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The AIH Transcript for January 21, 2019

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

CAROL OFF: Hello, I’m Carol Off.

KAREN GORDON: Good evening, I'm Karen Gordon, sitting in for Jeff Douglas. This is “As It Happens”.

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

KG: Tonight:

CO: In the cold, and in the dark. The mother of former Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe is found dead of hypothermia — raising serious questions about her senior's residence, after she was locked out for hours following a fire alarm.

KG: Surgical scrubs. A Dutch surgeon wins a landmark case against Google to have her name removed from searches relating to a case of medical negligence — under Europe's so-called "Right to Be Forgotten" law.

CO: Brute force. Several are dead and hundreds more under arrest in Zimbabwe, as government forces crack down on citizens protesting the rising cost of fuel.

KG: In the cold seat. Passengers are forced to remain on the plane during a stop-over in Labrador that lasted more than two-thirds of a day — with winter weather creeping into the cabin.

CO: He put his lips together — and they blew it. An uber-fan of the New Orleans Saints known as "the Whistle Monsta" for his ear-splitting talent isn't about to give up just because they lost.

KG: And...a story with legs — and then some. With Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan locked in a heated battle with a Norwegian town over their respective moose statues, it's still anyone's guess which will rack up as the world's tallest.

KG: "As It Happens", the Monday edition. Radio that knows the antlers, my friend, are blowing in the wind. The antlers are blowing in the wind.

[Music: Theme]

Part one: Montreal hypothermia death, Zimbabwe crackdown moose statue update

Montreal hypothermia death

Guest: Pierre Blain

KG: She froze to death outside her home in Montreal, alone. Helene Rowley Hotte, the mother of former Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, was reported dead today. She died early Sunday morning of hypothermia, after getting locked out of her seniors' residence. Here is another resident of that high rise, Andre Plante, describing the partial evacuation of the complex to CBC Montreal.

[sc]

ANDRE PLANTE: The bell rang four times, and stopped suddenly. And I look out the window and I saw the firemen — about four or five cars of firemen. And I saw them coming in, coming out, and that's about it. I stay home, and I just try to fall asleep again. But I couldn't do it.

KG: Ms. Rowley Hotte, meanwhile, was trapped outside in extremely cold weather. Her death is raising serious questions about how this tragedy could have been prevented. Pierre Blain is head of the Usagers de la Sante du Quebec. They advocate for users of health facilities and nursing homes. We reached him in Montreal.

CO: Mr. Blain, this is such a disturbing story. And I know that you and so many others are just trying to make sense of it, but what do we know so far about the death of Helene Rowley Hotte?

PIERRE BLAIN: So far we know that there was a fire alarm, and there was three towers. One tower was evacuated, but the two other weren't. And Mrs. Hotte was in one tower that was not evacuated. The problem that we have with that is Madame Hotte was handicapped. She has a problem with hearing. Therefore, she perhaps didn't understand that she wasn't asked to evacuate. We really don't know more than that for now.

CO: But how did she get locked out of that building in this cold night that she was in?

PB: Yes, first of all, there's some regulation in Quebec about private residence. And in this case, they're supposed to have an evacuation plans in case of fire. And in this plan, you must take a special provision for if a person has a handicap. And in this case, it seems that we didn't follow the rules about that. And there's another provision also saying that you have to look after a missing person. It seems that we didn't count the people that were in the buildings, and therefore, we didn't have any connection to do so.

CO: And what kind of a facility was this? Was this assisted living?

PB: This is a private residence — a very luxury one. And for people who are autonomous.

CO: Uh huh. She was 93, but she was taking care of herself, and was able to leave?

PB: Absolutely. Absolutely.

CO: And did she have her own yard? Was she able to go right outside from her own apartment?

PB: No, because this is a tower. Then in this tower, it means to take the stairs to follow the evacuation. But usually, when you have an evacuation plan, you are supposed to have somebody responsible on every floor. And it seems, in this case, there was nobody responsible on every floor.

CO: You know every question there is about this story if there's an answer there's a dozen more questions. And as I understand it, she left because she thought she was being evacuated. She could hear the alarm and knew that there was a fire alarm, but couldn't hear the announcement about what buildings were being evacuated, right?

PB: We presume that. I'm not sure. That's the reason why I said that they were supposed to have an evacuation plan. And in this evacuation plan, we must take care about people who need some help. Since they've been here permanently, I think we should have more care about ourself.

CO: Here's another question that comes from it. If it was known but by virtue of the security camera that she had been locked out, they could they could see from this what had happened — she'd go out and couldn't get back in. Why didn't they come and help her? Why was there nobody watching those security cameras?

PB: Probably there was only one person at the security desk that's not enough in these kind of residences — especially at night.

CO: So we know that there was a 9 11 call that came, and that was made. Her body was found around noon. So many, many hours she was outside, is that right?

PB: Yeah, because the information that the alarm was at 4:30 in the morning, meaning that since then, they didn’t check after her, and they found her only at noon.

CO: More than seven hours later. It's just so disturbing.

PB: Exactly.

CO: The grief and what she’d gone through. And so this is nearly the fifth anniversary of one of the most horrible tragedies with senior citizens home at L'Isle-Verte, which five years ago this fire that killed 32 people in there. It’s a different kind of facility as you've pointed out, but what questions does this re-ask concerning that?

PB: At L'Isle-Verte, there was not no security. In this case, there was a lot of security, but not enough for the people inside. That's the difference, and that's not okay. We have to look again at the regulation and what you could take care of to make sure that people will be secure in these kinds of residence where they pay a lot of money for that. Security is part of the reason why these people are inside the residence.

CO: You just mentioned every answer there are so many questions. What are your biggest questions that you want answered right now?

PB: They didn't follow the regulation about evacuation plans. From my point of view, that's the main problem in this case, and especially they didn't take care of the people inside. They did not have a list. They didn't know who was in and who was out.

CO: And nobody went to check to see if everyone was back in the building?

PB: Absolutely, because there was not enough people at 4:30 in the morning to make that kind of verification.

CO: This tragedy is larger for so many people because we all know that the son of this woman, Gilles Duceppe, the Bloc Quebecois leader. But in Quebec, it must be so many people thinking about their own loved ones in these institutions and in this in these facilities.

PB: Absolutely, I am thinking about my sisters who are living in [a seniors' facility] who are not able to walk. What do we do with these people?

CO: And your thoughts and concerns played out with everyone who's got somebody that they love in a building.

PB: Absolutely.

CO: Mr. Blain, It's just such a tragedy, and so disturbing. But I appreciate that you'd speak with us, and explain it to us today. Thank you.

PB: Thank you. Take care.

CO: Bye-bye.

PB: Goodbye.

KG: Pierre Blain is head of the Usagers de la Sante du Quebec, which lobbies on behalf of people in nursing homes and health facilities. He was in Montreal. Helen Rowley Hotte, the mother of former Quebec politician Gilles Duceppe was reported dead today. She died of hypothermia after leaving her seniors residence in the early morning hours Sunday. Late today, the LUX residence released a statement, offering condolences to the family. Management says an investigation is underway but says Ms. Rowley Hotte was wearing winter clothing. The statement also suggests the residences' security cameras show she may have fainted after leaving the building.

[Music: Sobre]

Zimbabwe crackdown

Guest: Christina Lamb

KG: A violent government crackdown continued today in Zimbabwe. The country has been rocked by protests and retaliations after the government hiked fuel prices earlier this month. The crackdown comes after a general strike last Monday to protest that price hike, which saw the cost of petrol and diesel more than double overnight. Reporters and rights groups say police and military forces have beaten, arrested, and even shot citizens in the street. Christina Lamb is the chief foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times. We reached her in London, UK.

CO: Christina, I know you spent the last four days in Zimbabwe during this crackdown. What did you see, and what did you hear about?

CHRISTINA LAMB: So I met dozens and dozens of people who had been caught up in this crackdown. People who had been asleep in bed, and had had people banging on their door, and then their doors broken down. These were people apparently army and police in police uniforms, who then came and beat them. In some cases ordered, children, to roll in the mud, and then beat the children, and also detained lots of people. I also met people who had had police dogs set on them, and had dog bites — many people with bruises and scars from big whips.

CO: And who were these people? Why were they targeted?

CL: The government says that these were opposition people that were then deliberately provoking violence. So to protect the population, they had to respond. The problem is that many of the people that I spoke to were not opposition people or activists. They were just ordinary people who were actually quite scared to go out because of the protests, so were staying at home. I met a mother, a widow who has eight children; four of her own and four of her late sister’s. Her door was broken down, and they were all dragged outside and beaten by the police. I mean these people had nothing to do with any of this activity. There are still people that are hiding in the bush because they're scared to go back to their homes. I also went to the courts in Harare, where lots of people were appearing who had been detained. We don't know the exact number, but the estimates are more than 700 people have been detained. In fact, more people have been detained today. And certainly, in the courtrooms one courtroom, I went to alone had 61 people appearing who'd get picked up from one place.

CO: You have been covering this story for many years — for decades — what has been going on in Zimbabwe. You know that people thought that when President Robert Mugabe was ousted that this was going to turn around and that briefly the economy did get better from it from a disastrous state of affairs. But so what is going on? What is President Emmerson Managua up to at this point?

CL: Well, the president, Emmerson Managua, who's known as “The Crocodile,” was Mugabe's right-hand man for decades. He was his vice-president, he was his intelligence chief, he was defence minister, and he was also the architect of what's known as the Gukurahundi Massacre in the 1980s in Matabeleland in the south of Zimbabwe, where at least 10,000 people were killed. So you know there is history there. This is a regime that uses violence to suppress any kind of opposition over and over again. And frankly, you know it's got away with it. So what is really sad is that there was hope in November 2017, when the army moved against Robert Mugabe, and people thought things were finally going to change. And I was there, people came out and tens of thousands on the streets of Harare very excited calling for Mugabe's resignation. And when finally he did resign, celebrating that finally, things would change. Now, at that time, there were people saying look, this is actually really just a military coup, and nothing much is going to change. But you sort of felt because people were for the first time being allowed openly out on the streets that somehow that was going to make a difference. But what we're seeing here is you know the same old techniques being used. But you know worse in a way because Mugabe's thugs were mostly only acting during election time and very specifically against opposition activists. So this seems to be a whole new scale, and also shooting people. And the other thing is that they completely shut down the Internet for the last week, which they said was to stop protesters contacting each other. But you know clearly appeared to me to stop anything getting out is what was actually happening inside Zimbabwe.

CO: Just finally, and just briefly, the president is on his way back to Zimbabwe. His spokesperson has said that this violence is just a foretaste of things to come. What's going to happen? Do you think this will continue or get worse?

CL: Yes, I mean it's very ominous what his spokesperson has said. Certainly, people are very scared. They don't know what's going to happen next. They're worried and angry at the situation. And you know it's very uncertain. I mean it has to be said in the past in Zimbabwe where things seem to be really getting worse and worse, then suddenly, nothing much has happened because people generally have been very non-violent, very passive people. But I do think you know people have been pushed so much now that things are a little bit different. So we'll see.

CO: Well, very worrisome situation. Christina, I appreciate speaking with you tonight. Thank you.

CL: It's a pleasure. Thanks, Carol.

CO: Bye-bye.

KG: Christina Lamb is the chief foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times. We reached her in London, UK. And we’ve posted more on this story on the “As It Happens’ website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Ambient]

Moose update

Guest: Linda Otnes Henriksen

KG: It's tough for the city to handle — but its statue is yesterday's moose. At one time, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan's moose statue — which is named Mac — was the tallest in the world. But as we heard on Friday, the city is now trying to raise money to make Mac taller — because the town of Stor-Elvdal, Norway, has outdone Mac, heightwise, with its own moose statue. But whatever Moose Jaw does to get the title back, Stor-Elvdal won't back down. Linda Otnes Henriksen is the deputy mayor of Stor-Elvdal, Norway.

CO: Mayor Henriksen, it seems you have picked a fight with Moose Jaw. Not just Moose Jaw, Canadians are upset about this. What do you have to say to Canada?

LINDA OTNES HENRIKSEN: Well, first of all, I’d like to say that I think they have a really beautiful moose in Mac the Moose. Like everyone's been so nice. I've read all the comments on Facebook that I could come over on the different pages, and people are really patriotic. And I think this brings out the best in the people and the country in Canada as well as Norway.

CO: Now, you're putting the best spin on this because we've talked to the mayor of Moose Jaw on Friday, and he feels that you really issued quite the challenge to them. It is Moose job by the way; I mean it does deserve to have the biggest moose, doesn't it?

LOH: They certainly do have the coolest name for their town. I really love the name Moose Jaw. Of course, you know they should have the title the biggest moose. But you know, once we built a moose, and it's taller, so I'm really sorry about that. But now it's sitting there, so now they have to do something with their moose.

CO: All right, I'm going to let you hear the mayor of Moose Jaw, what he had to say to us on Friday, and get you to respond. Here's Mayor Fraser Tolmie.

SOUNDCLIP

FRASER TOLMIE: There are things that you just don't do to Canadians. You don't tell a Canadian that they can't pour maple syrup on their pancakes. You don't water down a Canadian’s beer. And you don't mess with Mac the Moose, and someone's got to take a stand. And that's what we're going to do here.

CO: So okay, that's Mayor Tolmie, just having the tallest moose is something they take very seriously. What do you say to him?

LOH: Of course he's proud of Mac the Moose, it's been their main attraction or the biggest moose for 31 years. So, of course, he's going to be supportive of that. But you know I heard him on the press conference today, and he talked about how they've lost a hockey match, and that the hockey ref must be Norwegian. And I really thought that was really funny.

CO: Since you seem to have the winning moose here — yours is larger — can you describe it for us?

LOH: Well, the moose is very shiny. It's made out of silver or a very reflective surface. And it’s ten-and-a-half or ten-point-three metres high, and about eleven-and-a-half metres long, and it's huge, and it's placed like in the middle of the forest. So it's kind of like walking out of the forest. So that's what's the main idea what's behind it if for road safety — for people to stop and you know take a break. And so it's supposed to reflect the surroundings around him.

CO: And I think you beat out Mac the Moose by about 30 centimetres?

LOH: Yeah, I'm not sure quite sure the height of Mac the Moose is. But I'm thinking like the Canadians need to make sure of the height and we need to make sure of the height too if they want to beat Big Moose as we call him. You know they gotta do it by a little more than a few centimetres, you know? So it's not easy for us to fight back and do additions to ours, you know?

CO: Here's a few suggestions they've had because the antlers on your moose are kind of well they're standing straight up — they're quite tall. And Mac the Moose, they're kind of you know not so much. So maybe they raise their rack a bit, or put a hat on him, or put him on skates, Mac could actually take up that challenge and actually beat you as the biggest moose in the world.

LOH: Yeah, I saw that on the press conference they wanted to make the antlers larger, and I think that's a good idea. Now that's easier and the best way to do it, you know? And it's easier than you know raising the whole moose, which is probably not an option.

CO: But what will you do about that if we actually beat you out once again with the biggest moose?

LOH: You know, that's something we've been you know thinking about. And you know we can easily you know do something with the antlers as well. But the thing about the antlers on our moose is that they're an exact replica of a moose that was shot in the woods where Big Moose is actually located, so they are original you know it's just on a bigger scale. But you know I've talked to the designer or the artists behind our moose, and she said you know she's been looking into possibilities of building it twice the size of Big Moose. You know 20 metres in gold, but it all depends on the funding, you know? It doesn't come cheap to build another moose. So for now, we have the world record, and that's what we are happy about. So we'll just have to see what comes out of it with Mac the Moose, and the campaign about making him bigger.

CO: I heard the artist who said that she could build a bigger moose out of gold. This one's made out of silver or steel. And she admits that she deliberately set out to make a bigger moose than Mac. I mean she wanted to beat up the Canadians, right?

LOH: Yeah, when they decided you know it was going to be a moose, and that was the plan behind it. You know, she probably did some research and found out there was a moose in Canada, and the height of that one. And then she deliberately probably put on an extra half a metre just to just to make sure the world record was here in Norway.

CO: Uh huh, so we’ve heard it here. This is an admission that you did set out to actually beat out Mac.

LOH: I didn't, but the artist she said that in an interview. I read that.

CO: All right. Well, you know that Canada and Moose Jaw is not going to go down without a fight. So we have to see where this goes. And, meanwhile, it's good to talk to you, Mayor Henriksen. Thank you.

LOH: Well, you too. Thank you.

CO: Bye-bye.

LOH: Bye-bye.

KG: That was Linda Otnes Henriksen, the deputy mayor of Stor-Elvdal in Norway. Her town and the city of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan are in a friendly — well, friendly-ish — competition to have the tallest moose statue in the world.

[Music: Swing]

Saints whistle fan

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: If you watched football on Sunday, you heard the whistle]

KG: That's Leroy Mitchell, at yesterday's NFL playoff game between the L.A. Rams and the New Orleans Saints. But was it Leroy Mitchell? I mean, is Diana Prince Wonder Woman? Is Peter Parker Spider-Man? What I mean is, when they're in costume, are superheroes still their more humdrum alter egos? Because if not, that wasn't Leroy Mitchell. It was the Whistle Monsta. For years, he's supported the New Orleans Saints as shrilly as possible: by whistling. Loudly. It's his superpower. And he started using it after a terrible season in the mid-'nineties. As he told NOLA-dot-com, quote, "I had an epiphany. The team wasn't very good and they needed us at that time. I had the whistle." Unquote. Yesterday, the noise level at the Los Angeles Super Dome was ear-splitting. And the Whistle Monsta was a surprisingly big part of that cacophony. This sounds like him — audible amid more than 70,000 other fans — whistling repeatedly in the second quarter of yesterday's game.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: I heard so much of this]

KG: In the end, the Saints lost — in part, because of a whistle that wasn't issued: somehow, the referees missed a serious pass interference call against the Rams with less than two minutes left. Deadspin called it "one of the worst non-calls in NFL history". So today, the Whistle Monsta is down in the mouth. But he'll be back. Because he's serious. He's committed. And he may be providing a lip service — but he's not paying it.

[Music: Bluegrass]

Part two: Right To Be Forgotten, Labrador passenger

Right To Be Forgotten

Guest: Willem van Lynden

KG: It's an extremely significant case of name-dropping. A Dutch surgeon has won a landmark case against Google — under Europe's 'Right to be Forgotten' laws. The doctor's name will be scrubbed from Google search results that connect her to a case of medical negligence. She was formally disciplined following a 2014 surgery, but was allowed to continue practising. Still, her suspension landed her on an unofficial blacklist of doctors — and that blacklist appeared every time her name was Googled. Willem van Lynden represented the surgeon in court. We reached him in Amsterdam.

CO: Mr. van Lynden, what does this ruling mean for the doctor whose name was on this online blacklist?

WILLEM VAN LYNDEN: Well, it means that she will not be confronted every day with patients who are not sure whether she is in fact a good doctor, and ask her what happened in this case? She doesn't have to defend herself day in and day out again for being on a blacklist. And it will give this doctor a bit of the joy that she has in our profession — and probably more clients as well.

CO: Why was her name on that blacklist?

WVL: Well, she was formally disciplined. She got a conditional suspension for a few months by the Dutch disciplinary committee. And there is a website, as you mentioned, the blacklist site that copies all these disciplinary sanctions and puts it on the blacklist doctors. And thus, basically adds insult to injury.

CO: She had been found negligent in the post-operative care of a patient, is that right?

WVL: That is correct. She didn't follow procedures. At the end of the day, the patient went home about twelve hours later than planned, and was just taken to observation for the night, and went home the next day as she would have otherwise the evening before.

CO: Just maybe give a few more details as to why she was sanctioned?

WVL: Because she didn't have the right agreements in place between her clinic and the hospital, there was some administrative errors she had made. And, of course, there's a lot of procedures you have to follow. In reality, you know, doctors tried their best every day to help their patients and maybe sometimes don't follow all these procedures whilst technically and legally they are obliged to do so. And if you do not follow these procedures that could possibly result in disciplinary sanction.

CO: Okay, so initially she was removed from this register of health care professionals because of that, but that was then changed to a conditional suspension, is that right?

WVL: Yeah, so in the end, she wasn't removed because that was indeed the first sanction was a unconditional suspension. But because she immediately went to the central disciplinary committee, it never got that far, and eventually it was changed into a conditional suspension for a few months with some probation time, which has ended before the court decision was made.

CO: This court decision is a landmark case, isn't it? This has given this doctor who is reprimanded the right to be forgotten under new legislation in the European Union. What does it mean that this information gets scrubbed from the record?

WVL: Yeah, it gets scrubbed from the search results for her name in the Google versions. Because what happens basically is people who are maybe just looking for directions, maybe just looking for a phone number of her clinic they were confronted with this blacklist doctors every time and time again. And she doesn't have to put up with that anymore. And with her are many, many doctors because there about a thousand doctors only just in the Netherlands who are on this list. And they are unable to basically defend themselves due to their medical confidentiality. So they can't comment on it, and the judge rules well this is where we draw the line.

CO: Okay. But when you say people will do a Google search on a doctor's name maybe just to get a phone number, but some of them are trying to find out whether they should trust this doctor. So why shouldn't they know that this doctor was found negligent in post-operative care of a patient who was disciplined?

WVL: Well, first of all, they can still very easily find out. We've got a registry in the Netherlands that was made by the Dutch government. It's called a big register. And in this registry, you can put in a name of a doctor, and for any doctor you will see whether or not she or he has to reprimanded in the past and for what. It's very easy to find out online, but it doesn't show up in Google search results immediately when you query the doctor's name. And it's not called a blacklist for doctors. Because a blacklist suggests you should avoid this doctor. Whilst, in fact, the disciplinary committee mentioned this was a good doctor, and there was no special risk associated in visiting this doctor.

CO: But, at the same time, you say that someone in Holland can find out that this doctor has been disciplined for this by going to register, but not on the search engine. So people assume that if you Google someone's name, if nothing turns up there that it's not there. I'm not saying that your particular doctor she should be on a blacklist. But isn't it possible that this history — these records — will be erased, and that people will not know what doctors have on their records in the future?

WVL: Well, they won't know if they're not looking for it. That's basically the take. So if they're looking for it, they can go to the registrar and find out. But if they're not looking for it, you don't need to confront them with that. It’s maybe a separate discussion whether or not such a government registrar should end up in the search results. But in this case, it's referred to blacklist doctors, and that just gets totally the wrong impression on this doctor and on her practice because she's not blacklisted. So it's misinformation.

CO: The judge ruled that this doctor's right to privacy outweighs the interest of the public in this case. Do you think that's reasonable? I mean do you really think that the courts have found a balance between rights to privacy and the public's right to know?

WVL: Yes, I feel so. I mean it was quite a defamatory website this blacklist of doctors. It wasn't normal media publication by regular journalists.

CO: Why not go after the website then? Why go after the whole right to know? Isn’t it kind of a large solution to a problem that could be solved that way?

WVL: Yeah, good question. The problem is with the website being indexed by Google because that's where they start their search. They start at Google, and they look for the doctor. So that's where the problem occurs. Of course, you could also start proceedings against the website. The thing is many doctors have started legal proceedings against this foundation who runs the website, have battled up until the Dutch high courts, and this foundation has been found in the wrong time and over again. But they just change urls, they change websites. And though you win every time, you're not actually getting anywhere.

CO: So the public's right to know is scrubbed because no one can go after this one particular organization?

WVL: Well, you could go after it, and then people wouldn’t know either. But it is not an effective rout. And the Google route is more effective.

CO: How many more doctors do you think are in this situation where they will be looking to this law — this Right To Be Forgotten law — to have their names scrubbed from records?

WVL: Well, I know that in the Netherlands, there are about 800 doctors on this list. We've already filed requests for about 15 doctors, of which about half was granted by Google, and half was denied. So we're working on it.

CO: All right. We'll leave it there. Mr. van Lynden, thank you.

WVL: All right. Thank you so much. Bye-bye

KG: Willem van Lynden is a lawyer with the firm, MediaMaze. We reached him in Amsterdam.

[Music: Classic rock]

Millarville house contest

KG: Alla Wagner built herself a dream house in Millarville, Alberta. About 40 minutes outside Calgary, she fell in love with the area's natural beauty. But after an accident last summer she can no longer move easily around the large house. So she put it on the market for $1.7 million dollars and braced herself for change. But no one bought it. So now she's trying a new strategy: a letter-writing contest, with the house as the prize. Up to 68-thousand people can enter for $25 dollars. She spoke to CBC's Daybreak Alberta about the contest, and about her plans to donate a portion of the revenue to the Calgary Women's Emergency Shelter. The agency helped her when she arrived in 1984 from Armenia.

SOUNDCLIP

ALLA WAGNER: One night, I slept outside at 50 degrees cold. And then I was told that there is a place like that; just go there. You know I met some really good friends that to this day are friends now — people from the Soviet Union also that were here. So they told me where to go like get some help. So I went there to Calgary Woman’s’ Shelter, and they directed me to what I have to do next with my life. And they just kind of gave me strength. To know that there is social net like that, I just basically fell in love with Canada even more just understanding that people won't be left on the street. I just want to think someone for where I am like from one dramatic situation where I had no place to be. And then now where I am in a place where it's too big for me, and I need to move on to something much smaller.

RUSSEL BOWERS: What's it going to be like to leave this home?

AW: It's going to be extremely difficult. I’m going to try not to get emotional here. But it's going to be very difficult. I'm just so in love with this area, with my neighbours, with my views. When I get up, the first thing I see is a beautiful view of the mountains and the lake and the trees. It just kind of motivates me to go on with the rest of my life, you know like with the rest of the day. And not wake up and see all this is going to be difficult, but I want to be realistic. I want to understand that I can't live here anymore, so I have to downgrade. I'm sorry. I have to downsize. I have to move in a place where I can just manage my own life, where my children are not stuck coming and helping me every time, or neighbours, or people can come and visit me just to visit me not to have to you know do things for me. I don't want to depend on anyone. I want to be independent. I'm a fighter. I want to continue working. I want to continue doing what I do. That's why I'm hoping that this contest works, and that someone incredibly deserving will be enjoying this place. Because I have put my heart and soul into this place — every single inch of it.

00:36:36 - SPEAKER: F9

KG: That was Alla Wagner speaking with “Daybreak Alberta” host Russel Bowers from her home in Millarville, Alberta. Ms. Wagner has launched a letter-writing campaign to find a new owner for her dream house.

[Music: Elevator music]

Labrador passenger

Guest: Sonjay Dutt

JD: Passengers on United Airlines Flight 179 were supposed to be on their way to Hong Kong — where daytime highs are hitting 19 degrees. Instead, though, they were forced to drop into Happy-Valley-Goose-Bay, Labrador. And it wasn't a short stop-over. They were forced to stay on the plane for many many hours — as the minus 30-degree Labrador winter crept into the cabin. Sonjay Dutt is a professional wrestler who was on that plane. We reached him near Washington, DC.

CO: Sanjay had you ever heard of Happy-Valley-Goose-Bay before you dropped in there on Saturday night?

SONJAY DUTT: Well, I had heard of Newfoundland. You know I'm a professional wrestler, and there's been some wrestling tours that have gone on in the Newfoundland and Labrador area. So I had know that, but specifically Goose Bay that was definitely new to me.

CO: Okay, they had to stop because there was a medical emergency on the plane. So did you think that was not going to last very long? Did you think you would be spending so much time there?

SD: No, I definitely didn't think I was to be spending 18 hours in Goose Bay. You know I did figure it was going to be a long process. You know I'm a frequent traveler. So I did realize ok, this is going to take a while. They're going to get this guy off, they’re going to refuel, and then fingers crossed that the crew doesn't time out and we can still take off. So I did anticipate it taking a while just not 18 hours.

CO: And you were headed for Hong Kong, right?

SD: That's right.

CO: Okay, So the first few hours people can put up with this as you say, especially if you travel a lot. What were those first hours like?

SD: You know just like any other delay. You know you’re just kind of waiting around, trying to find out some information. And then when we heard that there was a malfunction with the door, and that there were no mechanics on site, they were trying to call it mechanics to come here to the plane. That's what I said ok, this could this could be a bad one.

CO: How late was it at this point?

SD: It would have been past midnight at that point.

CO: I understand it was extremely cold, as it was everywhere. It's minus 30 Celsius, and the doors froze, right?

SD: Yeah, so the door cannot arm, and that happened because of the temperatures you know I think it was negative 25 outside, and that caused this extensive, extensive delay.

CO: Okay, so you thought maybe okay they're going to fix the door, and you’re going to takeoff. We were reading your tweets that you were sending out from the plane, which get increasingly desperate as the hours go on.

SD: Yes, yes. It just it carried on and on, and on, and on with you know four or five hours lapsing without any update from the pilot. So you're completely in the dark of what your immediate future looks like. And around ten hours in, you know we're running out of food, and there's no toilet paper in two of the bathrooms. That's when do you think ok, somebody has got to come do something here.

CO: But there were more than 200 people on that plane, right?

SD: Correct.

CO: Was there food? I mean the bathrooms okay start to get a bit stinky. What did you have in the way of anything?

SD: You know that they went through with their normal service that they would've done if we were in the air. So there was one meal that they served, and you know a meal is a term used loosely when it comes to international travel in economy class. And after that, it's just whatever snacks they had pretzels, and these little sandwiches about the size of your hand. You know people started grazing on those and those were put out. Quickly, those disappeared.

CO: And why couldn't you leave the plane?

SD: So they didn't tell us this — this is something that I found out after the fact — is that there were no customs officials to get us off the plane. Since we were in Canada without a customs officer to process us, we were not able to step foot in Canada.

CO: People might think like just what happened to those people after 9/11 — the Americans ended up in Gander, and famously were put up for well many nights with local people. Did you think well, maybe I’ll just go and stay with some people in Happy-Valley-Goose-Bay?

SD: I didn't know what was going to happen. At one point, they did say ok, we do know that there's not enough hotels to accommodate all of you here in Goose Bay. And you know they kept saying that a rescue plane was on its way from Newark to help us. And that's about a two hour flight they said, which actually was a three hour flight. And that rescue plane that they said was going to come at around hour three or four into this ordeal. It didn't come until hour I think 14 or 16.

CO: Now, at one point, they did arrive with a very Canadian gesture: some Tim Hortons.

SD: Absolutely. I think some local officials in Goose Bay came with some you know Tim Hortons coffee. There were some doughnuts and some sandwiches and water, so that did come at the right time as we were running low on food and snacks.

CO: And speaking of the fact that the door was frozen, I would imagine it was fairly cold on the plane?

SD: You know near that door — near that specific group — it was very cold, and there was bouts of extreme coldness that kind of funneled through the entire plane. But there was points where you did feel warm and comfortable. But there was definitely instances where I thought wow, this heat is either not working or the door is open right in front of me.

CO: some of the tweets, are as said, they were desperate. But you and others tweeting some very funny things like people expected to be there for days or weeks, and that this was just going to go on and on like some very, very bad Netflix series. Did you think that was going to happen do you?

SD: I didn't think that was going to happen. I just thought that you know as hours did go by, I said okay, my trip to Hong Kong is not going to happen. At that point I said look, you know I just hope that I can get home Sunday night.

CO: Somebody said that they looked on a map and realized that you could walk to New York in 20 days, and they were considering that as an option.

SD: Yeah.

CO: If it took that long. Is United Airlines going to make it up to you?

SD: They have offered and compensation. And you know I'm going to reach out and try to figure out exactly what could be done to rectify the situation.

CO: Well, you're a professional wrestler, so maybe you can just pin them to the mat on that one.

SD: Yeah, if all else fails you know that’s my backup.

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

SD: Yeah, absolutely. Appreciate your time.

CO: Bye.

SD: Take care.

KG: We reached Sonjay Dutt near Washington, DC.

[Music: Piano]

Nudist camp fire

KG: Early this morning, a fire broke out at the Ponderosa Nature resort in Flamborough, Ontario. Everyone was safe, and the resort was largely untouched. But once the find out what the Ponderosa is, people have questions like what happens when there’s a fire in in January at a nudist resort? CBC Hamilton reporter Dan Taekema had a chance to ask. He spoke with acting manager Dory Ainsworth — herself a nudist, naturally — about the fire. Here's part of their conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

DORY AINSWORTH: I was laying in bed, trying to sleep. My husband was snoring like crazy, and I heard a big boom. And it shook the ground. And then I heard a second boom, and I woke him up and he told me I was dreaming. And then we heard a third boom, and jumped out of bed and I saw the fireball.

DAN TAEKEMA: Can I ask what may seem like an ignorant question?

DA: Go ahead?

DT: You probably already guessed it?

DA: Absolutely! Cary a towel.

DT: Cary a towel?

DA: Yeah, so the number one question is what happens if I get sexually aroused? Well, the whole thing about the nature resort is that's not what goes on here. This is a place you can come take your clothes off and feel free and go for a skinny dip without you know looking over the shoulders to see if you're gonna get charged for being nude. Think about what your grandmother would say, and carry a towel and think about something else to get rid of that because that is not welcome here.

DT: And how about in the winter actually? That was more the direction I was going to go.

DA: Oh ok, what are we doing in the winter.

DT: When it's so cold.

DA: That's the second most…. What do you do in the winter? Well, we're not stupid. We do wear clothes. So right now, because they've turned the heat down inside the clubhouse, I have a parka on, and all my clothes. I am not nude. And as far as my day-to-day, my house is kept very warm so that if you want to come in and be nude, you're welcome to drop your clothes and be nude within my house. But as soon as I step out the door, I am dressed exactly the same way you are.

DT: Fair enough. And I think that's probably wise with this windchill that’s making it feel like -38.

DA: Absolutely. Yeah, there were no nude while walking around that fire last night. No, no, no.

KG: That was nudist Dory Ainsworth speaking with CBC Hamilton reporter Dan Taekema, about a fire at the Ponderosa Nature resort in Flamborough, Ontario. No one was hurt.

[Music: Jazz]

Cat obit

KG: Taking ten-thousand photos of anything during one's lifetime seems like a stretch — especially if they were mostly great photos — and more especially if your models were cats. So when you hear that Walter Chandoha took some ninety-thousand great cat photos, that is over the course of his career, you might figure he must have used up nine lives doing it. But he did it all in the one human one he was given, before he died earlier this month. He was 98 years old. Mr. Chandoha began snapping cat photos in earnest back in 1949, according to the New York Times — when he and his wife inherited a cat named Loco. Loco, in fact, became his first inspiration and subject — after he picked up the stray, who was shivering in the snow, on his way home to his apartment in Queens. At the time, Mr. Chandoha was preparing for a career in advertising. But photographs of Loco living up to his name around their apartment proved so lucrative, so fast, that Mr. Chandoha jumped straight into the freelance photography business. By the mid-1950s, he'd built a reputation as the premiere cat photographer of his generation. His cat models adorned everything from tins of food to calendars to books on how to photograph cats, dogs and other animals. And the business was really a family affair: his son and daughter helped with feeding and wrangling, while his wife Maria handled and helped coax them, gently, into various poses. As an article in the arts and culture website Hyperallergenic once put it, quote, "there was but One Cat Photographer to Rule Them All. His name was Walter Chandoha." Unquote. Fitting that even in an age where cat memes reign supreme, Mr. Chandoha's cat images still manage to give you pause.

[Music: Indie rock]

Part three: “The Long Take”

“The Long Take”

Guest: Robin Robertson

KG: "He walks. That is his name and nature." That's an early description of the protagonist in Robin Robertson's latest work, “The Long Take: A Noir Narrative”. The book was shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. Walker — who goes by that name only — is a soldier from Inverness County, Cape Breton, fresh back from the European theatre. We meet him in 1946, not headed for home, but rather for New York City and the great promise of America at large. That promise unfolds — if not quite in a nightmare — more like a film noir than the proverbial American dream. “The Long Take” chronicles Walker's journey over a decade, all in the form of an elegiac poem. Robin Robertson spoke with Carol from our studio in London, England, about the book.

CO: Robin Robertson, welcome to “As It Happens”.

ROBIN ROBERTSON: Thank you.

CO: This story you tell — “The Long Take” — this is an extraordinary story to begin with, but all the more evocative because you tell the story in verse. And I know you're a poet. That makes sense. But how daunting was it to approach a narrative of this size and length — this scope — an epic, in fact, and to do it in verse.

RR: Well, I wish I could claim it were planned. I simply wanted to write a longer piece of work — a narrative of some sort. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, or how long it would take me, or how long the final book would be. So it was as much a surprise to me as it was to my publishers.

CO: The language is so rich, and after you settle into it, you can't imagine this being written any other way. Did you feel that there was no other way to create the images of America, of the war, of Cape Breton except to do it to verse?

RR: Well, by trade I'm a poet. So that's the way I write. Very dense and some would say costive or constipated.

CO: I wouldn't be one of them.

RR: So that's how I set out to write, but I realized with this book that for the first time I was dealing with quite alien territory — largely urban, and series of characters which needed to be developed, And a narrative that needed to go somewhere. So I realized subconsciously at some point that the kind of writing that I was going to be using would have to be a little bit more adaptable. So there is still the lyric poetry in this. Though it tends to be slightly more hidden, the narrative itself is told in broken lines, but it's quite a loose form of poetry. And most people who dislike poetry quite frankly say they haven't been put off by the way this has been written. And they say that well actually I completely forgot it was poetry after page three, which is perfect.

CO: There are reviewers who have compared “The Long Take” to Homer — to “The Iliad — not just because it's an epic poem, but because it's also about war, and the effects of war more than about the violence of war. But the effects of war on soldiers and the warriors who were part of it, and that's certainly in Homer's work — in “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey”. Men coming home, trying to find home again, what did you want your readers to understand about the effects of war?

RR: Well, I wanted, first of all, to have a character who had a psychic wound. And my central character, Walker, who is a Nova Scotian ex-veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, has come back from the campaign and ending the Second World War. And he has been broken by it, and can't go home as you say. He can't go back to the Maritimes. He is completely shattered. And he wants to try and find some sense of community. And he does what many returning servicemen did, which was to go for the anonymity of the big city. So he starts in New York, and then Los Angeles, and then San Francisco, and then back to Los Angeles. And he's looking for some kind of peace, some kind of tranquility, some kind of the camaraderie that was the only thing that was decent about the war. So it does have some slightly epic scale. But I was interested also in looking at this particular time in North America, which seems to me fascinating. It's where the American dream kind of unspools and starts to fail, even though the USA was at that point at its most powerful economically and globally. But this is in a sense a pivotal moment historically and culturally. So that's why I set it when I did.

CO: Your character, Walker, who you say that’s his name and his nature, what is Walker looking for in America?

RR: Well, he's looking for a replacement to the home he once had in Cape Breton, which now feels to him like a strange istle at a perfect paradise. Having been through the traumas of war, having done and seen terrible things, he can't face the purity and the innocence of that landscape and the people in that landscape. So he's looking for anonymity, for repair, and as I say some kind of home. And he has to travel right across the United States in order to find that.

CO: He discovers a postwar United States yes, at its height of prosperity, but he is drawn to or perhaps has to find himself in the low life part of America from flap houses. But he also is intrigued with Hollywood movies, and of course, the long take and the whole film noir part of your poem — of your novel — is so key to that. He's looking through that prism of movies and black and white. What is the America he is traveling in? Can you describe how you see that landscape?

RR: Well, it's a place that had almost doubled its economy during the war years. And was full of migrant workers — all the cities were full of migrant workers. And all the Indigenous communities were being displaced. It was the beginning of kind of civic turmoil that has continued to this day. It was during the cult of the car. So in places like Los Angeles, most of the city centres were being pulled down so that they could build parking lots, or freeways, or whatever garages. It's a place of great transience. And there was no real room for people. This was a time when the corruption in the States was rife all the way through from top to bottom. And I wanted to address some of that. And film noir is effectively the art form of this period from the mid-40s to the late-50s. And it is timed very nicely with some of the best jazz, I think, that was ever made. So this is that's smoky after hours melancholy feel of the city at night.

CO: I was going to say that this is one of the few novels I've read where there's a soundtrack to it that you can't stop hearing in your head. The jazz, and the smoky bars, the sound of that — I mean it's ever present in this place. But Walker describes American cities have no past, no history. Sometimes I think the only American history is on film. And so he's drawn to that, isn't he? He's drawn to those stories. What is it he finds in the movies?

RR: He finds himself mirrored in these films. And I think that is where there is an autobiographical element because when I was growing up in Scotland, I would see these strange black and white films — usually at odd times of the day on television. And I just completely clicked with them. I didn't know why, but they said something to me. And I didn't know they had a name or anything. But when I moved down to London in the late-70s, these films were showing up in all the repertory cinemas. And it said film noir. So I went wow! that's what they're called. They spoke to me. Everything I felt was in those films — the excitement, the disorientation, vulnerability, the desire, the paranoia, the anonymity of the city. Film noir charts that world — sort of violent, incoherent, but fascinating world without any moral boundaries or social cohesion. And that's what urban America seems to have been like from all the books that I've read about during this period. It was frontier town.

CO: You're very detailed in your descriptions of the United States. The small details like the price of a television, or a shot of rye, or a freak snowstorm in L.A. in 1949, the murder of Emmett Till, historical moments small and large that are the backdrop for it. How did you immerse yourself in America not just now, but how did you immerse yourself in the time that you’re in in the 1940s and ‘50s?

RR: Well, I used the films as a beginning. I watched four-five hundred films for all kinds of reasons to get a sense of the language, the iconography, the style, but also the geography of the places that I was going to be writing about. I also read very widely. All the details that you mentioned, the prices of packs of cigarettes and shots of rye, they’re all accurate, and slavishly accurate — even down to the timetables of the buses and the train. Because you know if you believe that, and you should believe that, then you should believe everything that I'm saying. I can't have any flaws. I had it has to be exactly as it was. And so I introduce, as you say, political and cultural references. So that also gives you a sense of the movement of time because this book is all about time. It's about a man trying to recover from trauma and failing in a way. And he's watching us himself disintegrate and the cities he is trying to live in disintegrate around him.

CO: You're listening to “As It Happens”, and I am speaking with Robin Robertson about his noir narrative “The Long Take”. And he joined us from a studio in London. Your character Walker he gets a low-paid-job as a reporter in Los Angeles, and he begins to explore this city as you’ve described it as a place that has no memory — that's eating itself. And he wants to tell the stories of the destitute people he meets. And he has a key encounter — a person who becomes very important to him — named Billy Idaho. Can you tell us about Billy?

RR: Well, Billy he's kind of the father confessor, if you like. He’s somebody in a similar situation — a little older, black guy, a veteran who's been living on the streets for a while in downtown Los Angeles. And there is something that Walker has to confess, and he doesn't find himself able to confess it till the very end of the book — something that happened in France back in the war. But Billy is a kindred spirit. He's the man who shows him around downtown Los Angeles, who recommends a place to stay, and a job he might want to take. And so he sees his first and probably his only real friend during this book. And he doesn't meet a happy end either frankly.

CO: This is all taking place… most of it taking place in Bunker Hill. And though there is somebody different geographical places you take us, Bunker Hill is the map you put in the book. This is the most important piece of geography because everything comes together in Bunker Hill. Can you tell us what it was at that time and is now?

RR: Well, it doesn't exist anymore. As you say, the book's largely set in Los Angeles. And anybody who's been to that infernal city will know that it's just a never ending sprawl to see. During the late-40s/early-50s, downtown Los Angeles was being abandoned for the suburbs. And Bunker Hill, which was a once genteel and then rather shabby 130 acre community, which sat above downtown — quite high above — as being systematically cleared and demolished and lured by hundred feet in the end to accommodate as I suggested at the beginning a freeway system and a central business district. So the council decided let's get rid of all these houses and all these people. And this was some two thousand people just evicted and their homes were leveled. And then Bunker Hill was left. And so the reason I'm fascinated by Bunker Hill was that it was the backdrop for many of the most important film noir. It's attractive because all these films were made on the cheap — not in studios but out on the streets. And Bunker Hill was visually stunning because of its elevation, stairs, its tunnels, its angles, and drops, these rickety wooden mansions on top of it — perfect for nighttime location shooting. And it doesn't exist anymore. And it's the only territory I write about in this book that I haven't walked. You know I can walk through San Francisco as it was then, and New York as it was then, down the coast of Cape Breton, in through France, in London. All these places still exist in some form, but Bunker Hill has gone forever. So I ended up watching all these films in order to piece together the geography of these streets that I couldn't physically walk. So I would study these scenes and make the connections between one street which led to this corner. I know there's a bar on that corner. Sure enough, there was a bar because I've seen this in another film. So I drew the map of Bunker Hill from watching the films.

CO: And as he explores Bunker Hill, and as he sees the destruction of Los Angeles, where people are people live who are not important to the city as it's being destroyed, that's when he starts to perhaps not coincidentally to tell us what happened in the war. And the sound he says the sounds, the movement of war, a ballet of battle without the guns. That's just how he describes Los Angeles. The willful destruction — even the sound of it — reminds him of war. Why does that bring the war and the horrors of what happened to him in the war so clearly to his mind at that time?

RR: Well, all the way through the book — even from the first two or three pages — you see his PTSD being triggered by sudden noises, which is very typical, a car backfiring, something being dropped, a shout. He has to plug his ears during New Year's Eve celebrations because the fireworks remind him of bombardment. But once the demolition of downtown Los Angeles begins in earnest, which is towards the last fifth or sixth of the book, that is when the triggers of the noises of war start to really enter his brain conclusively. He can't get away from it. Everywhere he goes, another building is being pulled down. And so this allowed me to speed up the whole narrative process, and start introducing a lot more flashbacks to the war which chimed with the demolition of the houses. So the whole thing is happening both in real time and in historical time.

CO: This is “As It Happens” And I'm speaking with Robin Robertson from London where he is in the studio. We're talking about his book “The Long Take: A Noir Narrative”. Walker has we talked about went to war from Cape Breton. He was part of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders. He landed on the beaches of Normandy presumably. He was in what Canadian soldiers describe as “Hell's Corner”, when it came to D-Day. And he did witness hell, didn't he?

RR: Yes. I mean I I've read a fair bit about the Normandy campaigns and subsequent campaigns towards the end of the war — and particularly the history of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders. And there is a rather badly documented war atrocity, which I'm sure is known about in Canada, but certainly it was news to me. But nearly 200 Canadian prisoners of war from that regiment were killed by the Hitler Youth Panzer regiments. And so this sort of rather fell into my lap, and Walker became a part of that regiment.

CO: To describe that as a badly documented part of Canadian history is understatement. You say do you think Canadians know it. They don't actually. It's not well-known at all, and I thank you for reminding people to start exploring this. You're talking about the figure about eighty seven Canadian soldiers who were executed brutally at the hands of a crazed group of Nazi youth. But I wonder why you did choose a Cape Bretoner as the protagonist in your story? I mean why not someone from your own country? There are many soldiers traumatized by that war you could have chosen as your character.

RR: No, you're right. But I wanted very much the central character to be Canadian from the same land mass as the US, but an outsider. Just as I was an outsider moving from Scotland down here to England. And it's allows a certain distance, a certain angle to the inquiry. And also because I spent a year in Canada doing a master's degree with Alistair MacLeod — the great Cape Breton novelist and short story writer — so I had a fondness for the place before I even set foot on it.

CO: And you were with Alistair MacLeod in Windsor, yes? He was teaching there, and you were a teaching assistant for him in Windsor University, is that right?

RR: Yeah, I was a very, very poor teaching assistant for him. And he was also teaching me much more successfully in creative writing. And subsequently, when I became a publisher, I was lucky enough to publish his stories and his novel and then his son Alex publishing his stories.

CO: And Alex MacLeod was a reader for your book when you were making sure that you got everything right. Do you think you did? Do you think you do capture Cape Breton? Do you worry that you romanticize it. You said you're looking for a place that's pure. Do you think that you maybe romanticized it?

RR: Oh, I don't think it is pure. I think Walker imagines it in his head as being pure after having fought through Normandy and the low countries. Of course it isn't, but it's it represents the opposite of what he saw in the war. So he's a he's a broken man, very confused, and no, I'm not setting it out as paradise. But it is the antithesis of a combat zone.

CO: He keeps remembering Annie MacLeod, the girl he left behind. And he writes a few postcards to her from L.A. And it's not a coincidence I would imagine that her name is MacLeod. What influence did Alastair MacLeod have on you?

RR: He taught me to rein in my sort of slightly wild imagination, and fix it and in reality — test it against reality, and experience. And he was a very good teacher. He didn't shout. He talked very, very quietly, and just made me see what idiotic mistakes I was making.

CO: And fixing something and in reality I mean his great work “No Great Mischief”. His short stories certainly do that. Did you spend some time with him in Cape Breton?

RR: No, I never sat with him in Cape Breton unfortunately. I’ve been to his ancestral home there to look at what he saw from those cliffs, but I met him in Scotland and London and in Canada and in the States, but never in Cape Breton, not in Broad Cove unfortunately.

CO: But you certainly walked those hills. You describe many places very well, Lake Ainslie, and Broad Cove and the whole coast and all the places that he attends. So how much time did you get to spend in Cape Breton?

RR: Well, not as long as I would like. But again, I can't write about any place without walking it and seeing it and tasting it and getting some sense. But I was there for only five or six days. But it's only in that part of Cape Breton. I want to concentrate on that. But you know I ended up in a BandB, and the owner was a cousin of Alistair Macleod.

CO: Oh, big surprise.

RR: Yeah, quite small, small world.

CO: They're all related to each other, as you soon learn. I just want to return to United States — to America to conclude this interview, Robin. And looking at the parallels of your story with America today. It's not lost on the reader that the destruction of the cities, the indifference to the poor, but I think mostly the politics that you were describing in the late-1940s in this book in the early-1950s — the era of McCarthyism, the House Un-American Activities, the fear of foreigners, the fear of the other as it's described so well by the characters, including Walker in this story. How do you compare today's United States with the post-war years of your story?

RR: Well, I suspect that as I said the beginning of the interview that this is where the rot set in at this moment of high success and optimism. In 1946, America started to go wrong. It had got through the Depression, rise of totalitarianism, the war, and then suddenly it panics, and this deep paranoia comes into the culture. So the fear of communism, the fear of the bomb, the complete collapse of the cities, the inability to deal with the endemic racism in that country. It had just won the war, but it was so deeply traumatised by the conflict that all the moral certainties seem to founder. And there is you could argue a direct narrative line it goes from Second World War to Korea, to Vietnam, to Afghanistan, Iraq, and so on to the catastrophe that they currently face.

CO: There's one stanza in this describing what you're saying. We're back to circling the wagons. This is our fear of the other, Indians, blacks, Mexicans, communists, Muslims, whatever. America has to have its monsters, so we can zone them, segregate them, if possible shoot them. They call this patriotism, nativism, but it's racialism pure and simple, and paranoia. This is description of late-1940s America as you've written it, but that could be right now, couldn't it?

RR: I'm afraid so.

CO: Do you think the United States is durable enough to survive?

RR: Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I've traveled in the states since I was 20, and in Canada. I love both countries. There are many things that are fundamentally wrong with the US, but it still has extraordinary people and landscapes and cities. And this is a particularly disgraceful period in its history. But I mean we just came out of the Obama years which were very different. So it is a more liberal place than you would think from looking at from the outside.

CO: And so you see hope?

RR: A limited amount of hope, yes.

CO: Robin Robertson, I really appreciate speaking with you, and I thank you greatly for this work, “The Long Take: A Noir Narrative”. Thank you.

RR: Well, thank you for reading it so carefully.

CO: Bye bye.

RR: Bye.

KG: Robin Robertson is a Scottish poet and author of “The Long Take: A Noir Narrative”. He spoke with Carol for our studio in London, England. The book is published in Canada by House of Anansi Press. And we've got more on our webpage at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

January 21, 2019 episode transcript

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