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The AIH Transcript for April 28, 2020

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: The worst kind of deja vu. For years after a devastating wildfire, flooding now threatens Fort McMurray, Alberta, former MLA Brian Jean tells us losing his house the first time was hard. Losing it again is just cruel.

CH: One Pompeians trash is another's treasure. A little digging through trash heaps around the ancient and doomed city reveals its inhabitants were great at recycling.

CO: Zoom for improvement. Just like so many of us, Canada's MPs Zoomed together for their first virtual question period. The results suggest the gulf between Ottawa and Silicon Valley remains wide.

CH: Al fresco al the time. The mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, tells us about his plan to get bars and restaurants back up and running. He's turning the city into one giant patio.

CO: Let's get this show on the road. A Perth, Ontario, high school teacher goes viral with a game called Car, Car, Truck. It began as a way to entertain COVID-bored kids. Now it's essential community viewing.

CH: And saved by the bellow. From our archives, a choir of dapper Finnish men shatters your expectations and your eardrums by shouting every performance. The founder explains why they're unsubtle approach resonates. As It Happens. The Tuesday Edition. Radio that's as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, and as hard as shouting fins in a parrel.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: First fires, now flooding: Former Fort McMurray MLA Brian Jean suffers loss of 2nd home

Fort Mac Flooding

Guest: Brian Jean

CH: First the fires. Now the flooding. It was the spring of 2016 when wildfires destroyed parts of Fort McMurray, Alberta. Almost four years to the day later, an ice blockage in the rivers that surround the community is causing unprecedented flooding. Don Scott is the mayor of the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes Fort McMurray. Here's what he told reporters today.

DON SCOOT: We did an aerial tour -- the premier and I -- and saw the devastating effects of this flood from the air. Plus, we have a tour of the ice jam itself. So the sheer size of the ice jam, which is incredibly long yesterday, it was 25 kilometers -- it was short slightly. A one in 100 year flood is exceptionally rare, obviously, but it's actually happening at the same time as our COVID-19 pandemic. So we have the dual combination of issues going on. When we spoke to the premier yesterday, we raised several issues. We talked about the potential for military intervention on the ice itself. And what was concluded is that that would not work. The sheer size of the ice jam itself that really prevents the military from using explosives or CFA teams. There's been a lot of suggestions, but basically we're going to be waiting on Mother Nature a while. And if other options arise, the premier or minister next to him assured me that those would be looked at as we go forward.

CH: 15,000 residents have been forced to leave their homes. One of those residents is Brian Jean. We spoke to the former opposition leader and MLA after the wildfires destroyed his home in 2016. This week, Mr. Jean's house was destroyed yet again. The water is up to his first floor windows. We reached Brian Jean in Fort McMurray.

CO: Brian, I'm sorry to hear about your house. How are you doing?

BRIAN JEAN: I'm doing fine. I'm devastated, as anybody would be in the circumstances of losing something as important as their life and what they live in. But I'm very happy that everybody is healthy and alive and nobody seems to be hurt. At this stage, it's just property damage and all of these things can be replaced so I'm very happy about that.

CO: You have a baby. Your wife just gave birth quite recently. Where is your family staying right now?

BJ: Well, I'm in Fort McMurray. I am at my mom and dad's house, family house, that we've had for about 25 years. My mom just passed away last year. So I've been living here while my home has been being built at my new site to replace the one that I lost in the fire. And my wife and my baby girl, beautiful incredible baby, they are in Edmonton. They left a couple of days ago as soon as things looked a little scary here. And I've just been trying to hold up the window wells and pump the water out of the basement. And we're right on the fringe of the water right now.

CO: I'm glad everyone's okay. And as you point out, the last time we spoke with you almost to the day four years ago was when you were dealing with the loss of your house before -- the one you're now building to replace. And that was because of the wildfire. So what kinds of memories is this now being back for you?

BJ: Well, it's bringing back a lot of memories about nobody being in Fort McMurray downtown except for myself and a few people. There's just nobody here except for emergency responders. And I have to give a big shout out to emergency responders here. They've been doing an incredible job. The RCMP, the police, and the municipal workers that have been pumping water from one end of the dike to the other. The mood here is very somber, but people are at work and they're busy and getting things done.

CO: How close were you to finishing the building of your house?

BJ: We finished the drywall about a week ago. Finished the painting four days ago for the downstairs. And we hadn't started the upstairs yet, but the downstairs was pretty much 95 percent finished. And right now, that finished part is the part that's completely underwater, along with many of my personal memories, my wife's personal memories. When we had the fire, we lost most of our things, but had some of them, some of the memories replaced by family members, well we've lost quite a few of those -- most of those actually.

CO: Photographs and things of that nature?

BJ: Photographs, furniture, because we're living temporarily in my mum's house after she passed away, we didn't really move in here. Most of her stuff is still here. We were waiting to move into our new homes, so we hadn't really unpacked everything. So all of those things, you know, like, for instance, the family silver cutlery or things like that. All of those things were there. Coaches, et cetera. So hopefully we'll have the proper insurance in place to not have any fights with insurance companies, which seems to be the popular thing these days.

CO: But you had lost so much in the fire of your personal memories and things. And so this has now taken what's left.

BJ: Pretty much. You know, the devastating part of this is that my wife moved out from Ontario, a lot of her personal items that she had from childhood. She moved them out just two years ago. Now a lot of those things are gone. And that's what is upsetting me for the most part. You know, I lost most of my things in the fire and truly I lost the most important thing to me before the fire, which was my son about just a year before. So maybe the fire did not, even though it took my home, it didn't take anything compared to what took the life of my son. But now, you know, my wife facing this loss. I know it's going to be very tough on her.

CO: I know when we spoke last time after the fires that you had said the same thing, but that was very fresh -- your son had just died recently. Again, I'm so sorry.

BJ: It's still fresh. I think it'll be fresh until I die.

CO: Among the things that I know you had to replace was that your wife had a piano that meant a lot to her. And you replaced that in this house. What state is that in?

BJ: Yes, indeed. She plays the piano and she gets a lot of healthy moments from playing the piano. And she had a childhood one that she'd had all her life, and I replaced it after it was burned in the fire. I replaced it. And yeah, that's downstairs. And that's why I'm pumping water into the basement right now, because it's still not damaged. But I would say to you, the water's within three feet of it.

CO: I mean, you just got a lot of river water in that area, right? You got the Athabasca, got the Clearwater. But there were efforts to try and make sure that that area wasn't so prone to these ice jams and the flooding that comes with them when it does arrive. How close were they to actually being able to make that more stable so this might not have happened?

BJ: You know the dike system itself was finished a couple of years ago, and the dike actually has saved, I believe, some homes. But the truth is that Mother Nature is in control and God is in control. And we can try to do our best to put roadblocks up. But ultimately, you know, the water is going to go where it wants to go. This is the highest it's ever been for me. This is a flood of my lifetime. My understanding is that it has been higher about 120 years ago, but I wasn't around to see that. And I don't know the historical records. But if we are going to live in a beautiful place, the most beautiful place in the world I like to call it, we have to take some sacrifices and risks. We've had significant financial losses as a result of the fire and probably again, as a result of the flood. But we'll get through this. We're going to rebuild and we'll get, you know, a better life. And the good news is that this is a one in 100 year flood. So I don't have to worry about another one.

CO: But are you not concerned that the ice jams will continue and that this might not be the last time that this happens to this area?

BJ: Am I concerned? Of course, I'm concerned that it might happen. You know, we've taken precautions. But the place that I was building hadn't flooded in my lifetime, so I didn't expect it. And I don't think we can avoid being susceptible to ice jams, river break ups if you're going to live close to a river anywhere in Canada.

CO: So many difficulties right now, right, for people in Fort Mac? I mean, it's not just this -- it's the oil industry grief and then COVID-19 and the quarantine. How are people doing? How are they going to be able to keep ahead of this?

BJ: I was just talking to a person from Fort McMurray that's been around five decades now. And he was saying the same thing that I was thinking, and that is that some people won't rebuild. I know one of my nephews has told me that, you know, he rebuilt after the fire, but he's not rebuilding now. But I, for one, believe that, you know, opportunity is there when it looks bleakest.

CO: How are people dealing with COVID-19 on top of all this?

BJ: Well, it certainly complicates it. Fortunately for us, we have a group of people here that are highly trained, highly skilled and dedicated men and women that know how to work around dangerous places. You know, I'm not going around shaking anybody's hands and nobody is shaking mine either. We all are staying six feet apart. And we have a community that is very resilient, very strong, very talented. And we will come back. And I invite people right across Canada, you know, if you're looking for any opportunity, this is the place.

CO: Brian, I'm glad that you are resilient and that you're carrying on. I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

BJ: You too Carol. All the best to you. And thank you for being concerned about the people of Fort McMurray. They're incredible people. And I just hope that, you know, the supports from the federal and provincial government for mental counselling come about to children, especially from a mental perspective. I hope they pour a lot of money into that because the people of Fort McMurray are going to need it now.

CO: All right. We hear you. Thanks Brian.

BJ: Thank you.

CH: Brian Jean is a former Alberta MLA and the former leader of the Wildrose Party. We reached him in Fort McMurray, Alberta. And you can find more on that story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Lithuania Open Air Market

Guest: Remigijus Simasius

CH: Yesterday, the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, posted a video of himself sitting at an outdoor cafe table with a friend with two cups of brew in front of them. The only sign of the times, they're both wearing masks. It's a scene that Remigijus Simasius' hopes will be replicated across Vilnius. He's revealed a bold plan to allow cafes and restaurants to take over the city's public spaces so they can reopen in a way that respects physical distancing. We reached Mayor Simasius in Vilnius.

CO: Mayor Simasius how many cafes and restaurants have taken you up on your offer to open up the public spaces?

REMIGIJUS SIMASIUS: First of all, I would say that typically we have like open cafes and open air season being open at the beginning of May. But this year it is a little bit earlier. So now we have 160 cafes applying for this kind of offer to use this open areas like squares and parks and on streets and avenues, everything. So I expect to have more cafes during the typical year this year.

CO: Can you just describe how you envision this happening? What will the streets of Vilnius look like when these businesses have moved their tables and chairs out your parks and your squares and your streets?

RS: Just starting from the very beginning, of course, we had the quarantine and quarantine measures were required. But still now we have got easing -- we're starting with the cafes in an open area, the streets, not inside. So we decided to offer not just to this area beside the cafe as a stationary place, but also to offer big places, the big squares which typically are left clean during the summertime. So we decided that this will ensure both safe and joyful cafe atmosphere in the city. And what we observed that even earlier than expected during this time of the year, we have already cafes being opened since this Monday. And of course, people do enjoy this very much because of course avioding physical contact is very painful.

CO: Outdoor cafes, which are quite charming, also are crowded, right? The tables are close together because the waiters and the servers have to run back and forth. So how will you keep that physical distancing while letting all these places open up out onto the streets and the parks?

RS: Of course, that's all the trick, because typically we have cafes which are crowded and a lot of people are sitting very close to each other. But this time of year, this year is quite different because we have to have it both safe and room full of joy. So of course, in this new area, it looks quite different because in some squares, even though it's not the hot season for cafes, but we see the cafes by the monuments and in the places which are typically empty. And of course, the distance is bigger. But people do enjoy it anyway. It's better than nothing, of course. And it certainly has a feeling of a very lively city.

CO: But I guess that your servers and your waiters are really going to earn their tips because they'll have to run around to that much space.

RS: [Chuckles] Of course it is an issues because of course, some places are very close to the stationary place to a kitchen. But some places like 15 or 25 or 30 or 50 metres maybe away. So, of course, that's one of the questions. That's one of the challenges. But of course, there is no obligation to open up the spaces. And people are very friendly to each other, I must say. And besides this initiative, we also opened another initiative -- voucher initiative -- which allows customers to buy service from their beloved restaurants and cafes and it allows café keepers to feel this kind of solidarity and in a way they feel like obliged to open up after the quarantine. And again, that's a different spirit of this industry.

CO: And you mentioned these vouchers that you have -- Vilnius is giving its public health workers, you've given out about 400,000 euros worth of vouchers for people to go and use your cafes.

RS: Yeah, that's true. You know, we have two different steps. One step is to encourage people to buy vouchers for themselves or for their friends. And people are doing it. The numbers are growing. And also, the city is doing the same as well. And of course, the health care workers are those who are in the frontline. Of course we do want to encourage them and support them. And also this kind of buying vouchers for them for cafe business and also for cultural events as well. They may be useful cultural events. It's also an encouragement for all of these businesses. And there's additional supply for the seniors.

CO: You know that around the world the cities are looking at how they might change, how they can push the reset button before the end of the lockdowns and how they use the streets differently in order to get people to be able to space out. At the same time, there has been pushback by North American cities, some European, you know, cars want access to it, they don't want to have these streets more opened up. So are you getting any resistance?

RS: We do. Of course, we do have discussions because especially in the old city, because we have one of the biggest like 17th century old city. The streets are not very kind of like well organized -- sometimes they are very hard and curvy. And of course when you have more space for cafes, we have the best place of the best place for cars.

CO: Everything is changing, that's for sure. Now, do you have an idea where you were going to go and sit down and dine when the city reopens?

RS: Actually, I did already yesterday. [Chuckles] But not dine, but just taking a cup of coffee because actually what most people are looking for is to have a cup of coffee or a glass of beer or champagne or whatever. It's worth having a cup of coffee. Yeah, let's do that. I'm going to do it again tomorrow.

CO: All right. Well enjoy. I hope that you have a safe and successful reopening of your city Mayor Simasius. And thank you for speaking with us.

RS: Thank you so much.

CH: Remigijus Simasius is the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania. That's where we reached him.

[Music]

Car Car Truck

Guest: Ryan Murphy

CH: Canada has a hot new game show and the credit goes to the coronavirus, some of it anyway. The rest goes to Ryan Murphy. The high school teacher began his Facebook broadcast as a way to help local kids through the lockdown. Now, Mr. Murphy's game show has become a central viewing in and around the eastern Ontario town of Perth. At its core is a game called Car Car Truck. We reached Ryan Murphy in Perth.

CO: Ryan, first of all, can you explain how you play Car Car Truck?

RYAN MURPHY: Well, the actual basic game is fairly simple. I walk up to my front yard and I record the traffic going by and you have to pick the order of three vehicles. And you can pick from a car, a truck, an SUV or a van. Now, if you feel it's going to be something besides those four, you declare a special. So a special would be a fire truck or a tow truck or a motorcycle or somebody on a unicycle or anything outside of the normal four picks.

CO: Okay. Sounds pretty exciting. [Chuckles] But how do you turn that into this popular Facebook broadcast?

RM: It was the first day after March break, and I knew people were going to be inside with their kids. And we had played it, you know, as youngsters coming from Sudbury to Westport in the car. And then we adopted more rules when I was at university in North Bay. And I thought, well, this is something you can play from inside because the weather was miserable on top. And everyone was really sticking to their home. So then people started guessing a little bit. So I said, well, I'll go outside and I'll record three vehicles and we can go from there. So then after that first night, Tara and I decided that we'd donate or put up a 25 dollar gift certificates for four nights for the rest of the week. And that would be that. But as more people and some friends of ours joined they said, well, we need some music. So I reached out and we had a musical guest. Someone else wanted a little bit more. We can't just rush out and record the traffic. We want a bit of a talk show. So I started doing like the birthdays that I had on Facebook. And maybe if there was something positive happening in the community I would mention that. And we go from there. We just kept growing. And I look back today, I think the first night, you know, there were 20 guesses. And tonight, I'm sure we'll be somewhere around 400-500 guesses tonight.

CO: Now you've also moved onto have more music and bigger prizes. So what are the prizes?

RM: Yeah, well, the gift certificates are really at the core of things, right? Because they're the ones that are being spent locally here in Perth or Smith Falls -- in our area anyways. And they're helping support our local businesses. But as it's growing on, we've had different towns compete with each other. So Westport would challenge Smith Falls. Westport came up with a package that included a deep sea fishing trip off the coast of P.E.I.. So [chuckles] it all depends on the day. I mean, it could be it could be a $50 gift certificate and it could be a thousand dollar prize package. It all comes down to what the person who's sponsoring that day comes up with.

CO: So what's your dream episode of Car Car Track?

RM: Well, I've been asked about this a bit. And again, I think it's getting closer to being a reality is that eventually we claim or crown of grand champion and they walk away with a car. I don't know how that looks yet. I don't expect anyone to show up here in a brand new car. But I think we're close to even like a one year lease or something. I don't see Car Car Truck ending without our grand champion driving away in something.

CO: If someone could win a car, how do you win?

RM: So every night, especially now with our growing numbers, there's multiple people that pick the right sequence -- so we have a tiebreaker. So we roll dice and you have to pick the number you think will be the total of five dice. So if you happen to win that night, the next day there's a scrabble bag -- I have two C's, two A's, two R's. And then the whammies, I guess are like the Q's and the Z's. So if you win and then I pick a C, well you have to win three times and I have to take a C and A and an R. Once you spell car, you become the grand champion. And right now, well, there's a free hot tub rental for a week. There's, you know, four passes to a local golf course. There's a gift certificate. There's a DJ service. And like I said, you know, that's just people out of the goodness of their heart donating to these places. And like I said, I really think that before too long, there'll be a car in there. So it'll take some time to do. But realistically, time is the one thing that we all seem to have right now. So we'll try and make the best of a bad situation.

CO: [Chuckles] I understand you're going to air in just a few minutes, which tells me that you are in direct competition with As It Happens.

RM: Well, [laughs] I hope not. We go at 5:45. But I don't think we're taking away from your numbers too badly.

CO: Well down east you are. Come on, you're cutting our grass, Ryan.

RM: [Laughs] Well, you know what? We'll move then. We'll shift.

CO: Anyway, we'll let you get on to your show. I gotta get onto mine. Thank you.

RM: Have a great night. I hope your family and friends stay healthy.

CO: Thank you Ryan. Take care.

CH: Ryan Murphy is the creative visionary behind and host of Car Car Truck. We reached him in Perth, Ontario.

[Music]

Hockey Stick Haircut

CH: All you need are some hair clippers, a roll of tape, and a hockey stick. Josh Groen calls it a "Hockey stick haircut." And he believes it's the ideal method for giving someone a trim while still practising safe physical distancing. We believe we should add a disclaimer: do not try what you're about to hear at home. Here is Josh Groen demonstrating how to do the hockey stick haircut on his incredibly trusting father.

JOSH GROEN: All right. Welcome back quarantiners and quaratinas. It's me, your friendly neighbourhood Josh coming to you with the new quarantine advice. If you could not do that, because we've got to stay socially distanced. All right. Now it's quarantine times and your prime minister Trudeau, he says you've got to stay a hockey stick apart. Now, the issue is he doesn't have as much of an issue because you've got to get back hair under control. Now, I know mine's out of control, but we're going to make the first experiment with this fellow because he has a lot less to lose. Now to stay a hockey stick apart and still get a haircut, you're going to put the clippers in the hockey stick together. To do that, you're going to get your electrical tape, your duct tape, and you're just going to want to secure it. It's a five-point method. So you want to get the middle, the front, the back, the middle back, the middle front and the middle. You're going to secure that all together, making sure that you still leave. Oh, where's the switch? You've got to leave the switch. See, this is...I do this for you folks so that I make the mistakes and you learn. You want to leave the switch on spot that you can still make it happen. Now, you don't want to get too close because you might have the COVI. All right. So you're going to come in and you're going to come from the back. And just like that, you're doing a little cut. [Man laughs] If you can shut up while I'm cutting your hair. It's already high risk enough. All right. And there you go, folks. Just another advice on how to make it through quarantine times. All right. You don't want the corny. All right. Okay, love you. Keep your stick on the ice.

CH: That was Calgary comedian Josh Groen cutting his father's hair, using a pair of clippers attached to the end of a hockey stick with electrical tape.

[Music]

Part 2: When in Ancient Rome, recycle: Evidence of garbage reuse found in Pompeii

Pompeii Recycling

Guest: Allison Emmerson

CH: We think we're so modern separating our plastics and our paper and hauling the blue bin to the curb. Turns out the Romans were recycling almost 2000 years ago. Researchers exploring the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii have discovered that people there didn't just dump their garbage, they reused it. Allison Emmerson is one of those researchers. She teaches classical studies at Tulane University. And we reached her in New Orleans.

CO: Professor Emmerson, we know that Pompei is a city famously frozen in time after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. What did researchers initially think they found with those piles of garbage outside the city walls?

ALLISON EMMERSON: Well, these big garbage mounds have traditionally been interpreted in terms of a major earthquake that happened about 17 years before the eruption. So in 62 or 63 A.D., Pompeii was struck by this earthquake. And it was a really devastating event. We hear about it and literary we can see its effects across the city in rebuilding that happened before the eruption. So those waste mounds were really interpreted as part of this story. They were thought to be all of the cleanup efforts that happened in the city centre and all of that material was shoved outside of the city, according to this interpretation, into an area where it could be removed from daily life.

CO: And so what made you question that idea?

AE: Well, I was working outside the city on the tombs for my dissertation for Roman law requires tombs to be outside the city wall. And I kept coming across these references to this garbage, most of which has now been removed. So you can't actually see it. It was all dug up and then taken away or reburied. But I found references to the area outside the city being kind of abandoned, dark, dangerous, a kind of inverse to the city inside the wall. Ideas that tombs out there had been abandoned after the earthquake and families were no longer visiting them or burying their dead there. But none of that was really making sense to me because everything I saw outside the walls was that this was a really active zone where there was a lot going on. Tombs were still being built. And as my current work really details, there is actually a city outside the walls. There's neighbourhoods outside the walls. There's shops, there's houses, there's apartments. All of these things that we see inside the city are out there too. So I started to think, well, there must be something else going on here. And all I can settle on was that the Romans or Pompeinas in particular -- I think the Romans in general, but looking at Pompeians -- they seem to have a very different attitude towards garbage than we do, that they're much more tolerant of it in urban spaces.

CO: And you found actual evidence that they were reusing it or repurposing that garbage.

AE: Yes. So this finding comes kind of from two threads of my research, both of the research that I've been doing outside the walls and also research along with a larger team of the University of Cincinnati's excavations at Pompei. We've been working in a neighbourhood just inside the walls since 2005. And what we found is that this neighbourhood, which was a heavily commercialized district at the time of the eruption in 79, this neighbourhood was really built out of reuse materials, both in the walls where we see not just reuse stones making up these concrete walls, but also things like broken pieces of pottery, broken piece of plaster and mortar, even chunks taken from floors of other buildings that have been broken up and reused as stones in these walls, but also in the floors themselves. Here, we don't have any fancy mosaics, it's all packed earth floors. And we discovered that all of that material seems to be the exact same material that's gathering up outside the city. So we started to be able to reconstruct the system of use and re-use in which waste is leaving the city, piling up outside of it, becoming valuable by gathering en masse and then being carried back in to be used as building material.

CO: But the building materials if they're using recycled stuff, it's pretty well hidden, isn't it? Because the city itself was very elegant. And how well concealed is the fact that the walls may be full of of recycled stuff?

AE: Exactly. In most cases, very well concealed because these walls would then be covered with a nice layer plaster and you would never really see what was in there. The same for the floors there -- they're packed earth floors, so they're not particularly fancy, but very common, far more common than the mosaics we tend to associate with Pompei. But you still say they would look completely fine to the naked eye. Once you start digging them up, you realize, oh, wait, this is all garbage. This is all trash.

CO: Why couldn't they or why didn't they use new material? What is it in the philosophy of Pompei or people of that time that led them to recycle this trash?

AE: Now, I think, recycling is a natural human behaviour, recycling and reuse. We've been doing it for as long as we've had tools. We've been finding ways to reuse them. It's always going to take less effort, less investment if we reuse things rather than just discarding them and starting over with new materials. So in the ancient world, this just makes sense. From a modern perspective our ability to remove garbage so easily and to stop thinking about it or we think so easily has led us to a fairly unnatural viewpoint, which is that garbage should just be carted away and we should never have to think about it again. Obviously, that's not working out so well for the world right now.

CO: It is true that trash collection as we have it is really quite modern invention, isn't it? I mean, until quite recently, well, people would recycle what they didn't burn or bury, didn't they?

AE: Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of that is because so much of the burden for it fell onto individuals to take care of. But also just because we had fewer resources. It was harder and the materials were more valued. So at this point, you know, we put no value into so much of what we bring into our homes. We're just happy to get rid of it the next day. But for most of human history, we just didn't have that ability, both because it couldn't easily be taken away and because getting it in the first place was much more difficult.

CO: Much to learn from the ancient Romans.

AE: Absolutely.

CO: Professor Emmerson, thank you.

AE: Thank you for having me.

CH: Allison Emmerson is with the classical studies department at Tulane University. She's also the author of the forthcoming book "Life and Death in the Roman Suburb" from Oxford University Press. She was in New Orleans. And you can find more on this story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Parliamentary Zoom Session

CH: Canada's democracy ditched some of its musty traditions today for the first time in the country's history, most of Canada's MPs met virtually. Instead of gathering at parliament's usual two sword lengths distance, MPs got together on Zoom. And the first online meeting of Canada's political family turned out to be a lot like many families first experiences with Zoom. There were glitches galore. Here's NDP MP Daniel Blaikie directing a question to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

DANIEL DLAIKIE: There's been a number of costs for vulnerable populations that haven't been met with any direct financial assistance by government. So beyond the one time increase in the GST rebate, what is the government's plan for seniors and for people living with disabilities so that they get direct financial assistance to help them weather the crisis?

SPEAKER: The right honourable prime minister.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, this is an unprecedented crisis that we needed to move extremely quickly on, but we took a moment and to reflect and to look at how we could best help.

VOICE 1: Mr. Speaker, we can't hear him if you're listening to English.

SPEAKER: Okay, I have another point of order, we're having a technical issue. I just want to pause for a second. If you don't mind, we'll just push pause for a second and see if we can fix that.

VOICE 2: Mr. Speaker, I am also on English and I can't hear him. And I'm on English.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Mr. Speaker as the Prime Minister, I've switched my language to English. I was on floor. But perhaps if I speak in English, people can hear me. Ms. Vecchio, can you hear me now?

SPEAKER: She can. I saw her give the thumbs up. I'll let you continue.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Thank you. From the beginning, we knew that we were going to have to help millions of Canadians who we were asking to stop working to stay home because of COVID-19. That's why we moved very quickly with the Canada Emergency Response Benefit that would be an income replacement for people who lost the paycheques. The first and biggest challenge was to make sure that people were counting on a paycheque that would come in to help them pay their rent, to pay groceries, and were relying on that paycheque that suddenly disappeared, would get the support they need. And that's why we moved quickly on that.

CH: That was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau answering the question from the NDP is Daniel Blaikie as they and their parliamentary colleagues did their best to figure out how to conduct democracy via a video conference platform. It was the first ever virtual meeting of the majority of federal employees in Canada's history.

[Music]

Shouting Men's Choir

CH: The website for the men's choir, Mieskuoro Huutajat, explains the group's history, which dates back to the late 80s. At the beginning, it says Huutajat performed in the streets at innocent citizens. Though that's not necessarily just a bad translation from the Finnish. The choir did and does perform at you. For example, on June 8th, 2005, a couple of dozen well-dressed Finnish men filed silently into the atrium of the CBC building here in Toronto. The audience stood expectantly as the choir's founder and conductor, Petri Sirvio assumed his position in front. He raised his baton and the choir began performing our national anthem at us.

[Men shouting O Canada]

CH: Mieskuoro Huutajat performing in the atrium of the CBC building in Toronto in June of 2005. Well, their name translates roughly to "men's choir shouters." And a year and a bit before that performance, former As It Happens, host Mary Lou Finlay reached Petri Sirvio at a rehearsal. From our archives here's their conversation, which originally aired in February of 2004. You may want to keep one hand on the volume knob for this.

MARY LOU FINLAY: How did this silly idea get started Mr. Sirvio?

PETRI SIRVIO: I really don't know. I raced in my baton and suddenly this other little guy started to scream.

MLF: Somebody started to scream?

PS: Everybody started to scream.

MLF: Everybody started to scream. And from this flowed the idea of a choir?

PS: From the beginning the idea was the same, so not to sing a note, but to scream and shout.

MLF: Is that because you can't sing?

PS: Some of us can sing, but I think that was not the option to shout instead of singing. But rather I'd say it was to shout instead of being quiet.

MLF: And to see how much people would put up with?

PS: [Laughing] not really. We do this for our own fun.

MLF: Okay. So what did you start with singing with?

PS: The first number was the text of our national anthem.

MLF: Does the Finnish national anthem lend itself to shouting?

PS: Yeah it was very good text for the beginning. But because it was our first number the quality of the composition was not that good. We don't perform it in any longer.

MLF: Oh, what do you do now?

PS: Very many different kind of takes from lullabies to records from international laws and treaties.

MLF: [Laughing] Lullabies?

PS: Of course, they have a wonderful texture, at least Scandinavian lullabies.

MLF: Have you got a bunch of people there now?

PS: Yes that's correct. But they are very quiet right now because I don't have wave my baton and they are quite disciplined people.

MLF: If you wave your baton will they sing a lullaby, shout a lullaby to us now?

PS: Would you like to hear a lullaby?

MLF: Yes.

PS: Okay. This is a Danish lullaby. This was not the piece I meant to let them scream to you, but let's do this. Okay.

MLF: All right.

[Sound: A group of men shouting in Danish]

MLF: Well we're all just drifting off to sleep now.

PS: Okay. That was the thing. [Laughs]

MLF: That is your lullaby.

PS: But you didn't see the choreography. That's a pity because it's a very important part of this number.

MLF: What were they doing?

PS: You have to see it someday.

MLF: We will see the film will we?

PS: I think that's not on the film. But maybe we will come maybe some morning you will see us on the street. We do lots of surprise attacks towards innocent people. So who knows what happens next?

MLF: Have you worked with the lyrics to O Canada yet?

PS: Not really. But in fact, I go today this idea. And I think one of the main things in our work is to compress things into a very compact form. So I have thought maybe we could put the French and the English text on top of each other to make it shorter and to satisfy all of your citizens.

MLF: What was the song you wanted to scream for us?

PS: In fact, we have two opportunity depending on what you are talking about in this interview. And the first one was the national anthem of Belgium, and the other one was a part of the Amsterdam Treaty of European Union -- it's a treaty about the trade and industry in the European Union.

MLF: The Amsterdam Treaty?

PS: Yeah. That's one of those.

MLF: The Maastricht?

PS: No, no, no. Not the Maastricht one. It's about defense. But this one is about trade and industry. I found textual very inspiring.

MLF: The words were good.

PS: [Laughs] Yes, very nice.

MLF: I don't know if that translates into English.

PS: It's in English, no, problem.

MLF: It's in English. What exactly about the words appealed to you?

PS: How should I say? You know, it's not so nice to explain your words.

MLF: Just do it.

PS: Yeah, that's one of our basic needs. Okay. Would you like to hear it? Really?

MLF: I'd love to.

PS: Okay. I really have to apologize because I'm a little bit embarrassed now that we have to use this mobile phone, because I think when we are on our best shape, we wouldn't need any tool to shout from here to Canada. [Laughter] But okay. This is the Amsterdam Treaty.

[Men shouting the Amsterdam Treaty]

MLF: Oh, that's lovely. It's like an opera.

PS: Also, this one includes a choreography. So we really do trust the power of radio.

MLF: People are very good at imagining things in radio.

PS: [Laughs] Yeah. Yeah.

MLF: We love talking to you. Thank you so much.

PS: Okay. Thank you.

MLF: Bye Bye.

PS: Bye bye.

CH: And they did. From our archives, Mary Lou Finlay speaking with Petri Sirvio, founder and conductor of the Finnish shouting men's choir Mieskuoro Huutajat on February 4th, 2004.

[Music]

Theresa Tam

CH: Dr. Theresa Tam says Canada is now on the green curve, a scenario of strong controls where fewer than 10 percent of Canadians are infected during the pandemic. And in Ottawa today, Canada's chief public health officer made it clear that's a much better curve than the one she was worried we were headed for just weeks ago. Dr. Tam gave an update to reporters on the latest COVID-19 modeling. It suggests that all our physical distancing has been slowing the spread of the virus. But Dr. Tam warned that it's still too soon for everyone to completely relax. That prompted journalist Marieke Walsh of The Globe and Mail to ask this question.

MARIEKE WALSH: Does that mean that until we have better treatment or a vaccine, we will have this physical distancing in place at a certain level? And if we will maintain some physical distancing until that point, what is that physical distancing?

THERESA TAM: So I think you grasp the concept that, you know, it's likely that a significant proportion of our population is not immune. Which means you're right that we will not go back to what life will be like before January of this year. I think that all chief medical officers are thinking you're not going to be having those giant mass gatherings, you're not going to be, you know, having those kind of settings where we know transmission is going to accelerate really fast. People are going to be managing the size of those gatherings and having protocols in schools, workplaces, and other aspects of life where these basic fundamental hygienic measures, the policies and protocols, as well as all those public health capacities have to be in place. And you're going to have to dial some of them up again if you're going to see some cases. So I think I would love to be able to tell Canadians that life will be back to exactly where we were in December of last year. But now, we're going to be having different routines, different daily routines. We need to balance the effectiveness of measures. We need to study them. But also balancing with any unintended consequences. We know the impacts to mental health, to gender based violence, to other aspects of society and the economy. So it is a very delicate balance that we all have to really manage very very well.

CH: There was Canada's chief public health officer, Dr Theresa Tim, speaking to reporters in Ottawa today.

[Music]

Part 3: After 4-year search, restaurant owner reunited with giant tomato 'loved by many'

Blood Quantum Film

Guest: Michael Greyeyes

CH: Now, more than ever, the idea of immunity seems precious, that somehow, somewhere in your blood there might lie something that protects you. And that's the idea at the center of the new Canadian zombie movie Blood Quantum, which is being released online today. It was conceived of and created long before the current pandemic. The production is nearly entirely Indigenous. And as Nehiyaw Cree star Michael Greyeyes says its themes are starting to feel pretty real life. We reached Mr. Greyeyes in Toronto.

CO: Michael, congratulations.

MICHAEL GREYEYES: Oh, thank you very much, Carol.

CO: I know this is not how you and the others envisioned the release of this movie, but it's still a pretty big day, isn't it?

MG: It's exciting. There's a lot of energy happening today, which I'm so grateful for. We were disappointed, of course, that we didn't get the theatrical release that we had all been looking forward to. But just a few days before it was supposed to be in theaters all over Canada, the world shut down. So this is actually quite exciting.

CO: Well, lots of movies that we are having to watch in different ways or some we won't get to see it for a while. But this one in particular is one that you would think we need: Blood Quantum. We certainly need right now a movie about a zombie pandemic put out in the midst of a real life pandemic.

MG: Yeah, life imitates art. [Chuckles] Jeff, the filmmaker, writer and director, he actually tweeted a few weeks ago, he said, yeah I've spent 13 years, you know, bringing this to the screen and now the world follows in its footsteps. He said it's quite ironic.

CO: You're mentioning Jeff, that's Jeff Barnaby who is the writer and director of this film. Can you just give us -- without spoiling it for people -- give us a brief synopsis of what Blood Quantum is about?

MG: Blood Quantum is a horror film. It's actually set in 1982 on a fictitious reserve based on Jeff's community of Listuguj. And it follows a family. I play a character named Traylor, who's the sheriff on the reserve. And a mysterious virus is present and turns everybody into a zombie except for the Indigenous people in Red Crow.

CO: And the Red Crow is a fictitious places -- fictitious reserve.

MG: Yeah.

CO: Even if you have just a drop of Indigenous blood in your veins, you are immune to becoming a zombie.

MG: Well, that's a question that remains at the heart of the film. I have two sons played by Forrest Goodluck and Kiowa Gordon. And one of my sons, his teenage girlfriend is pregnant and she's from the town. So she's a settler. And everyone's wondering through the course of the film you know, like because she's having a mixed race child, will it be immune? Will there be enough Indigenous blood in the baby to allow it to survive like we're surviving? So that actually forms the crux of one of the central questions.

CO: And your character also has a son appropriately named "Lysol."

MG: [Chuckles] Yes. Yes. That's played by Kiowa. A lot of people refer to, I think, in the early responses to the film that Lysol is a villain, but I don't really see him that way. I don't think Kiowa or Jeff's saw in that way either. Of course, Lysol is a disinfectant. Think about what a disinfectant does. His actions through the film, his point of view about who's coming into our community and how do we keep our community safe are actually pretty relevant. And I think the genre itself, the zombie genre, has always been interested in social commentary. So for me, the pandemic that the community in the film faces is about late stage capitalism and environmental degradation, because if you look at it from our point of view, from an Indigenous worldview, we've been surviving a plague after plague, colonialism as a plague. So the metaphor of the film, is pretty obvious even to a casual observer.

CO: And of course, now that we are looking to get some kind of what they call herd immunity or find vaccines to prevent COVID-19 from spreading, you can't help thinking about from this movie, about Indigenous people being almost wiped out in this continent from smallpox and flu and measles that the Europeans brought. They didn't have immunity to it, did they?

MG: Yeah. Disease was a huge factor in the expansion of settler communities. And I think what Jeff has done by flipping it on its head that we're the ones who are immune now allows us to reexamine this history and allows audiences to sort of confront that truth, which many people don't really know. There's a fantastic moment in the film, actually, when a gentleman, a settler comes into the community, the reserve community, and he's carrying a blanket that had been infected and it was a really casual line but Devery Jacobs looks at him says, "What are you doing with that? You can't bring that here. You crazy?" And then she just continues with the dialogue. But for Indigenous audiences, that's a huge moment.

CO: Because of the whole idea of blankets infected with smallpox.

MG: That's right.

CO: Seeing just about the production of this Indigenous film, and Jeff is quite proud that it is. And that at the same time, it's the largest Indigenous budget for any movie in Canada. It's only $5 million. What do you make of that?

MG: Well, it's incredible that Jeff was able to, first of all, advocate for his story that it needed to be told with this kind of budget. Production value is off the charts. It actually looks like a $10 million movie. But I think it's an indictment of the system for us to be at a stage, you know, in the early 21st century when there's been so many great artists in our community that deserve this kind of production support. But this the first it's actually quite disturbing, you know. But I'm proud of the film. I'm proud of the fact that they fought for this money. And when you view the film, I think people will see that you can see almost every dollar on the screen.

CO: Michael, I look forward to seeing Blood Quantum and thank you for speaking with us.

MG: It's been my pleasure.

CH: Nehiyaw Cree actor, Michael Greyeyes is the star of the new movie Blood Quantum. We reached him in Toronto. This Thursday you can catch the film's writer and director, Jeff Barnaby, in conversation with Tom Power on Q about the catharsis of horror movies during stressful times and how Mr. Barnaby himself is getting through. That'll be at 9:00 p.m., 9:30 Newfoundland, right here on CBC Radio 1.

[Music]

COVID App

CH: It worked in Singapore, it worked in South Korea. And now Newfoundland and Labrador might be the latest place to use an app to track who has been exposed to COVID-19. The technology uses people's cell phones to track their movements and then lets them know through an alert if they've been in contact with someone who tested positive. Newfoundland and Labrador says its system would be opt in and it would only store information on your phone as opposed to a database. The province's health minister, John Haggie, spoke with the St. John's Morning Show about how it would work and the concerns over privacy.

JOHN HAGGIE: Well, I mean, if you look at it, I mean, if you sign into Google or your own one of these interest groups or apps like Pinterest or Instagram, your location services are enabled and that program will accumulate that data. What this mechanism is, it would be opt in. It would use your cell phone and it would basically store the last 14 days of who you'd be near in terms of PIN numbers. It wouldn't identify people and it wouldn't identify you. What would happen then is if you or someone you've been in contact with turned positive. That person would then be contacted. They would activate that information system and then it would consent -- this is a stepwise piece. So it's an opt in. And then you would get an alert to say you'd stood next to someone or you'd been in contact with someone on a certain date for a certain period of time.

KRISSY HOLMES: And when we talk about privacy issues, I mean, what is considered private info and what isn't?

JOHN HAGGIE: Well, I mean, that's a determination that society and the privacy commissioner in the act make essentially. The issue of informed consent is key.

KRISSY HOLMES: But I guess, if you don't get that 60 percent opt in, what then?

JOHN HAGGIE: Well, I mean, whatever we get will help. The facts of the case are as Dr. Fitzgerald said yesterday, 90 percent of the contacts in this province from the COVID cases have been tracked down using the old style. In actual fact, initially manual techniques of data entry and data collection. So it works, it's simply a labor intensive process. What you could do with an app like this is you could pick the most at risk people from the contact list, those you spent 2, 6, 12 hours with who then turn out to be positive and maybe just not bother so much with the others. Some of my constituents, for example, wrote to me six weeks ago and said, I'm writing down all the people I've spoken to or had dealings with for the next period of time. That way, if I get COVID-19, I can hand you that diary, that contact diary and show you who I've been with. This app would do that for you and it would do it in a way that had you, the owner of the phone, having complete control over who said what, who got access to what data.

CH: That was Newfoundland and Labrador. Health Minister John Haggie speaking with the CBC is Krissy Holmes today.

[Music]

New Simone de Beauvoir Novel

Guest: Toril Moi

CH: Five years after she published her 1949 treatise, The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir wrote another book. Not her only other book, of course, there were many many others. But one that readers might have cherished, just as the author cherished the friendship that inspired it. Now that book, The Inseparables is going to be available to those readers at long last -- published in French and English more than six decades after it was completed and some 34 years after Ms. de Beauvior. For Toril Moi, the wait has been long. Ms. Moi is a professor of literature at Duke University and the author of Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman. We reached Toril Moi in Durham, North Carolina.

CO: Toril I understand you have been able to read this unpublished French edition of the new novella or the old new novella by Simone de Beauvoir. How does it compare with her other work?

TORIL MOI: Well, it reads like Simone de Beauvoir. It has pretty much the same clear style. It's a very long novella or a very short novel. And it's about two young women. So in a way, it's it doesn't remind me so much of her earlier novels, the famous ones, like "She Came to Stay" and "The Mandarins" as it points towards her later work.

CO: Most people who who are familiar with her, not as well as you are, but The Second Sex is obviously just the work that women carried around, like it was a fetish for so many years, informed so much of modern feminism. And her fiction is less well known. Why is that?

TM: First of all, Simone de Beauvoir writes a sort of generally modernist but quite realistic fiction. And during the 50s and 60s, Beckett, the new novel and then postmodernism made her kind of realism seem a little old fashioned, but I think maybe we're ready to rediscover it now.

CO: Tell us a bit about the centre of this story. It's a friendship that Simone de Beauvoir had with a woman, Elizabeth Lacoin, also known as, I think Zaza.

TM: Yes Zaza was her nickname.

CO: Can you tell us about Zaza?

TM: Zaza was the daughter of a rich Catholic family. Her parents were like Beauvoir's. Beauvoir's mother was a strict Catholic, but not her father. Zaza's family were both Catholic, and the father was a militant Catholic in that he was the president of an organization -- families with many children. So Zaza was one of eight to nine children and was brought up according to strict Catholic principles for rich young girls of the upper classes.

CO: And this is a character in a work of fiction. But Simone de Beauvoir wrote about Zaza in her memoir. What did Zaza mean to Simone de Beauvior? What was their relationship?

TM: Beauvoir in this new short story says it explicitly: I loved her. She had a kind of experience of meeting a kindred soul, but not just a kindred soul, someone she admired. Beauvoir just thought of Zaza as just better than herself. It's very striking how Beauvoir feels. She's not as worldly. She's not this elegant. She's not as artistic as Zaza. So he loves her. But of course, they are both young Catholic girls, children than young women. And they never touched one another. And they never ever spoke to one another except in the formal form.

CO: So this novel, which is now titled The Inseparables -- in English. Why do you think Simone de Beauvoir never published it?

TM: Well, in the third volume of her memoir, she said I had just finished The Mandarins. That's a big political historical novel, a canvas of French postwar period. And then she said, after that, I wanted to tell the story of Zaza. And she said, I worked on it for two or three months. Then I showed it to Sartre. He sort of wrinkled his nose and didn't quite like it. He couldn't see the general interest, and I agreed and put it aside. That's all she said. And it's very interesting why did she not have more faith in the story at that time is to me is a fascinating question.

CO: Now you have read it. So is Jean-Paul Sartre right about it?

TM: No, he's not. I think my best speculation is that they were both in one of their most political phases right then. Beauvoir had written a big political novel. They were having big quarrels about communists and the Cold War. And I think that Sartre easily convinced Beauvoir that this didn't have the kind of historical political importance that her big novel had. Where I think that if you read The Second Sex this is a case study in the oppression of women carried out by a devout Catholic mother. But I don't think Sartre in 1954 was really a feminist in terms we understand the word.

CO: How is it come to be in the hands of publishers now? Who arranged that?

TM: My understanding is that Simone de Beauvoir put it aside, and her adoptive daughter, Sylvie Le Bon-de Beauvoir knew it existed. She had it lying around and now she has decided to publish it. And Sylvie Le Bon-de Beavoir understands that she has more manuscripts that we don't know of. Very exciting.

CO: I'm sure it is. And so what do you think that the North American publisher has taken a gamble to have it published, translated into English and published? How much of a gamble do you think that is?

TM: Can't say that you're risking a lot by publishing an unknown story by Simone de Beauvoir. I really don't see that. Surely they'll sell enough to recover their costs, put it that way. But I think that this story will have two different kinds of readers. If you haven't read the memoirs, it will be striking and new to you. If you have read the memoirs, you know the story, but you'll find a lot of new details and you'll see it written as fiction with the memoirs. Of course, it's written as memory.

CO: Very interesting. I'm sure it's going to be exciting for a lot of people to get their hands on. Toril thank you for speaking with us.

TM: And thank you for having me.

CH: Toril Moi a professor of literature at Duke University and the author of Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman. We've reached her in Durham, North Carolina.

[Music]

Giant Tomato

Guest: Matt Kraft

CH: It took four years, but the search for a missing giant tomato is finally over. The oversized ornament was first rudely removed from its home outside an East Side Mario's in Peterborough, Ontario, back in 2016. At the time, the restaurant's owner, Matt Kraft, put up a reward for anyone who could find his precious tomato. And now, thanks to the help of the community, Mr. Kraft says his tomato is finally backward belongs. We've reached him in Peterborough.

CO: So, Matt, where is your giant tomato right now?

MATT KRAFT: So the tomato right now is out front of our restaurant. East Side Mario's on Lansdowne Street in Peterborough.

CO: And it is upside its mate.

MK: It is. So the one that was lost, we call it the little brother. It's about four or five feet in diameter. And the other one is about eight or nine feet in diameter.

CO: Well, where did you get these giant tomatoes?

MK: Well, when East Side Mario's first started opening restaurants about 25 years ago, the giant tomato was an icon of the restaurant. And it would sit right over the front door in various locations. And it was a big piece of the decor at East Side Mario's. When we did the renovations, the tomatoes were gone and they were replaced with just different decorations. It was just a new concept that came along. The tomatoes were eliminated. But a lot of people really liked the tomatoes. So we went out of our way to keep them. So we actually ended up with three tomatoes at one point.

CO: Somebody liked the tomatoes enough to steal one.

MK: Well, I'm not sure what happened, but somebody decided that it wouldn't make it great...I don't know. Looked good in their living room or something or their backyard. And I guess it was nailed down, but not very well. And I guess they just thought, "Hey, look at this tomato. It's not even nailed down." Pick it up and off they went.

CO: How heavy is this thing?

MK: Well, it probably weighs about 50 pounds. So it's a bit of a struggle and it's very awkward. You can't really lift it by yourself. I'm thinking maybe a truck rolled by because it's right on the road. So they could have just pitched in the back of their pickup truck. I don't know.

CO: So where do you think it's been for the past four years?

MK: You know, I picture it in someone's garage sitting in the corner. It was a great night they got this tomato. Now, what do we do with it? And of course, the next day, the story of the stolen tomato went huge in Peterborough and all over the place. So I can only imagine when they saw it on TV and on radio and stuff. And they're like, oh, no, you know, we've got this hot tomato what are we going to do with it? [Chuckles] So probably buried it in a corner somewhere and hope nobody would turn them in.

CO: Somebody who's been hiding this tomato in some back lurking corner of their garage all these years.

MK: For four years. So I'm thinking in the dark of night, they snuck it out of the garage into a vehicle, drove to the park. We found it right out in the open in the middle of a park, drove right into the park, right over the grass, took it out, dropped it and took off. And of course, first thing in the morning, the joggers were out and I got a call about 9:00 and said, hey, I think I found your tomato.

CO: This story was so big and Peterborough four years ago, I mean, did people immediately know what this was?

MK: Absolutely. I just cannot express how much interest there was. Everybody and their brother, "Did you get your tomato? Did you find your tomatoes?" People would send me pictures of other tomatoes, lookalikes. And we explored a few of those and discovered they weren't our tomatoes.

CO: So how many tomatoes are out there of this size?

MK: You know, it's a good question. There's a few giant tomatoes out there. [Chuckles]

CO: You offered a reward, right?

MK: We did. We offered a dinner for four with all the fixins. It would have included some wine. But of course, now we're only open for takeout and delivery. So they'll just have to do with that. But this is a really nice family. A woman I know from my doctor's office and she knew who I was. And she called me up and she's got a couple of kids. So next Saturday, they're going to celebrate and get their dinner for four delivered to their house and have a nice night.

CO: Now, how could you be so sure it was really your tomato?

MK: I know my tomato Carol. It was my tomato. No, the reason I know is because it has a specific sort of a plastic surface on it. The green part, the leaves come out. I can really tell. And I know that a couple other tomatoes I looked at had metal leaves coming off the top. Ours was plastic. It also has a very specific shiny coat on it because it was kept indoors. It's never been an outdoor tomato except for the couple of months it was in Peterborough. Other than that, its whole life, 25 years old, was spent indoors. And you can really tell the finish is excellent on it.

CO: So this was a very pampered tomato.

MK: It was pampered. It was loved by many. And there are a lot of people that are rejoicing this week.

CO: Okay. Can I just suggest one possibility, though, is that, you know, these things have a way of becoming traditions, pranks. Do you worry that there's a target on that tomato now?

MK: Yeah. You know, I was thinking that. And it's kind of just sitting there right now. Probably shouldn't tell anybody that.

CO: Okay I won't. We'll keep it a secret. [Laughter]

MK: I can only imagine the guilt that the culprits have been going through for four years every time they looked in the back of their garage or their basement or wherever it was hidden -- their barn. And they are thinking I have to do something with that tomato. I'm going to get caught. Someone's going to see it and turn me in.

CO: [Laughs] And now it's back where it belongs.

MK: And now it's back where it belongs.

CO: Thanks Matt.

MK: No problem Carol. Thank you very much for calling.

CH: Matt Kraft is the owner of the East Side Mario's in Peterborough, Ontario, where a giant formerly missing tomato has just been returned to its rightful place. And you can get a look at that tomato on our webpage: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

CH: And that's all the As It Happens we have for you on this Tuesday, April 28.

CO: The news is coming up next. And after that, it's "Ideas."

CH: As It Happens will be back again tomorrow. I'm Chris Howden. Good night.

CO: And I'm Carol Off. Have a good evening.

April 28th Episode Transcript

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