Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2018

The AIH Transcript for March 16, 2018

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

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

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight…

CO: Never hurts to ask. A Radio-Canada reporter requested an interview with the director of an NGO. She didn't respond — but the Gatineau police did, with a warrant for the journalist's arrest.

JD: One more way to wound. A U.N. researcher details how rape is being used as a weapon of war in Syria by reporting how often the women, men and children of that country have been subjected to sexual assault.

CO: Circuit breakers. The United States accuses Russia of trying to hack into its electrical power plants — attacks that are guest was raising the alarm about since last fall.

JD: Delivering the goods. A Vancouver Island trucker stops to ask what bedding is doing on the side of the road at night, only to find himself rescuing a woman from a life threatening situation.

CO: Passing judgment. A Romanian man tells a court that the news of his death is greatly premature but he's told that the best before date on the matter was long departed.

JD: And…If there's something weird and it don't look good. Police in Windsor, Ontario send in the bomb squad to bust up a device our guest uses to monitor the activities of ghosts. As It Happens: The Friday Edition. Radio that asks the question, ‘Who you going to call?’ And then answers, ghost-trusters.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Radio-Canada Reporter Arrested, Russia Cyber Attack, Windsor Paranormal Bomb

Radio-Canada Reporter Arrested

Guest: Yvan Cloutier

JD: Antoine Trepanier was asking for an interview — and the Radio-Canada reporter got a response. But it was from the police, with a warrant for his arrest. Mr. Trepanier covers the Ottawa-Gatineau region. He was working on a story about the director of a non-profit organization who had been flagged by the Law Society for falsely portraying herself as a lawyer and for practicing law without a license. Mr. Trepanier now faces a court date in June on allegations of criminal harassment. Mr. Trepanier’s story still aired this week however, and Radio-Canada is standing behind both its reporter and his story. Yvan Cloutier is the director of French services at Radio-Canada in Ottawa and that is where we reached him.

CO: Mr. Clouthier, your colleague Antoine Trepanier has had quite the interesting week. Is he back at work today?

YVAN CLOUTHIER: He is actually. We told him it could take a break, maybe take the day off because he's put long hours all week. But he said no, he's in the newsroom and he's working on a story as we speak.

CO: Not the same story?

YC: Not the same story.

CO: What was the story? Just before we get into how he came to be arrested. What was the story he was reporting on at the time?

YC: He had been gathering information in the last couple of weeks about this person's name Yvonne Dube, she's managing the Great Brothers and Great Sisters Organization here in Gatineau, it's an NGO that is helping kids connect with adults.

CO: I think we called Big Brothers and Big Sisters here.

YC: Big Brothers and Big Sisters, exactly. And so Madame Dube, before doing this job — she’s the general manager there — before doing this job she had been admonished by an Ontario court for practicing law when she was not a lawyer. We thought this was certainly of interest to the public to find out about this. So Antoine was working on that story, so he got, of course, sources and documents on it. And on Monday he was at the stage where he was asking Madame Dube for her comments on those facts, as we do all the time.

CO: Did she confirm that she had been admonished by a court for having practiced law without having the license, without being a lawyer?

YC: Well the thing is, no she did not. This is part of the problem because when Antoine got in touch with Madame Dube on Monday — well he left her a message she returned his call. They talked for about 20 minutes but they agreed that they should meet in person so he could show her all the documents that he had. She agreed that this would be an on camera interview and they were supposed to meet at just past 6:00 on Monday. They were supposed to meet at her office. So when she showed up she wasn't there. So he called her on her cell phone and asked her where she was and she said ‘Well I’ve changed my mind and I don't want to give you an interview anymore.’ And that was it.

CO: So then what did your reporter do?

YC: He still had all these facts and he could still work on his story. But, you know, this is common practice for us. We want to make sure that the person who's at the centre of a story like this, which is quite controversial, can give either her opinion or her comments on those facts. So the next day, on the Tuesday, he sent her a two line e-mail saying, ‘We're going to run our story probably in the next 36 hours. I'm giving you another opportunity to comment on it,’ and she did not reply. The reply came in the form of a phone call from the police later that day.

CO: And the police saying what?

YC: It was around 9 o’clock and he was he was a home then and the police told said, ‘Mr. Trepanier, you're under arrest. There has been a complaint for harassment. You have to come to the police station or we will come and get you.’

CO: So he was being charged?

YC: He was not charged.

CO: OK.

YC: In the Quebec system the police cannot lay charges. It's a different body that makes that decision — basically the Crown, and the Crown will decide if they lay a charge against Antoine or not. And we should find out hopefully as soon as possible.

CO: I presume you have spoken with Antoine Trepanier. Are you confident that, with this story as you told it to me now, are you confident that there's no other details that you suspect?

YC: Very confident. Antoine has been very rigorous. He followed you know our standards and practices at Radio-Canada and CBC, he was not working alone and that story — he had at least two producers and he followed every step. And calling Madame Dube was one of the steps to give her the opportunity for comments. How anybody could define this as a harassment — honestly I can't understand how you could come to that conclusion?

CO: Was it possible the police didn't know that Antoine Trepanier was a journalist, and that that's why he was contacting Ms. Dube?

YC: No, they knew. Antoine is one of the reporters who in the newsroom calls the police station regularly. He calls the police and asks them, ‘Is anything happening in Gatineau? And the officer who called him was an officer that he has talk to quite often in the past. And the police actually recognized that, they knew that he was a reporter. What I've heard from them in the news earlier today was that they knew that he was a reporter but they don't have to make a difference.

CO: Right. This is what Gatineau police director Mario Harel was saying in the press conference. I’ll just quote what he says, this is a quote, “We have the obligation to listen to the victims, take their statements, and with that statement we assess the situation, regardless if it's a journalist or a politician, star or just an ordinary citizen.”

YC: But what surprises me is how come they didn't ask any question to Antoine when they called him. They didn't say Mr. Trepanier, have you been in contact with Madame Dube? Did you call her many times? Did you harass her? They didn't ask even one single question. They told him that he was under arrest.

CO: So beyond being concerned for Antoine Trepanier, your a journalist, what other concerns do you have about this?

YC: Well, I'm just wondering now if you're in Gatineau and a reporter calls you and you're unhappy with his or her questions, well, you know, there's a place where you can go make a statement, and in less than six hours this journalist will be arrested.

CO: You think it sends a message to people that if they don't like being contacted by the media they should just call the police?

YC: It does. We, of course, call people and ask them questions. This is our job. And people are free to answer questions or not. And it's not like we were chasing Madame Dube. Two phone calls, one e-mail, if this is harassment there's not a lot of people who will be able to practice journalism in the Gatineau area pretty soon.

CO: Are you still pursuing this story about Ms. Dubé, you haven’t dropped the story?

YC: No, no, no, we haven't dropped the story. Unfortunately, we thought it was safer not to let Antoine work on it. But we have other reporters who are working on it right now. We wont to let go of that story.

CO: Does Ms. Dube still have her job as executive director of Big Brothers and Big Sisters?

YC: What we were told is that their board is going to meet tomorrow morning. They will make some decisions, they will assess the situation on Saturday and that Madame Dube was still working for them but that she wouldn't make any comment.

CO: All right, we'll leave it there. Mr. Clouthier, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

YC: Good talking to you, Carol.

CO: Bye-bye.

YC: Bye-bye.

JD: Yvan Clouthier is the director of French services for Radio-Canada in Ottawa. And that is where we reached him.

[Music: Guitar]

Russia Cyber Attack

Guest: Vikram Thakur

JD: Well it looks like Russian cyber-attacks against the U.S. aren't limited to trolls on Twitter. The U.S. government blamed Russia yesterday for a series of attacks attempting to hack into their power grid — and which may have given hackers the opportunity to interfere with the operation of power plants. Cyber security firm Symantec warned of these hacks last October. Vikram Thakur is the company's technical director. We reached him in L.A.

CARODL OFF: Mr. Thakur, what kind of damage could these hackers have done if they had actually flipped the switch and attacked the U.S. power grid?

VIKRAM THAKUR: We think that overall the damage would have been not as wide scale as one would probably imagine. We don't think that the attackers had gotten access to every single organization’s network that would be required to cause wide-scale damage and wide-scale kinetic impact.

CO: But what did they have the capacity to do?

VT: Well, they were on computer networks which are connected directly with parts of the energy grid. So think about that as parts of the energy ecosystem where energy is created, distributed, recycled and all that. So they were on different networks. But we do not believe that their intention, at this very moment, was to cause any wide-scale disruption if they so chose.

CO: We saw that in recent years that Russia was able to get into the power grids of other countries — notably Ukraine — but other places in Europe and be able to shut it parts of it down. Was this similar? Was it as large as that or not as large in their capacity?

VT: In Ukraine the attackers were able to infiltrate multiple organizations and they learned about that resiliency and redundancy over a long period of reconnaissance that they performed. That's why they were able to effect that change one day when they so decided, in a very orchestrated manner effected change across multiple organizations to have lights go out. We think that the attackers were on their way to gaining enough information and access to effect that change. But we don't think that were actually there at that end goal to be able to do what they wanted.

CO: How did you find out that this was happening?

VT: So we saw a concerted number of attacks going towards organizations which are all in the energy sector. And we kind of observed them and then on observing them we were able to gather that information provided to the different organizations saying that this seems to be the lead method and the tactic being employed by someone. And we just pieced it all together based on the exact same tools that they were using across all these different networks. That's how we figured that it's the same group as Dragonfly that we've known about for more than a few years at this point.

CO: Dragonfly operates out of what country?

VT: So, according to the United States government Dragonfly operates out of Russia. That was a big part of their disclosure yesterday where the Department of Homeland Security in the United States put out a bulletin and the opening statement to the bulletin talked about this attack group that we call Dragonfly as working at the behest of the Russian government.

CO: And there were screenshots taken by Russian operatives, according to the U.S. government, that power plants and workstations, is that the case?

VT: Yeah, I mean it's all part of learning what the target victims network it looks like. So the attackers were able to get onto correct computers. But instead of actually impacting any change or flipping any switches, they just took screenshots to try to understand what it is that could impact them change.

CO: I mean as far as trying to figure out motivation, is it possible — I mean how can you be sure that they were hacking in in order to possibly conduct some act of sabotage, shut things down or whatever or give the impression that they could? How come that not the possibility they were stealing information, they were trying to get technology for their own use?

VT: There's a distinction in the kind of information that somebody actually steals. When somebody steals a PDF or a Word document from your computer you can sort of have assume that the person is probably looking for information about you or maybe a little information about your business. When an attacker gets on the computer and starts searching for a proprietary file formats which belong only to industrial control systems, like these are software made by companies like Siemens. That's when you realize that the attackers are not looking for direct monetary gain from having access to your computers. He's looking for information about the configuration of your power plants, which can only have one purpose, which is them trying to understand what the what the sensitive points within your network might be to impact some change in your industrial output.

CO: Is it possible that whoever did it — and governments says it's Russia — that they kind of tipped their hand, they showed what they're up to in order to say look we're here how we can get in here?

VT: That's a huge likelihood. We thought about that on day one because, you know, we could spot the group in not just one location. We could spot them trying to attack a huge multitude of organizations. Now that usually could mean hey somebody has some very high ambitions or two they're just trying to send a message saying ‘Hey your infrastructure is weak and we can get to it.’ And that could be a message that one organization is just trying to send to the other.

CO: So how concerned should Americans be with that little wave of the hand over there from Russia saying hey we can get in here?

VT: I think it is concerning. But I think what the government has done in this case is definitely commendable. They have put out a huge amount of technical information very, very, very relevant to the constituents of the critical infrastructure. And we know for a fact that all those organizations within the critical infrastructure in the United States are taking measures today to raise their own security profile and improve the defenses of their own networks.

CO: That’s good news. Mr. Thakur, thank you.

VT: Thank you for having me.

JD: Vikram Thakur is the technical director of the cyber security firm Symantec. We reached him in Los Angeles. And we do have more on this story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih

[Music: Strings]

Windsor Paranormal Bomb

Guest: Jen Parker

JD: Earlier this week in Windsor, Ontario a suspicious package was spotted at Mackenzie Hall, a local historic site. It was a small black box with a red wire sticking out, a of it a blue light on top of it. The bomb squad was called in as a precaution. They determined the device was not a bomb. It was in fact a box that belonged to the Listowell Paranormal Society, which had recently been hunting for evidence at Mackenzie Hall. Jen Parker is the organisation's co-founder. We reached her in Windsor.

CO: Jen, what exactly was this device that was mistaken for being a bomb?

JEN PARKER: It's called an EMF sensor, so electronic magnetic field. And it fits in the palm of your hand, So it's very small. In our field, it detects energy. So that energy could be of an entity and they took it to the extreme thinking was, you know, a bomb or a piece of a bomb, you know.

CO: OK, but what kind of entities does it sense?

JP: Ghosts — so spirits of dead people. It's just an energy source.

CO: And this is the electromagnetic field detector, is it something you can buy?

JP: Yes, we got a pack of six for about 60 bucks, but we're down one now because they did destroy it. But that's not a big deal.

[LAUGHTER]

CO: Oh, so the police destroyed your device thinking it was a bomb?

JP: Yes. They send a robot in and then they destroy whatever the suspicious package is.

CO: This is a little tiny thing, it could fit in your hand?

JP: Yes.

CO: What were you investigating?

JP: Mackenzie Hall is rumored to be haunted as it was an old courthouse and executions had taken place there in the 1800s all the way up until 1943 I believe it was. So there were people that had been hung there and we wanted to see if their spirit still lies there as the stories have been told on the Internet and from the locals here in Windsor.

CO: Did you find anything?

JP: We have evidence that we've been going over and we've found some stuff. We're just, you know, reviewing all our evidence and when we find what we're looking for it'll be all over our Facebook page.

CO: What do you think you found?

JP: We have another device that we use it's called a REM Pod. It's another EMF detectors except it's more advanced. So there's more lights to it, there’s sound. So if there is an energy source that comes near the machine there's this big antenna on it and it will light up, and then it also makes a beeping and a squealing noise. We had an incident in the one area of Mackenzie Hall. We asked, you know, if there's anything there with us. And it started lighting up and it was started screaming and I was the only one that was able to ask questions. As soon as my other team members were asking questions it was quiet.

CO: And do you know what it was trying to communicate to you?

JP: My instant — like as soon as I started squealing after I asked if somebody here was here with us right now — it started squealing and I was like I said — I swore, it's on video. And when the rest of the team came upstairs it literally stopped. And then when they left it started up again. So I was the one the person had wanted to communicate with through the REM Pod.

CO: Why do you think that's the case?

JP: Maybe because I have an ability or they feel more comfortable with me. They don't feel like I'm going to harm them. That's how I feel anyway.

CO: Were you scared?

JP: Yes. I always am because I don't know what's going to happen. What we're going to get, if there is anything, you know. It's more like an adrenaline rush.

CO: When you say you're always scared, have you encountered ghosts before?

JP: I lived in a haunted house for almost a year. We had another paranormal team come out and investigate and they had put it on paper stating that they felt the place was haunted, there was three entities in the house. One was more like a protector and the other two were more demons, like Poltergeist.

CO: Yikes.

JP: Yeah. So we picked up EVPs, which is electronic voice phenomena. They called one of the investigators in that group a bastard, pardon my language — so yeah.

CO: Well that's pretty scary.

JP: Yeah. It was pretty scary in my house.

CO: Had you believed in ghosts before you lived in the haunted house?

JP: No. That's what made me pursue my position with the Listowell Paranormal Society. That's the reason why I became an investigator because I want to know what else exists, if there's anything else that exists.

CO: Which led you to be at Mackenzie Hall, then to become known to police as someone who may have left and explosive device behind.

JP: It spiraled. I did not intentionally do that.

CO: Now do you think the ghost who was trying to communicate with you was sinister and hostile?

JP: No. I believe that he was friendly, he just wanted some company.

CO: So do you think you'll get permission to go back into Mackenzie Hall ever again?

JP: We've been invited back. Not sure when, but possibly in the next few months we'll go back and conduct another investigation and we will be bringing an equipment checklist, and we will not be leaving anything behind.

CO: Well except maybe the spirits, you should leave them there.

JP: Right, they can stay there.

[LAUGHTER]

CO: All right Jen, best of luck to you.

JP: OK, well thank you so much, Carol.

CO: Bye-bye.

JP: OK, bye-bye.

JD: Jen Parker is the co-founder of the Listowell Paranormal Society. We reached her in Windsor, Ontario. For more on that story to our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

Undead Romanian Man

JD: Dateline Vaslui, Romania.

[Music: Theme]

JD: Constantin Reliu has lost his legal appeal — which is too bad — he was challenging the declaration of his own death. Mr. Reliu’s wife had a death certificate issued in 2016. She hadn't heard from her husband in more than 20 years. But Mr. Reliu insists he was just running his business across the border in Turkey. And then earlier this year Turkey deported back to Romania. And now that he's returned home Mr. Reliu would really like to rejoin the living. He says that death isn't just insulting for a man of a certain age, but that it can also make it harder to earn a living. And with all that talking and walking and whatnot he figured he had the thing dead to rights. But no, the court refused his request for a cease to decease order. A court spokesman explained today that Mr. Reliu’s deadline for challenging his expiration had expired — and because it was overdue he legally was over and done as well. It's a perplexing situation. As Mr. Reliu put it quote “I am officially dead although I'm alive.” End quote.

[Music: Ambient Tones]

Part 2: Syria UN Rape, Vancouver Island Trucker

Syria UN Rape

Guest: Karen AbuZayd

JD: In the past seven years Syrians have been forced to endure starvation, bomb strikes, chemical attacks and now a report from the United Nations has documented one more horror on that list — widespread rape. Karen AbuZayd is a U.N. special adviser and one of the authors of that report. We reached Ms. AbuZayd in Geneva.

CO: Ms. AbuZayd, who are the victims of these crimes?

KAREN ABUZAYD: Well, the victims are both men and women, girls and boys, and anyone who is perceived by anyone of the group that's perpetrating these crimes in the opposition.

CO: And there are different motivations, I suppose, for these crimes. Can you give us the range of cases that you found — you did 450 interviews, what did you find?

KA: Well, it's either to punish or to embarrass or, you know, even to just to pleasure people when they've had the women or the boys in detention. So that's pretty nasty all the way around.

CO: Let’s just start with some of what you found, because in some cases did you find that these were crimes of opportunity by individuals or did you find that there was organized and authorized?

KA: Yes, well they were certainly both. I think there was no question that there were some, I don't know if you mean organized, but, you know, certainly permission given. And then others were certainly just incidental, you know, they caught girls and women at checkpoints for example, or you know they happened to be noticing them when they were in detention these kinds of things. But of course when we had the terrorist groups I think there was no question that this was intentional to humiliate them and to ruin them for anything they could go back to in their own societies, that sort of thing.

CO: Was it used as torture to extract confessions or concessions?

KA: No, not that we noticed so much, perhaps with the men and the boys. But I don't think we recorded that so much with the women. It was more, you know, this is something nasty and they’re the enemy this is how we treat the enemy.

CO: And the victims — tell us some of the stories of what they're dealing with, because it's ongoing isn't it?

KA: Yes. As far as we know it keeps happening. You know, we haven't been able to follow up very well but we know that — we’ve talked a lot about what happened to some of them with their families who rejected them. They couldn't go back to their — even to their children for example. You know the follow up is pretty difficult because they're difficult to identify if they're out of detention for example or if they've just been dragged around the country with whatever group has taken them. The ones we do know about we know it can be pretty terrible.

CO: And how are the men and boys treated? How do their families and their societies respond to — because the women and girls can be ostracized — what happens to the men and boys?

KA: Well, in a way the same with them if it's known what's happened to them, and even themselves they sort of ostracized themselves I would say in a way, you know, especially if they've had real problems with impotency and so on afterwards. And many of them do certainly say that it's you know attack on their masculinity and they're very ashamed, you know.

CO: Already there are some many reasons why people need medical attention. Are they get getting that post rape?

KA: Probably not. I mean, there's so little medical attention available for people in the real war areas. I never hear, for example, from the medical organizations of they're dealing with these things. Now that may be because it's better not to be talked about. But we don't know, I certainly don't know from any of the many interviews we've read.

CO: We know that the international war crimes tribunals have prosecuted rape as a weapon of war. Your report, will serve as testimony as evidence if there ever should be war crimes trials against the Syrian government?

KA: Well, we certainly hope so. And I think that we've said throughout the report that the extent to which this is done in many places amounts to war crime and in fact in some cases a crime against humanity.

CO: And do you have the evidence that shows that there were higher up in the chain of command, that they knew what was going on?

KA: Not sure that we have direct evidence. We have a presumptive evidence this being, if not allowed, if not ordered — certainly allowed especially in detention.

CO: So it would have, should have, could have known sort of thing?

KA: Oh, yes, yes certainly.

CO: Was it just on the Syrian side? What about the rebels?

KA: We found many parties doing the same thing, especially the armed groups which were associated with the terrorist groups. Not just ISIL and ISIS, but some of the other groups that were very conservative so that this is a way of punishing people who, especially women, who didn't cover their hair or and didn't dress properly or just happened to talk to a man in the streets or something like that. So there was certainly an awareness of what they were doing and why, and they thought they're doing the right thing, you know, these people needed to be punished.

CO: You're talking about the extremists, the Islamic extremists, who are using this as a form of punishment. What about the rebels who are less associated with those extremes? Were they using rape to the same degree?

KA: Yes, I assume that you're meaning by the extremists the ISIL groups.

CO: Yes.

KA: There were other extremist groups, you know, there was the Nusra groups, Al-Qaeda groups and they sort of changed around. Some groups were associated with them for a while and then with each other and so on, so they were the original opposition groups as you call this, some people call them democratic opposition, we didn't find these things happening from them. They didn't have detention and that sort of thing in any case. But we did find it happening among others.

CO: What will you do with your report?

KA: We’ll be sharing it with as many people as we can. I certainly hope, not just this particular report, but all of our reports — all 23 of them — will be used at some point to take people to war crimes tribunals. That's what we hope, that some people are punished for what they've done in this seven year, beginning eight year, war.

CO: Ms. AbuZayd, I appreciate speaking with you, thank you.

KA: Thank you.

JD: Karen AbuZayd is the U.N. special adviser and the co-author of a new report on the rape of Syrian civilians. We reached her in Geneva. And if you would like to read the UN report or more on this story go to our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Ambient Bass]

Gina Haspel Correction

JD: Last night on the program we told you about Donald Trump's new nominee to head the CIA Gina Haspel. And we need to correct part of the story that we told. Ms. Haspel’s nomination has been criticized because of reports that she was head of CIA black site in Thailand in 2002. During that time the prison held a suspected Al-Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah. He was waterboarded dozens of times. Now after our story went to air last night, it was revealed that Ms. Haspel did not become head of that prison until after Mr. Zubaydah was waterboarded. However, waterboarding did continue at that site while she was in charge. And as you heard on As It Happens last night, she did later recommend the destruction of video evidence of waterboarding.

Vancouver Island Trucker

Guest: Gord Price

JD: The Mounties credit him with saving her life. Earlier this week truck-driver Gord Price saw something lying on the side of the highway. It was dark out but he could see that it was a woman. Patricia Galloway was unconscious and not responding. Mr. Price sprung into action. We reached Gord price in Nanaimo.

CO: Gord, what was it that first caught your eye on the highway that night?

GORD PRICE: It looked like debris on the side of the highway — a pillow, a blanket. And that's pretty much what is what stood out against that cement meridian to me, to pay attention to what I was seeing.

CO: It was nighttime, right?

GP: Yeah I was 12:40 in the morning.

CO: So what made you stop?

GP: As I was coming up to the debris I seen on the road —I guess it just looked different. Something wasn't right. And as I got closer there was — I seen and a side of a face on the road and I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought they were playing tricks.

CO: Wow. And were you alone?

GP: Yes. All by myself in my truck.

CO: But you did stop, you went to investigate?

GP: Yes, yes I stopped about 100 feet away is when I pulled over and called 911 immediately because I couldn't believe what I saw. I wasn't sure my eyes were playing tricks with me. Soon as I got on the phone with 911 I jumped out of the truck and there was another pickup coming towards me. They didn't even see the lady laying there. So when he stopped I said ‘Can you turn your trucker around? I'm pretty sure there is a body behind us on the road.’ And first thing he said was ‘I didn't see anybody.’ So I said ‘Just turn your truck around please, I need lights.’ And as he turned his headlights around on the truck there was a body of a person laying three feet off the side of the road right up against the meridian, laying there sideways against the steel culvert.

CO: And what condition was this person in?

GP: Well, I ran down there soon as the lights hit the person. I ran straight down there and they were out completely. There were no signs of life. I tried waking the person up asking if they could hear me, squeezed fingers. I was looking for — she was cold, really cold. I was looking for a heartbeat or something to do with a pulse on their arm or their neck. And I got nothing and this is what I was telling the 911 operator as I was trying to find all this out and then I'd asked Blaine, the guy who had the pickup truck, if he had a blanket. And he actually had a furniture pad in his truck. We grabbed the blanket we put it on top of her and I kept calling I said ‘Do you hear me? Can you hear my voice? Can you hear my voice? And I says ‘I need to get a response, please.’ All of a sudden out of nowhere her eyes move behind her eyelids. It was like she fluttered them at me and then I went into more of a protective mode for me. And I asked and I said to the 911 operator I got to get more help. Then I looked up and there was another truck that was coming towards us. It happened to be a friend of mine with the same kind of truck and super train. And I asked him if he could block off that left hand highway so no traffic can get by us whatsoever until emergency vehicles show up. And pretty much everything too about nine minutes, nine minutes. Next thing I know we could see the ambulance coming.

CO: How cold was it?

GP: It was probably maybe one or two, plus one or two. It wasn't that warm, I mean, it wasn't that cold either. But, I mean, I would imagine it would be a lot colder laying on the ground. She was kind of the mud a bit.

CO: What was she wearing?

GP: A house coat. A white house coat with shoes on.

CO: Oh my gosh. And so she was a woman, what age did you imagine?

GP: I thought she would have been close to around my mom’s age just said that I'm sure she was mid-60s, so she's 69, which is the same age as my mom. And she has the same name as my mom as well. So it was just touches me like crazy. I just I still can't believe I found her and I can't — I just can't believe she was there.

CO: And the age and the name you found out much later that she's Patricia Galloway, Pat Galloway. You said took about nine minutes for all that. Paramedics arrive and what did they say, what did they do?

GP: So the paramedics right away they grabbed the grabbed the backboard, they were trying to protect her neck. Again they were trying to sayin ‘Ma'am can you hear us? Can you hear us ma’am? And the RCMP when he came out to me he said to me he says Gord, he says we got a first phone call about this lady wandering around on River Road in her housecoat.

CO: So they had earlier on that somebody was out there that fit the description of this woman that you found?

GP: Yup, yup, yup.

CO: And it was her. Had she been out? What have you learned about what happened?

GP: Well, she had a stroke. So yesterday when I finally got to meet her it was pretty emotional, but her and her daughter — and her daughter lives beside her. So what we've found out is that morning she woke up at 9 a.m., you know, did whatever she had to do. She wasn't feeling that good so she went back to bed. She slept from 10:00 to 4:00 o'clock and when she was talking to her daughter her daughter said she had slurred speech.

CO: That was earlier in the day she'd had slurred speech?

GP: And those are probably your telltale signs to a stroke.

CO: How far away from home was she when you found her?

GP: Two kilometers.

CO: So she had been wandering quite a bit?

GP: Yeah. I'm just glad that. you know. I seen her there and I got to save her.

CO: So you’ve been to see her, how she's doing?

GP: She's actually doing really well. She went for a long walk, she does lots of walks she's a very physical, active lady.

CO: Clearly.

GP: Yes. And she didn't know anything from what the RCMP told her and all they told her is a truck driver found you on the highway.

CO: She doesn't remember anything?

GP: No, nothing.

CO: What was it like when you finally got to meet her after all of this?

GP: My heart dropped and I tears in my eyes and I just wanted to hug her. I wanted to hug her and go ‘Oh my God, I'm glad you're here and you're standing you're living proof.’ And then the questions that I wanted to know why, and what happened. My heart was just like ‘God you're here.’ It's just amazing. It's just overwhelming.

CO: And she reminds you a bit of your mom?

GP: She sure does. That and a little bit of my grandmother — she’s kind of got that silver spoon and she wants to hit you with it.

[LAUGHTER]

CO: So it sounds like you and Pat are going to stay in touch.

GP: Yes, I said I said you're like my newfound family and I said I will be checking in on you — lots. Just so you know. And I said I said I'm not going anywhere Pat, I'm here for life.

CO: Gord, I'm so glad you were there for her. That was just quite something, quite amazing coincidence that you saw that out of the corner of your eye and saved a life.

GP: Thank you. Thank you very much.

CO: Thank you.

JD: We reached Gord Price in Nanaimo.

[Music: Bass & Drums]

Steve Borealis

JD: Steve keeps a pretty low profile. He only comes out at night — but in the few photos that exist of him you can see that he's a flashy dresser. He likes vibrant colours, purples greens — he's hot stuff, moves fast. In fact according to his astronomers Steve is about 6,000 degrees Celsius — that is hotter than the Earth's core and he moves at about seven kilometres per second. But on Wednesday, thanks to the work of amateur astronomers who have seen the lights, the journal Science Advances published a research paper all about Steve. Steve is not exactly the Northern Lights, he's what scientists called a sub auroral ion drift. It's a mix of charged particles in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. And he's been wowing amateur sky watchers for years with his Northern Lights-like good looks. Last April Carol spoke to Eric Donovan about the Aurora like spectacle. The University of Calgary professor said that until a group of amateur astronomers called the Alberta Aurora Chasers shared photographs of the unusual phenomenon online, few people in the scientific community actually knew who Steve. Here's part of Carol's conversation with Professor Donovan from our archives.

CO: Putting these two things together, these amateur Aurora watchers who saw this, and then putting it together with the data you get from space, you've actually been able to identify what Steve is.

ERIC DONOVAN: Yes. And for me this is really kind of the dawn of a new era because we have — there's always been people who are fascinated by various aspects of nature, people who go out and bird watch and people to take pictures the night sky and so on. But the social media and the ability to move information and data around very fast has given a bridge between scientists, who sort of tend to focus on problems that we know we want to solve and we're working on those, we're writing proposals to get money to buy equipment to attack those problems. But now really kind of in our spare time we can be connecting up with these other groups of people who can show us things that are really very interesting that we wouldn't see otherwise. And so I think looking back in old photographic records, I mean, people have been taking pictures of this thing for decades, but that's not really made it into the scientific community until recently.

CO: And by the way, what are the scientific community's thoughts on calling this Steve?

ED: So people are having fun with it, you know, I mean one thing is that if you look to the particle physics community, I mean, they call things properties of particles things like charm and colour and objects like quarks and so on. The idea of calling things sort of nonsensical whimsical names when you don't know what they are is not new. And it turns out we have acronyms or, you know, in some cases we have bacronyms, which is you have a word and you want to go back. And so when I gave a talk on this in San Francisco in December a person in the audience stood up and when described what I think it was he said ‘sudden thermal emission through velocity enhancements’ — Steve. And actually I think it's a great bacromym. And so we might just leave it at Steve and turn it into an acronym.

JD: From April, that was University of Calgary professor Eric Donovan telling Carol about an aurora-like spectacle called Steve, or as he is now known — a strong thermal emission velocity enhancement

Part 3: Rome Subway, Zuma Corruption Charges, Witless Bay Problems

Rome Subway

Guest: Luca Del Fra

JD: A new subway line brings problems for any big city. Problems inevitably, delays. But in Rome a series of news stations are unearthing some unexpected extras. During the years-long construction of the New Line C, they have made numerous archaeological finds as you may expect in Rome. Petrified peach pits, military barracks, some pretty wild ceramics, and more recently a domus, which is what the ancient Romans called their fancier homes. That's just to name a few. Luca Del Fra is a spokesperson for Rome's Cultural Heritage Ministry. We reached him in Rome.

CO: Mr. Del Fra, what can you tell us about this domus that you have discovered?

LUCA DEL FRA: This domus was discovered just near a previous discovery that was made in 2016. That was a very big barrack for in an army building. This big place was intended to be a dormitory for a normal soldier. So these new places that we’ve found are completely different because it's more luxurious, more beautiful. So the hypothesis at the moment is that this place was the house of a commander in chief of this army building — something that can be a centurion or a tribunal, anyway something in the upper grade of the of the Roman army between the second century and the third century after Christ.

CO: And how well preserved is it?

LDF: It is very well preserved because there is a funny thing about this place is that this army building has a very short life maybe 100 120 years because just any of them they build in the third century the Aurelian walls. The Aurelian Walls were meant to protect Rome from outer enemies. So everything that was nearby the walls was erased and destroyed by the Romans. But the funny thing is that the upper floor was completely destroyed, but the first floor, the floor the pavement level was just filled up with all the stuff of the upper floor. And so the first floor, the floor at the street level was quite well-preserved.

CO: And just maybe give us some more details? You say it's quite beautiful, quite luxurious. How big is it and how luxurious is it?

LDF: The thing is the barracks for the army soldiers was just a long corridor with rooms one in front of the other, but this place that we found now is a real domus with the centre uncovered, a sort of garden in the centre of the house. And all the rooms all around it — there’s about 12 or 13 rooms. Some of them have very precious mosaics with the decoration, and shields that are connected with the army building, but also birds, geometrical decoration and even mythological figures. On the walls you have painting that is geometrical but it is very, very well done. So it goes to show that this place was not for normal soldiers, but for people a diverse type of soldier. Probably the head of the entire army building.

CO: And I understand there's even some wood you found, which is very rare to be able to find?

LDF: That’s an incredible thing. The question is this: wood, like all organic material, is destroyed in 100-150 years unless it's in the water or in some in some places with very huge humidity. The question is, excavation goes down to 14-15 metres underground, and in this area you have the presence of water in the air. So it's extraordinary for Rome and it’s almost first case we found some wood that belongs exactly to the period that these houses were built.

CO: This discovery 14-15 metres below the surface, you would never have found that if it wasn't for the subway, this Line C that's being built to go from central Rome out to the suburbs, so this is quite an extraordinary — would anyone have known it was there had it not been for the excavation for the subway?

LDF: No, no, no, no. That's the amazing part of the building of the subway in Rome. In every station we found something incredible because the thing is that a normal archaeological excavation can go through out five metres, six metress. When you do parking under the houses you go to six metres, seven metres — in very strange cases nine metres. But in these cases we go down to 28-30 metres and we found something that even underground at the time of the Roman Empire.

CO: Wow.

LDF: For instance in a place called the Celio here in Rome, we found an incredible aqueduct that was probably, we are still studying this, was probably the first public aqueduct built in Rome. That means three or four centuries before Christ.

CO: But what are you going to do. I mean, Rome has, Italy has so many artifacts, what will you do with these discoveries?

LDF: We have two different kind of planning. The first is that probably at the end of the construction of the C line we do a museum with the best things that we found in all this station excavation. But there is another intention that at the moment to become concrete in San Giovanni station is to do a kind of restitution giving back to the city. What that means that in the station you will find part of the things that have been discovered during the building of the station. What we will do in the station is to rebuild the entire army buildings, meaning the army barracks and the domus of the commander in chief of this army building just inside the station in the same level where they have been found. So when you go to the station and you're going to take your train or you are coming up from the train you just cross a military building from the second century of the Roman Empire. So in the moment that the empire was more powerful and more wealthy.

CO: It sounds quite extraordinary to have in your subway, as only you could in Rome. Mr. Del Fra, I appreciate you telling us this story. Thank you.

LDF: OK thanks a lot.

CO: Good night.

LDF: Good night.

JD: Luca Del Fra is a spokesperson for Rome's Cultural Heritage Ministry. We reached him in Rome

[Music: 90s Pop]

Zuma Corruption Charges

Guest: David Lewis

JD: Things have gone from bad to worse for Jacob Zuma. He was ousted from his role as South Africa's president last month after his party, the African National Congress, announced that it had finally had enough. Now the former leader is facing prosecution on 16 corruption charges. These are accusations he's been dodging for years. The case goes back to the late 90s when Mr. Zuma was accused of soliciting bribes from a French arms company as part of a $3 billion arms deal. He has always maintained his innocence. David Lewis is the executive director of the South African non-profit, Corruption Watch. We reached Mr. Lewis in Johannesburg.

CO: Mr. Lewis, Jacob Zuma has been out of office for a month. Why are these charges being laid now?

DAVID LEWIS: Well, the charges are being laid because the Constitutional Court, after a long period of litigation involving you know every layer of the court up to the Constitutional Court, instructed the National Prosecuting Authority to reinstate charges that were withdrawn nine years ago. And so there's no surprise in the decision today although it is a very important event.

CO: And if you can forgive people in other parts of the world of being — well because the whole Zuma fiasco has become confusing. There have been so many accusations of corruption and crime, so but these ones date back to events in the 1990s. Why reaching back that far?

DL: Well, they all relate back to an infamous arms procurement arrangement that took place shortly after the first democratic government came into power. That was a notoriously corrupt deal, and in some sense sort of representative of the real loss of innocence, if you like, of the democratic government. And these charges relate to them and you know the fisrt charges after a long period of investigations, Zuma and several others were charged. In fact the person who bribed it was charged and actually found guilty. But when Zuma became head of the African National Congress and clearly the president in waiting, he basically ensured that the National Prosecuting Authority, whose independence had been very heavily compromised, removed charges against him. And, you know, it was a representation of the extent to which critical elements of the criminal justice system had been captured by Zuma and his cronies right from the beginning. But one of the reasons why this is important because that arms deal, which involved many big multinational companies, in fact a French arms trader is going to be on trial with Zuma, it involved many multinational companies from many countries — was a very important episode in South Africa's history. And a lot has been done to get some closure on the case, to have the truth come out and this I think represents that 20 year effort.

CO: And so Mr. Zuma has been more or less immune to this during the time that he was president and now this is looming up to get him once again. What exactly, what role is he accused of having played in this bribery arms deal?

DL: Well, he accepted bribes from at least one French arms company, which is pretty incontrovertible, in order to influence the ability of this company to succeed in bidding for a slice of the arms deal. There are a multitude of charges, but they're all about pretty vanilla kind of bribery issues. And the bribery was because you had this multibillion dollar arms procurement and the arms industry is notoriously corrupt. And he took bribes and influenced presumably or trid to influence — but successfully influenced I think, the decision as to who was cut in on this very lucrative deal. That’s essentially what he's being charged with. As I said, to cover that up involved the destruction of many institutions, the prosecuting authority, the police investigating unit responsible, parliament was compromised. It led to the destruction of key institutions of oversight and it was the destruction of those institutions that then allowed Zuma to behave with the impunity that he behaved once he actually got into power. So it really is the sort of deal that godfathered, if you like, or parented the capture of the state by Zuma and his cronies.

CO: Do you have any idea how strong the evidence against him is?

DL: Extremely strong. Extremely strong. I mean, there is documentary evidence, there is direct evidence. And, as I say, there is the fact that he's, if you like, the most direct sort of interlocutor in the whole bribery story was actually found guilty. So, you know, on the understanding that bribery involves somebody who pays a bribe and somebody receives a bribe, if the payer of the bribe was found to be guilty, it's difficult to imagine how the receiver of the bribe is not going to be found guilty.

CO: There’s such a swirl of controversy and corruption around Mr. Zuma —so many scandals involved. Is this the first of perhaps other charges that will be levelled against him?

DL: It might well be. I mean, it might well be and some obviously more recent. Certainly members of his family, like his son, are very likely to be charged with corruption. But it's very likely that there will be other charges against him. There are 18 charges leveled against him relating to, I think some 600 odd corruption incidents. So this is going to be a lengthy and complex trial. It's even feasible that the trial might outlast Zuma, but the public accountability that this form that this will take could be a trial in open court with many witnesses, many of whom might sing, if you like — cooperate with the state — is going to be, you know, itself a very sort of salutary kind of settling of accounts for the South African public. It's a very — it's going to be a very important and dramatic episode in the life of South Africa.

CO: We will be watching. Mr. Lewis, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

DL: It’s a pleasure.

JD: David Lewis is the executive director of Corruption Watch in South Africa. We reached him in Johannesburg.

Otter Attack Reaction

JD: Now they’re used a warning boaters about alligators. But last week Florida wildlife officials posted warnings about a new threat lurking in their waterways — river otters. On Tuesday we spoke to Susan Spector. Ms. Spector was attacked by an otter that was anything but cuddly, we’ll say, while she kayaked down the Braden River in western Florida. After listening to Ms. Spector's ordeal, many of you shared your own stories of encounters with whiskered wildlife.

CO: James Lauter writes “Paddling through a marsh in Algonquin Park, my wife and I got well and truly cussed out by an otter. The creature came swimming toward us out of a stand of reeds, barking the top of its voice and we didn't stay to argue. Our guess was that we'd come too close to a nest of pups and that was their mom giving us hell. I wouldn't be surprised if that were the explanation for Susan Spector's awful experience too. I guess we got off lightly.

JD: And Scott Telfer wrote quote “I'm reasonably certain and otter laughed at me once. I was bank fishing on Lake Huron on the Bruce Peninsula right beside a creek mouth. I hooked a small rainbow trout but lost it just before I could land it. And 15 minutes later a good sized otter comes cruising down the creek while sitting on a slab of ice, dining on what looked suspiciously like the trout I had lost. I swear that it turned and looked at me and let out this hissing kind of laugh.

CO: Thank you to everyone who wrote. To comment on anything you hear on the program call Talkback at 416-205-5687, that's the old fashioned way. Or find us on Twitter and Facebook both at CBCAsItHappens, all on word of course. And our e-mail, that old fashioned thing now, aih@cbc.ca.

[Music: Oboes]

Fake University

JD: California South University is not a real school, but it does have a real website that has caused a real stir thousands of kilometres away in Alberta. That's because the website for Cal SU ripped off the U of A's Wikipedia page — nearly word for word. Professor William Grover teaches at the legitimate University of California Riverside, which is about an hour from the address given for the fake school's campus. Professor Grover is the one who tipped off the U of A about its duplicitous doppelganger. And he described his discovery to the CBC's Mark Connolly on Edmonton AM today.

SOUNDCLIP

PROFESSOR WILLIAN GROVER: It started with an email I received back in December. Professors get a lot of emails from these, what they call predatory journals, that are fake journals that are interested in asking people to send them their papers to be published in exchange for money. And usually we see these e-mails and we delete them because we know it's a fraud. But this one email caught my eye because the editor of The Journal that sent it, supposedly, his school was listed as California South University, which was an interesting name that I’d never heard of despite living and working in Southern California for a while. And so I did a little research and digging into that university, found their website, found their description of their enormous campus in Irvine, which like you say, is just down the road from me here. And I think ‘What on earth is going on here?’ But the pieces really started to come together when I noticed the mention of the Butter Dome at the University because my wife is actually a University of Alberta alum from back in 2000, and I've been to the real Butter Dome in Edmonton and I know good and well that it is not located in Irvine, California.

MARK CONNOLLY: What did your wife think when you showed her?

WG: She was stunned. And she noticed, of course as an alum, she noticed a lot of the other history of the university that I didn't recognize. I noticed the Butter Dome just because it's memorable, but she noticed that the entire history of this fictitious Southern California University was lifted from the real University of Alberta.

MC: And the faculty bios are also pretty incredible when you start reading them too, right?

WG: They sure are. I think one fellow was supposedly, before he became a professor at that university, he was a referee for the Los Angeles Maple Leafs. There's something wrong with that, I am not sure but the one thing that makes sense in terms of why it exists is there researchers around the world who don't know about Edmonton or the Butter Dome or Southern California are asked to submit their work to these journals and pay for it. And without knowledge of Edmonton or Southern California, they see what looks like a legitimate university and so they pay their money to get their paper published in what's basically a fake journal.

MC: So what did the University of Alberta do when you told them about it?

WG: They were shocked too, as you'd expect. And I think they worked quite hard on trying to get this taken down and they succeeded in that. About a couple of weeks ago they posted a blog post that said they had successfully gotten the California South University removed from them from the internet.

JD: That was William Grover, Professor of Bioengineering at the University of California Riverside. He speak in Mark Connolly on CBC Radio's Edmonton AM today. And yes the school's website he found is no longer online.

[Music: Ambient Bass]

Witless Bay

Guest: Lorna Yard

JD: Friends, we live in contentious times. But no matter your political beliefs there is one thing that unites us all — criticizing politicians on social media. But the therapeutic act of typing out angry Facebook comments about the stupid vote of the stupid town council at the last stupid meeting might soon come with a new cost for the residents of Witless Bay, Newfoundland. The town is near St. John's. It is home to about 1,000 people. And the town council has moved to hire a criminal lawyer who will advise them on how to deal with their online critics. The motion also allows council to quote “empower the Finance Committee to take disciplinary actions.” Lorna Yard is a vocal critic of the town council in Witless Bay. And that's where we reached her.

CO: Lorna, have you been fined for your Facebook comments yet?

LORNA YARD: Not as far as I know, Carol.

CO: How worried are you that you might be?

LY: Not worried about the motion itself because I don't believe it's worth the paper it's written on. The thing I find most disturbing is the mindset of a group of people who would think like that. If they're making this public motion to discipline residents who speak out against them financially, what are they doing in all these private meetings they seem to be having? That's the disturbing part for me.

CO: And is there an answer to your question?

LY: I don't know. I mean, I don't know because what's happening is we're seeing them systematically shut down public access to their council. They’re trying to threaten people not to speak out, meetings are being changed around all the time without notice, they're not posting the agendas in public as they used to — and they have even voted now to start advertising town business that residents need to know about such as any kind of an announcement like an election announcement or information about development. They've made a motion now to post all of that in a small local circular that is only published once a month. That is free, so if somebody knew that there was a contentious issue coming up they could easily just grab the whole stack of papers and nobody would know. And also it has no online presence, and so people from outside the area who have land or interests in the town, they can't access important information.

CO: And you've been fairly vocal in your criticism of this, right? You've been online quite a bit. And is it fair to say you're probably the most vocal online critic of the town council?

LY: There is another group called the Friends of Ragged Beach, and I guess how it came to be is we started this fight eight years ago when there was a proposed development for an area in our town called Ragged Beach. It's not really just a beach, it's a rocky beach, but it's also surrounded by meadows and forests and it's the closest point of land to the ecological reserve and things like that. And so a group of us got together and decided to try to stop that development. And at that time everybody kind of took on a role, so some people go to meetings and keep an eye on the agenda. I do the social media piece and the media piece, and I'll write articles for our cause and things like that. So really this is just kind of my role in a bigger group.

CO: But you’ve got you got some personal history with this council. What can you tell us about that?

LY: Well, my mom was the original town clerk here in Witless Bay when it was incorporated in 1986 until she passed away in 1999. And so municipal politics were always front and foremost in our house. And so I always know the players and even back then 30 years ago, we had a lot of problems in this town. And some of those players were there then and they're here today. And so I don't know, maybe I’m just branded a bit of a trouble maker because of my relationship back to her. But, you know, in a small town like this you're going to have personal relationships and you're going to have connections to everybody. I mean, it's pretty well impossible not to.

CO: And so this town council, I understand one of the first things they did was vote unanimously to rescind the town's bylaws, its policies and procedures manual, right?

LY: Yes, yes, which was quite a shock. And again, I know generally what that is, but again in response to our group’s people like the logistics and the legalese and stuff is not the part that I'm really up on. But, I mean, it’s everything from staff ethics to harassment policies to transparency of council to land use items, you know, it's basically governing how the local government acts and what they are responsible for.

CO: So what do you think they're up to?

LY: Well, I know what they're up to because everything is about trying to get down there in that Ragged Beach and get a massive subdivision going. Some people believe me, some people don't, but it's been going on for years and now it's at the point where I'm starting to wonder if some of it just isn't spite.

CO: So now town council is hiring a lawyer to investigate critical online comments. What that cost, do you know?

LY: Well, I don't think they're going to actually do it because I feel that that motion was made not to actually go through the act of hiring the lawyer. I believe if you look at that motion and you listen to the terminology, things like criminal lawyer, discipline, financial discipline — that sort of stuff. I believe that motion was made for one reason and one reason only and that was to scare people into silence.

CO: You know, the name Witless Bay, perhaps it seems appropriate. But, I mean out of curiosity, why is it called Witless Bay?

LY: Not for the reason many people are thinking today, I'm sure. But one of the first settlers here was the Captain Whittle and him and his family lived here. And first it was called Whittle’s Bay. And then when the Whittle family left it became known as Whittle Less Bay and then that was just kind of shortened to Witless Bay.

CO: So because they were less the Whittle's?

LY: Yeah. I think the Whittles might have the right idea.

[LAUGHTER]

CO: I don't think so, it sounds like a lovely place.

LY: If I could just — I know that you're at a tight time timeline — but if there’s anything I would like to say, Witness Bay, right now has big problems in government. But Witless Bay is an amazing place and it is a fantastic place to come with your family, to go sit on Ragged Beach, to watch the whales and seabirds and the ocean crashing at your feet and take your kids to the puffin patrol, and we have so much here, Carol you should come visit us. I’ll show you all the cool stuff.

CO: It sounds absolutely lovely to spend the day in Witless Bay. I can't imagine a better thing. Thank you so much Lorna. Take care.

LY: Bye-bye.

JD: I think I spend most days in Witless Bay, not witless for the reasons she mentioned. Lorna Yard was in Witless Bay, Newfoundland. We reached out to town officials in Witless Bay for a response to Ms. Yard’s criticisms and to find out if they have hired a lawyer yet. We have not received a response.

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

March 16, 2018 episode transcript

Social Sharing

More from this episode