is in the slim fixings that are in the rental market. We are not building purpose built rental housing. We are building at a rate of about a fifth what we were doing in the 1970s when the population grew as quickly. So I think, you know, we are markets are not going to deliver affordable housing. We have to do that for one another and we are not doing it. And I think, you know, we are going to pay the price because we are, as Derek said, bringing in at least half a million immigrants to deal with our labour shortages, which are. That's another piece of uncharted territory. Where it. Well, we've never had a baby boom retire. Not just in Canada, but around the world. Any place that had a baby boom after the Second World War is going through this labour shortage just for as far as the eye can see. And we are bringing in people, but we are not building housing. What do you think's going to happen?

MG: Let me ask you about the Labour issue, because this is something that you raised with the governor of the Bank of Canada. TIFF Macklem the unemployment rate in Canada down to about 5.1% in November, according to new data from Statcan. He said that it remains unsustainably low.

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: Yeah. I don't know what you want me to say.

MG: Well, I just wonder. I just wonder what you mean. What you make of brain.

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: This an economist understanding that the purpose of economic strength is to have full employment, that that is the goal of economics. So 5% in the is I guess, in the eye of the beholder. For me, 5% is a definition of full employment. The purpose of strong economies for some people is unsustainable, like the Bank of Canada governor. So that's where I think there's going to be a big flashpoint in discussions about what are economies for and who are they for as we go.

MG: Derek, I could hear you in the background. Go ahead.

DEREK HOLT: Yeah, sure thing. I'd like to chime in on that. It's an example of how we almost did too well in terms of these support programmes. We have a half a million jobs more now than we had before the pandemic. We have an all time record high for employment levels. We have extremely tight labour markets, the tightest in the world. And all of this came at the expense of that dirty word productivity. The amount of goods and services produced per hour worked in the Canadian workforce plummeted during the pandemic, and most economists would agree that that's probably an added inflationary impulse. And in that context, we're seeing explosive wage gains in Canada, average hourly wages month over month, seasonally adjusted annualised rate. We've been climbing at between six and nine percentage points, dating right back to the last summer. We've seen real wage gains and so above the pace of inflation month over month since May. And so we're seeing the hottest wage pressures across industrialised economies and the weakest productivity across our peer group of industrialised economies. That means the labour market has done too well. It's making the Bank of Canada's job to fight inflation that much more complicated. And it's something that I think I fear has to cool down for it to be to succeed. And in containing inflation.

MG: Which leads to the head of the largest private sector union in the country, accusing the Bank of Canada of class warfare. He addressed this. The governor did in your interview. Armine, what did he say about those accusations?

DEREK HOLT: He was really careful to say, I'm not telling workers what to ask for and I'm not telling businesses what to pay. My job is to point out where the hotspots are in the economy that need to be cool. I thought that was an artful answer that didn't answer. What do you expect workers to do who are losing purchasing power? Derek I would love to see the data you are looking at because I am not seeing any real wage growth anywhere for any group. Maybe there are particular occupations that are seeing real wage growth. I'm not actually seeing that in the data I've been looking at.

MG: To your point, the wage growth is. To your point, the wage growth is still behind inflation behind the...

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: 100%. Like, I like I don't know what you're talking about.

MG: Derek.

DEREK HOLT: So that's factually false. You can look up the labour force survey from statistics that they provide. They provide average hourly earnings. You can take the month over month adjustment. We seasonally adjusted because that does not and you can compare that to inflation and that's been at a nominal pace. We've been seeing explosive wage gains since summer of 2021 on a with a couple of interruptions along that path, but generally very strong. And since May, those wage gains have exceeded month over month headline inflation. And so we have been posting real wage gains. Even the governor of the Bank of Canada has acknowledged that wage growth is strong. And so you have some people who are looking at the data very differently than you.

MG: Do you think Canadians feel that? Do you think Canadians feel as though what they're making is increasing relative to the increasing cost of just about everything?

DEREK HOLT: You know, it's again, it's tough times. I mean, there are many people who are struggling with the cost of just about everything that's exploding over the pandemic gasoline. It's much broader than that. I think the comments earlier in the interview about how this is just, you know, commodities prices from elsewhere in the world, that's not true. That hasn't been true for a dog's age. In this environment, we've seen core inflation in Canada ignite across just about everything in the CPI basket. Over 80% of the items are multiples ahead of the Bank of Canada's 2% inflation target. This is very, very broadly based inflationary pressure. It's not just because of Ukraine, it's not just because of the pandemic effects. I think it reflects a combination of damage to supply chains, some of the damage we've done at home and to the supply chains, even with our own policies. And we overheat at demand. I mean, come on. House prices were rising by 25, 30% year over year at the peak. You can't have that indefinitely without causing disaster.

MG: Armine, what is this?

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: Go ahead. I just say absolutely, utterly agree with Derek on the housing side. I think that has been we have been flirting with basically free money for way too long to not create an asset bubble in housing that is disastrous for people's daily lives, particularly those who don't have a lot of money. But I think it's really wrong for us to say damage has to be done and there's nothing we can do about it. The Bank of Canada is not the only player in this story that is unfolding in front of us. People are choosing between heating and eating. They are choosing between housing and food right now. And I think there's so much more that we could be doing as we had each other's back at the beginning of the pandemic. We can have the backs of those who are literally going to get sicker quicker and turn to a health care system that is itself on life support. And to say this damage has to happen is nuts, it's inhumane, and we should not be thinking that way. We should be thinking about what we can do to prevent the freefall for too many people, while others are saying, Well, this market needs to be put back into order. You can do both.

MG: Derek, can you do both? I mean, when you use we hear a word like inhumane to describe what's happening right now and those choices as our means. And we know they're happening between heating and heating. What goes through your mind?

DEREK HOLT: You know, I think the choices that governments are making is to provide targeted support to the people who are most vulnerable and most impacted by the consequences of high inflation. But at the end of the day, I'd like to believe in fairy tales about how there are free lunches in this world. There aren't any costs to allowing sustain five, six, seven percent annual inflation indefinitely without leaning against it to try to cool demand. That was ridiculously high up. I mean, just look at the housing numbers, look at the retail sales numbers, the pace of growth and consumer spending and all the activity that got generated by excessively low interest rates and excessive government spending. And the cost to allowing that to continue exceed the costs of tightening monetary policy and raising interest rates. And so we've we have to go through a bit of a pain factor, but along that path, support the people who are most vulnerable.

MG: Armine, in the last minute that we have and this comes again back to your conversation with Jeff Macklin, do we have a sense as to how long that pain is going to to be around? How long are people going to be feeling this pinch?

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: On the Bank of Canada website it says that normally it takes between six quarters and eight quarters. So basically 18 months to two years to have this flow through. And I was really struck by the hesitation yesterday expressed that they are going to be watching the data far more carefully than they said they had been ready to watch the data up until this point. I think we are all starting to blink. Is this too much, too fast? We don't know. We are looking in the rear-view mirror at data on labour force adjustment and on inflation. That happened a month ago. Every time these rate hikes take take place and we're saying two rate hikes take two years, you know, between 18 months and two years to go through. So I guess what I would say is we are all in uncharted territory and none of us want inflation. Derek, I couldn't agree with you more. The desire for price stability is a long held progressive desire as well, and it will certainly be needed in an era where one in four Canadians is a senior and a bunch of them are disabled because of COVID. So, you know, we're going to really need to get this economy back in order, but not at any cost.

MG: I'm glad to talk to you both about this. It matters to every Canadian. Thank you very much.

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: Thank you.

DEREK HOLT: My pleasure.

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: Thank you.

MG: Armine Yalnizyan is an economist and Atkinson, fellow on the Future of Workers. Derek Holt, vice president, head of Capital Economics at Scotiabank in Toronto.

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When I pass laws in Alberta, I don't have to seek the approval of Justin Trudeau to pass them. And we are drawing a very clear line that if Ottawa wants to have a constructive relationship with our province, they have to stay in their own lane.

MG: That's Alberta Premier Daniel Smith talking about her Free Alberta strategy and her sovereignty act. We'll talk more about the act in Alberta coming up in six minutes.

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Alberta passes Sovereignty Act

Guests: Carrie Tait, Barry Cooper, Rachel Notley

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, Ukrainian children are allegedly being taken to Russia and given new names and new families. The CBC's Briar Stewart brings us that story in just under 30 minutes. But first, a controversial bill in Alberta.

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Any power plant, more than 200 megawatts has to be approved by the federal government. Any stretch of highway 75 kilometres long. Anything that they determine is federal jurisdiction, even if it's 100% within our borders. They can intercede and tell us, sorry, you can't build that.

MG: That's Alberta Premier Daniel Smith speaking last night about her government's landmark bill, the Alberta sovereignty within a united Canada act. When it was introduced, critics quickly slammed it as unconstitutional, undemocratic, a threat to economic stability. The government introduced amendments before passing the bill around 1 a.m. this morning. But the controversy continues. Carrie Tait is a reporter in the Global Mail's Calgary bureau. Carrie, good morning.

CARRIE TAIT: Good morning.

MG: So the bill has passed, but it was a tortured road to get to that point. Just, I guess, briefly, walk us through what happened over the last week.

CARRIE TAIT: It was tortured yet very, very, very fast. This bill is this bill was introduced Tuesday. Of course, those who were going to hate it hated it. Right off the bat, there was no taking a breath and reading it over. And the premier and her top lieutenants spent the first bit of the week defending it. This is calling people fear mongers and how dare you criticise this? By Friday the Premier said, Yeah, well we might need to make amendments come Monday. Her own caucus voted to essentially defang the most problematic part of it with respect to democracy, the constitutional part that remains.

MG: Are you surprised that this has been mired in so much confusion and controversy, given the fact that, I mean, this was in many ways the foundation of her bid to lead the party, but also this is this is her signature legislation.

CARRIE TAIT: Absolutely. So she pushed this through very, very quickly. What she was trying to do or is trying to do is very novel, innovative and depending on your perspective, aggressive. She admits this is an aggressive piece of legislation to push back against Ottawa. But when you're trying something that is so novel with respect to the Constitution, you have to get it right the first time. And it was problematic to begin with. And then when her own caucus turned on her to essentially get part of it, it just created this whole other tornado of news. Then she was stuck in the middle.

MG: What do you make of how Albertans are reacting to this? We're going to hear from Rachel Notley, who says that this is a distraction from the day to day struggles that Albertans might be facing. We're also going to hear from Barry Cooper, who is in many ways the architect of this, who says that many Albertans support this kind of aggressive approach without part with Ottawa. What's your sense of it?

CARRIE TAIT: I think the idea that. We should defend Alberta. I think that as a general concept, let's say it's not hate it. Right. And you could if you're in Quebec, if you're in Ontario or B.C., you want to defend your province. But the idea of then turning to something that is likely unconstitutional, the experts are widely saying Mr. Cooper himself will tell you that when he designed it, it certainly was not constitution.

MG: That was the point of it.

CARRIE TAIT: That was the point. And this version doesn't necessarily rule it back in. So Albertans, I think. Yeah, sure. Of course we all want to stand up for our own rights, but do we want to drag ourselves down in this fight to win? Children literally cannot get into the hospital when you're closing care centres to create staff to move those staff over. Absolutely not. Suddenly a lot less popular when the consequence when there are bigger, much more real tangible problems happening.

MG: What are the concerns that have been raised by indigenous leaders not just in Alberta, but also in other provinces?

CARRIE TAIT: Right. In Saskatchewan, in Alberta started and then it broadened across the country yesterday when leaders from these two provinces, from the treaties within these provinces, asked their counterparts across the country to stand with them, worried that other provinces could make similar legislation and it would undermine treaty rights. So Alberta has a line in it that basically says nothing in this undermines treaty rights. Well, that's great. It also has a line that says this is constitutional. So just because you say it doesn't mean that it's true. And so indigenous leaders are standing up saying, you didn't talk to us, you didn't consult, and we are telling you we don't like it. And they're pushing forward. It's not a good look.

MG: Just in the last minute or so that we have there is, of course, an election in Alberta at the end of May. Does something like this the act, but also the controversy around said act help or hurt Danielle Smith's chances of winning, do you think?

CARRIE TAIT: I think it can help her. For all of this act's faults, its most successful piece is it's political theatre. For every time Daniel Smith will be able to go out on the campaign trail and say, Rachel Notley voted against standing up for Ottawa. And that will be the rhetoric that we'll hear the NDP voted against and then insert whatever provision they tried to use it and the NDP voted against. And we've already seen the means. Quick little videos of Notley voting against it, saying it's terrible and that is going to be effective.

MG: As you say, it's been quite a week and a quick week as well. Carrie, I appreciate you bringing us up to speed on this. Thank you very much.

CARRIE TAIT: Thanks for having me, Matt.

MG: Carrie Tait, reporter in the Global Mail's Calgary bureau. My next guest helped write what is being called the unofficial blueprint for Alberta's Sovereignty Act. Barry Cooper is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary and one of the authors of a policy paper called The Free Alberta Strategy. He's in Cambridge, England, and I spoke with him earlier this week. Here's our conversation. Why do you think Alberta needs legislation to assert its sovereignty?

BARRY COOPER: The legislation is basically a political announcement to the rest of Canada that we're not going to be taken advantage of anymore. And I think it's it's long overdue.

MG: It's been called risky, dangerous, half baked, cockamamie and catastrophically stupid. And that's just from the former premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney. Is he wrong?

BARRY COOPER: Absolutely. He's completely out to lunch. Personally, I like him, but I think he was completely off base.

MG: One of the reasons, certainly not speaking on behalf of Jason Kenney, but one of the reasons that he said those things is because he says it would do damage to the province itself, in his words, do devastating damage to jobs, the economy, the prospect of pipelines and more.

BARRY COOPER: The answer to that is what has happened by agreeing to everything from Ottawa in the past. But let's just say the last 15 years, everything that he mentioned has happened. So it's time to try something else.

MG: I mean, Ottawa might say that the federal government bought a pipeline and it did that in part for Alberta.

BARRY COOPER: Well, you could hardly say that the Government of Canada has been in favour of pipelines. If Alberta had more clout, the Northern Gateway, first of all, would have been finished, showed up to the northern coast of B.C. and certainly the looping of the Trans Mountain would have happened. It would be finished, too.

MG: One of the other concerns that people have raised, as you well know, when it comes to the Sovereignty Act, is that it is unconstitutional. And you have said that in some ways this is the entire point of what you are proposing. What do you mean by that?

BARRY COOPER: My point was that the constitutionality really is beside the point because it is political. Constitutions come from politics. I mean, 1857, 1867 and 1982 were the result of political deals.

MG: And part of this, as you say, is to prove a point to to to send a message to the rest of the country. You used more pointed words than I'll use, but you said in some ways it's to take people off. So what do you want to happen next?

BARRY COOPER: I want the Constitution to be changed or we'll have another referendum. If Canada is not interested in changing the constitution so that Alberta and Saskatchewan get a square deal. Then we're into the Clarity Act option.

MG: Do you see the Constitution as as a legitimate document?

BARRY COOPER: No. No, I don't. I think that Pierre Trudeau buffaloed some of the leaders in the provinces, including Saint Peter lied. He knew that by turning all this stuff over to the Supreme Court of Canada for final interpretation, you would get a legalisation of politics. You would not get what a federation is supposed to be, which is a political deal that negotiated virtually every day. None of that's happened since since 1982.

MG: You referenced Saint Peter Law. He had Peter Leahy, the former premier of Alberta, who signed this on behalf in many ways of safeguarding provincial rights. He's a hero in Alberta. Do you think he was wrong?

BARRY COOPER: I think he was absolutely wrong. He was completely taken in by Pierre Trudeau's, let's say, obfuscations. I mean, look at what has happened since then. The Constitution has not safeguarded Alberta's place in the Federation. Our jurisdictions have been challenged and upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada on behalf of the federal government.

MG: So do you believe that Alberta would be and Albertans would be better off out of Canada?

BARRY COOPER: Oh, I don't think there's any question about that. I mean, amongst other things, we would get the pipelines to the coast. We also wouldn't have to pay Quebec all the transfer payments. And if you don't think that is something that appeals to Albertans, you know, you underestimate the redneck quality of a very Quebec sentiment in the province. And it's not it's not anti French, it's anti Quebec. One province has taken a huge amount of money from Alberta. And guess what? They've never said thank you.

MG: How many Albertans do you think share your views on? This was a poll done by Laschet and it said only one in three Albertans think that the Sovereignty Act is necessary to stand up against the federal government.

BARRY COOPER: This is where the quality of leadership from the new government is actually going to make a big, a big difference to show some rather creative leadership in order to change those numbers.

MG: But I guess, do you actually believe that Albertans believe in this? That Albertans believe. That they would be better off outside of the country.

BARRY COOPER: I doubt it. It's it's not exactly, you know, common knowledge. But the point is, if Canada does not show some understanding, then their rejection of Alberta will be obvious and the numbers will change, particularly if Daniel Smith shows any leadership.

MG: The head of the Chamber of Commerce in Calgary, Deborah Yedlin, said that there is no shred of evidence that this act will lead to economic growth. It could introduce a very significant element of risk and uncertainty to businesses in Alberta. Do you worry about that, that even raising this now could spook people off of investing in your province?

BARRY COOPER: I think that the Premier didn't. She responded by saying just the opposite. The problem is with Ottawa. It's not with Alberta. Alberta is very entrepreneurial. It is the brakes that have been put on the development of the economy of Alberta by Ottawa. That's the problem.

MG: It's not even just the head of the Chamber of Commerce in Calgary, though, Sonya Savage, who was the energy minister, now the environment minister, said that this legislation, she said this and passed could be as harmful to the future of Alberta as Prime Minister. Justin Trudeau's policies have been to the province's past. So when you when you when you hear when you hear that coming from from the party itself, what does that tell you about the risks at play here?

BARRY COOPER: Well, a lot of people are concerned about it, but everything that Ottawa has done to Alberta in the last generation has been damaging to the economy of the province. So there's nothing new there. It's an opportunity for the new government to actually show some leadership.

MG: You said that in some ways this is about sending a message to Ottawa. What if what if Ottawa doesn't take the bait?

BARRY COOPER: Well, that's when we get into option B, the Clarity Act.

MG: And the Clarity Act would call for a referendum.

BARRY COOPER: Yeah. On a clear question, unlike the questions that we've got out of Quebec.

MG: And what do you expect that question would be? What would the question be about Alberta's future?

BARRY COOPER: It would have to be a question that says, are you willing to negotiate with Canada or should Alberta negotiate with Canada on the future of the position of the province and in the country? You know, in or out.

MG: And you believe if that were put to the people of Alberta, the answer would be out?

BARRY COOPER: I think that that would depend on how how stupid the government of Canada is in rejecting this rather moderate call to change the terms by which Alberta has been exploited. How much does that cost Alberta? And have we got anything in return apart from the disdain of the Government of Canada and the threats to shut down the oil industry?

MG: Canada is a federation, but it's also an idea to a lot of people. And when you think of the idea of Canada, what comes to mind then?

BARRY COOPER: It's a federation, that's all. And it has not acted as a federation ever. Certainly not since 1867.

MG: And so to your mind, if that federation isn't working, then it's time to get out.

BARRY COOPER: No, it's time to change it, to turn it into a federation. And if Canada doesn't want to do that, then the only alternative we have in order to defend our interests is to make sure that Canada does negotiate. And that means the threat of of leaving.

MG: Barry Cooper. I'm glad to have spoken with you. Thank you very much.

BARRY COOPER: Oh, you're very welcome.

MG: Take good care.

BARRY COOPER: Bye bye now.

MG: Barry Cooper is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary, one of the authors of a policy paper called The Free Alberta Strategy. We reached him in Cambridge, England. We did make several requests for an interview with Alberta Premier Daniel Smith. We have not received a response. We also requested an interview with the minister responsible for this legislation, Tyler Shandro. His office declined our requests. Joining me now, the leader of the opposition in Alberta, New Democrat Rachel Notley. I spoke with her earlier this week and here is our conversation. You've said that you want the Alberta Sovereignty Act to be revoked. Why?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well, basically, this act creates nothing but uncertainty. And through that economic uncertainty, at a time when Albertans are desperately looking for economic recovery. And that uncertainty stems from a number of different aspects of the act, no amendments can fix it, and so they just need to pull it and move forward on those matters that Albertans actually care a great deal more about.

MG: The language that you've used to describe it, you know, is even stronger than that, saying that it was written in crayon.

RACHEL NOTLEY: Yes. Well, I, I must give credit to the columnist, because I did read that first. But it more or less was I mean, we had a we had a premier who clearly hadn't read her bill, spent two days absolutely resisting that. The characterisation of her bill, based on what was written in black and white and then finally capitulated and still hasn't acknowledged that she got that wrong.

MG: So you wouldn't support the amendments that she's put forward that say that in some ways disempowers the Legislative Assembly?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Yeah, no, the the amendments that they introduce, although they mitigate to some degree the negativity arising from her initial attempt to throw in the so-called Henry the eight powers. They still don't fix the broad range of additional problems that exist within the bill. It is a thoughtless, thoughtless legal collection of mumbo jumbo. And and it is only going to undermine the stability that that investors need to see in our province.

MG: She says that this is needed in part to fight back against federal intrusion in areas of provincial jurisdiction. Is there an argument for giving Alberta greater control over its economic destiny?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well, there's absolutely an argument for giving Alberta greater control over its economic destiny. However, this bill is completely and entirely disconnected from that object. Nobody's actually been able to describe to us how this bill would even work in practise. Why? Because the language is so vague and it's so poorly constructed, and because we would spend years and years and years in court with it. Throughout the Ucp's time in office. For the last three and a half years, they've spent a lot of time talking angrily about concerns they have with Ottawa, some of which are justified. Not all, though. But at the same time never actually coming up with solutions. Instead, all of their work has been geared towards getting Albertans angry.

MG: How angry you think Albertans are with Ottawa?

RACHEL NOTLEY: You know, I think like many provinces outside of Ontario and Quebec, there are levels of frustration and they wax and they wane. What we do know is not even one third of Albertans support this bill, but.

MG: What she says and what Gary Cooper, one of the architects of this act, has said, is that in many ways, the anger that Albertans feel around things like the carbon tax and issues of affordability are directly linked to the policies coming out of Ottawa. Do you think that that's the case?

RACHEL NOTLEY: I think that there's frustration around affordability issues throughout the country. But the reality is, is that in Alberta, there is a whole range of affordability challenges confronting Albertans that are directly linked to decisions of this UCP government. They indexed a whole range of income support programmes. They took the cap off utility payments. So I would suggest that a government that wants some credibility should focus on doing its homework and cleaning up its own backyard first.

MG: We just spoke to Barry Cooper. He says Alberta would be better off outside of Canada.

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well, Barry Cooper and many people who support Daniel Smith speak for a very extreme fringe of the Alberta population. That is not a view that is held by the vast majority of Albertans and certainly not by me or anybody in our party.

MG: Do you see a day when Albertans will be happy or happier with being a part of Canada? Or is? Again, this is a phrase that has taken on a life of its own in some ways. But that idea of Western alienation is that something that is going to simmer away to foster for decades, like the separatist movements in Quebec if those issues aren't addressed in a meaningful way?

RACHEL NOTLEY: I do think there are important issues that have to be addressed with respect to the frame of our economy here in Alberta and certainly in other western provinces, too. But I've lived in Alberta my whole life, and these kinds of sentiments have waxed and waned. The fact of the matter is, is that, you know, back in 2014, the. Price of oil dropped by something like 75%. And that had a profound impact on our economy. And even as the price goes back up, the industry has not hired people back the way it once did before. And so there's a long standing consequence of that kind of economic shift. And we have had one party in this province that has decided to try and use that as a political tool. But I think that, you know, Albertans are also very innovative. They are energetic. They are optimistic. They work hard. There's a lot of sun in this province. And I do believe that we can come together, recover our economy, stand up for Alberta, get a better deal from Alberta, from Ottawa, for sure, but do it in like grown ups.

MG: What does that mean to stand up for Alberta from your perspective? Because when you were the premier, I mean, you would well know that you had disagreements and disputes with the federal government over things like pipelines and oil more broadly in the resource sector. And so what is what is to your language, a more mature way of standing up for Alberta look like?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well, without going on for hours and hours, you know, our government embarked on a rather long campaign to ensure that there was an adequate level of consensus across the country and ultimately in Ottawa that we needed a pipeline to tie the water in the form of TMX. We recruited allies to also speak to to their partners across the country, because we are a country and a lot of Albertans have strong relationships with people in other parts of the country. It took a lot of work, but we did actually manage to secure the outcome that Albertans were looking for.

MG: You said something really interesting. We are a country. Why did you say I mean, because again and Gary Cooper has said this in others, that we're a federation, that we're not a country. And his point and the point of others will be that the construct of a country of Canada is not who we are. Why did you say that?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well, I say it because I believe we are a country and I believe most Albertans are proud to be Canadians. And again, as I say, I think people like Barrie Cooper articulating a very fringe opinion. We are a country. We draw great benefit from being Canadians. We're proud to be part of the country. And sometimes we have to stand up and raise our voices to make sure that our role in it is well established. But I think that overall, we've we've done a good job on that front. I think most Albertans agree with me.

MG: Last question just is about should you be elected premier again? What would lead you to believe that Ottawa wants a constructive relationship with Alberta again, that this bill is meant to deliver a message because the belief is that that Ottawa isn't listening. So what leads you to believe that Ottawa wants to have that constructive relationship?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well, certainly, again, because I have some past history of of having that constructive relationship, because I think that many folks in Ottawa and outside of Ottawa understand the important role that Alberta plays in Canada in terms of the economic contribution that our province makes. And I know that we'll we'll do that again. We won't necessarily agree on all things. I'm just saying that, you know, let's actually get to the point where we start doing the hard work to get to a stable, predictable solution rather than doing all this performative stuff and getting absolutely nowhere close to a resolution and providing certainty that not just investors, but all Canadians would desperately like to see from their leaders.

MG: People are paying attention to this, certainly in your province, but right across the country. Rachel Notley, glad to have the chance to speak with you. Thank you very much.

RACHEL NOTLEY: Thank you. Take care.

MG: Rachel Notley is leader of the Alberta NDP. Well, coming up after your regional update, the United Nations is warning that children with family in Ukraine are being taken by Russian forces and placed in new homes with new homes. The CBC's Briar Stewart will be here in 90 seconds with that story. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

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Children separated from parents as they flee war in Ukraine; and global bird populations in steep decline

Guest: Briar Stewart, Lucy Huskell

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

SOUNDCLIP

[Foreign speech]

It's truly an enormous job. We still have four kids in the region whose parents say were taken to Russia. We have some evidence, but it's impossible to reach the children and talk to them now.

MG: That's the kyiv of chief of police Andrei Nebitov. He's talking about Ukrainian children being taken to Russia against their will. According to the United Nations, there are credible allegations that Russia has been forcibly removing Ukrainian kids and placing them with Russian families. CBC senior correspondent Briar Stewart has been reporting on this. Briar. Hello.

BRIAR STEWART: Hello.

MG: What do we know about this? The scale of what Ukraine and the U.N. have been calling the abduction of Ukrainian children by Russia?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, Ukraine has been trying to, you know, calculate just how many children have been deported. That's what Ukraine is calling what's happening, what they believe is happening here, children being deported to Russia. And since February, the end of February, February 24th, they say that at least 13,000 kids have been sent there. And this is Ukraine's data. So this has not been confirmed by any outside organisations. But what Ukrainian officials are saying, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, is that this 13,000 number may very well just be a baseline because they really aren't able to to come up with the scale of how big this is because they're having a very difficult time tracking these children down.

MG: Where are these children coming from?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, a large number of them are coming from Ukrainian orphanages that are in the occupied territories. So Donetsk, Luhansk and the areas of her son in area which were seised by Russian forces in the early days of the war. And in March and April, there were already reports of children being moved to Russia. And what really is key here is that child welfare experts say the vast majority of these children aren't actually orphans and that they have at least one surviving parent. And they had been placed in care previously before the war because the families either could not take care of them or in many cases to they have a disability and they were put in state care. So children in orphanages, that's one group. The other group are children who have been separated from their parents. So there would be a number of cases where, you know, perhaps parents were tragically killed and the child was left alone. And then you have families that have basically been scattered by the chaos and violence of war. And I met up with a 39 year old single father of three Afghani mesh of joy, and he was torn away from his three kids as they fled Mariupol in April. And what had happened is that they went through a checkpoint as they were trying to leave the city, and that's when Russian soldiers checked his documents and they discovered that he had a military ID number for Ukraine because he had served in the military before. And that right there was enough for for Russian forces to basically take him and put him in detention and leave his children who were age seven, nine and 13 on their own. Take a listen to how much of what he described, just what that feeling was like.

SOUNDCLIP

It's terrifying to not know about your children. Where are they going? Why are they going? When will you see them? Do not know any of this. The unknown is the scariest part of it. People went crazy.

MG: You mentioned the chaos of war. I mean, how did he figure out where his children were?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, he was in detention and eventually in a prison, actually, from from April to mid-May. And during that whole time, his children were shuffled between different locations. So they were put in a temporary child care centre in Donetsk. They were then moved to a hospital at one point after he was released from the prison at the end of May, he got his hands on a phone and he started making calls, calling social services and basically going through the bureaucracy. And he was eventually able to get in touch with a teacher who knew where the children were. And he discovered that the children had been put on a plane to Moscow at 5 a.m. the day after Yevgeny was released, and he had managed to speak to the children on the phone. And where the children ended up was at a camp, what Russia calls a camp, just outside of Moscow. And what it was actually was a facility that is kind of billed as a health resort for children. It's run by the president's office. It's a place where Russian elite would sometimes send their children. And what it's being used for now is to essentially house Ukrainian children. So Yevgeny spoke to them on the phone, but the question was just how could he get to Russia? He was in the middle of Donetsk. There was heavy fighting going on. He didn't have money. And so he basically relied on an order. NEARY Russian citizens to help them make that journey.

SOUNDCLIP

There are some people who are against all of this because the people who helped me in Moscow. Well, these were people who really helped me. They did this selflessly. They were looking for something in return. They just helped me get my kids back, help me with my accommodation and help me with other things.

MG: So these are Russian people that were helping about.

BRIAR STEWART: Yes, that's right. And so Masha Boy had started making calls. He kind of went through the bureaucracy of social services and he was able to find out where his children were at this place outside of Moscow. Then the question became just how does he get there? Because he's in the middle of Donetsk. There's heavy fighting going on. He doesn't have any money and he needs to get to Russia quickly. And so he did. He relied on ordinary volunteers to help him. And they not only helped him with things like paperwork, but in some cases they you know, they even paid for part of his journey.

MG: What a story. I mean, and in his case, as you mentioned, his children were orphaned. But you are saying that there are reports of kids being taken from Ukrainian orphanages to Russia. What did you learn about that?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, it is hard to get a precise picture of what exactly is going on and how many children are affected. But we do know that Ukraine has a very high rate of institutionalisation. The country has 700 institutions and just over 1% of all children in Ukraine are in care. And I can tell you that we were in touch with the director of a care home in here son, who had, you know, a number of children under his care. And when Russian forces came into the area, he said the security services actually showed up and took all the files and indicated that they were going to be sending them to Russia. And so at that point, they had basically decided to hide the kids and keep them at home. So, I mean, that's just just one example coming from one person. But there have been multiple reports about just, you know, entire care homes being cleared out and children being sent to Russia.

MG: What does Russia say about this? How is it framing what is happening with these Ukrainian kids?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, as I mentioned, Ukraine has called it deportation. Russia very much sees it as salvation. And I spoke with the secretary general from an organisation called Missing Children Europe. Her name is Maggie Levin, and she doesn't call what's what's happening deportation. And I think that's key because she said the language around this is is very sensitive at the moment. She says what she and other international kind of child welfare experts see, this says, as forced displacement. But she says there's no doubt that Russia is trying to sell this as a humanitarian effort.

SOUNDCLIP

Speaker 4: Russia is calling it giving children a family, and they're considering these charitable adoptions, whereas they're illegal from the point of view of international law, I would say, in times of war and adoption, you know, adoptions have to be halted. And it's really important to first go and look, is this child really without parents? Are parents just missing? Have been displaced? Or the parents ill somewhere in the hospital may be wounded. So you never know whether a child is an orphan, yes or no.

BRIAR STEWART: And there have also, Matt, been promotional videos, too, because Russia isn't shying away from the fact that they are bringing all of these kids in. These videos are online. We've pulled a number of them. So just just take a listen for a moment.

SOUNDCLIP

[Indistinct chatter]

BRIAR STEWART: So I think what is key to point out first is that these videos are heavily edited. I mean, you can hear the music in the background there. It's almost like a triumphant soundtrack. So it is really, you know, clear that Russia is trying to paint this in a way. And they have put so many of these videos online, have gone through a number of them while working on this story. And I have to say, they're pretty uncomfortable to watch because a lot of these children are very young. I mean, we're talking toddlers in some cases. And, you know, there are a lot of them that are smiling and holding balloons and being hugged by what appears to be welcoming Russian foster families. But, I mean, you're only getting the edited version of what is going on here. And I think that is what is so concerning. And I guess a constant in all of these videos is Russia's children's rights commissioner, and that's a woman named Maria Lvova Belova. And she's been sanctioned by Canada and other Western nations for her role in the Putin administration and in particular, her role in bringing these children to Russia. And in fact, on top of these videos that they've released of other children going, she released a documentary that she took part in where she talked about her own teenage son now that she adopted from Mariupol just a few months ago.

MG: And so what happens to these children? I mean, they are taken to Russia. They have identities before they get there. What happens to those identities?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, it's hard to say exactly, but what we do know is that Russia has changed its laws since the war began to actually make it easier for these Ukrainian children to be granted Russian citizenship. And some of those ceremonies of, you know, Ukrainian citizens getting their their papers, Russian papers have been published online. And once they get their citizenship, they're able to get the Russian passport. And we are hearing reports of names being changed. And what is really concerning, obviously, around that is that it then becomes much harder to track children down if they're using a different last name or a different spelling of the same last name. And this is how Olga describes what she believes is happening.

SOUNDCLIP

It does have every every feature of of being a planned attempt at removing nationality from these children, removing them from their country and from their ethnicity and from their people. And so that is something that's really unacceptable. This is really extremely damaging to those children, as we have seen with similar things that have happened in the past where children have been taken away from the that people. Australia have seen it. Canada has seen this happen where Indigenous children were removed from the families and removed from their identities. You know, this had lifelong impact on children.

MG: She mentions Canada there and I mean, people well know the history in this country of of removing indigenous children from their homes. For the Russian families who are receiving these kids. What do they know about the children and their path to Russia?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, we really don't know what they're being told because we have not been able to access those families or to speak to any of them directly. And overseeing is these these videos, right, where these these parents are welcoming these children. But what Aggie says is that most Russian families probably think they're doing a good thing.

SOUNDCLIP

I think a lot of those parents in Russia think they're doing something great. They're helping orphans who evacuated from the war zone. I'm sure that's people who genuinely believe that they are doing a good thing. And that's not the case. These children are not orphans. And we need to prove that they're not orphans. We need to prove how they've been separated from their parents. We have to make their stories visible and we have to also make them visible to the Russian people.

BRIAR STEWART: And their way of doing that, she says, is basically you need to have an independent third party, verify the data that Ukraine has. So whether it's an organisation like Save the Children or UNICEF or even maybe her organisation, Missing Children Europe, she says it's very key because once you have an international organisation involved and the data is verified, it's much easier to kind of put out the international call if you have a clear sense and and the data to back up as to what's actually happening.

MG: How do you go about doing that though? And part of it is, is not just broadcasting that internationally, but making, as she said, the Russian people aware of this as well, making the fact that these kids may not be orphans known to the known to the Russian people.

BRIAR STEWART: Well, that's obviously very hard, because we know in Russia, many Russians, the only information they get is from state sources. So even if, you know, there are pieces out there or proclamations out there by the U.N. and organisations like that, it's not at all clear whether Russian citizens would actually be able to to see that. And I did speak with a Ukrainian organisation called NGO Magnolia. I spoke with one of their employees, Marina Lapp, Yvette Scott. And this organisation is quite interesting because they're made up of journalists and former journalists who teamed up to basically help search for missing children. And this is not a new organisation, it's been around for over 20 years, but they've got more reports of missing children since the war began than they did in their whole two decades of existence. And so she told me just about how difficult it is now for them to track down all these children and also let you know, Russians know what's going on.

SOUNDCLIP

No civilised world has any more connexion with Russian. No one has any contacts of any reliable than U.S. in the Russian who still believe and who will support us. So all the time they are trying to use, you know, our expertise, our connections and indeed coverage of our Ukrainian citizens, who all the times we are trying to help to assist how to use their own lives and their own connexions, they are all relatives and so on to assist.

MG: That sounds like a huge, complicated job.

BRIAR STEWART: It is. And it also depends heavily on just the help of ordinary citizens. And when I spoke with her, she gave me a number of examples where children were reunited with family members, you know, due to a whole team of help. And I'll just give you one example. She was talking about a child, a little boy who was whose mother was killed when they were trying to leave Kharkiv. The father was away in the military and she said that this little boy ended up in a hospital in Donetsk and it was somebody in Russia who had actually stumbled across one of these missing children videos related to the boy. They made some calls. They were able to figure out where he is. They knew where he was. But it wasn't easy for him just to go, you know, for the father to go in and get him. In fact, you know, they wouldn't let a man of, you know, from the military in. So what they had to do is send in the boy's grandmothers. The grandmothers went in and at that point, they couldn't just go back out into Ukraine. They had to go south through Crimea and then into Russia. So it was a really difficult task to not only, you know, track down the children, but actually to get them out. And so that was an example Marina gave me. And she did, you know, have this kind of sense of defiance, I guess, in our conversation about whether or not, you know, Russia would be able to kind of erase some of these children's identities.

SOUNDCLIP

Children were born here. Children have families here. And even if they are small and don't understand what's happened with their families, they know where are they from. And so any kinds of this violence, psychological, physical or other kinds of violence, what they're trying to teach our children warns us is doomed to destroy our future because, first of all, our children are growing future. And so we want to just, you know, let them take our future from us.

MG: So if you are a parent and you're searching for your child in the midst of all of this, what do you do? Are there legal avenues to try to find some sort of recourse here?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, there are very few options. The NGO Magnolia, they've been working to put out videos, you know, basically one minute missing children, videos that they post online. You have parents making calls, as I said, people kind of reaching out to to their own relatives in Russia who who are perhaps connected to people in different government organisations. But but it is really difficult. And I did manage to connect with an official from Ukraine's Children's Commission yesterday and she told me that no international organisations have been able to to come in as a third party mediator right now because she says Russia will not work with anyone. And we did put questions to Russia's children's commissioner. We did not receive any any response to that at all. And, you know, I spoke with Masha Voix as well about just just his case now that he has his children back. They're living in Riga, Latvia. And he said that it was actually a prosecutor from Ukraine's from the Ukrainian government that what came to Riga, spoke to his family, interviewed them about their case. And there was a psychologist there as well that talked to the children just to check in to see how they were doing mentally.

MG: So these allegations are coming not just from families, but as I mentioned in the introduction from the United Nations as well. If this is happening. What's the path to hold Russia accountable?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, I think the the thing that Ukraine wants, first and foremost, is you mentioned that the U.N. has, you know, articulated the concerns around this. But they are really wanting to see the U.N. and the G20 become heavily involved because they want Russia to be called out on this right now. They want international organisations to be able to to work with Russia and help bring some of these children back. But Ukraine really sees this as a clear war crime, and they're investigating it as such, just like they are with other atrocities throughout this war, such as rape and torture and murder. And, you know, down the road, they really want to be able to see these cases taken to the International Criminal Court prior.

MG: This is quite a story. Thank you very much.

BRIAR STEWART: You're welcome.

MG: That's CBC senior correspondent Briar Stewart.

[Music]

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio. My name is Matt Galloway. Earlier this year, we told you about a report from BirdLife International sounding the alarm on bird health. With avian populations in steep decline. And with the U.N. Climate Conference for Biodiversity now underway in Montreal, we wanted to revisit that conversation. Lucy Haskell is a science officer with BirdLife International, one of the lead authors of this report. And she explains the severity of the situation, but also what we can do right now to turn it around.

SOUNDCLIP

LUCY HUSKELL: Unfortunately, these data present a deeply concerning picture. So nearly half of the world's bird species are in decline, but only 6% are increasing. And unfortunately, these declines mean that one in eight of the world's bird species is now at risk of extinction. The risk of extinction is gradually escalating, so more species are deteriorating in status than are improving in status. And that means that we're likely to lose many more bird species over the coming decades if we don't take action soon.

MG: What is causing the decline in the bird population?

BRIAR STEWART: Yeah, so birds sort of tell us about the pressures that are driving this current biodiversity crisis, which obviously is affecting not just birds, that then all other wildlife and these drivers a many and they're diverse. But one thing that they pretty much all have in common is that they're ultimately caused by us, by humans. So the most important pressures that we identified included the expansion and intensification of agriculture that affects about three quarters of all globally threatened bird species. Unsustainable logging and forest management. Invasive species. So things like cats and bats. In Canada alone, it's estimated that up to 350 million birds are killed by cats every single year. Wow. Hunting and trapping is another big issue. So birds are hunted around the world for pets, for food, for use in traditional medicine, for sport. And of course, climate change is rapidly becoming one of the greatest threats to global biodiversity and is likely to pose even greater challenges in the future.

MG: This is a story about the birds being in decline, but people have said that. I mean, the phrase is the canary in the coal mine, right? I mean, that you're looking at something that's much larger than this. Why do we need to pay attention to bird health in bird populations?

BRIAR STEWART: Birds can act as biodiversity indicators, so they sort of act as a barometer for the overall health of our planet. And of course, we should all care about the natural world because it's essential for sustaining all life on earth, including our own.

MG: And so what should we be doing now? I mean, people are alarmed by the numbers that you're saying and what is in the report. So what has to happen now?

BRIAR STEWART: It is very alarming the situation we find ourselves in. But thankfully, birds also point the way to the solutions needed to tackle this crisis. So one of the most important solutions is to effectively conserve, manage and restore the most critical sites for birds and biodiversity. We also need to tackle threats directly, for example, by controlling these invasive species, cracking down on illegal hunting of birds. So those bird species that are already on the brink of extinction, we need to really target recovery efforts. So using things like captive breeding programmes and supplementary feeding. But underpinning all of those efforts, we need to make sure that everyone, young and old, is educated about the importance of conserving the natural world. The more people that care about nature, the more people will hold their governments accountable. A lot of these changes ultimately need to come from government, but we as individuals can do things as well to make that happen. And we need to hold our governments accountable to make sure that they will be committing to ambitious biodiversity targets for the next ten years.

MG: Those commitments, ideally, are going to come out of a U.N. conference on biodiversity. What specifically do you want to see coming out of that conference that will help protect the birds that we've been talking about?

BRIAR STEWART: Yeah. So it will be committing to a global biodiversity framework for the next ten years, up to 2030. And what we want to see is that those targets are ambitious. You know, we need to make really big changes there. But they've committed to ambitious targets before and nothing has happened. So I think what we need to see this time is that they have measures in place to make sure that they can track progress towards those targets. So these targets need to be very specific. They need to be achievable. They need to. Home bound, and they need to make sure that they have these measures in place, too, to track progress towards those targets. So we know whether or not each nation has actually reached the that targets that they said they would.

MG: And if we don't if we don't take meaningful action, what is the thing that you worry about the most?

BRIAR STEWART: You know, we've really reached a tipping or a turning point now. I think we have to take action now. Nature is in real trouble. And I think we we are rapidly running out of time to solve this biodiversity crisis. I dread to think what will happen if if we don't manage to do it this time around, that certainly won't be good.

MG: That's part of my conversation with BirdLife International Science Officer Lucy Haskell, and we will be talking more about the state of our planet's wildlife and what that says about the climate crisis itself in the coming days as we head to the UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal. That's The Current for this Thursday cuz. Up next on CBC Radio one to take us out today, the Shchedryk Children's Choir. This is a Ukrainian ensemble was in New York just a few days ago performing at Carnegie Hall. Since the war began, this choir has kept rehearsing in the dark by cell phone flashlights when the power went out in bomb shelters. Even moving to Warsaw temporarily. This is what they have been working on. And the power of the human voice. The Shchedryk Children's Choir performing the Ukrainian folk song Roman Ursa. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Thursday December 8, 2022 Full Transcript

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