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The AIH Transcript for December 26, 2017

Hosts: Helen Mann and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

HELEN MANN: Hello, I'm Helen Mann.

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

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight.

HM: He took seven bullets and may have saved at least as many lives. A Quebec City man is still struggling to recover after stepping forward to distract the shooter in last January's deadly mosque attack.

JD: Death violence and now disease. Canada's special envoy to Myanmar, Bob Rae, warns of what's to come for almost a million Rohingya who have fled the country as refugees.

HM: Damage control. An Ontario women's rights advocate makes a video about her years of being stalked by a former boyfriend who didn't relent. She's providing tips to help others.

JD: Cold piece of work. An Alaska-raised composer says it was climate change that sent him scrambling over melting glaciers to incorporate their sounds into his latest music piece.

HM: Knitting his vows. A catalogue of errors leaves a young fans swearing to his mother that he won't wear the enemy's team jersey in Roch Carrier’s reading of his classic The Hockey Sweater.

JD: And…Well hello there stranger. A team of Toronto scientists traces the roots of a rare Amazon bird to a romantic pairing between individuals of two different tropical species. As It Happens: The Tuesday edition. Radio where birds of a feather are free to flock with whomever they choose.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Mosque victim update, Rohingya report, Amazon interbreeding bird

Mosque victim update

Guest: Amira Elghawaby

JD: It has been almost a year since the shooting at a Quebec City mosque. Six men were killed that day, and the number could have been far higher if Aymen Derbali had not intervened. But the injuries that Mr. Dervali suffered while trying to protect others have changed his life. He's unable to walk and is living at a rehabilitation centre. Now a Muslim community group is raising money to help Mr. Derbali and his family once he is ready to be released. Amira Elghawaby is a volunteer with that campaign. We reached her in Toronto.

HM: Ms. Elghawaby, how is Aymen Derbali doing these days?

AMIRA ELGHAWABY: He's doing a lot better. It's been a long road to progress even though, you know, he has two bullets lodged in his spine from when the shooter was shooting indiscriminately at the worshippers, and he was shot seven times. You know, from that night where he was left in a coma for months and since then been receiving rehabilitation. You know, there's been huge progress, but of course, you know, it's still very, very difficult for him and his family.

HM: Remind us what happened to Mr. Divali that night in January?

AE: So he, along with many other worshippers, were gathered for evening prayers at the Quebec City's main mosque when the shooter entered the mosque and immediately started shooting. The worshippers, of course, started running. There were children in the room and Aymen, instead of running away, he actually turned to face the shooter. And it's been confirmed by eyewitness who was there and watched that from behind a pillar Aymen was trying, actually as he explained it, to distract the shooter, trying to actually get his attention so that he would focus on him instead of the others and he would give the others an opportunity to get away. It’s an incredible act of heroism that he that he showed and indeed was shot by the shooter seven times and fell into the coma.

HM: What did those survivors who described this think of what he did?

AE: Well the entire Quebec City Muslim community is thinking about Aymen all the time. They describe and relive what they endured that night. It's very present at the front of people's minds in that community. I was there recently speaking to people visiting the mosque where they still are receiving, sadly, hate messages. But Aymen, despite all the trauma they've been through, Aymen is really at the front of everyone’s thoughts, because nobody really knows what he's going to do once he's out of the rehab centre. He visits his home on the fourth-floor apartment where his wife and three children lived once a week or so and can only stay for the day because the doctors told him it's unsafe for you there's any type of emergency or whatnot, you won't be able to leave. And so it's critical that we help him find a home as soon as possible.

HM: Let's clarify why that is, why he can't visit that apartment. You mentioned seven bullet wounds, two bullets remaining in his spine. What is the long term, potentially permanent impact, this shooting has had on him?

AE: So he is permanently paralyzed pretty much from the chest down. He has some movement in his arms. When I first met with him he was only allowed to be in a stretcher. He hadn't been able to be moved into a wheelchair. Now he's been able to sit in a wheelchair, he can move the wheelchair now. The problem is, is that in the apartment building it's very there's only one elevator. Should there be a fire or whatnot, it would be impossible to evacuate him from the building. So the doctor has told him it's critical that you find a home that is accessible for your wheelchair or a stretcher if necessary. And so that's why he has not been able to stay overnight. He can only stay for limited time.

HM: What impact has this had on his wife and children not having him living with them, also just dealing with the long-term worries about the future?

AE: So Aymen, you know, he's 49-year-old man. He, you know, was really looking forward to a career as an I.T. specialist. He was very involved in the lives of his three children. All three of them are under the age of about eight years old, and he was so engaged in their lives. And his wife, of course, was very much also dependent on Aymen. And so when I visited them, you know, all I could see were creases of worry in their faces and sort of tears that were, you know, they were trying to keep holding back. But I know that there's a lot of worried anxiety, especially because now he can play such a limited role in sort of upbringing of his children. And of course the financial toll is immense because now they really don't know how they will, you know, survive and provide as they were previously.

HM: You mentioned this incredible outpouring you call it from Canadians who have learned about Mr. Derbali’s situation and want to help him with this new home. Tell us about that response, what have you been getting so far?

AE: It's been absolutely heartwarming, and it shouldn't be surprising. We are also in the holidays by coincidence. So many of us are thinking about all the blessings in our own lives. So when we launched this campaign, just about a week ago, after, you know, the DawaNet organization had met with community members who have been regularly going to the community to provide programming and support. And so when they were trying to understand how can we further support Aymen’s name kept coming up over and over again. So the crowd fundraiser was launched and then immediately within 24 hours 48 hours up until now, we just kept seeing donations coming in from across Canada, from even around the world. We're now at about over $150,000. And just, overnight even, since follow up and media articles we're seeing thousands and thousands of dollars being donated to help Aymen and his family.

HM: So how has Mr. Derbali responded to this support he's getting?

AE: Well, he's so touched, you know, in speaking with him in the past few days it's really restoring a lot of his confidence. But there was a sense of feeling a little bit alone for the family. They have been trying to get more support from, you know, officials and whatnot, and they have felt a little bit alone I think. So this campaign has demonstrated to them why they should, you know, remain strong in their belief that fellow Canadians won't let them down. We are going to recognize his heroism, what they've been through. So right now I think they're hopeful, they're looking forward to finding a home. They found one that may be the right one for them. It keeps them close to the mosque, where he is still very attached, where he loves to visit loved to see his friends and go every Friday with his wheelchair now to be among the very community he sacrificed his legs for and almost his life for.

HM: Well Ms. Elghawaby, thank you for talking to us and congratulations on how far you've come with this. I wish you great success in getting to the goal.

AE: Well, thank you so much. We look forward to receiving more support from fellow Canadians. Thank you.

HM: Good to talk to you. Bye.

AE: Bye, thank you.

JD: Amira Elghawaby is a volunteer with the non-profit organization DawaNet. We reached her in Toronto. And we have more on this story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Piano Ballad]

Rohingya report

Guest: Bob Rae

JD: He describes what he heard and what he saw as quote chilling and graphic. Now Canada's special envoy to Myanmar says that the international community must get involved in the Rohingya crisis. Former Liberal leader Bob Rae was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were forced to flee what the United Nations has described as a program of ethnic cleansing that began last summer. On Thursday Mr. Rae released his interim report on the situation after travelling to Bangladesh and Myanmar. We reached Bob Rae in Toronto.

HM: Bob Rae, what steps do you think that Canada and other nations should be taking right now to address this crisis that's facing the Rohingya?

BOB RAE: Well, I mean, so far I've really identified three big questions or three big issues. The first one is the condition of the camps, which is appalling, and which I fear is going to get worse because of the prospect of changed weather and the possibility of epidemics. The second big issue is, of course, the political situation in Myanmar itself. There are still a lot of people living in real vulnerability inside Myanmar, Rohingya a particular, but many other groups. And the political process doesn't seem to have moved as much as everybody had hoped several years ago when the generals yielded up some of, but not all of, their power. And the third issue, of course, is this issue of accountability and the principle of no impunity, which is now well established in international law. What we're going to have to do a better job of collecting evidence and making sure that we're going to be able to hold people responsible for what's clearly gone terribly wrong.

HM: You mentioned the camps to start with, I know you've visited there. Can you describe one more specifically what you saw there?

BR: Well there's over 600,000 people who've arrived in the last several months, and before that there were 300,000 who been there for a while. So there's about a million Rohingya refugees living in very, very cramped quarters and cramped spaces. It's a very hilly territory with most of the trees and shrubbery cut down used to build temporary shelters. So you've got people packed cheek by jowl, living in basically temporary shelters, and all of the traumatization that you would expect from people having to leave their homes so suddenly in such violence.

HM: You mentioned women, your interim report describes some of the specific trauma faced by women and girls that you met. Can you share with us some of the stories of what you heard?

BR: Pure and simple, people having their houses burnt and forced out of their homes and villages, and then being subjected to sexual violence. You have people being killed and you have people being raped. That is the allegation that is not just made to me, but has been made to a number of observers and investigators and witnesses.

HM: You said in this interim report that when you saw the words on paper you realised how inadequate they were to describe the pain and suffering of these people. What effect does that have on those who are or trying to help them, on people like you who visit them, to see these circumstances?

BR: Well, I mean I'm okay. I mean, I'm just a visitor, but the reality is that there are a lot of people volunteers and staff for UNICEF and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and a number of other volunteer agencies, who are living with this every day and it's tough. They have to be at least detached enough to be able to come back to work the next day. But I think for many of them it's extremely difficult.

HM: A lot of people have pointed to Aung San Suu Kyi for standing quietly through this, even seeming to dismiss some of the concerns that people have. There are those who are pressuring the Nobel committee perhaps to strip her over peace prize, some suggesting she could even be charged with war crimes. I know that you have met with her. How strongly did you challenge her about her government and how it's dealing with this crisis?

BR: Well, it's important to engage her on this issue, as well as the generals. I wasn't given the opportunity to meet with the generals but I was given the opportunity to meet with her. And in each moment that I've met with her it's an ongoing challenge to really engage. I don't think it's fair to say that she is somehow responsible, or that she ordered, I don't see any evidence of that. What I do see is somebody who is having real challenges dealing with the extent of the violence and the political and military conflict still continuing in her country. And she really doesn't have control of the key ministries that are in fact responsible for what's going on.

HM: I guess the thing is that she has been a useful tool for the Burmese military, a public face of what they're trying to present a fresh future for the country. Does it not perhaps find some kind of weapon to the international community to put her to account for this — to hold her to account?

BR: Well, I think that, I don't think there's any doubt that in the days going forward the international community is going to be engaging with her as well as with the military regime. It's a mistake to say that she is, you know, quote “the de facto leader of the country.” She is the state councilor and a government that is effectively run by the military. And I think it's time that people started talking about the generals and their responsibility. To focus exclusively on her, and to focus on her Nobel Prize and her Canadian honorary citizenship or whatever, really misses the point, that the people who are running that government on a day-to-day basis, in terms of the military issues, are in fact the military. And they are the ones who I think there has to be a focus and a concentration on the extent of their responsibility.

HM: You mentioned earlier the need for documentation. Do you believe that what you're seeing constitutes potential war crimes?

BR: Well, I think the way I would put it is this is, if what I have heard and what others heard and what others have alleged turns out to be the case and can be proven, then yes they are crimes against humanity. The use of rape as a tool of war, the abuse of civilians in the course of a conflict, these are all not supposed to happen and they're supposed to be things that people try and stop and try and prevent. But I'm very careful in my report, and I'm very careful in my thinking what I say is to say, it's one thing to say this is what this crime is all about. It's another thing to say and we know who committed it, and these are the people who we know exactly who are responsible. I think we still have a ways to go before we can take those steps.

HM: Now you're headed back in January, what are your goals for that visit to the region?

BR: Well, I'm hoping to be able to meet with more people inside Myanmar. And I'm hoping that I'll be able to reach some stronger conclusions, so that I'll also be able to make some clearer recommendations. And I'm hoping that that report will be completed sometime in February.

HM: All right well Mr. Rae, thank you very much for taking time to talk to us.

BR: Thank you so much. Good to talk to you too Helen.

HM: All right, good bye.

JD: Bob Rae is Canada's special envoy to Myanmar. We reached him in Toronto. And we have more on this story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Mellow Guitar & Bass]

Nova Scotia Power Outages

JD: Well, it may not have been a white Christmas for all Nova Scotians — it was unfortunately, a windy and a dark one for a lot of them. Severe wind storms swept across the province, blowing trees into power lines, snapping utility poles. Thousands of people are without power, and many may be shivering in the dark until Wednesday. CBC reporter Sheena Luck went down to Eastern Passage today to speak to Belinda Dixon and Jeff Matthews. They lost power partway through cooking their Christmas dinner.

SOUNDCLIP

BELINDA DIXON: The Christmas dinner was peanut butter and jam sandwiches

JEFF MATTHEWS: And chips.

BD: And chips.

SHEENA LUCK: And what was that like?

BD: Kind of bland for a Christmas dinner. No gravy or Turkey or mashed potatoes. Well, we were hoping it wouldn't last long, but unfortunately it has, so now we're at the point where we're kind of getting a little frustrated, because all of our goods are out on our back deck trying to stay cold or frozen. We’re probably going to lose everything soon. It hasn't been much at Christmas and we go back to work tomorrow, so.

JM: Last night was mainly just trying to keep everything together, make sure we didn't lose our deck or the fence or the shed, and tie everything down.

SL: What did it sound like last night?

JM: A train.

BD: It was scary. It really was scary. I really thought we were going to lose the deck and the shed. It was like a hurricane.

JM: Ex-Navy and I was in Hurricane Juan so that's more wind that's all.

SL: How does it compare to Juan?

JM: Not as bad as Juan. It was close.

BD: It was close, very close.

JD: That was Belinda Dixon and Jeff Matthews speaking to CBC Nova Scotia’s Sheena Luck. Thousands of people in Nova Scotia have been left without power after a severe windstorm yesterday.

[Music: Jazz Band]

Amazon interbreeding bird

Guest: Jason Weir

JD: Some hundreds-of-thousands of years ago there were some birds who strayed a little outside their flock looking for a little love. Now a team of Canadian scientists has found that from that interspecies love affair a new species of birds was born — something that rarely happens with birds. The bird in question is the rare golden-crowned manakin. It is found in the Amazon rain forest in Brazil. Jason Weir is a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. We reached him in Pickering.

HM: Professor Weir what does the golden-crowned manakin look like?

PROFESSOR JASON WEIR: So the golden-crowned manakin, it's basically green, it's got a yellow belly and it's got this nice golden colour on its crown, which is, of course, where it gets its name from.

HM: What was it about how it looks that made you think that this bird could be a product of hybridization?

JW: So it's got this unique crown colour that's different from other species and is genus. The other species in its genus tend to have white crowns or sort of iridescent whitish blue crowns. And this particular species is so rare that it was only ever seen when it was first discovered in 1957. Then it wasn't seen for another 50 years, until 2002 when it was rediscovered. So because it was so rare, a previous biologist had suggested that it probably represented a rare hybrid between the two parent species. So that was the first clue to us that maybe this is, you know, something more than just a good species, you know, it that may have had an interesting past due to hybridization.

HM: What did you need to do to go about proving your suspicion?

JW: So we had to get the genetics for these guys analyzed. So what we did is we went to Brazil on a series of expeditions and we obtained genetic samples. We looked at their DNA, and by looking at their DNA we found that the hybrid species indeed has — some of its DNA comes from one of the species one of the parent species and the other proportion of his DNA comes from the other parent species. So that genetic analysis is what confirms that it had a hybrid origin.

HM: Why would two birds have different species have made it in the first place?

JW: Well, these two species are capable of mating with each other in nature. We know this because we found an area where they come in contact with each other and in that area they do produce hybrids occasionally.

HM: So why does the golden-crowned manakin end up looking so different from its parents, at least in terms of its colouring?

JW: Yeah, that's what's so fascinating about this particular story, is that it looks completely different from his parents. Whereas one parent species has a snowy white crown, the other one has an iridescent whitish blue crown — it has a yellow crown. And so it turns out that the two parent species use structural mechanisms to produce the colours on the crown. So these are not pigment based colours they’re structural colours. The hybrids, and this hybrid species are exactly intermediate in their structural organization, compared to the two parent species. And by being intermediate they don't do a very good job of producing bright white and they don't do very good job of producing the iridescence of the other species. They're actually quite dull. And so what we think happened is, the females were not very attracted to the dull look of the males in their hybrid population and so they selected for the males to carotenoid pigments, which they get from their diet, and which are coloured yellow and to put those into their crowns is a way to make their crowns yellow and thus more attractive to the female.

HM: So I just want to clarify, when you say it's structural rather than pigment based, that’s because it's the way the light bounces off the feathers?

JW: That's right. So the two parent species have at the nanostructures, so we’re talking about looking with a transmission electron microscope at the insides of these feathers. The way the molecules in the insides of these feathers are organized, it produces the brilliant white colouration or produces the iridescent.

HM: So is the golden-crowned manakin now pretty much interbreeding only with its own species?

JW: As far as we know it only interbreeds with its own species. We would like to do additional tests, but what we do know, is that when we look at it genetically there's no chance of integration. In other words there's no hint of mating and of hybridisation with the two parent species.

HM: When you talk about hybridisation, the assumption is that the diversity is lost, I mean, you're blending the genetics, but what are your findings tell you?

JW: Yes, well typically hybridisation will cause, you know, the potential for two species to collapse back into a single species again, so you actually lose diversity. But in the case of hybrid species we get the exact opposite happen. So you get a hybrid population forming and it then becomes a distinct species — you actually have hybridisation producing diversity rather than eroding it away.

HM: How special is this?

JW: So like I say in animals we have, you know, we have a handful of cases potential hybrid species, some of which have been confirmed but we don't have that many. And in birds, for example, we have only maybe three or four other possible examples of hybrid species — so it's quite rare. Now it could be that it's much more common than we realize. You know, we're now in the era of genomics, where we can take and sequence large portions of the genome, which is what we did in this study. And genomics is very powerful at being able to detect past hybridisation events that led to this particular hybrid species.

HM: You mentioned traveling to the Amazon to acquire the genetics that you needed to study the bird. I know you went a couple of times and that there were some interesting challenges you faced. Can you share with us a little bit of what was involved?

JW: Sure. I have an absolute love-hate relationship with the Amazon. The Amazon is beautiful, the animals are amazing, the birds are incredible, the plants are incredible, but there's tons of parasites as well. And so we've had everything from bot flies festering in our skin. Absolutely terrible experience, I've had them on multiple trips to the Amazon. We get, you know, three-four hundred ticks a day on our bodies in a particular region where we find manakins. But we've also had incredible experiences with wildlife. So, for example, we've had two close encounters with jaguars, which all ended well for both us and the jaguar, of course. And we've had a very interesting case with an anaconda, where it got caught in one of our nets when we were trying to catch birds. So we’ve had some very interesting encounters with wildlife as well.

HM: Well, Professor Weir congratulations on all of this. Thank you for sharing it with us.

JW: My pleasure.

JD: Jason Weir is a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto, Scarborough and the senior author of a new study published in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. So I guess, you know what, why don't we go with his pronunciation of golden-crowned manakin. Tomato- tomahto — anyway we reached Professor Weir in Pickering.

[Music: Piano Ballad]

Sound Of The Day: Glacier Music

Matthew Burtner is a composer. He works at the University of Virginia but he grew up in Alaska, and that is where he says he saw the first effects of climate change. In a story on the news site Earther, Mr. burner wrote quote “That was already happening in the 80s and 90s, but what really killed me was going away for college and coming back and seeing how the changes had accelerated.” unquote. Well this month Mr. Burtner told the meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans, about a project that marries his work as a musician and a composer with his environmental concerns. He has made music with the help of glaciers. He collects audio from the ice fields and he modifies it, bunches sounds together and adds in some more traditional instruments to the compositions. And here is an example of Matthew Burtner’s work.

This is our sound of the day.

SOUNDCLIP

AMBIENT ELECTRONIC MUSIC

Part 2: Stalking video, Reading: The Hockey Sweater

Stalking video

Guest: Julie Lalonde

JD: Many powerful men have been brought down by allegations of sexual harassment and abuse this year. It has started a much-needed and long-awaited conversation on these issues. Julie Lalonde is hoping people will also begin talking about what she has experienced. She has created a video about stalking. She was stalked after a relationship ended. Here's a clip from her video.

SOUNDCLIP

JULIE LALONDE: Every time I moved he'd find out where I lived and I'd have to move again. People told me it was a coincidence. People told me he was just heartbroken. People told me his flowers and notes were grand gestures meant to get me back. “You should be flattered.” He stalked me for over a decade. In Canada this is called criminal harassment and women make up seventy-six per cent of victims and fifty-eight per cent of us are stalked by a former partner.

JD: That was some of a short video called ‘Outside Of The Shadows’, a project on criminal harassment in Canada. It was released recently by Julie Lalonde, that was her voice you just heard. and we reached Julie Lalonde in Ottawa.

HM: Ms. Lalonde we heard just a little bit of your story in that clip. Why did you want to tell people about your own experience with stalking now at this point in your life?

JULIE LALONDE: Since my abuser died it's now safe for me to talk about, and I think that's really important for folks to know, is that by nature criminal harassment, which is how it's referred to in Canada is more dangerous when you talk about it. And I'm now uniquely positioned, because I can talk about it safely because she's died. And so I really wanted to channel my 15 years of doing work to end violence against women and Canada into something that I know is grossly under discussed. And so I felt like OK I'm in this position where it's safe for me to tell my story. I know I'm speaking for a lot of people who are not in that position. And so I feel like it's my duty to do something.

HM: What was your connection to this man and when did the stalking start?

JL: So we were best friends in high school and then we started dating when I was around 18. Pretty quickly things went downhill. And so I left him shortly after I turned 20 and he was upset. He was heartbroken. He was obsessed with me, and he really kind of oscillated between being this really weepy ‘please-come-back-to-me’ person and this angry ‘if-I-can't-have-you-nobody-can’ person. And that went on for a decade — and it really only ended with his sudden death.

HM: So a decade of this kind of behaviour. What kinds of things did he do? What kind of things do you have to deal with over the course of that time?

JL: There is really nothing he didn't do. Quite frankly, I was harassed at my place of work. I was followed to and from school. He would leave notes and gifts and really disgusting things on my doorstep depending on what mood he was in. Every time I moved he'd find out where I lived. I’d have to move again. At one point he actually moved into the apartment across from mine and I woke up to him watching me sleep through the window. He harassed me online. He tried to hack into my various social media accounts. He really tried everything and anything, to either get me back, or insist that my life be ruined because I would go back to him.

HM: What effect was this having on you emotionally in terms of, you know, how you were conducting yourself day-to-day?

JL: It really was a day-to-day experience. And so how I felt about it really changed. I basically went from being hyper, hyper, hyper-vigilant all the time, to just being numb. And that's really what we know to be true, which is post-traumatic stress disorder, so you're hyper-vigilant all the time. Even now, if you and I were having this conversation in a coffee shop, I would be unaware of the fact that I'm constantly looking around, looking at people, constantly aware of my surroundings, knowing where the door is, knowing where my things are. And that's something I'm working really hard to undo. But it's low-level anxiety and panic all the time that you're dealing with.

HM: What about police? What about pursuing criminal action? Did you try anything in terms of contacting police trying to get some kind of recourse that way?

JL: Absolutely. So I called police within the first couple of days and I was asked actually by the 911 operator ‘did you break up with him or the other way around?’ I said ‘Of course I broke up with him.’ He was awful. That's why I left him.’ And I was told ‘oh, he's just heartbroken, he just needs a couple of days to cool down, you broke his heart.’ Eventually a police officer called him, then called me back and said ‘Oh he was crying. You know, he is obviously really sad. He just needs some time’ and then that officer hung up. And then my abuser called me and took a strip out of me saying ‘You're getting me in trouble, what's wrong with you? How could you do this to me?’ Several months later a detective finally followed up with me and told me that ‘I know this behaviour. I've seen these men before he will not stop until he kills you.’ And at that point I was truly the shell of a human being, this had been going on incessantly for months at that point and I feared that working with police would actually make it worse because, you know, and it's — so yeah of course. Now as, you know, a woman in my early 30s, who is well positioned, who has a lot of police contacts, who does this work, I think to myself ‘OK well, maybe I could’ve, should’ve, would’ve but I was 20 years old. I was terrified. I had no support. And for a police officer to say ‘He's not going to stop until he kills you.’ Well then where were you three months ago when I called you, like you’ve left me hanging on my own for three months. And so that's why now as an advocate I try to work with police to try to draw their attention to the fact that it doesn't matter if he's 19 years old. it doesn't matter if you think he's heartbroken. This woman is living in fear. And if you can't get back to her right away, get somebody to get back to her, to safety plan with her, so that her life is not ruined.

HM: What went through you when you learnt your stalker was dead?

JL: It was the most surreal moment of my entire life. I will forever remember standing on that bus stop in the sweltering heat. I had just finished doing a TV interview about sexual harassment in the military and I got this message from a friend who I knew from back home who thought I should hear it from her first before it starts blowing up on Facebook.

HM: How did he die?

JL: He died in a car accident. It sinks and bit by bit. And I know people, I've heard from people who they want kind of a clean ending right. They want ‘Julie suffered, and then he died and now everything's wrapped up in a bow and she's OK,’ and it's way more complicated than that.

HM: Well, you know, usually when someone we know as you say, from school or our past dies, there's some sense of sadness or regret. Did you feel relieved?

JL: I feel relieved from time to time but I'm sad. I never wanted him to die. His family doesn't have him anymore. His friends don't have him anymore, and that's sad. It's really sad and it's tragic, and it's sad that the only way it stopped was with his death. But that's the choice that he made. He created the conditions in which I have to be relieved that he's dead because it means that I can sleep with a little bit more peace in this world. And that's really sad.

HM: What do you want people to take away from the video?

JL: I wanted to create a video about feelings — which sounds so hokey — but we have no conversation about criminal harassment in Canada and I didn't want to sanitize it. I just wanted people to feel what it's like to live like that. I wanted to give people some tools. And so yeah, absolutely the video has tips that people can do if they're being targeted. And also some information for friends and family. How do you support them one who's going through something that is certainly making you feel helpless and how to create that community safety piece, that was really important for me and I'm really proud of what we created and I'm so grateful that the feedback has been an affirmation that I did something that people were looking for 1 that they wanted those feelings conveyed. They wanted those tips and that information.

HM: Well thank you for being willing to reveal all of this and I hope it helps in your own healing process. Thank you for talking to us.

JL: Thank you.

JD: That was Julie Lalonde. She was in Ottawa.

[Music: Melodic Electric Guitar Strums]

Reading: The Hockey Sweater

Guest: Roch Carrier

JD: A shopping catalogue, Hockey and the bitter rivalry between the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. I'm sure you have an idea what I'm getting at here. Roch Carrier’s beloved story based on his own childhood in Saint-Justin, Quebec. Here's Roch Carrier reading his story, The Hockey Sweater.

SOUNDCLIP

ROCH CARRIER: The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places – the school, the church, and the skating-rink, but our real life was on the skating-rink. Real battles were won on the skating-rink. Real strength appeared on the skating-rink. The real leaders showed themselves on the skating-rink. School was a sort of punishment. Parents always want to punish children and school is their most natural way of punishing us. However, school was also a quiet place where we could prepare for the next hockey game, lay out our next strategies. As for church, we found there the tranquillity of God: there we forgot school and dreamed about the next hockey game. Through our daydreams it might happen that we would recite a prayer: we would ask God to help us play as well as Maurice Richard.

We all wore the same uniform as he, the red, white, and blue uniform of the Montreal Canadiens, the best hockey team in the world; we all combed our hair in the same style as Maurice Richard, and to keep it in place we used a sort of glue – a great deal of glue. We laced our skates like Maurice Richard, we taped our sticks like Maurice Richard. We cut all his pictures out of the papers. Truly, we knew everything about him.

On the ice, when the referee blew his whistle the two teams would rush at the puck; we were five Maurice Richards taking it away from five other Maurice Richards; we were ten players, all of us wearing with the same blazing enthusiasm the uniform of the Montreal Canadiens. On our backs, we all wore the famous number 9.

One day, my Montreal Canadiens sweater had become too small; then it got torn and had holes in it.

My mother said: "If you wear that old sweater people are going to think we're poor!"

Then she did what she did whenever we needed new clothes. She started to leaf through the catalogue the Eaton company sent us in the mail every year. My mother was proud. She didn't want to buy our clothes at the general store; the only things that were good enough for us were the latest styles from Eaton's catalogue. My mother didn't like the order forms included with the catalogue; they were written in English and she didn't understand a word of it. To order my hockey sweater, she did as she usually did; she took out her writing paper and wrote in her gentle schoolteacher's hand:

"Cher Monsieur Eaton, Would you be kind enough to send me a Canadiens sweater for my son who is ten years old and a little too tall for his age and Docteur Robitaille thinks he's a little too thin? I'm sending you three dollars and please send me what's left if there's anything left. I hope your wrapping will be better than last time."

Monsieur Eaton was quick to answer my mother's letter. Two weeks later we received the sweater. That day I had one of the greatest disappointments of my life! I would even say that on that day I experienced a very great sorrow. Instead of the red, white, and blue Montreal Canadiens sweater, Monsieur Eaton had sent us a blue and white sweater with a maple leaf on the front - the sweater of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I'd always worn the red, white, and blue Montreal Canadiens sweater; all my friends wore the red, white, and blue sweater; never had anyone in my village ever worn the Toronto sweater, never had we even seen a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater. Besides, the Toronto team was regularly trounced by the triumphant Canadiens. With tears in my eyes, I found the strength to say:

"I'll never wear that uniform."

"My boy, first you're going to try it on! If you make up your mind about things before you try, my boy, you won't go very far in this life."

My mother had pulled the blue and white Toronto Maple Leafs sweater over my shoulders and already my arms were inside the sleeves. She pulled the sweater down and carefully smoothed all the creases in the abominable maple leaf on which, right in the middle of my chest, were written the words "Toronto Maple Leafs". I wept.

"I'll never wear it."

"Why not? This sweater fits you ... like a glove."

"Maurice Richard would never put it on his back."

"You aren't Maurice Richard. Anyway, it isn't what's on your back that counts, it's what you've got inside your head."

“You'll never put it in my head to wear a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater."

My mother sighed in despair and explained to me: "if you don't keep this sweater which fits you perfectly I'll have to write Monsieur Eaton and explain that you don't want to wear the Toronto sweater. Monsieur Eaton's an Anglais; he'll be insulted because he likes the Maple Leafs. And if he's insulted do you think he'll be in a hurry to answer us? Spring will be here and you won't have played a single game, just because you didn't want to wear that perfectly nice blue sweater."

So I was obliged to wear the Maple Leafs sweater. When I arrived on the rink, all the Maurice Richards in red, white, and blue came up, one by one, to take a look. When the referee blew his whistle I went to take my usual position. The coach came and warned me I'd be better to stay on the forward line. A few minutes later the second line was called; I jumped onto the ice. The Maple Leafs sweater weighed on my shoulders like a mountain. The coach came and told me to wait; he'd need me later, on defence. By the third period I still hadn't played; one of the defence-men was hit in the nose with a stick and it was bleeding. I jumped on the ice: my moment had come! The referee blew his whistle; he gave me a penalty. He claimed I'd jumped on the ice when there were already five players. That was too much! It was unfair! It was persecution! It was because of my blue sweater! I struck my stick against the ice so hard it broke. Relieved, I bent down to pick up the debris. As I straightened up I saw the young vicar, on skates, before me.

"My child," he said, "just because you're wearing a new Toronto Maple Leafs sweater unlike the others, it doesn't mean you're going to make the laws around here. A proper young man doesn't lose his temper. Now take off your skates and go to the church and ask God to forgive you.

Wearing my Maple Leafs sweater I went to the church, where I prayed to God; I asked him to send, as quickly as possible, moths that would eat up my Toronto Maple Leafs sweater.

JD: That was of course Roch Carrier reading his story, The Hockey Sweater. And if you would like to listen again or share it, it is on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih. That is where you will find all our holiday readings.

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December 26, 2017 episode transcript

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