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The AIH Transcript for March 22, 2021

Hosts: Carol Off and Samira Mohyeddin

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Good evening. I'm Samira Mohyeddin, sitting in for Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

SM: Tonight:

CO: It's not easy being greener. The Conservative Party convention rejects adding the line "climate change is real" to the party's policy book, leaving one delegate disappointed his fellow Tories didn't warm to the idea.

SM: NFT, WTF. The art world is still reeling after the latest huge price paid for digital art anyone can see online for free. Now, more is emerging about the buyer and why he did it

CO: High and mighty. A friend remembers Robina Asti, who always aimed high as a Second World War pilot, a nonagenarian flight instructor, and a champion of transgender rights. He says meeting her changed everything.

SM: A family's vindication. An independent police watchdog backs up what Colton Boushie's mother has said all along, that she was mistreated by the RCMP after her son was shot to death on a Saskatchewan farm.

CO: Spinning wheels. A Nova Scotia woman creates a mobile yarn store she plans to drive up and down Cape Breton, delivering supplies to knitters' doorsteps

SM: And the shape of foods to come. A man who was tired of eating the same spaghetti sets out to create his own, leaving everyone else feeling a little fusilli they didn't think of it first. As It Happens. The Monday Edition. Radio that knows it's hard to make change when all you've got is a penne.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Remembering Robina Asti, 99-year-old pilot, WW II veteran and transgender icon

Conservative Climate Vote

Guest: Moshe Appel

SM: According to Erin O'Toole, the debate around climate change is over. But that's not what delegates to the Conservative Party convention told the leader. At the virtual convention this weekend. Delegates voted down a resolution recognising that, "climate change is real and the Conservative Party is willing to act." Last week, Carol spoke to Conservative MP Tim Uppal on the eve of the convention and asked him for his party's plan on climate change.

TIM UPPAL: We think that there's a very good opportunity to work with our industry to ensure that we have a strong environmental plan, that is not only improving the environment as we move forward, but that we also work with industry to ensure that we secure jobs as well. You can do that in a balanced way. It does not have to be one or the other. We will work to support all sectors across the country economically and support workers in every part of the country.

CO: To be honest, I have no idea what you just said. I don't know what you have told us is your policy on climate change, what you're selling there.

TIM UPPAL: What I'm telling you is a commonsense plan to support the environment, but also jobs as well.

SM: Conservative MP Tim Uppal speaking to Carol last week. Moshe Appel is a Conservative delegate who supported the climate change resolution. We reached him on Vancouver Island in Langford, B.C..

CO: Moshe, how disappointed are you and your fellow Conservative delegates when they rejected this climate change resolution?

MOSHE APPEL: I was disappointed and I was a little bit frustrated. A lot of us did expect the resolution to pass. But at the same time, climate change is in the conservative policy document, it has been for quite some time. And this was sort of just tripling down on it. So in a lot of ways, it would be like saying that water is what.

CO: Right. That's what some have said -- the water is wet thing. But water is wet and the climate change is real. That was a simple resolution that says, "We recognise that climate change is real and the Conservative Party is willing to act" -- pretty basic. Why do you think so many people rejected it?

MA: A lot of things that I've heard have been the talk about obligations on specific industries and businesses. The Conservative Party believes very strongly that the provinces and territories can come up with their own climate plan. And I guess a lot of the people didn't feel like there was enough freedom for that.

CO: But at the same time, if they can come up with their own plan, Erin O'Toole is saying that they're going to have a a visionary and firm climate change plan going into the next election. So you're telling me that the Conservatives will have one, but different parts of the Conservative Party will have a different idea for what to do about climate change?

MA: No, I mean, Erin O'Toole is definitely going to make climate change a very important part of the platform. He did say in probably one of the most important speeches of his political career that the debate is over regardless of the results of the vote -- climate change is real, the science is proven, and that there will be a real and comprehensive plan. But the delegates felt like there was no need to put that additional language in the policy manual. I'm not sure why they didn't. And I'm definitely disappointed that they didn't. But like I said, climate change appears in our existing policy manual three times. So it's not something that we deny. It's definitely something that we've supported since the party's inception.

CO: I'm just wondering what influence the some senators who are at the convention, including Campaign Life Coalition, they were apparently distributing materials before the vote, saying that climate change was linked to a conspiracy of global elites and that the global warming theory is in dispute and that it might be part of a United Nations effort for population control through abortion and sterilisation. Do you think that that had some influence on some of the delegates?

MA: I know the Campaign Life Coalition has or had tried very strongly to influence the amount of delegates that did end up making it to the convention. And they have an agenda, there's no doubt about it. And I feel like at least part of that was influenced by playing to the disapproval that some of the parties felt to the expulsion of Derek Sloan. They have a particular agenda that unfortunately they managed to get through. I don't agree with that. I don't feel like the majority of the grassroots of the Conservative Party agrees with the extreme language, like you said, that they were using. But did that have an influence? Most likely it did. I mean, when you tell someone something over and over again, even if it's not true, then it can sometimes have a way of sort of sitting on someone's mind.

CO: Do you think that a number of the people who voted against this and the Conservative convention believe that climate change is a conspiracy of global elites?

MA: I don't feel like the majority of them felt that specific language was accurate. A lot of people I did talk to had some concerns about the science. Some other people I talked to said that Canada's overall influence on reducing greenhouse gas emissions was minuscule compared to larger polluters like China and Russia. And the Campaign Life Coalition's literature definitely kind of affirmed a lot of the people who already had certain beliefs in their mind, rather, and maybe made them more likely to vote against it. But honestly, I feel like a lot of them were going to vote against it to begin with.

CO: Right. But what concerns do you have about being in a party where that kind of influence is there, where they were able to convince perhaps large numbers of people that climate change is is a hoax and it's a conspiracy?

MA: I mean, the Conservative Party of Canada is a big tent party. It's big enough to incorporate a lot of different people with a lot of different beliefs. We got along on the vast majority of what was put out there. Obviously, social policy is a bit of a conscience issue for a variety of people. We did have a resolution on the medical assistance in dying, that ended up passing with some pretty strong language. So tensions were there. I mean, there was a lot of influence for that as well.

CO: It does seem as if the Conservative Party is on the defence a lot of the time. I mean, Andrew Scheer made it clear, he said that bigots and racists weren't welcome, that this was not the party of extremists. Erin O'Toole said it's not the party of the religious right-wing. You and others are saying this is not the party of climate change deniers. How difficult is it to actually invent an identity for this party?

MA: I think the main identity right now is Erin O'Toole's five point plan on securing the economy and securing jobs. We're coming out of a global pandemic. I think a lot of people are thinking about the well-being and health of their families, getting back to work, a lot of lost income. That's the top of people's minds. Climate change is important -- it's 2021. If you don't believe in climate change, that's kind of a big deal. But at the same time, the party is going in a particular direction. And that's why we have conventions every two years so that we can debate policy and you never know what might happen. But right now, our main focus is on defeating the Trudeau government in the next election, whenever that might come. And that's the priority. And that's what unites us together as members.

CO: Moshe we'll leave it there. Thank you.

MA: Thank you very much.

SM: Moshe Appel was a Conservative Party delegate at the policy convention. He was in Langford, B.C..

[Music: Guitar Music]

Robina Asti Obit

Guest: Dru Levasseur

SM: Robina Asti wasn't afraid of much. During the Second World War, she flew planes over the Pacific. And when she died this month, she was the world's oldest active pilot and flight instructor. She was also amongst the world's oldest living transgender people. She transitioned in the 1970s before there was really a vocabulary for her experience. And in 2016, she spoke about it at a TEDx event.

ROBINA ASTI: The word transgender, I think, was born in the early 70s. I'm not quite sure. I didn't even recognise it as a state. What I was thinking that I'm going to become a woman. And it was one of the greatest adventures in my life. I don't say this lightly because I lost my daughter for many years. I lost my ex-wife for many years. And I lost a few friends. And I say to you, who are changing, be patient. Think about the people that you are talking to, they are absolutely awestruck by this phenomenon. You aren't, but they are. All these mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters still love you. I hope that all you people that are making this kind of change remember patience and it will work out.

SM: Robina Asti speaking in 2016. Ms. Asti died this month. She was 99. Dru Levasseur was on stage with her at that TEDx event. He's an attorney who represented Ms. Asti when she was denied access to her late husband's Social Security benefits. The case made her a trans-rights icon, and it made the two of them fast friends.

CO: Dru, first of all, I'm so sorry for your loss.

DRU LEVASSEUR: Oh thank you. It's nice to hear her voice.

CO: What's it like to hear that clip? Because there's such wisdom in what she's saying there.

DL: Oh, it's very emotional for me to hear that. It just brings me back to the day that I met her and how much that changed my life as a transgender person, just meeting somebody her age. It just made me realise that I could grow to be that old.

CO: And she said in the clip she didn't see herself as a transgender person in the 1970s. She was just becoming a woman. And it was just something she was so happy to do.

DL: Yes, I love the simplicity of her story and her experience and the way that she approaches, you know, her understanding of herself. It really allows people to connect not just with LGBT people, but also with gender oppression issues. She tells the story about the difference and how she was treated as a pilot, as a flight instructor, when she transitioned and how she suddenly had a whole different set of very sexist roles that were not fair. It's just so simple and so powerful.

CO: The way you met her involved this legal case that after her husband, she married, she mentions a wife in that clip, but then she married, had a husband and when he died, expected to get his Social Security benefits, as one does. And what were you able to do for her?

DL: Yes. So at the time, I was an attorney and the director of the Transgender Rights Project for Lambda Legal. And she had for 30 years, not been out as transgender in the world. She was just living her life as a woman. But when she was denied her survivor benefits with the Social Security Administration, she Googled LGBT and found our organisation and marched into our office on Wall Street in New York. And the idea that the government that she served as a veteran would say, your marriage was not valid because we do not see you as a woman -- she was not going to take that sitting down. And we filed a case and then we waited and we didn't hear from them for quite a while. And it was actually on Valentine's Day that she called our office and said the money appeared in her bank account and she believed that it was Norwood sending her a message.

CO: Her husband (Patton Norwood). And she wasn't an activist -- she said that in many places. But what did she come to symbolise in the LGBTQ community and amongst transgender people?

DL: Well, I think she symbolised hope. And her message, as you heard in that clip, was to don't give up hope -- people might be confused and they might not understand you, but people still love you. And I think that a lot of us LGBTQ people really desperately needed to hear that from someone who was our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents age. The symbolism of having somebody in their 90s who is like you, telling you that you can go on and to trust in the love that they once had for you. I mean, she was parenting a whole many generations of queer and trans kids especially.

CO: She meant so much to so many people. But what did she mean to you personally?

DL: Well, gosh, she was my client and I didn't think she was going to be teaching me so much. For me, I think, it brought up the kind of those years where I felt very alone and isolated in my own identity coming out where I didn't get to tell my grandparents who I am as a trans person. And so it's almost like I got to have a trans grandparent through her. And she accepted me and she understood me. And that was such an amazing gift.

CO: I understand she also bonded with your family over some rather painful experiences.

DL: Yes. She was a client, we kept in touch. And several years later, my family experienced a tragic loss -- my partner's only son, and my stepson, was murdered at 17. And Robina had lost her nine year old son in an accident. And that was what prompted her to realise she was trans and take those steps. So there were very few people in my life who really understood the grief of the loss of a child. And she was so unbelievably supportive of my partner and I, and our whole family. So it was a very powerful bond that grew on many different levels. And she's been a tremendous part of my extended family since

CO: She was a very dear friend. She was a symbol. She was a mother. She was also a pilot, an extraordinary pilot. She loved to fly solo and was flying right into her 90s. How much did flying matter to her?

DL: Oh gosh. I think it was her lifelong passion. And she learnt how to fly when she was a teenager and signed up for the war and she flew planes over the Pacific. And she tells these stories about the point you get on your way over the ocean where (it's the) point of no return. And she talks about having to make decisions that were life or death and staying calm. And that's just how she navigated her life. And she would just stay in the moment and just take it as it came. And I think that it was all from her training as a pilot. And so at age 99, she went up and obtained the Guinness Book of World Records for the oldest flight instructor and the oldest pilot -- just last year.

CO: What a remarkable woman. Dru I really appreciate you telling us about her. Thank you.

DL: Thank you.

SM: Dru Levasseur is an attorney with the LGBT Bar Association based in Washington, D.C. He helped Robina Asti access her husband's Social Security benefits as a trans woman. Ms. Asti died this month. She was 99. You can find more on this story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Jazz Music]

Sound of The Day: Perseverance

[SOUND: Rattling and thud sounds]

SM: When you've started a long road trip, there aren't many sounds worse than those unidentified ones coming from your vehicle. "What is that?" you think. So it's safe to say engineers at NASA are feeling a bit anxious right now because these sounds are the first ever of a rover driving on Mars sent back to Earth from NASA's Perseverance. An engineer from the rover team said, If I heard these sounds driving my car, I'd pull over and call for a tow. Yeah, so would I. However, he goes on to say, most of the noises make perfect sense when you consider the circumstances...most. It's just the high pitched scratching noise that does not make sense. They're looking into what is our Sound of The Day. Still NASA, you might want to keep that number for the tow truck handy.

[Music: Synth Music]

New Pasta Shapes

Guest: Dan Pashman

SM: Dan Pashman has a problem with pasta, he thinks it's boring. And there's not a twist of fusilli, tube of rigatoni, or a ribbon of linguine that will change his mind. Don't even mention spaghetti. That's why Mr. Pashman spent the last three years researching and developing a new pasta shape. He shared the story on his food podcast, The Sporkful. And now he is sharing Cascatelli with the world. We reached Mr. Pashman in Greenlawn, New York.

CO: Dan, do we really need a new pasta shape? What's wrong with the ones we've got?

DAN PASHMAN: Well, Carol, need is a subjective term. I mean, what do we really need? But yeah, I think that the world is ready for something different. And I want to be clear, look, I'm not trying to destroy the classics. I love a good plate of pasta like anybody. I think there's room, though, in the canon for some new ideas.

CO: Okay. So what's cascatelli?

DP: So cascatelli is a pasta shape that I invented. It took me three years to invent it. A lot of study, a lot of testing, and experimentation, and failure, and obstacles along the way. But what I was trying to do with it was to bring together the elements of some of my favourite pasta shapes in a way they'd never been brought together before. So it has a short shape. It has, roughly speaking, a flat strip with a bump on one side and two parallel ruffles sticking out of the other side.

CO: Okay. So now all pastas, their names mean something in Italian. Do you have elbows and farfalle, butterflies, fusilli, linguine -- the shape is the name. So what does cascatelli mean?

DP: Cascatelli means waterfalls. And it was important to me that the name would sound like a classic pasta shape. Now, I do feel the need to acknowledge that I know that the plural of little waterfalls is cascatelle -- ending in an E. I took some poetic licence s and ended it in an "I" because I thought it would sound more like a pasta shape name. I've already gotten some hate mail about that. But it was kind of one of my goals to end up on the Twitter feed of Italians mad at food anyways.

CO: But I mean, what does that shape do as far as improving on whatever dish that you're serving it with?

DP: Well, so the two parallel ruffles combined with the bump create this kind of a canyon between the two ruffles that I call the sauce trough. So a tremendous amount of sauce can fit up in there and stays in there. So a wide range of sources are going to go really well with this. But the big thing is that it has a variety of different textures in each bite. Most pasta shapes, even ones that I really like, are kind of the same texture in every bite. And after a few bites, they lose their lustre -- sure, they're fine. I wanted a pasta shape, though, that three, four, or five bites into the plate, you're still discovering new things about it. So there are some parts of the shape that are especially firm and some that are a little softer. There are some bites that will have more ruffles. Some bites will be more flat. And that is something that sensory scientists call dynamic contrast -- a variety of textures and each bite, which is something I really wanted to try to achieve with this.

CO: Would you call tooth-sinkability?

DP: That's right. Yeah. That's not an actual scientific term, even though I know it sounds very impressive. But yeah, tooth-sinkability is one of my main metrics for pasta shapes. That is how satisfying is to sink your teeth into it. I also judge pasta shapes on fork-ability. How well can you get it on your fork and keep it there. And sauce-ability. I think that a legitimately great pasta shape should go with most of the sauces out there, maybe not all, but most. And I think this does that. I think the very best ones are super thick -- your classic meat sauce, the bolognese, I love it with Andrea Nguyen's Mapo Tofu Spaghetti recipe she did for The New York Times a while back. Absolutely fantastic recipe. But even better than with spaghetti is with cascatelli because spaghetti is kind of boring, I'm sorry to say, I think.

CO: How do you actually make your own cascatellii? I mean, do you have to get a special knife or a special press or something? How are you doing it?

DP: I mean, it's part of why it took me three years. And I mean, I should mention we did a five part series on The Sporkful podcast, my podcast that chronicles this three year quest, it's called Mission Impastable. So if you want to really feel the highs and the lows and get a deep dive on this process, I hope people will check that out. But the short answer is that the first thing you need is a die -- that's basically like the mould for the shape. But it turns out there's only one person in America, at least today, who makes pasta dies and getting his attention and getting him to spend some time working with me was a challenge because he's getting orders from, like Kraft and Campbell's. He doesn't need me. And then getting an actual shape that works, that's physically possible, that can be shrouded through a die. Took a tremendous amount of trial and error. Then I needed to find a company to partner with -- also very difficult, much harder than I expected. And then COVID hit and we couldn't even get some of the raw materials we needed to make the pasta. So it's been quite a journey, a lot of sleepless nights.

CO: So are you saying that I'll actually be able to go into a store and find cascatelli?

DP: That's the dream someday. Right now it is being sold exclusively through Sfoglini -- that's the pasta company that I partnered with to make -- it's on their website. I will save the shipping charges to Canada right now -- they are a little high. But we did set up a page on Sporkful.com, specifically for our Canadian listeners to go and find each other in the comments so they can pool together, place orders for cascatelli and save on shipping.

CO: I saw some years ago a new pasta shape called radiatori -- shaped like little radiators that was brilliant. It held so much sauce. But then it just disappeared. So do you think cascatelli will just come and go?

DP: I don't know what the future holds. It's hard to keep anyone's attention for a week these days, let alone years. So that would obviously be incredibly exciting if this entered the pasta canon and was around years from now. And maybe they'll write in my obituary, they'll say Dan Pashman, the guy who invented cascatelli. And there are worse things. So hopefully people will like it. I'm trying not to think or stress too much about the long term future and just hoping that people try it now and enjoy it. And it gives them a different experience than any pasta that they've had before.

CO: All right, Dan, we'll leave it there. Thanks.

DP: Thank you so much Carol. Take care.

SM: Dan Pashman is the host of the food podcast The Sporkful, and the proud creator of a new pasta shape called cascatelli -- which translates to little waterfalls, in Italian. He's an Greenlawn, New York.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Part 2: NFT Digital Art

NFT Digital Art

Guest: Gerrit De Vynck

SM: The price tag for his digital art rivals a Jeff Koons, or even a minor Picasso. But until recently, he was just the guy posting irreverent digital images on Instagram. His Internet name is Beeple. And earlier this month, one of his digital collages sold for 69.3-million dollars -- US dollars. Selling such art has been made possible by the advent of non fungible tokens, or NTFs, which allow a person to prove they own a piece of digital art, even though anyone can see those same digital pixels for free online. Interesting enough, there is a twist in this transaction story as we learn more about who bought the digital piece and why. Gerrit De Vynck is a tech reporter with The Washington Post. We reached him in New York.

CO: Gerrit, first of all, can you tell us a bit about the person who has been revealed as the buyer of this 69-million dollar piece of digital art?

GERRIT DE VYNCK: Yeah, absolutely. His name is Vignesh Sundaresan. And he actually has a pretty big Canadian connection. So he's originally from India, but he came to Canada to do his master's at Carleton University. He'd already been an entrepreneur when it comes to block chain and Bitcoin businesses. And that's kind of where his millions came from. He was involved in early time when Bitcoin was worth just a few dollars. And now, of course, it's worth 50,000-55,000 dollars depending on the day. And so investments that people like him and some of the others that were working on this technology at the time made have now grown and allow them to do things like this -- spend 69-million dollars on a questionable piece of art.

CO: Questionable because, I mean, what did this man actually buy?

GERRIT DE VYNCK: So he bought just a regular image file, a JPEG, anything that you can control-c, copy, something that can be passed through an email. But he bought it in a certain way using technology that's built on the block chain. So essentially it uses really complicated, massive mathematical equations to say this one is special, this file is special. You might be able to copy it and show it to someone else, you might be able to print it off, you might be able to scan it and print it again. But the original version of that file, you'll never be able to copy that one. And so what he bought was essentially bragging rights to say, I own the real one. You know, it's digital. It's easy to copy, a lot easier to copy than maybe a Van Gogh on a canvas. But I still own the real one.

CO: Was this a purchase of a work of art that somebody fell in love with or is this playing with markets?

GERRIT DE VYNCK: I would definitely say it's playing with markets. And to be fair, a lot of art investing, even in the traditional world, is about speculation. It's about buying something, putting in a warehouse somewhere, and then selling it again a couple of years later for twice the amount of money. But that's essentially what's going on here. So as anything to do with Bitcoin these days, because it's gotten so expensive, because it's risen so high, everyone is interested in speculating. And so NFTs are just kind of the latest flavour of block chain technology. It's tied to art. It's a way to say you're kind of doing something that sounds more noble, sounds more artistic than simply speculating on a financial asset. But at the end of the day, that's kind of what's happening here.

CO: You mentioned NFTs, non fungible tokens. So what does that mean?

GERRIT DE VYNCK: Non fungible tokens -- they use the same technology that block chain uses. And it's that certificate that shows you own this piece of digital art. It can be bought and traded like any other piece of art.

CO: This owner, the man who bought this, owns other works by the same artist. So by virtue of this auction and getting the price up to 69-million dollars, does that increase the value of his other art that he bought from people?

GERRIT DE VYNCK: Absolutely. So one of the sort of curious things that came out here is that it turns out that this man who spent 70-million dollars on this Beeple, had actually bought several works of the same artist previously. So back in January, he bought a bunch of other Beeple works. He put them together and then he sold shares in that bundle of Beeple works. And so when the bidding was going on for this new piece of art, it was over a two week time period and we could see the bids coming in. And one million dollars, two million dollars, three million dollars. As the numbers went up, people realised, wow, Beeple is really popular. People really want to spend a lot of money on this guy's art. Is there any other way to get in on this kind of growth in value? And it turns out there was. There was this way to buy a share of previous Beeple works of art. And we didn't learn until after the auction had completed that it was the same person all along. So it's as if you and I went and bought ten Picasso's and then a couple of months later went secretly to a different auction and started bidding up the price of another Picasso. And then everyone said, wow, Picasso's are really high in value. Maybe we should go try to those other ones. And so he was pushing up the value of something he already owned.

CO: And is that legal?

GERRIT DE VYNCK: It is legal. I mean, like anything in the block chain space, it's a little bit outside of current laws. But at the end of the day, I did speak to some experts and it's not fraudulent. He didn't sell a bill of goods that turned out then to be fake. He wasn't giving people fake NFTs. He had the rights to do this. And so everything is strictly legal. You know, you could argue and some people have that by going and secretly bidding up the price of this new work of art, he was actually benefiting because he was making a lot of money in the process. But it doesn't actually look like he's sold his previous tokens, his previous Beeple works of art. And so even though his net worth has gone up quite a bit, he hasn't cashed in yet.

CO: So if this is not about aesthetics, it's about markets, it possibly is a bubble -- can it just burst at any time?

GERRIT DE VYNCK: Absolutely, like any bubble it can burst any time. And Bitcoin prices have burst in the past. They've risen up and then dropped -- around 2017, there was a big drop in Bitcoin prices. A lot of people had lost a lot of money and a lot of people said, okay, it's over, this was a fun technological fad and now it's gone. Of course, people who doubled down are now laughing all the way to the bank because the prices just continue to increase since that day. But like anything, it could drop at any point. It's all in who wants to buy it. And the reason Bitcoin is so interesting for a lot of people who want to buy speculative assets is because of the way the technology works. It really limits the supply. So it's not like you can go out and just recreate as many Bitcoins as you want. It really takes a lot of time and a lot of computing power. You can't just snap your fingers and make it happen. And so that's why it's so appealing for people to speculate on. But of course, if people move on to something else, they say, you know what, this isn't really useful, my bank isn't accepting Bitcoin. I can't, you know, buy a new car with Bitcoin. Why are we even doing this? And people start spending their money on something else, the price will fall.

CO: All right. All very complex with fascinating. Gerrit thank you.

GERRIT DE VYNCK: Of course.

SM: Gerrit De Vynck is a tech reporter with The Washington Post. He's in New York.

[Music: Drum & Bass Music]

Colten Boushie

SM: An independent RCMP watchdog is backing up what the family of Colten Boushie has said all along, that the way the police treated them amounted to racial discrimination. The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission issued a report today into the RCMP investigation into the 2016 death of Mr. Boushie. The young Indigenous man was shot by farmer Gerald Stanley near Biggar, Saskatchewan. Mr. Stanley was later acquitted of second degree murder. Today, the commission said that when the police notified Mr. Boushie's mother, Debbie Baptiste, of her son's death, they treated her so insensitively it amounted to discrimination. Here's the family's lawyer, Eleanore Sunchild, describing what happened that evening.

ELEANORE SUNCHILD: Debbie Baptiste and her family were treated with discrimination the night that her son was killed. The RCMP surrounded her trailer. They went into her trailer without a warrant. They searched her house illegally. When she fell to the floor after they told her her son was dead, they had the nerve to smell her breath. They told her to get it together and then they even checked the microwave where she had put her son's dinner to make sure that she was telling the truth. If that doesn't speak of discrimination and racism, I don't know what does.

SM: That was Eleanore Sunchild, lawyer for Colten Boushie's family, speaking to journalists today. Here is what Colten Boushie's mother, Debbie Baptiste, had to say.

DEBBIE BAPTISTE: We've been waiting for this justice for a long time. It did so much hurt to our family and our community. That we were able to overcome this by the support of the Indigenous people across Turtle Island. Our family was never going to give up. We were not going to be swept away, and treated such as less than human beings. I did not deserve to be treated the way I was treated. And then RCMP to clear themselves on no wrongdoing shows the injustice that continues where that needs to change. And if Colten could hear me now, he'd be proud that we continued fighting and we never gave up. He was not a criminal. He was a human being and how they laid him out there in the rain, all the wrongdoings they did out there in the prairie that made them judge and jury, decided all of this for us and thought it was okay. It's not okay. So anybody that's been treated with this injustice that you stand up and you continue to fight and you say no, have hope. Ahkameyimok. Thank you for your time. Hay hay.

SM: Debbie Baptiste, the mother of Colten Boushie, speaking to reporters in Saskatchewan today.

[Music: Drum & Bass Music]

NS Mobile Yarn Shop

Guest: Tracy Stubbard

SM: In this age of online ordering, one Nova Scotia woman is betting her customers will want to touch and try and maybe spin a yarn or two before buying. And so Tracy Stubbard created Tracy's Rolling Yarn Shop. This summer. She'll be driving up and down Cape Breton, selling a whole trailer load of yarns to discerning knitters. We reached Tracy Stubbard in Dominion, Nova Scotia.

CO: Tracy, first of all, if you could describe your rolling yarn shop for us.

TRACY STUBBARD: So my rolling yarn shop is an inclosed cargo trailer that I had deckled by my van and has my logo on it. And I redid the whole inside with paint, then laminate flooring, lots of cubicles, and wall, and it looks just like a yarn -- a condensed version.

CO: So people could actually get in, come aboard, and do their shopping there?

TS: That's right, yeah. I have a little aisle so they can walk down and yeah, it's really nice.

CO: How much wool do you have for sale?

TS: I probably have well over 2000, I would say.

CO: What are the varieties?

TS: So I have sock yarn. I have bulky weight, worsted weight, fingering weight. I have alpaca, I have silk, I have mohair, I have 100 percent merino. I try to stay at the luxury end of things, I guess you could say.

CO: So you've got some cashmere in there, I would imagine.

TS: Oh yes, cashmere too. Yep.

CO: Now, how is it you feel that people will shop at your rolling yarn shop as you drive around? Because people are buying everything online these days, aren't they?

TS: Yeah, it's not as fun. Buying online, you can't touch it, you can't feel it, you can't colour coordinate as well online as you can in person. I do have my own website available because when I first started, I didn't think I could actually run out of the driveway, but I rigged it up so I have a couple of heaters in there and it's nice and toasty warm and yeah. So people are coming.

CO: Of course there is that just that beautiful look when you go into a yarn shop, even if you're not a knitter, and I'm not a knitter, but I just love to go in and see all those colours.

TS: Yeah. And it is pretty vibrant in there. And I try to keep as many nice bright colours as I can with lots of independent dyers, more so than the big box guys. You know, I try to support as many independent people as I can because I figure the other people already made their millions. Why not support the smaller guy?

CO: Because I go to Cape Breton every year and driving up the highway, there's a woman who sells mohair there. Do you get any of hers up?And no,

TS: No I didn't get any of her's. Actually it's funny you do say that because Baadeck Yarns that's what she started with was the mohair from Cape Breton. But I didn't get any of that yet. But I will definitely be looking into it.

CO: When you say Baadeck Yarns, this is (makes sheep-like Baa sound) Baadeck Yarns.

TS: Yes, Baadeck Yarns, that's right. You know, she had the ultimate shop. It was absolutely stunning. And she was my mentor. I worked for her and this is how I came to be.

CO: How so? Tell us that story.

TS: Well, she was looking at getting ready to retire. And she wanted to take a little bit of load off of herself. And for me to drive up there was an hour and 15 minute drive. However, I didn't mind it because it was a great job. So I mentioned to her that, maybe I'll get a bus and I'll take it on the road. So we were going to call it "Baadeck Yarns Hits The Road." Anyway, we decided it was going to be my own because she was going to completely retire. So we called it Tracy's Rolling Yarn Shop. And that's how we came to be. We went from being a bus to a trailer and a truck because of the bus broke down then I'd be stuck. If the truck breaks down, I can rent one.

CO: But at the same time, you had some health issues, right, that kind of delayed things?

TS: Yeah. In 2017, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. And I went into remission in 2018, but it decided to come back in 2020 so I was delayed. I really thought I could get going last summer. But you know things happen for a reason I guess. And now, I purchased what stock Pat had left once she closed the shop, which pretty much filled my trailer. And I've been able to save a little bit of money to get some other yarns to go with what she had.

CO: So when do you plan to be on the road?

TS: Once the weather warms up. I don't want to leave the yarn unheated too long because I don't want it to get damp and mouldy, mildewy.

CO: Now how far and wide? Because you're up in Dominion, which is near Sydney and your Glace Bay. So how much territory do you plan to cover?

TS: I plan to cover all of the island, all of Cape Breton Island, like Port Hawkesbury. I'll go like up through St. Peters, and I'll go to Ingonish, and Cheticamp, and Mabou. And it's amazing the people that are messaging me. I had one lady who said, Can you come to Mabou? I said, sure. Do you have a place that I would be able to park? She said, yes, the Mabou hall. And I said, do you know who I would contact for that? She said, My husband, he is sitting right next to me. And he said, it's fine. And so it's coming. It's catching.

CO: All right. Well, we'll be watching for you on the road and in the parking lot in Mabou this summer. And thanks for telling us the yarn.

TS: No problem. Thanks so much.

CO: Bye Tracy.

TS: Bye bye.

SM: We reached Tracy Stubbard in Dominion, Nova Scotia, which is near Glace Bay.

[Music: Calm Music]

Nawal El Saadawi

SM: Nawal El Saadawi was remarkable. The Egyptian author wrote more than 50 books, one of them from a prison cell using a smuggled eyebrow pencil and toilet paper. She survived threats from Islamic militants and she ran for president of Egypt. Ms. El Saadawi died last night in Cairo. She was 89. Nawal Saadawi was more than just a writer. She was also a doctor and a feminist. She was one of the first to speak out against female genital mutilation, which she herself suffered when she was six. She was also a fearless critic of those who held power in Egypt, so naturally she took part in the Arab Spring revolution of 2011. On the day that President Hosni Mubarak stepped down she spoke to Carol. Here as part of their conversation,

CO: Ms. El Saadawi, what does this day mean for you?

NAWAL EL SAADAWI: Well, today is historical. In fact, every day in the revolution since 25 was historical. But today is the climax of the revolution, a historical day

CO: You were dancing with the young people. You are almost 80 years old.

NAWAL EL SAADAWI: Yes, I am 80 years old. But I was reborn and I felt young, the energy of the revolution. So I was in Tahrir Square from 25 January till today, day and night. So I feel young. I didn't feel that I am 80. I came to my home to take a shower and then go back. So amongst the young people, I felt young.

CO: Was there ever a moment of danger for you? Did you have any problems with...

NAWAL EL SAADAWI: Oh many, many, many. Especially during Wednesday, the 2nd February, I was in the middle of Tahrir Square when the horsemen and the men on camels attacked the square with the order of Mubarak, of course, and his men. And I was about to be knocked by a horse. When the horse came in front of me the young men carried me away because I cannot run like them. So they carried me away from the horses and the camels.

CO: When the announcement came that Mr. Mubarak was stepping down, where were you?

NAWAL EL SAADAWI: In the streets of [inaudible] dancing. We were dancing everywhere.

CO: And what was that moment like for you?

NAWAL EL SAADAWI: It's an inspiration. I had an intuition. I felt that he will step down today or tomorrow maximum. And he stepped down because he could not continue.

CO: In your 80 years, you've seen Hosni Mubarak. You were around for Anwar Sadat. You were around, I think for Gamal Abdel Nasser. You've seen a lot of leaders in Egypt. What do you want to see now, who do you want to see lead Egypt?

NAWAL EL SAADAWI: I don't want one person. I want collective leadership. We don't want another pharaoh. We need elected leadership by the people. We need a new constitution, a new secular constitution that does not discriminate between Christians and Muslims or men and women.

CO: Would you consider running for president?

NAWAL EL SAADAWI: No, no, no, no, no. When I ran in 2005, I did it just to challenge Mubarak as symbolic because I was running after him, and his police was running after me. So I exposed the false democracy.

SM: That was Egyptian activist and author Nawal El Saadawi speaking to Carol in February 2011 on the day Hosni Mubarak stepped down. Ms. El Saadawi has died. She was 89.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Beverly Perrin

SM: By now, Beverly Perrin has probably given out a thousand of her handwritten cards. Last April, Ms. Perrin heard about the difficult working conditions that truckers were facing because of the pandemic. So she decided to give back by writing thank you cards and then handing them out at her local truck stop in Chatham, Ontario. Ms. Perrin spoke with CBC Windsor about the cards and what it means to help the truckers.

BEVERLY PERRIN: I started a year -- well, next month it will be a year ago. I saw a couple of stories on CBC and they were interviewing truckers and they were saying how badly they were treated. They weren't allowed to use the bathrooms when they crossed the border. They would keep them in their cabs for hours. So I would make cards and I would take out 75-100 cards every three or four weeks. When I first started doing it, they just kind of look at me like really. One trucker asked me, how much do I pay you? And so it just was a shock. So when you say it's just for me to you that we so appreciate you trucking all our goods to the stores, but people that know me just figure, well, that's Bev. They thought I was nuts. I'm sorry. I write the same thing I put, 'Thank you so much for bringing supplies to our stores, even though it is, sometimes, under harsh circumstances. Take care. Stay safe. God's blessing on you always. Love Beverly Perrin. A very grateful senior.' My husband and I do service to other people. I get more out of it handing them to the truckers than they get for me.

SM: Beverly Perrin speaking with CBC Windsor about why she started handing out hundreds of thank you cards to truckers at her local truck stop in southwestern Ontario.

[Music: Banjo Music]

Part 3: Architecture's top prize goes to a French duo who build without demolishing

Architecture Prize

Guest: Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal

SM: This year's winner of architecture's biggest prize are being celebrated not just for what they created, but for what they didn't destroy. Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal have been designing buildings for more than three decades, and they have never torn down an old structure to make a new one. Not only do their practises cut down on a vast amount of waste, it fills their imagination to repurpose structures in new ways. It sounds simple and sensible, but it's somewhat rare. We reach the Pritzker Prize winners in Paris.

CO: First of all, Anne and Jean-Philippe, congratulations.

BOTH: Thank you very much.

CO: Anne, I want to start with you. Your work that you got this prize for, it's about reinventing buildings and seeing their potential and reinventing them. What project are you most proud of?

ANNE LACATON: There is, of course, this house that we did in the forest almost 25 years ago. And we did this house without cutting any trees on the side. And this was very important to keep the richness of the place. But even more now what we are very proud of it's that the project of transformation of the modern housing buildings like the housing tower in Paris or Cite du Grand Parc in Bordeaux where we transformed and extending 530 dwellings, we gave more space, more light. It was dwellings from the 70s and we did all this a new qualities and improve at the same time, the energy performance. And all of this without moving the inhabitants and with no increase of the rents.

CO: That's what I was going to ask you Anne because not only are these beautiful, what you did in transforming those buildings, but nobody had to move during the entire reconstruction.

ANNE LACATON: Yes, it's clear because it's very important to consider that in those existing buildings dwellings, it's clear that they need to be upgraded because they have already 50 years. But for the inhabitants inside, it's their home. And this is essential. It's a place of their daily life. They had it most of the time and a lot of value and they don't want to leave it. So why should we force people to leave their homes when it's totally possible to do careful and to do things differently?

CO: Jean-Philippe is there a project in particular that you take great pride in?

JEAN PHILIPPE VASSAL: For each one, it is a new story. And it is a new story with new people, with new spaces, with new context. It's a question of love. And also for all of these situations, we have to try to see behind the needs of the people or the users. We have to reach the dreams and the wishes, the things that often they don't say. But this is the most important.

CO: It's interesting. We make it clear to people that we're not talking about preservation here. This is something that the jury called restorative architecture. And what they said it's so interesting that you pursue this without nostalgia. Anne what do you think that means?

ANNE LACATON: For us we are really interested by what we have already. It's not in the conservative way. Just because looking carefully at what already exists, we find many values that for us give the richness to a future project. So we are really confident in the fact that the existing, instead of being a constraint, gives a material from which we can continue to build, to develop, by adding, by superimposing, by combining in order to update and also to create a new life cycle.

CO: You're listening to As It Happens. I'm speaking with Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal. They have won this year's Pritzker Prize. And these two people, these two architects, never demolished a building in order to construct a new one. Anne you even transformed -- this apartment building got transformed in Bordeaux, why was that one so important to you?

ANNE LACATON: For us, we find a lot of interest in existing situations. And working with making do with including the people, looking at the richness of what everyone was brought there -- for us, it's a source of invention, of creativity, and it's really far away from the devaluation for the constraint. And it's clear that for us it was so important to work in that way and to show that finally no situation is a lost situation.

CO: Jean-Philippe, is there any time when you are going to your commission is to transform a building and the building is just ugly -- it's not well designed, it's not well made. I mean, do you ever have the temptation just to take it down and start again?

JEAN PHILIPPE VASSAL: I think it's precisely about this point, is it really ugly? And it is about how we look at the city. Do we look enough to the city or is it a building that is bigger, like a big rectangle, grey in the landscape where it seems that everything is the same? Or is it finally the image that you find when you go inside and when you see 500 different families and perhaps 2,000-3,000 different rooms, each one has been decorated, changed, improved in quality day after day during 10 years, 20 years. And here it is a real richness. And we really believe in what is inside. It is because we don't have to look at the building just from far away, thinking it's not very beautiful and it would be better to change -- no. First we have to go inside to meet the people, to listen to what they do, why do they love or like to be here, what are their neighbours and all. It is sure that they have a lot of problems. But then starting from this richness inside, we have to see how we can add new things or we can say what is good and what is missing and just add what is missing. For example, if we say it's like in the small windows, we enlarge the windows and we create a space in front of the windows like a garden. Snd then these flats become a sort of villa -- villa in the city. And without disturbing the people that this is very very important, the life very very delicately transforms. And for us, it is that point of view starting from inside, because we really believe that architecture is about the inside.

CO: And Anne for you, I mean, is there a time when you see a building that is perhaps unstable, unsafe, decrepit, that most people would say just screams to be demolished -- what do you see?

ANNE LACATON: Well, we try to see first what is good in this situation, because we cannot believe that a situation can be so bad, so desperate that the only solution is to demolish. For us, the demolition is the the biggest mistake and the biggest waste in many aspects. And in all the projects that we have done since many years. We never found the situation that was so bad in terms of stability or that said the demolition was the only solution. And especially the demolition today is much more applied to modern architecture to the architecture of the 60s-70s, which mostly is support structures. But it just needs to be upgraded to be carefully upgraded. But 50 percent of the 70 percent of the situation can be good. But it's the issue of not looking at things from outside and just declare that it's ugly, that it's not good, and that there is no chance to do something with it. No, that's not the right way. For us the demolition is mediocre and a lazy decision and often motivated by other reasons that the real value, the intrinsic value of what is there.

CO: And Jean-Philippe there is in this country, I'm sure in yours, but there is a tendency now to tear down a lot of buildings. Houses are coming down. Entire blocks are coming down to build condo developments. What would you say? This prize gives you an opportunity to perhaps inspire architects. What would you say to them about what you've learnt over these decades?

JEAN PHILIPPE VASSAL: We really believe that today we need to have another approach to the city -- one that is much more delicate and much more close to the city. But if we continue to have this vision from a general point of view, from very far away to the city, I think we will never find the solutions. When we demolish, we lose -- we have one and we lose one. And then probably we have to rebuild one. But when we keep, it means that we have one and we add 50 percent to this one. And at the end we have 150 percent. So we just pay for 50 percent more, and at the end we have more than demolishing and rebuilding

CO: Anne and Jean-Philippe, once again, big congratulations to you. You are both an inspiration. I hope people are listening and getting ideas. Thank you so much.

JEAN PHILIPPE VASSAL: Thank you.

ANNE LACATON: Thank you very much.

SM: We reached Pritzker Prize winning architects, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal in Paris. And we've got more, including photos on our webpage: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Flute Music]

Ian Waddell

SM: Across social media and across party lines, tributes are pouring in for Ian Waddell. The long time federal and provincial politician has died. He was 78. Mr. Waddell became a fixture in the BC legislature after he was elected NDP MLA for Vancouver-Fraserview in 1996. He served as a minister of tourism, arts and culture, and the environment. And in later years he played a key role in bringing the Olympics to Vancouver in 2010. But Ian Waddell started his career in 1979 in Ottawa, where he spent 14 years as an MP and a constant thorn in the side of the Liberals. In 1981, former host Barbara Frum spoke with Mr. Waddell about Bill C48 and why he opposed the Liberals' push to pass the regulatory oil and gas development bill without consulting Indigenous leaders.

IAN WADDELL: It seems to me that what the government is trying to do is ram the bill through because they want to, I guess, get their energy policy in place as soon as they can. The problem is, is that they haven't really consulted with anybody out there in the country about the nature of what was going into their bill. And so you get groups before the hearing saying, well, you know, we haven't been consulted. If we had been consulted, here's what we would have suggested. And they need a little longer time.

BARBARA FRUM: How did it get this far?

IAN WADDELL: Well, they say that they've had a lot of witnesses and they've had witnesses, but in front of our committee. The problem has been we heard from the government civil servants for about 30 hours and then we heard from oil company after oil company saying we want 25 percent retroactive Petro-Canada out of the bill. And just recently, did we hear from the native people of the north. I don't think Marc Lalonde, who seems to understand a lot of things, really understands the north, he's never been a minister responsible for anything to do with the north, and he's going into the north in full flight because he wants to go around Alberta, doesn't have to deal, he thinks, with anybody in the north and he wants to develop it. And the problem is that it's not like the offshore which this bill covers that is covered by water. There are people in the north, native people. They want to be part of that development.

BARBARA FRUM: When you say going around Alberta, Mr. Lalonde may not understand the north, but he sure must understand what he's doing with this bill.

IAN WADDELL: Well, I think he wants to go around Alberta -- by that, I mean, he has a lot of trouble with Alberta in that Alberta controls the oil development in Alberta. So Lalonde is in effect saying, well, to heck with Alberta, I can go up to the northern lands and the offshore lands and I'm the king there. And I think he's going to go ahead there, accelerate the pace of development at the expense of a very delicate environment and a very developing position with native people.

BARBARA FRUM: How long have you got left to debate this thing? When it goes back to the Commons, for example, is that for final reading only?

IAN WADDELL: That'll be for final reading. And the way that the government today used its majority, I mean, was really shameful. What has been happening in the committee is that none of the Liberal members show up and we keep going into the details of the bill. And I got them to agree to what the native people wanted. That was a trip to the north to listen to their concerns and then to come back here with that and to make some amendments to the bill. The government agreed to that. And then today they just sent in their majority and they just steamrolled over the previous resolution. Now, they're not dictators and they've got to realise that they just can't do that in the north. They're not going to get away with it

SM: From 1981, Barbara Frum speaking with former NDP MP Ian Waddell about his opposition to an oil and gas bill. Mr. Waddell died last week. He was 78.

[Music: Calm Music]

Silver Haired Bats

Guest: Donald McApline

SM: Even by bat standards, silver haired bats are masters of hide and seek. Scientists have only ever spotted a handful of them in North America. In fact, the silver haired variety are so rare that when wildlife biologists found some animals in a tree in New Brunswick, many, including Donald McAlpine, weren't sure what they were looking at. Mr. McAlpine is the head of the Natural History and Zoology Department at the New Brunswick Museum. We reached him in St. John.

CO: Donald, what did you think when you first saw pictures of these bats?

DONALD MCALPINE: Well, I was really floored because I just didn't expect to see pups, a maternity colony of silver haired bats. It's certainly not something that has been reported in the Atlantic region before. In fact, there's been very few only found ever. So I was extremely surprised.

CO: What does it mean, a maternity colony?

DM: Well, a lot of bats, the sexes segregate during the summer months. And bats mate during the winter months, during the fall or sometimes in the spring. And then the sexes segregate and the males roost, usually in smaller numbers, maybe in a hollow tree or collect in rock, behind the shutters and the females form maternity colonies for some species these maternity colonies is really quite large. But in this species, they're relatively small, maybe 10 to 30 individuals.

CO: What does the silver haired bat look like?

DM: It's about the size of a thumb drive or a little bit larger than that with wings. It's a dark sort of chocolate brown with a dusting of grey or silver across the tips of the fur in the back of the neck and down the middle of the back.

CO: So when you say it's the size of a thumb drive, that's the body? Are the wings...

DM: That's the body. Yeah. Yeah. The wings are probably in the range of maybe 25 centimetres or so across if you stretch them out. But it's not a large bat, but it's certainly larger than some of the bats that occur here in New Brunswick.

CO: And where was this maternity colony?

DM: Well, of course it was in a pine tree in an old woodpecker nest. And the top of the tree had snapped off during a windstorm a couple of days beforehand where it was discovered. And the homeowners were concerned that the remaining stub, which was still probably 15 or 20 feet high, presented a hazard. And so they had an arborist come in and cut it down. And as soon as they hit the ground, the bats flew out.

CO: Wow. How many bats?

DM: Well, we don't know exactly how many females were there, but there were 17 pups. And unfortunately four pups and one of the females were killed on impact, but the rest of the females flew away.

CO: What about the pups? Do they survive on their own?

DM: We don't know if they survived, but we certainly hope so. The pups were placed into a nearby bird box on the property. And a couple of days later when we checked, they were gone and there was no sign of a bat massacre. So it's hard to know if a predator didn't get at them, but it's possible that something did happen to them. There are quite a few red squirrels around the area and red squirrels are known to prey on small vertebrates like birds, nestlings, bird eggs. So there's no reason they wouldn't take a small bat that wasn't able to fly. On the other hand, these bats will move their young between maturity roost site. So the hope is that the females returned and moved the surviving young to a suitable tree.

CO: How unusual is it to find silver haired bats in New Brunswick?

DM: Of the seven species that occur here, this is the rarest of the bats. There are about four specimen records for New Brunswick in Nova Scotia in the last 100 years or so. So it's quite a rare bat. And of course, there's never been a maternity colony discovered and it wasn't something we had expected. In fact, there have been very few maternity colonies discovered where researchers actually had access to the young anywhere in North America, although this bat is relatively common in the central part of North America there have been very few of these colonies discovered.

CO: You say discovered. So are they rare bats or are they hard to find?

DM: They're hard to find. They're not an uncommon that in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, central part of the Midwest. But the colonies are typically in a woodpecker hole and in a large tree quite high up. More recently, researchers have been able to track bats back using radio tracking to some of these nest holes. But they're not generally accessible. So prior to the 1990s, there had probably only been about, I think, two possibly maternity colonies discovered for this species in North America in the previous hundred years. So they're really not encountered very frequently at all.

CO: So it was just by chance that this was discovered then?

DM: It was by chance. And the previous discoveries, with the exception of any that have been radio tracked have been by chance as well.

CO: Now as we know that bats are suffering, their habitats being destroyed, they are getting all kinds of diseases and conditions that seem to be affecting them. So is there anything that you've seen of the dead bats that you have been able to look at indicates that they are healthy or threatened?

DM: Well, these are certainly -- this a healthy maternity colony. The problem for silver haired bats, these are not bats that enter caves and mines over winter like some of the other bats in New Brunswick -- fly south for the winter, like birds do. And one of the big problems for this species are wind turbines. So there's very high mortality at wind turbines when bats are migrating. The other issue for these bats, of course, is that big old trees are just not as common as they used to be. So in New Brunswick and in other areas in North America, where there's been a lot of logging going on, roosting sites that are suitable for maternity colonies are just not very many of them around.

CO: So what are you hoping to learn from the specimens that you have now?

DM: Well, of course, simply knowing that the species is reproducing here is something new. Certainly it's not something that we expected to find. And we've seen a little bit more about the timing of breeding for this species. There's not a lot of information on the size of the breeding colonies. We've got a little bit of information on that. These species are so infrequently encountered that the information accumulates in sort of dribs and drabs a little bit here, a little bit there. So it takes a while to put the picture together.

CO: All right. Well, we'll leave it to you. Donald thank you.

DM: Thank you very much.

SM: Donald McAlpine is the head of the Natural History and Zoology Department at the New Brunswick Museum. He spoke to us from St. John.

[Music: Synth Music]

William Shatner

SM: He moves seamlessly from Shakespeare to sci-fi. He once auctioned his kidney stone for charity. Because the thing about William Shatner is that he is very William Shatner. Like the way he delivers each line with a seriousness that leaves you reasonably sure he's not serious, but really sure in the end. That's his essential Shatnerianness. And it shines through whatever he's doing from being Captain Kirk to performing spoken word covers of pop songs to his TV commercials for just about everything. Meaning he doesn't so much disappear into his roles as the roles disappear into him. It's reassuring. And today, as William Shatner celebrates his 90th birthday, the power of that potent personality is preparing to outlive the man himself. He's celebrating by partnering with a tech company to create an AI-powered interactive video so that people in the future can have a conversation with William Shatner.

WILLIAM SHATNER: Imagine if you could record yourself in a way that future generations, hundreds of years from now, could talk to you and you could talk back. That's possible. With StoryFile, we can now be present in the future. Your authentic self for all time.

SM: William Shatner, the AI. So now even the artificial William Shatner will be able to offer simulated conversation with his authentic William Shatner self, another bold leap from science fiction to science fact.

March 22, 2021 Episode Transcript

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