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The AIH Transcript for February 28, 2018

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

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

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight…

CO: Rebel with a lot of cows. Jeff Peters fought back when the Harper government closed Canada's prison farms. So he's over the moon that the Liberals are reopening them and he'll supply some of the cattle.

JD: Instant lawsuit, just add water. When a tiny Quebec village passed a bylaw protecting its private wells from the effects of drilling by an oil company, the company sued for a million bucks. Today, the village won.

CO: Famous last words. Three days after a Slovak journalist was murdered his final story was published setting off a corruption scandal. And tonight I'll speak with the Canadian journalist who helped bring the story to light.

CO: Fuchsia tense. Fancy pants criminals across the country have a problem because they're the only ones using Canada's pink 1,000 dollar bills and the Government's about to strip them of a legal tender status.

CO: The total package-less-ness. With garbage turning the world into a landfill, a Dutch supermarket chain introduces an aisle this completely free of plastic so humanity won't dump to its conclusion.

JD: And…Giving us a pizza of his mind. Remembering the inventor of the Pizza Pop, which turned the unwieldy pie into a hand-held dough envelope and turned the toppings into ‘insidings’. As It Happens: The Wednesday Edition. Radio that guesses he changed snacking singlehandedly — unless you ate two at once.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Budget: Prison Farms, Slovak Journalist, Plastic Free Aisle,

Budget: Prison Farms

Guest: Jeff Peters

JD: It isn't the biggest item in yesterday's federal budget, but the four million dollar commitment to reopen federal prison farms is very big news for Jeff Peters. Mr. Peters helped lead the protests when the Harper government announced it would be closing the farms close to a decade ago. And when that wasn't getting him arrested he would walk around with Stormy a donkey who became a mascot for the people who joined the fight to save the farms. Stormy sadly is now deceased, but we did reach Jeff Peters on his farm outside Kingston.

CO: Jeff are you sorry that stormy isn't about for this victory?

JEFF PETERS: Wow, that's the one thing that's missing and I've thought about Stormy a whole lot the last day and if he was around he would definitely get some attention and a big apple today. But he kept —when he wore the sign ‘Don't give up’ boy, it really meant something coming from Stormy.

CO: And it's actually paid off now and I just want to take us back to when these prison farms were closed by then conservative Public Security Minister Vic Toews he said at the time that the farms quote “they weren't training individuals for anything useful.”

[CHUCKLES]

JP: I've never forgotten that line, you know, and it's been something that has kept me, you know, after nine years you start to wear down a bit. But whenever I think of ever throwing in the towel that line comes back to me. And you can't criticise somebodies profession and get away with it, especially when it's farming, you know. And I'm enjoyed to think that when he hears the news eating crow is not the nicest thing to eat for supper but that's what he's getting now.

CO: From your point of view of what you saw and what you learned what was the value to inmates who were on those farms?

JP: It was hard to explain, you know, because you haven't been in that situation yourself. But when an inmate comes out of the institution and I friends with two especially, inmates that had been on the prison farm that helped us in the campaign, they called it the miracle farm. They credit the farm for turning their life around and they're both productive members of our society and there's absolutely no chance of them going back to prison.

CO: But the argument that that Minister Toews gave at the time was that they were learning no useful skill, that you trained someone in welding they come out as a welder, a carpenter knows how to use a hammer afterwards. What skills, what life skills did they come out with?

JP: They didn't understand what the term transferable skills are. They're not going to be bank managers these guys, they're going to work in construction mostly, you know. And that's where a farm and a construction job are almost identical. You're working with a team of people, you're taking instructions, you gotta be there five minutes before you're supposed to be. And those are the skills that are going to make it for these guys, and the farm was a place where they could ask for help in a sort of a non-threatening way that the farm managers were not typically guards, okay. They had a little more respect in the eyes of inmates because they were there to actually help them in their path to reintegrate into society. The money, that was the other excuse, they would never show us the figures. John Sargent, head of CORCAN in 2010, told us in an open meeting the dairy farm on the Collins Bay land produced a profit for the government. So it wasn't about money it was more an idea that the farm was too nice of a vision for inmates. They’d rather see them, at that time, under lock and key.

CO: I just want to give a bit of history for people because we've done several stories as all this was going on, and this is the century old farm Frontenac Institution. And you mentioned the herd of cows, these are dairy cows bred for their docility over the past 100 years, award-winning herd of cows but they also produced milk and eggs, 15 prisons in the area and local food banks getting food from that plus it turned a profit. So those cows, for one thing, that was one of the stories we covered when the cows were herded off and sold and gone. So can you get that cattle back?

JP: When they sold the cows — now a few of us were sitting in jail when they had the auction — but there was an idea to buy some of the cows, we had no plans we would ever do with them although most of us are farmers. But the idea to preserve a nucleus of that original herd that was spawned in the courtroom during our bail conditions. So we bought for the day of our bail hearings and then two weeks later when the vet wouldn't allow some of the very, very young ones and the cows that just gave birth to travel that far, they had to be put up for auction and we bought all we could then. And now we have in the low 30s, one is having a baby today. If it has a heifer it's definitely going to be called Victory. So we have a beautiful group of animals.

CO: And you mentioned them being and their bail conditions and being in jail, which is the irony that so many of you were arrested. Why were people so passionate about it, why did it matter so much?

JP: Good question. You know, it's a group of people that have this social conscience, you know. They don't want to give up on somebody that made a mistake. Now we're not all con-lovers but many are in there because of problems that can be solved, you know, addictions and anger problems. And the cows were the key to getting these guys getting their heads back together. So we have a small herd, they are definitely going to have to get some more cows, but we know where there's lots of cows, and this herd is definitely eager to go back to prison. And it's a victory for all those people that came out, you know. There have been people standing by the road by the prison farm every Monday night for the last eight years — and they didn't miss a Monday night.

CO: And what will it mean to those people when you herd those cows to take them back to jail?

JP: We've got a small victory in hand but the celebrations are going to come when they go back and when we're going to let the cows graze on the front lawn for a little while.

CO: Jeff, it's a pleasure to speak with you and I really appreciate this story, it's quite something.

JP: Okay, you're welcome. Thank you for your time.

CO: Bye.

JP: Bye-bye.

Jeff Peters was on his farm outside Kingston, Ontario.

[Music: Upbeat Banjo]

Slovak Journalist

Guest: Tom Nicholson

JD: Jan Kuciak’s final story has been published. On Sunday, the Slovak journalist and his fiance Martina Kusnirova were found dead in their home. Each had a single gunshot wound. Police believe the murders are connected to Mr. Kuciak’s reporting. Today, the headline on his last article read “Italian mafia in Slovakia. Tentacles reaching out to politics.” The story details corruption and fraud reaching all the way to the office of the Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. Tom Nicholson is a Canadian journalist. He recently returned to Canada after living in Slovakia. He collaborated with Mr. Kuciak on his final story. We reached Mr. Nicholson in Ladysmith, British Columbia.

CO: Tom, what was it like to read and see Jan's story published today?

TOM NICHOLSON: It was, I guess, bittersweet you would call it because there was so fine reporting in it but it's clear that the story was unfinished because Jan lost his life before he could complete the job.

CO: What was the story? What was the connection that Jan Kuciak was making between the Italian Mafia and the Slovak government?

TN: What he was doing he was tracing the antecedents of some Italian nationals who have been located in Slovakia for at least ten years and in the east of the country and have been doing business there with Euro funds, which are transfers from European Union countries to poor countries to bring them up to speed economically. And what he was showing was that these Italians have family connections and direct connections to the Ndrangheta organized crime group in Italy. And that, in fact, not only were receiving some enormous largess from these Euro funds in Slovakia but that the ringleader Nino Vadalà had actually formed companies and done business specifically with two people in the prime minister's office. One young lady, a former beauty contestant whom the prime minister himself elevated to the position of a senior adviser in 2015, and another man who was the head of security council in the prime minister's office. These were fairly close political relatives of the prime minister himself.

CO: And these these two people are very close to the prime minister and he found a direct link between them and this Italian Mafia.

TN: That's correct. Yeah. There's a specific link was that they had formed companies together. So they formed businesses and operated businesses together. But also, you know, this is Italian’s Facebook page was full of endorsements of the ruling party, pictures of him with his arm around the shoulders and thumbs up with members of the ruling party and so on. So it's it wasn't just a pair of otherwise interesting links. It seemed to be part of a pattern.

CO: How are you involved in this story?

TN: I had started reporting on the same guy, this Nino Vadalà, back in 2015. And the problem I had was I was unable to make those links to the Italian mafia. I mean, those are the suspicions but it was never possible to confirm it. And what Jan did was to take the story to the next level, which was to work with an international loose association of investigative journalists and to get the goods — to get the birthdates and the court records from Italy and make a definitive connection.

CO: Which he did.

TN: Which he did, yes.

CO: Did he ever speak about fearing for his life?

TN: No, he didn't. I mean, he graduated from university five years ago and that was the first time he wrote me because at the time I had just been fired from my job for reporting on a scandal against the wishes of my employer. And he said that — it was kind of encouraging mail — saying I love the reporting and it really confirms for me that I'm in the right job because I really want to do something meaningful and that's, in fact, what he ended up doing. Very quickly, within five years he established himself as a very gifted and conscientious reporter.

CO: He wasn't — it was also his fiance Martina Kusnirova killed at the same time. And the police are definitely linking this to Mr. Kuciak’s reporting. So what's been the reaction in Slovakia as far as you can tell?

TN: As far as I can tell almost a universal disgust and not quite a losing of hope, but it's definitely a seminal moment because, you know, corruption has been, for a long time, has been sort of an organizing principle in Slovak of politics with oligarchs controlling public funds through their political representatives. But this is something different. This is, not only organized crime directly connected to the Prime Minister's office, but also really a heart wrenching murder of a young couple who were just about to get married. And honestly, you know, they were just children.

CO: There is a photo that, to say the least, is an awkward moment of the prime minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, who is announcing that that there is a reward of 1 million euros for any information to lead to catching the people responsible for killing the journalist, the pile of money sitting on the table. At the same time this story is about his office, about people close to him. So what do you make of that? Is this a bit of a bit of an irony?

TN: It's a stunningly tone deaf reaction. On the one hand, yes it does show that he has this dawning awareness that this is something that's really going to be politically difficult to overcome. But on the other hand it's just cartoonish and comical and absurd and just low. I don't know, I mean, I think everybody normal at least, just shook their head and said ‘My God what are we doing?’

CO: Have we heard anything from the two people in his office, the woman in the man, who are tied according to Jan’s article to the Italian mafia?

TN: Yes, yesterday the prime minister was warning people not to report names because the innocent will be injured by this. And today the Ms. Troskova and Mr. Jasaň left their jobs and said they will be gone until the conclusion of the investigation. But, you know, it's not going to end there. The culture minister resigned saying he couldn't continue to serve in the wake of this event. And okay the culture minister may not be an earth shattering move, but he is one of the founders of the prime minister’s party so it's more significant than it appears on the on the outside.

CO: We'll be following this story. Tom, I appreciate speaking with you, thank you.

TN: Thank you very much. Goodnight.

JD: Tom Nicholson is a Canadian journalist who worked in Slovakia for 26 years. We reached him in Ladysmith, British Columbia. We have more on the story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Sombre Piano]

Plastic Free Aisle

Guest: Sian Sutherland

JD: You know the world has a very, very serious problem with plastic when sanitary products and bottles are found littering the Arctic. Now obviously this problem is the product of a lot of products and that is why one Dutch supermarket thought it was a productive idea to introduce something new — an entire aisle of plastic free products — in one of its Amsterdam stores. And that, believe it or not, is apparently a world first. Sian Sutherland is the co-founder of a group a Plastic Planet, that worked with the supermarket to make the transition. We reached Ms. Sutherland in Amsterdam.

CO: Ms. Sutherland this aisle opened today, how are shoppers reacting?

SIAN SUTHERLAND: The Dutch shoppers feel very lucky and very excited because here’s the first nation really in the world that has the opportunity to they have to buy food and drink without all this excess plastic packaging now.

CO: And what is actually being sold? Tell us what the goods are in this aisle?

SS: There’s a huge variety, I mean, there’s 700 different products. So everything that you need, you’ve got your fresh meat, your fresh fruit and vegetables all conveniently packaged. You've also got rice, chocolate, snacks, tea and coffee, eggs, flour — everything that you’re going to need.

CO: This is still packaged food, so what are the packages that are being used?

SS: That's really important. We had three criteria and that was that it had to be something that is viable for supermarkets but also viable and affordable for the customer because customers don’t want to pay more. They want to pay the same price they just don’t want the plastic. It has to be scalable, so Mom and Pop type stores that are going packaging free — wonderful initiative — however they’re not scalable for supermarkets. And then finally it had to be convenient. We are time-poor nowadays and we want to shop conveniently. For me, that means I just want to grab and go. You know, I don't have time to remember if I’ve brought all my bags and everything that I might possibly need. It's so much better that everything is packaged. So our plastic free aisle is not packaging free, it’s just plastic free.

CO: What are these packages made of then?

SS: So, many of them here you’ll know and recognize, of course there’s metal and glass and card, but there's also a whole range of bio materials, which are made using plant-based starches, wood pulp, even food waste. You know, you can, make a palette for your tomatoes out of the stems and leaves of that tomato plant. That’s the kind of new technology, it’s really advancing. What’s exciting is that what Ekoplaza’s are proving today is that we don’t need a new kind of plastic, there’s so many materials out there already which are bio materials that then can compost down and replenish our soil so that we can keep growing more food.

CO: But there's still single use packages here, I mean, you're using glass, you're using the tinfoil metals and even paper has to be recycled. So this is the line, though you’re saying that customers are not going to go beyond this?

SS: I think there is nothing wrong with recycling. There is nothing wrong with using materials that are highly recycled. I think what we want to get away from is the myth of that word recyclable, that you'll see many things, many plastic things that will have the word recyclable on them. Does that mean they're actually recycled? Now we know it doesn’t. Now we know that only nine per cent of the 6.3 billion tonnes of plastic that have been made since the 50s — all of this plastic waste still exists somewhere on our planet. Only nine per cent of it is actually being recycled.

CO: These packaged, the compostable ones, are you going to pass on the cost of the extra packaging to the to the customers, or are you going to absorb it?

SS: No Erik Does, the CEO of Ekoplaza, is very determined that everything that he is doing here is affordable. If there is a slight incremental extra cost that he is having to pay to do the right thing with his packaging, he's not passing that onto his customers.

CO: So if this kind of packaging is affordable and available, why just one aisle in one supermarket? Why is not the shift away from these plastics, which we all know are so difficult to recycle, why is it so difficult to do?

SS: I think somebody has to do it first, and that's what we're seeing today is that Ekoplaza here in Amsterdam they're doing it first and they’re going to lead the way. And our call-out to U.K. supermarkets to European supermarkets, really, to the world's supermarkets, is to come to Amsterdam and let’s learn how to fast track out of this plastic pollution crisis that we've all created together.

CO: You said this is the one aisle in the supermarket. Why not all the aisles? Why can't you make the shift with all the products in the store?

SS: One day that will be the case but when we launched our campaign, Plastic Planet, 12 months ago we thought ‘OK let's try to be a little bit reasonable’ and let’s not ask the supermarket to give us an entire plastic supermarket on day one, let’s just ask for an aisle. Just one aisle that we can push our trolleys down. And it's extraordinary that after 12 months of campaigning that there is an awful lot of words and very little action. Today is a very exciting day for us. Somebody has stepped up to the plate and said we're going to be first. And their goal is that they will roll this plastic free aisle into every one of their 74 supermarkets across Holland.

CO: But you're doing that as a matter of choice. I mean, this is a this is a consumer choice they can buy this kind of packaging or not. Isn't that the issue is that if it's going to be done at the level of the consumer that it will never really change? That there shouldn't be a choice. Don't you think that at some point it should be that it's imposed on stores and consumers to change their habits?

SS: Yes, many supermarket bosses have said we would love to be legislated into this because then it's a have-to-do not somehow I’ve got to find a reason to justify this to my shareholders. So I think in time legislation will come but legislation takes too long. We know what we are doing to the planet. So we have to take action today.

CO: Was this sold to the shareholders and to the board as a good marketing strategy that this is actually good for business to make this shift?

SS: I think Ekoplaza are really proving that doing good is better than just making money. And their success as a store group has really proven by bringing really good quality food at an affordable price to the whole of Holland that people are ready for this. Doing good doesn't need to cost the earth. And that's what we're proving here is sometimes you could do the right thing and you can also be successful.

CO: We will leave it there. I think people have interesting things to say about this. Ms. Sutherland, thank you.

SS: Thank you so much. We're really, really glad to be covered in Canada.

CO: Bye-bye.

SS: Bye-bye.

JD: Sian Sutherland is the co-founder of the group a Plastic Planet. We reached her in Amsterdam. And if you would like to see what this new plastic free aisle looks like, we've got pictures. Go to our website.

[Music: 90’s Pop]

Discontinued ‘Pinkies’

JD: Two gangsters with briefcases meet in a parking garage. ‘You got the stuff?’ the first one says. ‘Yeah,’ says the second one. ‘You got the Pinkies?’ ‘Yeah,’ says the first one, ‘I got the Pinkies.’ It seems typically Canadian somehow that our thousand dollar bill was pink and featured a pair of friendly seeming Pine Grosbeaks on the back. Also typically Canadian sticking an ‘i-e’on the end. I mean, in the U.S. criminals get to call a thousand bucks a grand or a stack, here criminals have to snarl and over pinkies. Now I keep referring to criminals because, really, it was mostly crooks who traded Canada's pink thousand dollar bills and that was why the Bank of Canada stopped making them back in 2000. Now that doesn't mean they're not still in use, it is estimated that 735 million bucks worth of pinkies are still floating around out there. Now though, whatever gangsters are stuck with those stacks are about to lose the use of their pinkies because in yesterday's budget the federal government said it would be requesting the power to strip legal tender status from discontinued bills. That includes the two dollar bill, the briefly produced twenty-five and five-hundred dollar bills and the one thousand dollar bill. Now that doesn't mean that all those old bills will lose their value completely. It just means that you're going to have to take them to the bank or send them to the Bank of Canada which criminals don't want to do. So all those Pinkie's that they have been hoarding and trading are about to be pretty much worthless — just a bunch of pink white elephants. So for anyone with those thousand dollar bills get ready for the grand finale. And the bad mood that will follow.

Part 2: Quebec Town Water, Pizza Pop Inventor Obit

Quebec Town Water

Guest: François Boulay

JD: Oil and water don't mix. Nor do oil drilling and drinking water — at least not according to the village of Ristigouche-Sud-Est on Quebecs Gaspé Peninsula. And that was the central issue in a fight the village was having with the oil and gas company Gastem. The company got some permits for exploratory drilling around Ristigouche and so the village passed a bylaw to prevent drilling and protect its private wells. And then four years ago the company sued the village. Well today, the village won in court. François Boulay is the mayor of Ristigouche-Sud-Est. We reached him in a parking lot in Ristigouche-Sud-Est.

CO: Mayor Boulay, how are you feeling about this win in court?

MAYOR FRANCOIS BOULAY: How sweet it is. Yes, utterly fantastic. It's a great day for us.

CO: Why do you think the judge ruled in favour of you and against this oil and gas company?

FB: Her decision is quite clear. You know, the right for a municipality to protect its drinking water sources as is recognized in her decision. You know Gastem may not have undertaken the legal process in the best way they could have. However, several statements in her decision basically confirm and she alludes to the competencies of municipalities. She mentions the princes principle of precaution and the principle of subsidiarity, a principle by which the local governments are the ones in a better position to protect environment, she states that. The icing on this decision is that she's ordered Gastem to reimburse us 50 per cent or legal costs plus another amount which totals in all $164,000. So yeah, it's a sweet decision for us and I'm very, very happy. Four years of uncertainty, many emotions, frustrations. The elders of our community were, you know, you had this this weight, this silent oppression atmosphere throughout the municipality. I’m so happy for them and for everybody today, it's fantastic.

CO: And just because I'm hearing the emotion in your voice and that’s what I was going to ask you about is that I mean, this must have given you stomach cramps because it wasn't just that if you lost that they would be able to proceed with this drilling, but that it would have cost your town a huge amount of money, a bankrupt-able amount of money. What has it been like for you over these over this court case as you waited to find out if you were going to be successful?

FB: Well Carol, one thing's for sure, is the length of time that we've had to mull over things and realize and think about the fact that, first of all, the amount that was against us was unattainable, we knew that. So in the long term a decision against us would have bankrupt up. There is no way, no absolute way for us to cover such a bill. But in the short term, and going back four years ago, the gist of the challenge was to amass sufficient dollars to even defend ourselves and reach the full trial. So, you know, this crowdsourcing campaign we launched back in July 2014, you know, I often wondered how we were going to thank everybody for all the donations because we did reach our financial objective. This victory today, this decision belongs to everyone that helped us over the four years.

CO: You must have had sleepless nights?

FB: Well, you know, it grinds you a bit. It was quite an experience. It may not be over, we still have to —we're going to sit, we’re going to wait 30 days. Gastem still may decide to appeal so in 30 days from now we'll know more. There's been so much effort to deal with the collective agony in the municipality as to what would eventually — how it would fan out. So, you know, a happy day for us or for municipalities this decision is solid. The judge in her decision makes several statements that alludes to the fact that municipalities have that right, have a duty to protect the environment. So all municipalities, you know, get a copy of the decision and read it carefully because it may become handy in the future battles to better protect your citizens environment.

CO: A lot of municipalities were worried that if you lost it would set a precedent in the other direction and companies would be able to say OK we are the ones who have the rights here.

FB: That's right. If there ever was a two-edged sword or decision I mean, either way tremendous impact. Were we to have lost, the chill that would have gone through all municipal councils across this country. The big threat to municipal democracy of this decision is that if we had lost, this meant this, that before any municipal council would even think of adopting any kind of bylaw where there was a risk of whomever this bylaw would render unhappy, unsatisfied would be risking a lawsuit in damage and interest, would basically come in and, not shattered, but shaken the democracy of the municipal council to legislate for items such as the protection of the environment or the well-being of their citizens —a great day for municipalities.

CO: How are you going to celebrate?

FB: The day is not over but I don't know I'm just going to sit down and be content and let it sink in. It's been a long battle.

CO: Well maybe you would ever have mixed that good water from your town.

[LAUGHTER]

FB: Absolutely. A great idea.

CO: Mayor Boulay, it's good to talk to you. Thank you.

FB: Thank you.

CO: Bye-bye.

JD: Francois Brulay is the mayor of Ristigouche-Sud-Est, Quebec. Today his village won in court to protect its own water wells. We reached Mayor Boulay in Ristigouche.

[Music: Ambient Tones]

Dateline China

JD: Dateline China.

[Music: Dateline Theme]

JD: They are numb and nauseated but they can't use a certain letter to notify their neighbours of this noxious negativity. And that letter is the letter ‘N.’ Recently Chinese communist notables announced the news that the nation's president would no longer be narrowly required to serve only two five-year terms in office. Now Xi Jinping could be president forever — to which numerous Chinese netizens are saying nope. Nevertheless the leaders will not be nitpicked or needled. To neutralize criticism this week they’re negating certain normal natural elements of online conversation. They're censoring search terms like shameless, personality, cult and disagree and they've really nonplus the naysayers by making one particular letter an online, no-no. And that letter is ‘N.’ That seems nightmarish but also nonsensical — it's not. Chinese netizens have long been censored for using codes to criticize their leaders. For example, when authorities noticed that nonbelievers were comparing President Xi to Winnie the Pooh they censored online searches for that nice character. It's not noble but the authorities are nervous about non-compliance. Now as for the ‘N’ Victor Mair, an expert on China from the University of Pennsylvania, writes quote “This is probably out of fear on the part of the government that ‘N’ equals ‘N’ terms in office where possibly ‘N’ is greater than 2.” unquote. That's confusing but a neat example of how involved the coded language has to be so you don't get nabbed nailed for negative nuance. There's always been censorship in China but now the authorities have taken it to the nth degree and without ‘N’ you can’t make noise you're left with them nothing — actually less than nothing.

[Music: 90’s Rock]

Stoneman Douglas Shooting Update

JD: Students returned to class today Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida — two weeks after former student murdered 17 people there. They attended for a half day with counselors in the classrooms. Some young people weren't ready to go back. Gabe Glassman is a student journalist who did return to school today. He has produced a report for NPR about his experience. Here's a bit of it.

SOUNDCLIP

ALEX WIND: This is definitely part of coping not necessarily grieving.

GABE GLASSMAN: That's my friend Alex Wind, we're in theater together. But now he's more famous for his activism. He helped start the Never Again movement after texting with friends.

AW: As much as we're doing all these interviews and doing all this stuff, we're still kids and we were in that school.

GG: My neighbour across the street, Amanda Edwards, was in the freshman building where the shooting took place. She's been more private since then and finding comfort in writing and her piano.

SOUNDCLIP

PIANO MUSIC

GG: Her close friend Carmen Schentrup was killed. She still vividly remembers seeing her in the hallway a few days before everything happened.

AMANDA EDWARDS: I remember coming out and seeing her. And, you know, she kind of slowed down a little because she saw me and she said, you know, hi and I said hi. And remember saying goodbye and that was the last time I saw her — at least alive.

GG: Amanda says a lot of her friends don't plan on going back to school, at least on the first day it’s back open. I get it. I was anxious to go back even for a few hours. They let us come back and get her stuff. When the shooting happened so many of us ran out without our phones and our backpacks. I actually felt relief getting everything back. I recorded the moment on my dad's phone. And I’m so happy everything's here my phone, my wallet my computer. Everything may change tomorrow when we go back to school. I don't know if I'll stay this involved. On a personal level, all this political activity is helping me cope. Without all the activism going around the community I'd still be in the background sitting in bed. some moments are easier than others and it's hard to explain to people who haven't gone through this. I talked to my friend Sawyer Garrity about that. What would you say now to another teenager who's feeling numb?

SAWYER GARRITY: Someone who hasn't experienced this? It doesn't feel like it could ever happen to you until it does, it still doesn't feel real even if it does happen to you.

GG: I don't know what it will feel like tomorrow back at school. It might be good that we'll be busy all day and back together. But I know it will be hard just a walk on campus. For NPR News I'm Gabe Glassman.

JD: That was part of a documentary produced for NPR by Gabe Glassman a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Mr. Glassman has also written quote “This is my life now. If I'm not at home I'm in counseling, speaking at a rally or visiting memorials in the park. Activism is a way to cope, not necessarily to grieve.”

[Music: Uplifting Melody]

Pizza Pop Inventor Obit

Guest: Phil Faraci

JD: If you have or ever have had or have ever been a teenager and you live in Canada chances are you know Pizza Pops are. Even if you have never tried them you have seen them in the freezer section of any Canadian grocery store, Pillsbury Doughboy on the box giggling, beckoning you to buy some. But before the Doughboy showed up there was a guy named Paul Faraci. Mr. Faraci was the Winnipeg businessman who invented the Pizza Pop. He died earlier this month. He was 89 years old. Phil Faraci is his nephew. We reached that Mr. Faraci in Winnipeg.

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

PHIL FARACI: Thank you.

CO: Your Uncle Paul is getting a lot of reaction, isn't he. I mean, some of the Facebook and Twitter responses since we heard of his death is “One of the greatest Winnipeggers has passed away.” “The inventor of pizza perhaps deserves my undying respect and love.” Another person said “I'm devastated. this is more important news than the federal budget.” What do you make of that?

PF: I'm proud of the fact that people remember — since they found out that they actually are paying tribute to them. That was my thing. I posted a few things, I just wanted people to remember to know that Pizza Pop was invented by him and they were invented in Winnipeg. A lot of people did not know they were invented in Winnipeg.

CO: Yeah, because they what they know is this mass produced thing in the freezer section of the store called The Pillsbury Pizza Pop. But this came from your uncle, he was the one who invented it. What was — can you describe his version and what it tasted like and what was it like?

PF: His version was a flakier crust, more spices to it, there seemed to be more meat in it, the pepperoni — it just had a better taste to it, I feel. And from what you've said online and when people are posting a lot of people agree with me. Not saying Pizza Pops are bad now, it's just I think ours are a little better.

CO: Well it sounds like they are quite loaded and they weren't put in the microwave as you do with the frozen version. How did he cook them? When he first started off he was selling them to restaurants, bars, drive-ins, community clubs and they were sold frozen uncooked and then the establishment would deep-fry them and serve them hot. When he got into production they started to deep-fry them and then freeze them, so similar to what they are now, and you could put them in the oven or you could put them in a microwave that they were better in the oven.

CO: And how well known were their Pizza Pops that your uncle was making in Winnipeg? Were lots of people going to get them directly from your uncle?

PF: In the beginning, yes. When you started selling them to the grocery store they were selling quite well, it was one of the hottest products the grocery stores had in the market.

CO: And then how did they end up in the hands of Pillsbury?

PF: My uncle had two partners with him. He wanted to expand a little they didn't want to. They came to an agreement and he ended up selling his share.

CO: What did he want to do with the Pizza Pops?

PF: He wanted more products, like he had Chili Pops, had a bunch of different flavours he wanted to come out with. His partners at the time did not want to. He wanted to expand and grow the business. He then sold to them and then I don't know the timeframe later, but they ended up selling it to Pillsbury.

CO: And so who made the biggest chunk of change from all of that?

PF: Not my uncle.

CO: How did you feel about that?

PF: He was hurt by it. You know, he always wanted to have it back in the family, you know, he felt bad that he ended up selling it and he always wanted the family to create it again, which is why he always in talks with my son Anthony, who has food business, Faraci Foods, and always trying to get him to maybe start making them and so on. So who knows, maybe they'll start up again.

CO: But he invented the Pizza Pop, it was his design.

PF: His design, his name.

CO: And then Pillsbury bought it and he didn't get much from that.

PF: He did not sell it to Pillsbury, he sold it to his partners and his partners ended up selling up to Pillsbury.

CO: Now at least invented it, did he get any pleasure out of knowing that at least this thing that people were buying all over the place actually came from him?

PF: He was very proud and as we were too. He would see them at grocery store or on TV, you know, and say ‘Yeah that's my product’ and then it would be ‘I wish it still wasn't my product.’ You know, he was proud of the fact that he invented that.

CO: And people, some of the other people make that. Someone wrote ‘multiple tongue burns but Pizza Pops were a big part of my life. Do you remember that? I mean, if you bit into it, it was hot, right?

PF: Well yeah, especially when they were deep fried fresh and given to you. It's like you would just munch into it and they would just burn your tongue — but they were so good.

CO: Piping hot with cheese bombs someone said.

PF: It's just amazing, like I'm so pleased that people are remembering that and commenting on it. He would have loved to hear all these, which I'm sure up there he is listening and I'm loving it as well.

CO: We covered just last year there was the death of Sam Panopoulos who is a Greek born Canadian businessman who invented the Hawaiian pizza and we had a huge response. People were just — all these memories people had of Hawaiian pizza not knowing it was a Canadian invention. What is it with Canadian food inventors and pizza?

PF: You know, I guess a lot of immigrants come to Canada and we're all — the Italians, the Greeks the Ukrainians — they’re all proud of what their family recipes and just want to make a go of it.

CO: Well your uncle sure did and Phil it’s great to talk to you thanks.

PF: Thanks, I appreciate the call.

CO: All right. Bye-bye.

PF: Bye-bye.

JD: That was Phil Faraci speaking about his uncle Paul Faraci, the inventor of the Pizza Pop. We reached Phil Faraci in Winnipeg.

[Music: Country]

Barbara Streisand Clone Dogs

JD: Unquestionably, it is fair to say that Barbra Streisand is a dog person. However, she is almost exclusively a dog person though. Now unlike other wealthy dog lovers she didn't do something clichéd like having her beloved dead pet turned into a diamond. Ms. Streisand immortalized her 14-year-old Coton de Tulears Samantha by getting her cloned — twice. She told Variety magazine that cells were taken from Samantha's mouth and stomach to create Miss Scarlet and Miss Violet, who were named for the colours she dressed them in to tell them apart. Now while waiting for their birth — by a surrogate obviously — Ms. Streisand said she unexpectedly became besotted with a distant relation of Samantha who she then adopted and named Miss Fanny. That is a reference to Fanny Brice, of course, whom Ms. Streisand played in the 1968 musical Funny Girl which launched her career. Now it is unclear whether Samantha, the original dog, was a lapdog in life but in death it does seem like she is on her third lap — so far.

ATM Samaritan Update

JD: It all began last year at an ATM machine in Toronto. A Toronto housing special constable left some money at the machine by mistake. Danny MacKillop, a man who was experiencing homelessness and was addicted to drugs saw the money, he did not keep the money. He grabbed it and ran after the constable and returned it. You may remember hearing this story on our program earlier this month. The officer posted about the act of kindness online. Eventually Mr. MacKillop’s mum Mary, in Cape Breton, saw the post. She hadn't seen Danny in eight years but after seeing that post Mary MacKillop headed to Toronto to find her son and she found him. And now Danny MacKillop is in Vancouver at a drug treatment centre. Here's what he told the CBC about seeing his mom after so many years.

SOUNDCLIP

DANNY MACKILLOP: Just Oh, my god. I didn't know what to think, like I just knew as soon as I seen her that, you know, I was just going to go with her and everything will be alright, you know, that’s my mom — my mom's my safety.

NORMA JEAN MACPHEE: At what point did you know you wanted to make that decision to go into rehab?

DM: Well, to be honest with you, I've known — like I've been homeless on the street for 10 years — and I've been saying for the longest time that I needed help, that my life was unmanageable and I just, I cannot get there myself, you know. So I've seen some online posts and whatever and Daniel offering help and everything but I just I couldn't get there myself. And then once I seen my mom, you know, I knew that that's where, you know, I can't do myself, but together we can.

NJM: And when you were traveling to Vancouver there, from Toronto to Vancouver, obviously it probably wasn't not the easiest time. What was that like?

DM: Yeah, it was awful. I was I was coming down off of hard drugs, you know, it was just awful. I was sitting on the back of a bus. Luckily I had three seats on the back of the greyhound and I just tried to sleep and lay down just irritable, restless but I managed to pull through and then I made it to Calgary for Wayne Binder to pick me up from there. He drove me here to Calgary or Vancouver.

NJM: Wayne Binder I understand is a childhood friend of yours?

DM: Yeah, yeah. In my teens he had a snooker table in his barn and everything. We just we grew up with Wayne and that's where we would go play and hang out, you know.

NJM: So he's got your back and I understand there's another friend who has started a GoFundMe campaign?

DM: Yeah. Todd McDougall, yes gotta love him. And he's actually one of the people I've hurt along the way and for him to be doing this for me is unbelievable. And not just him like the messages I'm getting is overwhelming, you know. I'm feeling all these different emotions like one in particular is remorse I'm feeling, you know, for all these things that I've done to people. Everyone that knows me I've hurt in some way or done something to them, you know. And then to wake up each day and have all these words of encouragement from them, it’s baffling. It just shows that Cape Breton, you know, people care. I was raised — my mom you know instilled some good values in me, I mean, but over the years I've gotten away from them in my addiction. Now I'm starting to feel like I have purpose, you know, I was walk around like zombie in my addiction for so long.

JD: That was Danny MacKillop speaking with the CBC's Norma Jean McPhee about his recovery at a drug treatment centre in British Columbia.

[Music: Banjo]

Part 3: Trudeau India, Retracted Researcher,

Trudeau India

Guest: Vishnu Prakash

JD: Not only is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau facing heat from politicians here in Canada, he's now facing it from the government of India. This week, the Prime Minister stood by a theory that factions within the government of India set out to influence or to sabotage his recent trip to India by keeping a convicted attempted murderer, Jaspal Atwal, on the guest list for a Canadian event. Now that theory has not gone over well with India's government which reacted with a strong statement today. It also is not going over well with conservative party leader Andrew Scheer. Here's part of his exchange with the Prime Minister in Question Period today.

SOUNDCLIP

ANDREW SCHEER: Now the Prime Minister's incompetence has severely damaged Canada's relations with the world's largest democracy and an emerging power in Asia. Will the Prime Minister finally do the right thing and produce some kind of proof of his conspiracy theory?

[APPLAUSE]

PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU: It seems these Harper Conservatives never learn. For ten years they’ve spent their time disrespecting public servants, using them for partisan games and making sure that their partisan aims were always front and centre in everything they did.

JD: Vishnu Prakash is the former high commissioner of India to Canada. We reached him in New Delhi.

CO: Mr. Prakash, you heard how frustrated and how heated things are in Ottawa. What's the state with the Indian government tonight? How are they reacting to Canada's prime minister and his statements about that visit?

VISHNU PRAKASH: Well the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs has already said that the accusations are baseless and unacceptable. I endorse that, I find the insinuation preposterous and unfortunate. In fact they are bizarre.

CO: Just to reiterate for people, what apparently happened was that national security adviser to Mr. Trudeau, Daniel Jean, he gave a briefing to reporters in which he said that the real reason why this man, Mr. Atwal, ended up being invited was because there are factions within the Indian government who are trying to sabotage the relationship between our Prime Minister and your Prime Minister Narendra Modi to try and keep them from becoming too friendly. That's the theory behind it. What do you make of that?

VP: The invitation was conceived by a Canadian member of parliament from Vancouver, he recommended it to the Canadian High Commissioner in New Delhi. The Canadian High Commissioner issues the invitation. Once the gentleman was seen in Mumbai with Ms. Sophie Trudeau the red flags went up not in India but in Canada. As soon as I know it was the CBC News which first spotted it and took it up with the Canadian prime minister's office. Now given the sequence, I would really be interested in knowing where have the so-called Indian rogue elements come in. Frankly, it reminds me of a Harry Potter movie. Under the Indian so-called rogue intelligence agency could have cast especially on the gentlemen question through pure black magic. I don't see that happening.

CO: I just want to repeat some of what you said in case people missed it about this preposterous allegation as you call it. And you compare it to — it's like being in a Harry Potter movie where someone has as cast a spell and created these rogue elements — and that's the only way you can explain why they would have ended up with this conspiracy theory.

VP: I’d be very happy if somebody can prove me wrong and come up with an alternative explanation.

CO: This man, this Daniel Jean, apparently quite respected security adviser. He's a civil servant. He's not with the political part of the government and I'm just wondering if there isn't — if there is possibly any truth that there would be people within the Indian government who would be concerned about Canada and Mr. Trudeau's politics regarding Sikh separatist? That has been an issue before, that's something that has come up before, isn't it?

VP: Practically everybody in India is concerned at this particular aspect of Canadian politics, where Canadian political parties and leaders across the political spectrum mollycoddle the handful of Khalistani element. Canada is now the only country in the world which allows the Khalistani element to function on its soil.

CO: When you referred to Khalistani elements, Khalistan movement is a Sikh separatist movement that has been quite violent. There are Sikh separatists who are against the violence but there have been extreme examples of it in Canada. The murder of a journalist, the attempted murder of a cabinet minister from India and that was leading to this man Jaspal Atwal, who was invited to this dinner with the prime minister last week. So that's what you're referring to when the concerns about the tolerance of Khalistan, is that right?

VP: Let us also recall that a conspiracy was hatched on the soil of Canada in 1985 to plant explosives on and Air India flight, which killed more than 320 people — most of whom are Canadian nationals.

CO: Given that, given the strong feeling within India and within the government is it not possible, as this this Canadian divisors said that there are those who would be very concerned with seeing Prime Minister Trudeau and your Prime Minister Narendra Modi getting too close? That they would like to drive a wedge. I mean isn't that the basis of this conspiracy theory, there might be some truth to it now?

VP: That's precisely the reason that, over the years, we have been taking up this matter with our Canadian friends, the Canadian government. And that is why when your national security adviser came to India and discussed the matter with Indian national security advisor on the 14th of February, before the visit of Trudeau, the two sides agree that they will work together towards combating violent extremism and counter-terrorism.

CO: You just mentioned this meeting that took place, is this is this national security adviser, Daniel Jean, was he the man who met with India's national security adviser?

VP: That is correct.

CO: Was Mr. Atwal’s name brought up? Were there any discussions about making sure that this man who was visiting India would not attend?

VP: I wasn’t part of the discussion but this was held on the 14th of February and Mr. Atwal showed up on the scene on the 20^th of February. So obviously six days before that particular event nobody could have visualized it.

CO: If there was a meeting why was there no warning that this man might attempt to attend or be in the country?

VP: Who would give such a warning?

CO: Well, your own national security adviser who is trying to help Daniel Jean.

VP: How would the Indian side know that certain person is being invited when we have no access to the list?

CO: I'm just wondering if Mr. Jean, Daniel Jean got his idea that there were factions who were trying to prevent this relationship — that he may have got that information from that meeting.

VP: I cannot read the mind of Mr. Daniel Jean. I can only talk of what is plausible and I will be very interested in somebody coming up with a plausible explanation or proof before hurling such baseless and preposterous allegation at a friendly democratic country.

CO: Mr. Prakash, I appreciate speaking with you, thank you.

VP: The pleasure is all mine, God bless. Bye-bye.

JD: Vishnu Prakash is the former high commissioner of India to Canada. We reached him in New Delhi.

[Music: Ambient Bass Tones]

Bloc Quebecois Exodus

JD: It's not me, it's you. Today seven members of the 10 member Bloc Quebecois announced that they were breaking up with their party, specifically with its leader Martine Ouellet, who they say is an authoritarian and a bad strategist. And they're already in a rebound relationship with a brand new party, their own party called the Groupe Parlementaire Quebecois or the GPQ. One of the seven is Rhéal Fortin. This morning he spoke with CBC News Net’s Andrew Nichols.

SOUNDCLIP

RHEAL FORTIN: There's a clash, Mr Nichols, a big clash between our vision of our job as MPs in Parliament and the vision of Ms. Ouellet. We are all independent, we all believe that independence is important for Quebec. So after seeing that the question is how we will do that, what's our job. You know, I feel like being on a rink as a hockey team. If everybody want to do play left-wing there will be a lot of plays for the adversary on the rink. That's not what we want.

ANDREW NICHOLS: So tell me what it is about Madame Ouellet? Tell me what it is about her that made you and six other MPs feel that you could no longer be in the Bloc Quebecois under her leadership?

RF: The way Ms. Ouellet sees our job it's like being salesman for sovereignty and repeating day after day that Quebec should be independent, Quebec should be independent. I believe Québec should be independent but I don't believe that saying that day after day will make people believe the same, you know.

JD: That was former Bloc Quebecois MP Rhéal Fortin. His House of Commons web page now says that he is a member of the GPQ, The Groupe Parlementaire Quebecois — roughly translated, the Quebecois Parliamentary Group.

[Music: Indie Rock]

Retracted Researcher

Guest:

JD: When it comes to food science Cornell University's Brian Wansink was a celebrity. His research always made headlines largely because it dealt with what your soup says about your personality or how Elmo stickers could help 8-year-olds choose apples over cookies. Just nifty simple easily digested stories. Except that those stories turn out to be indigestible because over the years Professor Wansink has been forced to make corrections to much of his research — or retract it entirely. Thirteen corrections, six retractions, so far — the most recent just this week. And the latest oops came one day after an investigation by BuzzFeed science reporter Stephanie Lee into Professor Wansink’s research. We're going to speak with Ms. Lee in a moment. First though, here is Brian Wansink himself, back in 2000 when he was still a research darling, speaking to former As It Happens host Mary Lou Finlay about that soup personality study.

SOUNDCLIP

PROFESSOR BRIAN WANSINK: Well, you know, what we ended up doing is we looked at the six most favourite soups across the nation and ended up as a statistical process for you that we were actually testing and we used soup as the context in which to do this. And we also found that if you end up looking at people who like tomato soup tend to be very much kind of homebodies but an odd thing that they’ve got going for them is are very pet-oriented, very animal-oriented. So even if they don't have a pet they’re much more likely to say that they like pets more than the person next door. They also tend to be a little bit more spiritual, which, you know, they tend to go to church or at least they thought in that way for a while compared to some of the soup lovers.

MARY LOU FINLAY: Tomato soup lovers are spiritual.

BW: Yeah. Some of the other things we find, these things that have been really systematic across large groups of people. If you find somebody who really, really strong lover of a particular type of soup there's about a 70 per cent likelihood that they're going to have an awful lot of traits in common if you were to get all those people in a big room together.

JD: That was Brian Wansink from Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab speaking with Mary Lou Finlay on this program in the year 2000. We reached BuzzFeed science reporter Stephanie Lee in San Francisco.

CO: Ms. Lee first of all, how did Brian Wansink become a food science celebrity?

STEPHANIE LEE: You may have read about Brian's work in the New York Times or seen him on The Today Show or The Rachael Ray Show. He is an expert in food marketing. You may have heard that some of his advice, like if he put a meal on a smaller plate versus a bigger plate you are less likely to overeat because your eyes will see the small plate and think that you're fuller faster.

CO: But now once again another retraction issued for his research. What did he retract this week?

SL: This week. So Brian has, over the last year, retracted six studies. And the most recent one on Monday was about how to get kids to eat more vegetables in schools. The study, which was published several years ago, said that if you gave vegetables catchy names like x-ray vision carrots, kids would be more likely to choose more vegetables to eat at lunchtime and then to eat them because they'd be attracted by the catchy name. The paper originally said it was done in 8 to 11-year-old elementary school students and that turned out to be done in preschoolers between the ages of 3 and 5. And after several months of back and forth the journal decided to withdraw it entirely on Monday.

CO: You also discovered, by studying his e-mails, that he has it appears that he was trying to manipulate the results. What did you find?

SL: By obtaining correspondence between Brian and his coauthors going back about eight years, they have aggressively sliced and diced experimental data to try to get the results that they wanted to find — doing studies on food behaviour, eating behavior and then trying to massage the results to come to the conclusion that they wanted. And often it was with the explicit goal of getting media coverage and finding a result that would make headlines.

CO: Some of them — I’m going to quote from some. “I have attached some initial results of the kids study in this message. Do not despair. It looks like stickers on fruit may work with a little bit more wizardry.”

SL: That is from Colin Payne, who is one of Dr. Wansink’s longtime collaborators. He's at New Mexico State University and what that e-mail suggests, according to independent experts who I showed these emails to and talk to them about it, it sounds like he wanted a certain link, a strong correlation between putting stickers on apples the stickers being of Elmo from Sesame Street, and the theory being that the stickers could entice children to choose apples instead of cookies at lunchtime. So he seems to be expressing disappointment in this e-mail about the results not quite as strong as he wants it to be they eventually get there because the study showing that finding was published a couple of years after that e-mail.

CO: What results did he come up with?

SL: Well, he said that the point of the study was how can we get elementary schools and up to not be told you must have healthy food for lunch but how do we entice them to choose it on their own and exercise free will and say yes all I'm going to have a healthy snack instead of the of junk food. The paper said that, you know, they did this experiment they put on the Elmo stickers and they said that the kids did choose more apples when they had stickers on them over the cookies. But more than five years after that paper came out it turned out that their study was not done on 8 to 11-year-olds like they said in the original paper it was actually done on preschoolers ages 3 to 5. Very similar to the paper that retracted this week, it gets a little hard to keep them all straight. But that paper ended up getting retracted not once, but twice.

CO: The argument that they give back is that well okay there may have been a few problems, may have been some sloppy work, may have been some of these factors may not be what we said they were but the results would be the same, that the actual conclusions are solid. What do you say to that?

SL: Independent experts that I interviewed for this say that that's just not an acceptable excuse. Maybe if it happens a couple of times but today Dr. Wansink has retracted six papers. He's had 13 others that have been corrected and the breadth of the errors suggest that it's more than just a miscalculation here and there — it’s starting to add up to an overall picture of can we really trust anything that's coming from this lab.

CO: The idea that you can say that calling carrots x-ray carrots and kids eat them and put that on the menu or to put Elmo stickers on fruit and the kids will eat the apples. You could see that this is the sort of stuff that will be reported and shared and turn up in all kinds of food sections of newspapers and magazines, it’s very appealing isn't it.

SL: It is, it's very intuitive. And the important thing to note is that the corrections and retractions don't mean that these strategies don't work necessarily, it just means that there's not evidence for them which is the distinction. And I think what the story hopefully illustrates is that there's a whole system that is kind of like a backwards reward system for incentivizing publishing in Science. Scientists like Dr. Wansink seem to feel that, you know, they have to publish a lot of work in order to get funding in order to get promoted in order to go on talk shows. But universities play a role in this too, when they decide who they are promoting or funding institutions decide who to give money to or journalists decide to cover. I think everybody involved in the system needs to take a hard look at what behaviours they're rewarding from scientists.

CO: We will leave it there. Stephanie, thank you.

SL: Thank you.

JD: Stephanie Lee is a science reporter with BuzzFeed News. We reached her in San Francisco.

[Music: Oboes]

Brexit Update

JD: Since the UK voted to leave the European Union more than a year ago we've done a number of stories on the state of Brexit negotiations. And in pretty much every story that state of negotiations has bordered on chaos, in a word. Now back in December you may remember when the issue of the Irish border threatened to derail talks. And at that time Prime Minister Theresa May promised there would be no hard border between Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. That line in the sand has become a bit blurry because today the European Union released its draft legal agreement on Brexit and on the topic of that border it presents what is being described as a backstop plan. The proposal would see Northern Ireland effectively remain part of the Union. And that suggestion has some Brexit supporters upset. Prime Minister Theresa May was asked about this in the House of Commons today. Here's a clip.

SPEAKER: Will the Prime Minister confirm that she will never agree to any borders between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom?

PRIME MINISTER THERESA MAY: What can I say to the honourable gentleman that we continue to stand behind all the commitments that we made in December and my negotiating team will work with the commission to agree how they should be translated into legal form in the withdrawal agreement. But he's right, the draft legal text the Commission has published would include if implemented undermine the U.K. Common Market and threaten constitutional integrity in the U.K. by creating a customs and the border down the Irish Sea. And no U.K. Prime Minister could ever agree to it. I will be making it crystal clear to that we will never do so. We are committed to ensuring that we see no hard border Northern Ireland and Ireland. But the December text also made clear that there should continue to be trde between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdo as there is today.

JD: That was British prime minister Theresa May speaking today in the British House of Commons. After that draft legal agreement was released The EU's chief negotiator held a press conference. And here is how Michel Barnier responded, through a translator, when asked by a BBC reporter if he was trying to quote “provoke” the UK with this draft.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHEL BARNIER: I am familiar with the British political situation. In respect to that political situation we’re not here to give lessons to anybody. We have complicated political situations in the 28 member states of the European Union. I'm not trying to provoke, not trying to create any shock waves. I want these negotiations to be a success but it is my responsibility to recall that it is the UK which decided unilaterally to leave the EU on the basis of the outcome of a referendum. And the UK unilaterally, through a letter from Theresa May, initiated these negotiations. In March the UK established a date for leaving the Union two years after that ledger and we’re 13 months off that — date 13 months. I'm not trying to provoke anybody here and contrary to what I've read there's no arrogance here. I’m I'm not being arrogant in any way. I have immense respect for the UK, for its history, its culture for its leaders, for its citizens. And I’ve said since the very outset that I regret personally, I regret this decision to leave the EU but I have been given this task by President Yunker, by the 27 governments, by the parliament. I have been asked to lead these negotiations and ensure their success. And I said on the very first day here in this very room that nobody should underestimate the human, social, legal, economic, the financial consequences of these negotiations. We've got 43 years of integration and relations between the UK and the EU have to be unraveled here.

JD: That was EMU's chief negotiator on Brexit Michel Barnier speaking through a translator earlier today in Brussels.

February 28, 2018 episode transcript

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