'Not a dry eye in the house': Carol Off's most emotional interviews
Off, who is stepping down as host of As It Happens, says some interviews bring her to tears in the studio
Some interviews stick with Carol Off long after she hangs up the phone.
During her 16 years as the host of CBC Radio's As It Happens, Off has spoken with many people swept up in major news events. Some survived something horrific. Some lost someone they loved. And some stepped up to help in a moment of crisis.
"People who have been in the studio with me have known that my face is streaming with tears, but I'm still focused on the person I'm speaking with," Off said.
"It's their story. They're the ones telling it. And I'm just the one that's channelling that for them, and giving them that space to do it."
Off is stepping down as the host of As It Happens on Feb. 28. Here is a look back at some of her most emotional interviews.
The woman who comforted a dying soldier
The last thing Cpl. Nathan Cirillo likely heard before he died was the voice of Barbara Winters telling him he was good, brave and loved.
The 24-year-old corporal was serving as ceremonial guard at the National War Memorial on Parliament Hill in 2014 when a gunman opened fire, striking him twice in the back.
Winters, a former naval reservist with experience as a medical assistant, was passing by.
"Others were fleeing when they heard those shots. You returned. What was that instinct?" Off asked Winters.
"I think it's human nature to run toward somebody to help them," Winters replied.
Watch: An animation of Barbara Winters' encounter with Cpl. Nathan Cirillo:
Winters joined a group of bystanders performing CPR on Cirillo, and she held his hand and spoke to him as he lay bleeding at the statue's base.
"I told him he was loved and that he was brave and that he was a good man," Winters said.
Winters sobbed as she told the story, and Off checked in to make sure she had someone nearby to support her when the interview ended.
"Barbara, you did a remarkable thing in all respects," Off told her. "I think everyone listening to this would be so proud of you. I can't imagine anyone who doesn't want to hug you right now."
The Syrian refugee who survived war and found a new home
Ever since Reham Abazid arrived in Canada on Jan. 30, 2016, she's been trying to give back to the country that has become her home.
"Home means safe, means love, but I can't find right now anything in Syria like I find it here in Canada," Abazid told Off in March 2021, 10 years after the war in Syria began.
She said the Syrian regime bombed her house in Daara while she was inside and eight months pregnant with twins. She survived and delivered a baby girl by emergency C-section. But her son didn't make it.
Soldiers showed up in the hospital and tried to coerce her into signing a document that absolved the Syrian government of the child's death, she said.
She refused, fled the hospital, and soon after, her country.
Now, Abazid and her family live in Saint John, N.B., where she taught herself English and got a job with the YMCA. She and her husband have since had another daughter, and Abazid hopes to one day open a convenience store.
"I am so happy to have you in this country," Off told Abazid. "I'm so sorry for the reasons why you had to leave. But you say at the beginning that you wish you could give back to Canada what they've given you. I think you are."
A Canadian Olympian and her devoted mother
Canadian Olympian Perdita Felicien and her mother, Cathy Felicien Browne, shared an unexpectedly intimate moment during an interview with Off in March 2021.
Felicien, a hurdler-turned-sports broadcaster, had written a memoir that paid tribute to all the obstacles her mother had overcome — immigrating to a new country, cooking and cleaning for exploitative Canadian families, and fleeing an abusive marriage.
Off asked the women to revisit the biggest moment — and greatest upset — of Felicien's athletic career.
It was the 2004 Athens Olympics, and Felicien was widely expected to win gold in the 100-metre hurdles. But in the final event, she caught her foot on the first hurdle and fell.
Her mom, watching at home, says she felt powerless. While describing that feeling for Off, she admitted something.
"I blame myself, and I never told Perdita," Felicien Browne said. "I told her, 'Come out strong' … and that's why this happened and I blame myself."
"I know you do, Mom," Felicien interjected. "I know you blame yourself. Don't."
Felicien said that when she called her mother after her fall, Felicien Browne told her: "Don't shed no tears. You are the gold."
"To this day, that gives me comfort," Felicien said.
Off was moved by the two women.
"The two of you have crossed so many hurdles, much bigger hurdles than that one that your foot hooked on," Off said
"So I just want to say that I find both of you just remarkable in spirit and strength."
The teacher who collected 1 million bread tags in her student's memory
It took 22 years for New Brunswick teacher Susan Weaver to answer her Grade 4 student R.J. Vail's question: "What does a million look like?
Weaver suggested they collect one million of something and find out for themselves. They landed on bread tags. But by the time the school year had ended, they weren't anywhere close to their goal.
So they kept collecting. As the years went on, and R.J. grew, he would periodically send her bags of tags.
Then, in 2006, R.J. was killed in a car accident at the age of 16.
"I realized how much more important the promise was to keep. And so each year I started talking to my students about R.J. and about my promise to him," Weaver told Off.
Over the years, she and her students filled jars of tags, many of them mailed in from supporters across the country.
In February 2020, the class received a particularly large bundle, and it included something the kids hadn't seen before — a black tag. They saw it as a sign that they were nearing one million.
The kids diligently counted the tags, saving the black tag for last. "When that millionth one came, they were just stunned by it. And I knew R.J. would just be giggling out loud," Weaver said.
Off repeated R.J's original question to Weaver: "What does a million look like?
"A million looks like forty-four-and-one-half 20L blue water cooler bottles filled to the gunnels. It looks like people all over Canada smiling about little bits of plastic. And it looks like his mom and his sister crying that we made it this far," Weaver said.
"And it looks like R.J. smiling at you," Off said.
The man who forgave his son's killer
Canadian musician Peter Katz was driving in his car in the summer of 2006 when he heard an interview on As it Happens that stopped him short.
Michael Berg was asked to react to the news that the al-Qaeda militant believed to have murdered his son had been killed in a U.S. airstrike.
"My reaction was a human reaction of sadness at the death of any fellow human being. And there were people that loved him and there are people that are now suffering the same pain that my family and I have suffered. And I cannot, and I will not, ever, justify revenge because that would justify my son's death," Berg said.
Katz was so moved that he wrote a song in Berg's honour called Forgiveness.
He reached out to Berg to share what he'd written, and the two started writing back and forth. They finally met in person when Berg attended one of Katz' shows.
Twelve years after Berg's original interview, in 2018, the two men joined Off in the As It Happens studio for an emotional reunion.
Berg told Off that he'd gotten a lot of flak after his CBC interview. Katz's song, he said, was a welcome reprieve.
"It just overcame me," he said. "It still does every time I hear it."
Katz performed his song for Off and Berg in the As It Happens studio.
"I don't know what to say," a visibly moved Berg said afterwards.
Katz said to Berg: "When I heard your voice on the radio that day, I just, I felt like you were one of the bravest people that I have ever heard, and it's been such a pleasure to get to know you and call you my friend."
Berg replied: "You gave me hope for the human race because … your reaction has to be the most positive reaction I ever got to anything I said. And you did it with such emotion and love."
Off declared: "It's fair to say there is not a dry eye in the house here."
Tune in to Off's last show as host of CBC Radio's As It Happens on Monday, Feb. 28, at 6:30 p.m. (7 p.m. in Newfoundland) on CBC Radio 1, or stream it on CBC Listen.
