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The AIH Transcript for November 18, 2024

For more episodes of this podcast, please click this link.

NIL KÖKSAL: Hello, I'm Nil Köksal.

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

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

NK: Walking the walk. With a Haka in Parliament and now a thousand kilometre march across New Zealand. People are protesting a controversial bill that threatens Maori rights and a Maori MP says his people are clearly not taking it sitting down.

CH: Mass exodus. A new social media platform, explodes in popularity as users abandon the site, formerly known as Twitter, for the site currently known as Bluesky.

NK: The Way of the Dodo. Decades after it was last seen, the slender-billed curlew has been declared extinct, making it the first bird from the European mainland to die out in hundreds of years.

CH: You couldn't accuse him of missing the big picture. A Nigerian artist travelled across his country and then drew an enormous drawing to celebrate it. When I say enormous, I mean it is the biggest drawing ever made by one person.

NK: An apology long overdue. Ottawa will finally compensate Inuit for slaughtering their dogs and destroying a way of life decades ago.

CH: And extremely down time. A rock band performs at an Ontario mine 24 hundred metres below sea level, which is deeply impressive and also just deep. As It Happens, the Monday edition. Radio that assumes all the songs are in a miner key.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Maori Bill Protest, Bluesky User Explosion, Underground Concert

Maori Bill Protest

Guest: Teanau Tuiono

SOUNDCLIP

Group of Maori doing Haka during a march.

CH: This is the sound of Maori doing the Haka during a march across New Zealand. Not in celebration but in protest. The national march, known as a Hikoi, is a response to a proposed law that would change New Zealand's founding treaty with the Maori people, a law that critics say would strip Maori of their rights. The controversial bill is not expected to pass, but it's still causing unprecedented scenes across the country and in Parliament. As you may have heard on the show last week during the bill's first reading, a Maori MP tore a copy of the legislation in half and performed a Haka with other MPs and members of the public joining in. For the last nine days. Thousands of people have marched over a thousand kilometres, culminating in their arrival today in the capital of Wellington. Teanau Tuiono has been taking part in the Hikoi. He's Maori and a member of Parliament with the Green Party. We reached him in Wellington just before he joined the march to Parliament.

NK: Teanau, for those of us who can't be there. Can you describe what the energy is like?

TEANAU TUIONO: The energy has been, it's been building and it's been awesome. And throughout this Hikoi I was at the beginning of it, I was at Rerenga Wairua, which is right up at the top of top of the country. So it's a real meaningful place for us as Maori, as indigenous people here, as [inaudible]. The departing place of the spirits. And as we were chanting, as the chants are going out right across the bay, the mist lifted and the [inaudible] rose. And so I knew it was going to be a, it's going to be a good Hikoi. I looked around, I could see people from my iwi, from my First Nations. Saw some of the cousins up on the, run around on their horses, we were just all in a good place for this Hikoi.

NK: Connection and community. Right off the bat, it sounds like.

TT: Yeah, yeah. Totally. Connection, community right off the bat. Different nations coming together. Yeah, unite to oppose this government.

NK: And how long have you walked? How far have you been able to walk as part of this?

TT: I started up at the top and then it was back, and then in Auckland we went over the Harbour Bridge, which was always an iconic thing to do. Hikoi over that Auckland Harbour Bridge. And then of course, the first reading of this bill happened. So I had to come back down to Parliament to fight it. So you had, you would have had, we had members of parliament had to gather back in the country to fight the bill. The government put the bill a bit early and I think that was to undermine the Hikoi, undermine the gathering, gathering of people. So we as parliamentarians, we went back down to, back down to Parliament. And all the Indigenous MPs did what we call a Haka. Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke from the Maori Party lead the Haka and the rest of us got up and supported.

NK: David Seymour is the politician sponsoring this bill. He's been talking about ambiguity in the original treaty and he's saying it's being interpreted liberally, his words, in government and that sometimes the courts are discriminating against non-Maori citizens. He says the bill would, quote, give equal enjoyment of the same fundamental human rights to every single New Zealander, unquote. How do you respond to his assessment and his reasoning behind pushing this bill?

TT: That already happens in New Zealand. Look, you've got the Bill of Rights, you know, and equality and all that other stuff. That stuff is already part of the legislative fabric. The Treaty of Waitangi is something else. So he's trying to conflate two different things here, and it's incredibly ahistorical to actually start talking about individual rights. When actually what this was about was the protection of collective rights. Rights to [inaudible]. Rights to treasures. Rights to our lands and resources as well. That is what it is. And the other thing is there's a lot of misinformation that's been going around as well, because often what people that are peddling this type of thing, they will always point you to the English version of the treaty. But actually very few people sign that. There was only 13 people signed it. Most people, the vast, vast majority, over 500 signatories from different First Nations signed the Indigenous language text and Indigenous language text, which is the Maori text was absolute about talking about our ability to retain our [term in Maori], our absolute control over our lands, resources and important for people to remember that.

NK: Why would they not translate that as it is? So, to clear up any kind of ambiguity, ambiguity your talking about.

TT: There's been numerous translations of it over, through the years, just to sort of clarify what that means. But that's not what he's talking about, [NK: right.] He's talking about different [NK: versions], English language, visions that were around at that time, which either very few people signed or none, nobody signed.

NK: The bill is opposed widely by people on all different sides politically. The Prime Minister says he does not support it. It is not expected to pass final reading. If that's the case, if this is not going to pass, why was it important for you and all of the others who have gathered to speak out so loudly against it?

TT: What I think we're seeing across the world is a rise of misinformation and the rise of right wing, right wing movements across the world. And they're peddling misinformation, peddling, disinformation. And our opposition to this is, of course, it's absolute garbage what he's doing. But on the other hand, it gives him a platform. And this will give David Seymour and the ACT party a six month platform to continue to platform misinformation and disinformation. To really push the ahistorical perspectives on the history of New Zealand and the history of the Treaty of Waitangi and that panders to that very small group of right wing libertarians who will oppose anything about a collectivization or support for Maori. And it's, and that can come across as incredibly racist.

NK: So you're suggesting it's actually, it's not really about the bill or what's in it. It's about that platform, as you said, setting the stage for something else. You know, I saw some coverage. You were you were with a colleague and she described this as, this gathering and the protest is a rejection of imported culture wars. Is that how you see it as well?

TT: That's how I see it. I mean, giving these kinds of ideas which have no basis in history is not supported by anybody. And people in jurisprudence. Turned down by not only left wing prime ministers, but right, former right wing prime ministers from the main political party. The National party, which is in parliament, now. Just points to, actually here's another strategy here, let's just mainstream, mainstream problematic ideas into mainstream misinterpretations and misinformation and disinformation. And this is the playbook that we are seeing right across the world at the moment. And they're trying it out here on Indigenous peoples, but we're not going to stand for it. And there are thousands and thousands of people gathering today to march on this government.

NK: Teanau, I appreciate your time. Take care.

TT: Ngā mihi; Ka kite. [Thanks, bye]

CH: Teanau Tuiono, is a Green MP. We reached him in Wellington, New Zealand earlier today.

[Music: Funky instrumental]

Bluesky User Explosion

Guest: David Pierce

CH: The number is rising so fast that by the time I finish this sentence, it will be hundreds more than when I started it. At any rate, it's well over 19.5 million. That's the number of people who've signed on to the social media platform, Bluesky. At the moment, there are around nine and a quarter new signups every second, according to the online counter I just looked at. Over the weekend, it was adding a million people per day, more than doubling its size since U.S. election day. And that's not a coincidence. Many users of X, the platform, formerly known as Twitter, have abandoned it. As owner Elon Musk's relationship with President-elect Trump grows ever closer. David Pierce is the editor at large of the tech news site The Verge and the co-host of the Vergecast podcast. We reached him in New York.

NK: David, are you on Bluesky?

DAVID PIERCE: I am on Bluesky.

NK: How long have you been on the platform?

DP: I joined really early on and then kind of forgot about it for a while.

NK: People were getting those invites right. They were really proud of getting.

DP: Yeah, I got an invite and I was like, well, you got to use the invite while you have it. But then there weren't that many people and it was really weird and everybody was being sort of weird on purpose. That was kind of Bluesky's thing. And frankly, I just kind of left it alone for a while and I was always on Threads. I thought that was the thing. And then really a couple of weeks ago came back to Bluesky and I was like, okay. People I trust are saying this is the place and it's kind of been there ever since.

NK: Well, it says something that you forgot about it for a while, no.

DP: Yeah, I think it was in that phase right after Elon Musk bought Twitter and started to change it. There were all of these new platforms that were coming up. Mastodon was a big one, and there was there was one called Post, and there were a bunch that were very deliberately trying to be just like Twitter and Bluesky, which was founded by a bunch of folks from inside of Twitter, had some really interesting ideas, but never seemed like it was really going to get off the ground, frankly. It was very small and had big, beautiful ideas about how the Internet should work, but it couldn't keep up with the volume that it had. It couldn't make it work. And it just didn't seem like it was really going to hit. But here we are. And I think that's changed.

NK: So, given the competition from other platforms that's out there, I think I hear a little bit of surprise in your voice that the Bluesky has come out on top, at least for now, in the way that it has since the election.

DP: Yeah, I'm surprised a little bit. But I think the way the world has changed around Bluesky makes it make sense a bit, right. I mean, particularly in the U.S., you have this big group of people who are either disillusioned with platforms like X, which used to be Twitter, but is now pretty straightforwardly a place for conservative thought and mostly just for boosting Elon Musk himself. There's been some studies that show that the algorithms inside of X have been tuned so that everyone sees Elon Musk, which is just not a good time for a lot of people. But then there are lots of people, I think, in the wake of an election that surprised a lot of people who are trying to rethink the way that they experience the Internet. And coming from a place like Threads that is really heavily curated and leans against news and is all about just sort of engaging you in the same kinds of ways that Instagram does. People wanted something that felt a little more open and a little more understandable and a little more, I don't know, honest. And I think there's something about Bluesky that feels sort of pure in a way that is chaotic, but also feels, it feels like it is telling the truth about what it is to you. And I think that means a lot to people right now.

NK: You've seen and heard the criticism already of Bluesky, I'm sur., where people call it, say it's an echo chamber for people who lean left and don't want to engage with people who have different points of view. Are you seeing signs of that as well?

DP: I think so. I mean, there's some truth to that on every platform, right. I think you're going to live inside of some echo chambers. And there's certainly some Bluesky that is like Democrats who are mad at The New York Times. That's kind of the stereotype of a Bluesky user. And there's a lot of that. But I think as it grows and it's growing really fast, that's starting to change. You're already starting to see a lot of sports stuff come on over the last couple of weeks, that's been the biggest change that I've personally noticed. Like a lot of sports Twitter has fled to Bluesky. And so things like that start to change that vibe of the platform just a little bit. It's going to take a while, but I think it's happening.

NK: Yeah, it's broadening out beyond politics. It sounds like based on what you're saying, what do you think is behind that shift? So that's not just people who are mad at Trump and Musk and angry about the election.

DP: I think it's just the way that all of these platforms are changing. There is a sense of fragility that people are feeling on a lot of these platforms. You get something like X that can change essentially overnight. When Elon Musk decides to endorse Donald Trump for president, they can change the platform such that it starts surfacing different kinds of things. You can get something like TikTok, which decides that it wants to promote the TikTok shop. So unless you're promoting the TikTok shop, people don't see your videos anymore. There is this feeling on all of these platforms, whether it's those or YouTube or Instagram or others, that you're just at the mercy of an algorithm. And I think Bluesky has not executed on a lot of the promises it's made, but it has these big ideas about being able to choose your own algorithm and doing content moderation lots of different ways. That just opens up more possibilities rather than having to sort of flail in the quicksand of these like ever changing systems on the platforms we use.

NK: You know, on one hand, everything you're describing to me, you know, it's surprising that people are still gravitating to other sites as well. They're hungry to still communicate in any way they can. On the other hand, given what you said, do you think the dream of this kind of social media town square is dying or even dead at this point?

DP: I do. As bleak as it sounds and as much as I hate to say it, I think the idea that we are all in some meaningful way going to be together in one place in a way that is, I would say, on balance, a good thing. I just don't see how we get back to that. I think the thing we've learned from the last decade is that there were huge consequences to that way of structuring society, and a lot of them were big problems and a lot of them were not things that we want. The idea of, you know, being in a room with 650 million other people actually isn't nearly as fun as we thought it might be. And so I think what we'll see now and what we're already starting to see is lots of these things start to work. I don't think anything is going to get to the same kind of scale and cultural relevance that some of the last generation did. But people are still looking for ways to find community. They're still looking for people who are interested in the stuff that they're interested in. They're still looking for ways to get information from their government about when trash delivery is like that's a real service Twitter provided for people. And so I think what you'll start to see is all of those things kind of break off into different places. And then there's going to be an interesting world in which people build products trying to make all of those easy to follow and track and put together. But in the meantime, it's going to get messier and more sprawling because I think it has to.

NK: Thanks for this, David. I'm glad we could speak.

DP: My pleasure.

CH: David Pierce is the editor at large of the tech news site The Verge. He's in Washington, D.C.

[Music: Electronic instrumental]

Underground Concert

Guest: Norm Dwyer

SOUNDCLIP

Miners & Sons performing.

CH: For a while there, they had the deepest singing voices on earth. Last Friday morning, the rock band "Miners & Sons" from Timmins, Ontario, performed the deepest musical concert ever. They played 27 hundred metres down in the Kidd Mine in Ontario. That is nine thousand feet. And in doing so, they beat the record held by previous As It Happens guests The Shaft Bottom Boys from Sudbury. Norm Dwyer is the percussionist for "Miners & Sons", and we reached him in Timmins, Ontario.

NK: Norm, was this a dream come true to perform a rock concert deep, deep, deep underground with, you know, head lamp, hard hat, hearing protection, all of that.

NORM DWYER: It's definitely one for the book. I'll tell you that one.

NK: [laughs] Was it the room that you wrote in your diary as a child?

ND: Absolutely.

NK: Well, congratulations. Describe the setup for us, the logistics of all of this.

ND: So, I mean, we were set up in a mine drift nine thousand feet underground. The travel there was interesting. You enter mine property and get in on a giant cage, which is an elevator. And we went down to the 47 hundred level. From there, we got into a little trolley, travelled 814 metres to a different cage and went from there to the nine thousand level of the mine.

NK: So there's all of that and there's the Guinness requirements, but also safety requirements. I can imagine. And is it safe to be that loud down there?

ND: Yeah. So they had a decimal reader. I mean, they work in much louder environments than that. I mean, they drill into hard rock every day and then blow it up. So we did have a requirement, at all times you had to have your hearing protection. But if we got to a certain decibel, we would have to put on double. The ones that you shove in your ear. And if it got to a certain decibel, you'd have to put earplugs or earmuffs on the top of that. But we didn't have to.

NK: Okay. So you kept it, you kept it just at the at the safe level. There were 31 people down there, as I understand it. What were the requirements to break the record?

ND: Yeah. You had to have at least 10 ticketed attendees. [NK: Okay.] We had to play 15 minutes of continuous music, which means no more than 30 second pauses in between songs. Each song had to be over two minutes. I mean, we chose rock because that's what we play. [NK: Sure.] We covered 25 years’ worth. We started at CCR. We ended at Glorious Suns. We had Blink 182 in there, we had Tragically Hip. Yeah, we had a good mix.

NK: What was your favourite in the setlist?

ND: Absolutely, the Tragically Hip ending. [NK: Yeah.] Because we knew at the time we started, as soon as we knew we started on time, we already knew we were past the 15 minute, so we knew we now had the record.

NK: What was it like to be that deep underground? You haven't gone that far before.

ND: I had never been before. No. It was different. I mean, there was, just like I said, you're going down and the speed of the cage, you don't even know. I guess the only thing you could compare it to is a subway. You know, when you're on the subway and it's dark, dark, dark, dark light, dark, dark, dark, dark light. Well, it's the same idea, but you're going down and your ears are popping. It's wild.

NK: We interviewed a member of the previous record holding band The Shaft Bottom Boys, who I'm sure you're aware of. They broke the record back in 2020 and they brought the record back to Sudbury. That fact alone was pretty important to them. And we spoke to the band's bassist, John Shelegey, just have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

JOHN SHELEGEY: Something happened in 2007 in the city of Sudbury. There was a high school band that played at about three thousand foot level at South Mine and originally captured the Guinness World Record for the deepest underground concert. It was quickly snapped up by a Finnish group called the Agonizer[s] about a month later. So they basically robbed it from our high school children. And at the time, that's where the idea came from, that we wanted to bring the record back not only to Canada, but back to Sudbury.

NK: Well, I mean, that's as close as it's going to get to trash talk, I guess, in this particular competition. But what do you say [to] John?

ND: John is much older. I believe I heard this interview before. I remember exactly where it came from.

NK: Yeah. It's seared into your heart and mind. It's it sounds like. So the argument stings still.

ND: I mean, there's no argument. I actually I would love to collaborate with them in, you know, maybe go forward and break some records together. [NK: That's so Canadian] We have deep mining heritage, both in Timmins and in Sudbury. I think it's what drives both our cities economically and we're both doing it, I know they were doing it for the Science North centre and then later on started giving some of their funds to 'Miners for Cancer'. [NK: Yeah] We're using our funds to enrich our local colleges bursary program for the mining sector. We've been having quite a lack of skilled employees in the mines. And I'm sure Sudbury is having the same issue and really trying to track people back into that sector. Right. Keep our town going, keep our minds going, keep our schools, our college going.

NK: How much did you guys raise?

ND: So we were supposed to have a fundraiser. They were supposed to coincide, but the college had to push it back. So February 21st is when we'll be having the Miner Ball instead of November 15th, directly after the concert. So we'll see how that goes.

NK: And how are you going to celebrate this victory or did you already over the weekend?

ND: So, I mean, with family. I have, my wife's pregnant, we found out after, you know, this was already in full motion and then all of a sudden my wife's pregnant. [NK: Congratulations] I'm like, my God, for my, it'll be my first. So I was kind of, you know, I mean, this was awesome. But I was also happy to get it done with and off my plate so we could have some family time.

NK: Sure.

ND: And, you know...

NK: Well, did she say to you maybe don't go down there and do this right now?

ND: [Dog barking] Sorry about that.

NK: No, that's okay.

ND: [Dog barking still] She was just not excited. She knew I'd been working at it.

NK: Right. What's the puppies name?

ND: That's LJ and Penelope.

NK: LJ and Penelope.

ND: Yeah. Sorry about that.

NK: Don't apologize. They're part of the band at this point.

ND: Yeah, no, she was extremely excited for us to continue this, so we got her out of the way. Baby's due in January. The fundraiser is going to be February 21st. Now, like I said. Gives us some time to adjust. Maybe. Maybe.

NK: [Laughs] Well, lots, lots to celebrate. Norm, congratulations again. I'm glad we could speak.

ND: Well, thank you very much.

CH: Norm Dwyer plays percussion with the band "Miners & Sons", who just broke the world record for the deepest underground concert. We reached him in Timmins, Ontario.

[Music: Upbeat instrumental]

Part 2: Global Bird Extinction, Nunavik Sled Dog Apology, Largest Drawing Record, Argos Couple

Global Bird Extinction

Guest: Alex Bond

CH: The slender-billed curlew once spent its summers in Siberia and its winters in Morocco. But now an international group of conservationists say its extinct, making it the first global bird extinction from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia in hundreds of years. Their analysis was published today in the journal IBIS. Alex Bond is the curator of birds at the Natural History Museum and a co-author of the report. We reached him in London.

NK: Alex, can you paint a picture for us of what the slender-billed curlew looks like?

ALEX BOND: Yeah, it's kind of on the surface it could be a little bit nondescript, but it stands about a foot tall. It's mostly brown and white with sort of flex on the belly. It's got really long legs and its most distinctive feature is its really long bill, which sort of curves downwards.

NK: And how long is the bill?

AB: The bill? Oh, gosh, it's maybe about eight or nine inches long. And it uses that to poke around in the sand and in the water for food.

NK: So when was the last time this bird, to your knowledge, was spotted?

AB: So the last confirmed sighting was in 1995, in Morocco.

NK: And who document that?

AB: It was a really well known site. So people would go out every year looking for this bird because in the '90s, it was known that there weren't many left and they were on the decline. So it was a really popular place to go for bird watchers. So there are quite a few people that saw that last bird in that last winter.

NK: I suspect as you're doing this work, this is a case where you really don't want to be right. But what did you and your colleagues have to do to come to the conclusion that it is extinct?

AB: Yeah, it's one of those things that you hope against all hope that you turn out to be wrong. We compiled about nine hundred records. And that's sightings, photographs and specimens, sort of the three different levels of evidence that you can look at in different ways. And we used a computer model that basically estimated the likelihood that given the patterns in those three sort of types of evidence, that the bird would still exist. And it's, yeah, unfortunately, it's no longer with us.

NK: How long did that process take all of that research and the modelling?

AB: Tracking down all the specimens and the sightings. That's been a project that really began while the bird was still around. There was a biologist named Adam Gratton who compiled in 1990 a list of all the records up until then. And so, there was a, sort of an expert group in the last 15 years that took the records since Adam's book and put those together. But, you know, as you can imagine, it's a lot of time and effort to cover such a huge range of geography as well.

NK: So when you compile all of that and the modelling, you know, spits out what it needs to spit out the information that you need. What was that like in the room as you all analyzed that and come to this conclusion?

AB: Yeah, it's one of those things where we sort of expected that would be the answer. You know, it's a bird that had been not seen in 30 years. There'd been a lot of searching on the breeding grounds and on the wintering grounds in the intervening time. Yeah, it was pretty sobering.

NK: Sobering, and I gather rare, to put it mildly, in Europe.

AB: Yeah. So in Europe, it's the first extinction in the mainland in the last 500 years, which, you know, for a continent this size is pretty remarkable.

NK: What do you know about what might have caused its extinction?

AB: Ultimately, we'll never know for sure, but we reckon it's probably a combination of two things. One is that they were hunted, so they were a reasonably large shorebird and they migrated so they were quite tasty and you could buy them in markets in Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. And presumably on their breeding grounds in Russia as well. So that combined with the changing of wetlands where they used to breed into agriculture in Russia and Kazakhstan, in the former Soviet Union, that was probably, probably the death knell for them.

NK: When you, I mean, obviously all creatures played critical roles in the ecosystem. But how would you describe the role that this bird, that the slender-billed curlew played?

AB: I mean, ultimately, I don't think we'll ever know because even by the time they were sort of initially described on the breeding grounds, the first nest wasn't found until 1912. And by that time they weren't very common at all. They linked sort of the Central Asian steppe region, grasslands and wetlands with North Africa. And that's relatively uncommon for migratory birds. They usually go sort of north south. They don't usually go from, you know, Central Asia across the Ural Mountains, in through Europe, across the Mediterranean and into North Africa. So we've lost one of the few links that those ecosystems have to each other.

NK: The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the group that is ultimately going to declare this bird officially extinct. That has not happened. What are the chances that you and your team might be wrong?

AB: So the IUCN updates the red list of threatened, globally threatened species once a year. And we use the exact same method that they use. BirdLife International is the group that's in charge of doing red listing for birds, and they were involved in this project. I think the chance that we were wrong is, is unfortunately really, really small. You can never be, in science you can never be one hundred per cent certain of something. But the chance of one turning up is probably about the same as both of us getting struck by lightning during this interview.

NK: You talked about this being a first. What are the chances from where you sit that it will be the last that you're reporting on?

AB: I think that's really unlikely. Since 1500, there's been about two hundred bird species that have gone extinct worldwide. We know right now there's 14 hundred that are at risk of extinction. And two hundred and thirty of those are critically endangered. They're at the most extreme precipice of disappearing. It's not looking great. North America has lost three billion birds since 1970. Europe has lost six hundred million since 1980. And those trends aren't getting any better.

NK: Alex, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

AB: That's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

CH: Alex Bond is the curator of birds at the UK's Natural History Museum and a co-author of a report out today in the journal IBIS. He's in London.

[Music: Calm instrumental]

Nunavik Sled Dog Apology

CH: Later this month, the Federal Government will apologize for the mass slaughter of Inuit sled dogs in the 1950s and 1960s. More than a thousand dogs were shot and killed by the RCMP, employees of the Hudson's Bay Company and other government officials across Nunavik, the Inuit region of northern Quebec. Crown-indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree is expected to travel to the region to make the apology. Ottawa will also offer financial compensation for the killing of the sled dogs, which Inuit people relied on for their livelihoods. Pita Aatami is the President of Makivvik, the legal representative of Quebec's Inuit. He spoke to the CBC's Olivia Stefanovich about the apology and the deep wound the slaughter left in the community.

SOUNDCLIP

PITA AATAMI: We've tried to look into why they decided to start shooting the dogs there was never a clear answer, but there was always questions about safety and that some children had been mauled and killed by sled dogs. But these are not pets, these Eskimos sled dogs, they were used for their livelihood. Some could be very mean. And so at the same time, the stories when I started hearing about these killings, I was starting to ask, why did they shoot your dogs? They couldn't go back to their camps. They couldn't go back to their trap lines. They couldn't do anything anymore. So, then one woman that really caught my attention was a lady from [inaudible], which is next door to [inaudible]. She was talking about that when her husband's dogs were shot. They were living in a shack and they would just stare out the window, looking out the window. Couldn't go hunting any more. Couldn't go get any more wood from the tree line, Couldn't go get their ice, couldn't go out hunting anymore. It's like he lost a part of his life. So she was crying when she told us this, that the pain that people went through. And I had one lady as well from [inaudible] that talked about wanting to, telling the police, please save me one dog. They had nine dogs. And the policeman didn't listen to that lady, even though she said, leave me one dog. We're going to still need dogs. But the policeman didn't listen, shot all the dogs. Their livelihood was taken away. It's like they had to be in the community. Now they couldn't go out, do their hunting. Only a few people at that time could afford snow machines. And the snow machines that they were coming out were not reliable, were not reliable at all. So people still prefer the dogs to the skidoo at that time. And at a skidoo can get lost. But a dog can never get lost, even if they're going through a storm, they always bring them home no matter what. So they knew [inaudible] and that they were our livelihood. That was part of who we are.

CH: Pita Aatami, President of Makivvik speaking to Olivia Stefanovich. The Government of Quebec apologized for the slaughter in 2011 and gave former sled dog owners three million dollars in compensation. Ottawa hasn't offered any compensation until now.

[Music: Strings instrumental]

Largest Drawing Record

Guest: Fola David

CH: When Dr. Fola David is not running his medical practice in Nigeria, he's making art and he's just made his biggest artistic statement ever. In fact, it's the biggest artistic statement ever made by anyone, at least if we're going strictly by area. The piece is called The Unity of Diversity. It's a drawing that's over a square kilometre in size. Because of it, Dr. David just broke the record for the world's largest drawing ever made by an individual. We reached him in Lagos.

NK: Doctor, the stairs at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena in Lagos are the gateway in a way to what you've created. So if we were to walk up those stairs but then look down, what would we see?

FOLA DAVID: For the record drawing, you would see a very wide canvas with a map of Nigeria showing the different cultures that exist in the country as a way of celebrating these cultures. The canvas is white. It's pure white with a, I drew with a marker, black marker. So it's a black and white imagery with the very, very distinct map of Nigeria showing. And then we have the different cultures that were depicted using their way of life, their clothing, festivals, dance, food, even cooking items to depict these different cultures and also, loc... Put them in the specific location across the map. That's exactly what it is.

NK: I'm looking at it right now, an image of what you created. It's the size of more than three tennis courts. If people want to try to visualize that, you know, laid out.

FD: It's very big.

NK: Yeah. So how do you even start, you know, something that large? How did you do this in terms of logistics?

FD: The first thing was getting the canvas. There's no canvas that big. We had to get different rolls of canvas. It took us two days to actually combine all these rolls of canvas to get to that point. A fun fact, the canvas itself is a thousand three hundred and sixty metres square because the size you see there is the size of the drawing on the canvas. But the canvas itself is a thousand three hundred and sixty. I had earlier set out to do eight hundred metres square. I got there on the first day of the record while we were doing the setup and I saw eight hundred right there on the field and it looked very small to me.

NK: Oh, and you thought, this isn't going to be enough. I got to go bigger.

FD: I thought, guess what I thought I was going to finish that in a day. I was so scared, I said, No, this is too small. How would I do this for six days? I'll finish this in a day. And so I told everybody to get every single support they had out and increase the size. So we almost doubled it.

NK: So there's no canvas left in Lagos, is what you're saying? [laughter] After this.

FD: We bought a lot.

NK: I know you've been drawing professionally for a while. What made you want to go big and then even bigger?

FD: Yes, it's just a challenge. Mostly it's a challenge. I really wanted to show a large amount of people what I could do. I would usually speed paint in front of a large crowd, audiences in front of three thousand, five thousand people. I wanted to see what it would be like to paint in front of the whole world. And this was the challenge that I wanted to take up on. As to why I decided to do something that big, the drawing itself was inspired by, you know, my country and what I really love about my country, which is the different cultures.

NK: And The Unity of Diversity, is what you've called this project. You live in Lagos, as we've said, you had to travel across the country. So how did you collect everything, the mental images, the actual images, the references that you wanted to fill out this creation?

FD: Yes. When I say Lagos, Lagos is a very multicultural city. But for this particular project, I wanted to go a bit deeper into it. I travelled across the country to experience this cultures firsthand. I spoke to political leaders. I spoke to cultural leaders to learn about these cultures, and then I spent time eating their food, listening to their music, the dance, the ceremonies they have, you know, just to get myself to become an authority in some way on these cultures before depicting them on the world record drawing. And that was basically very important to me.

NK: Project like this and a trip like that can certainly change a person. Did it change you?

FD: Yes. I learnt a lot of new things. The way of life in different parts of Nigeria is just so diverse and I fell in love with so many different parts of the country. I also went through a lot doing this drawing, you know, for six days, it did change me. It brought in my knowledge on Nigeria. It brought in my knowledge of myself, of what I can achieve. You know, I set my mind to something. So, yes, it did do that to me.

NK: When you first started thinking about this, I mean, almost a decade ago, did you set out to do something that would also change the way or maybe inform people around the world about Nigeria in ways that they haven't been.

FD: Nine years ago it wasn't a fully-fledged idea. When I wanted to do it, it was more about challenging myself. The moment I got the opportunity to actually do this was when the idea of the drawing started to form. Knowing full well it would cost a lot to make that trip and get yourself ready in terms of materials, logistics and everything. You know, once I got that funding, it got [inaudible] for me and opened up to me and I was, yes, this is what I want to do. This is the message I want to pass. I want to create this impact for my own country, for its people. And yes, that's how it worked.

NK: Did you fundraise? How did you get the money to take it on?

FD: The money came from my partners Tolaram. I had done an event with them and it came up while we were having a drink. I just mentioned the world record I've been trying to do for the past nine years, and then the CEO just said, Let's do it. You know, it was that direct. Let's do it. And that's what happened.

NK: And how do you feel now that this is done? This has been a long journey, not just the six days, but the nine years before, as we said. So how do you feel now that it's all finished?

FD: I feel really good. You know, there's a reflection that happened. I feel like this wouldn't have been possible if it hadn't taken nine years because the people I met on my journey, the amount of time I'd spent as an artist, made this possible. So, yes, I feel very relieved and, you know, enlightened, just generally happy about the situation.

NK: I'm glad we could speak Fola, thank you.

FD: Thank you so much.

CH: Dr. Fola David has broken the record for the largest drawing made by an individual. It's over one square kilometre in area. We reached him in Lagos.

[Music: Violin instrumental]

Argos Couple

CH: Last night in Vancouver, The Toronto Argonauts were crowned CFL champions for a record 19th time after defeating the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the 111th Grey Cup. Tomorrow, the team will be back in Toronto to celebrate with fans at a rally. But some Argos superfans are already celebrating. Steve and Cathy Hayman made the trip across the country to be at the Grey Cup final. They spoke to the CBC this morning.

SOUNDCLIP

CATHY HAYMAN: It was amazing. We were lucky. We had tickets in the first row right behind the Argos' bench and were watching the whole game cheering on our guys. We've been there all season for them, done a couple of road games and it was just, the energy was amazing.

DAVID COMMON: Now, Steve, I gather you have missed only six home games of the last 30 Argos seasons. The team must know who you are.

STEVE HAYMAN: Oh, I think so. I have a bit of a reputation for conducting the fight song with the crowd every time we score a touchdown. It was a lot of fun doing that last night, too. We had a really good choir out here in Vancouver singing Go Argos Go.

DAVID COMMON: And when, you know, they really took off, it looked like it was going to be a pretty solid victory in those closing minutes. There was almost no way for the Bombers to catch up. Final score 41/24. What was the field like when that final whistle went?

STEVE HAYMAN: Oh, it was fantastic. We had a lot of people there with flags. There were Argo flags all over the place. There was confetti. I have some. souvenir confetti to take home now. One piece and the one white piece. They are going to take a place of honour in the house.

CATHY HAYMAN: Cathy, a lot of people make long trips to see Taylor Swift in Toronto this past week. You went the other way. You went to the West Coast for the Grey Cup. Is this your version of the Eras tour?

CATHY HAYMAN: It absolutely is. I mean, not just mine. There are hundreds of fans who go to every game who travel to various road games. There are a couple who are literally on their 42nd consecutive home and away game for the Argos. I mean, we're not the only crazy fans out there. There are lots of them.

DAVID COMMON: Speaking of couples, how long have you two been married? [SH: How long?] You need to answer faster. Answer faster, Steve.

CATHY HAYMAN: I was going to say, we've been married 12 years, but we actually got married on a Thursday because the Argos had a home game on Saturday.

DAVID COMMON: You met because of the Argos?

STEVE HAYMAN: Well, actually we met because of football bands. We were both in the band, the pep band at the University of Waterloo. And then I used to run the Argos band a long time ago and Cathy joined as a piccolo player. And the rest is history. Kids, you should join the band because you might meet somebody.

CATHY HAYMAN: And to have fun!

CH: Toronto Argonauts superfans Steve and Cathy Hayman speaking to David Common on Metro Morning in Toronto today.

[Music: Jazzy instrumental]

Part 3: N.S. Stem Cell Dog, Cheese Thefts, Mtl. Nursing Home Trackers, FOA: Female Magician Search

N.S. Stem Cell Dog

CH: This next story is for all of you, but it's particularly for a very narrow subsection of you. Owners of Golden Retrievers, poodles and or golden doodles that have links to Willow Lane Farms in Ontario and Idaho Jewels Poodles in the U.S. A couple in Nova Scotia are desperately seeking a match for their five year old Goldendoodle Lucy, who was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma. Her life expectancy is between six months and a year with standard treatments like chemotherapy. But Stéphanie Gauvin and Tim MacIsaac are saving up for treatment in Washington State, which includes a stem cell transplant and immunotherapy for Lucy. That could cost as much as a hundred thousand dollars. Fortunately, their pet insurance will cover most of it but what they really need now is a stem cell match. The couple spoke to CBC reporter Nicola Seguin from their home in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

SOUNDCLIP

STÉPHANIE GAUVIN: At the end of August, Lucy was diagnosed with lymphoma, which is a type of cancer. And so with normal types of treatment like chemotherapy, she would only have between 6 and 12 months left to live. And so, we looked into other options that might actually offer a cure. And so the stem cell transplant has really high success rates, and dogs can live their normal life and be cancer free. And so that's where we started to try and do everything we could to make that happen for Lucy.

NICOLA SEGUIN: And then to know that there is a potential cure. But you have to find a dog with a match. How did you start going about that process?

STÉPHANIE GAUVIN: So first we did a lot of like research into what it would look like. We called some people who had gone through the process. We call the vet who does them. And then just one step at a time, try to reach out on social media, reaching out to the breeder, tracking down her our family line because she has half poodle and half retriever. So going through those lines and just trying to find anyone who might be related to her and might be willing to check and see if their dogs are match. If people want to test their dogs, they can send us an email or a message on our social media. We would then arrange for a test kit to be sent out to their vet. So their… and it would come with a pre-paid return shipping address. Their vet test just does a simple blood test and sends it back in that box. And we would be calling in advance to make sure that everything's paid for the blood test and all that.

NICOLA SEGUIN: And so you're paying for those tests?

STÉPHANIE GAUVIN: We are, yes.

CH: So if by any chance, you think you might have a match sitting obediently at your side or you just want to follow Lucy story, you can check out her social media accounts. You can find her at @Lucydoodleboop on Facebook and Instagram.

[Music: Jazzy instrumental]

Cheese Thefts

Guest: Mike Von Massow

CH: I want to talk to you about hot cheese. Sorry, I don't want to be misleading. I don't mean fondue, and I absolutely don't mean that viscous, pale orange fluid you get with nachos, but you shouldn't. Well, honestly, right now, both of those sound great. Anyway, No, I'm talking about cheese that's hot as in stolen. British Columbia RCMP say that last week they foiled an attempted cheese heist at a Whole Foods in North Vancouver, forcing the thief to leave nearly 13 thousand dollars’ worth of cheese behind. And that's not an isolated incident. As we've discussed on the show, in the UK and artisanal cheese distributor was the victim of a sophisticated fraud where the con artist got away with five hundred and forty thousand dollars’ worth of cheddar. Mike Von Massow is a professor of food and resource economics at the University of Guelph. We reached him in Elora, Ontario.

NK: Mike, what could someone be doing with nearly 13 thousand dollars in stolen cheese?

MIKE VON MASSOW: Well, my guess is they're not walking around downtown with a trench coat, opening it up, saying Edam, cheddar. They're selling these products to small businesses. And whether they identify those beforehand or even get requested for products... We've seen here in Ontario, we've seen butter. We're hearing about large amounts of cheese. It's going to be hard to get rid of. It's hard to track, but it's a perishable product. So you're probably seeing it going into a bakery or a restaurant or even a small grocery store. Some of these businesses that in food price and other price inflation have really been squeezed probably more than some of the big players and are looking for ways legal and illegal to stretch their margins a bit.

NK: So you think that some of these businesses might know it's sort of, you know, like when clothes go on sale, but they have the tags cut out so people, people know what's going on, but and they know it's wrong, but they do it anyway.

MVM: Yeah. And I don't mean to demean many, many business owners, but I know that many are struggling. And so if someone pulls up to your loading dock with, as you said, 12 thousand dollars’ worth of undocumented cheese, it could be a temptation that's too hard to refuse.

NK: How big of an illicit cheese industry are we talking about at this point?

MVM: Well, you know, I frankly think that sort of individuals stealing at grocery stores are smaller individual impacts, but probably a bigger problem than these cheese thefts. It's happening more. Food prices are higher. You know, we've seen many grocery stores institute all sorts of protections to make it more difficult to walk out with products. And it's the same thing here, I think, as food prices are high and other prices, rent for small businesses are high. The temptation is high. So is it the largest source of theft in Canada? Not even close. Is it becoming more important? Without a doubt.

NK: You mentioned I mean, it's perishable. It's a hard thing to unload. Why has it become such a good mark for thieves?

MVM: Because it's, because it's very difficult to trace. There may be a lot number on it, but there isn't a serial number on it. So, you know, perishable is a bit of a double edged sword. It's tough because you've got to move it quickly, but it also then disappears very quickly. It's not like you're sitting on, remember the gold heist at the airport in Toronto. It's not like you're sitting on lumps of gold. You're selling it and it's getting used relatively quickly. So I think there's a need, there's an opportunity, and it's a relatively difficult product to trace and will probably be gone within several days, if not a week of the theft occurring. So the temptation is there, the opportunity is there, and it's incredibly difficult to trace. My guess is these products are being sold very quickly. In many cases that the deal is made before the product is even stolen.

NK: This was a smaller scale operation. Well, at least it seems at this stage a smaller amount. But our listeners heard about the incident in the UK about someone posing as a big, you know, cheese dealer and duping some businesses. So is this a matter of inflation or, you know, you know, it's catching the interest of small time thieves, but also organized crime or do you think something bigger is at play?

MVM: Well, I think it's a crime of opportunity. Right. You've got small businesses who are willing to use it. In some cases it's organized. In some cases it's an easy thing to track and hide. In some cases it's something that people know about. As I said before, I think in many cases, these thieves are getting orders for things to say, if you can get this for me, I'd be happy. As I said, you know, here in Ontario, we've seen butter disappear by the hundreds of pounds. And again, that's not something that someone's going to put in their fridge or put it in their basement and go through slowly. That's something that you've got to find a home for and it's got to get used. Just like with cheese.

NK: But I would imagine, too, I mean, this is, it's a risky, it's a risky thing to buy, like even, you know, illicitly, certainly like you don't know where it's coming from is dangerous to sell. It could have deeper repercussions some of this, no?

MVM: Know without a doubt, there's some risk associated with it. But again, it might be a small store and that would be easier to identify. But if it's going to a restaurant or going to a bakery, you're not even going to see it in the same form. Right? It is going to be transformed in some way. So it's very hard to identify. I suppose if you were going to put it in a small store, it would have to be relabelled and that sort of thing. And in that case, there's some risk there. But the truth is, just like many Canadian individuals, many Canadian small businesses are struggling under the weight of this inflation. It's hard to pass all of your costs along. And so people are likely to be willing to take more risk than they might otherwise have just to keep the business going.

NK: Apart from the shock of the attempted theft, the picture that police put up of this nearly 13 thousand dollars’ worth of cheese from Whole Foods, Whole Food prices can be higher. We certainly know that. But it does not look like... There's cheese there but 13 thousand? I mean, that underlines another part of the story in that this is a huge market worth more than five billion dollars by 2028, the cheese market in Canada alone. What is driving that?

MVM: Well, prices are going up. The costs of production are going up. And, you know, there's two sides of that. Part of it is the cost. And the other side is demand. We as Canadians like cheese. I'm a big fan of cheese.

NK: Me too. It's expensive though. It really is.

MVM: It is. It is.

NK: Even the cheap stuff.

MVM: Yeah. I remember graduating from my undergraduate and being thrilled that I could afford cheese. That's when I knew I had my first full time job. Yeah, but I think we're buying more cheese and that's also driving prices up.

NK: Mike, a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you.

MVM: Well, thank you for having me. Have a great day.

CH: Mike Von Massow is a professor of food and resource economics at the University of Guelph. He's in Elora, Ontario.

[Music: Jazzy instrumental]

Mtl. Nursing Home Trackers

CH: A nursing home in Montreal is putting tracking devices on its residents. An Outremont retirement home has found that being able to track their residents in real time using Apple Airtags allows them to keep some independence and stay safe. This way, senior citizens with cognitive impairments can come and go as they please. Line Vincelli is a nurse and the founder of La Residence Outremont. It was her idea to try out the Airtags.

SOUNDCLIP

LINE VINCELLI: It happened once or twice that I lost a resident and I said if we put Airtags in our luggage, well, maybe I could put an Airtag on the resident's keys. Because, of course, we know them by heart we know who puts their keys around their neck, the other one in their pocket or the other one goes out with their purse. So on my phone with the locator, I can go on the locator app and I have all my 4 or 5 residents on my phone. So if we don't see them or they didn't come back for lunch, I go on my phone and I go get them. But when you see when I go get them, I just pretend that I was walking in the same direction. And oh, what a coincidence. And, you know, not to humiliate them or make them feel uncomfortable or sorry. And so we just walk back home as if nothing was wrong. We can't lock up a human being. [SH: No.] Because it creates, it creates behaviour problems, you know, and after we what do we, we give pills to make them calm. And it's another way of locking them up. I feel that we have to treat others like we want to be treated ourselves. And that's it. Life is precious. You know, we have to savour every day. And I discuss it with them. You know, I tell them how much I love them, and they would make me feel so happy if they had their Airtag. And they, you know, for me, they do it.

SEAN HENRY: Does it take a lot of convincing to get them to wear an Airtag or take an... No.

LINE VINCELLI: No, because I'm very close with them and they do it to make me feel good. And the families, they and their families, they accept, you know, they because they see their parents improve and be happy and they want them to stay at their best. So they agree.

CH: That was Line Vincelli speaking with Sean Henry, host of Daybreak in Montreal.

[Music: Jazzy instrumental]

FOA: Female Magician Search

CH: The Magic Circle is looking for a woman who deceived them in order to thank her. For the first 85 years of its existence the exclusive British Magic Society excluded women. But in the late 1980s, a woman named Sophie Lloyd went through the rigorous application process and was invited to join, although she did so in disguise as a man named Raymond Lloyd. When the society finally decided to accept female members in 1991, Raymond came clean and Sophie Lloyd was unceremoniously kicked out for her successful use of smoke and mirrors. It seems the illusionists didn't like someone else, creating her own illusion. Now, though, the Magic Circle's current chairwoman says she would like to apologize to Ms. Lloyd and thank her. But they're having trouble tracking her down. Sophie Lloyd, they say, may have been a stage name. And we, of course, wish them luck in their search. But here's hoping the Magic Circle will also be honouring Jenny Winstanley. She was the mastermind and actual magician who enlisted the help of her friend Sophie to pull off the remarkable trick. As It Happens, reached both women in 1991 at a party celebrating their achievement right after they revealed their trick to the Magic Circle. Here's Michael Enright speaking first with Jenny Winstanley.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHAEL ENRIGHT: Hello, Ms. Winstanley.

JENNY WINSTANLEY: Hello, Michael. Hello.

ME: Hi. Can you hear me all right?

JW: Just about. We're in the club. Where Ray alias Sophie took her test.

ME: And there's a party going on. Obviously.

JW: There is, yeah. There's a celebration going on yeah.

ME: Now, we're going to talk to Sophie in a minute, but I want to get some information from you. Tell me about why she was thrown out of the Magic Circle.

JW: We don't really know. They say it's because she deceived them, but that's exactly what magicians do, isn't it?

ME: That's part of the job. Yeah.

JW: Part of the job. That's right. It's all an illusion. So that seems to be their reason. But I think it is because they can't really laugh about it. You know, they think it, they take it very seriously.

ME: How angry are the magician, the male magicians?

JW: Very mad indeed. We've had a letter from them and, you know, a big warning. You know, they're very, very mad.

ME: Now, Sophie or Raymond was your creation, is that right?

JW: Well, I met Sophie about four years ago, and Sophie is an absolutely brilliant actress. I'm a lady magician. And I've directed Sophie. You know, I'm the magical director. And she acts the part of Raymond.

ME: So you taught her about man magic?

JW: I did, indeed. Yeah.

ME: Did anyone else know Raymond's real identity?

JW: Not a soul. We kept it totally secret, the two of us. For two years. We've worked very, very hard. In all seriousness.

ME: Now, did you originally do this to deceive the Magic Circle? That was your idea?

JW: Well, I always wanted to be first lady in the magic circle. And Sophie said she did it for me because she's such a good actress. I really wanted to prove that women are as good as men.

ME: And you carried it off for two years.

JW: For two whole years we carried it off. And not a soul knew literally nobody.

ME: How did the magic circle find out? Did you fess up or did they discover it.

JW: Well, no. Last couple of Monday's ago women were actually let into the Magic Circle. And so, Sophie confessed, as it were. You know, she thought, well, now it's fine, you know. But in fact, they said, no, no, she couldn't be in because she got it under deception of being Raymond Lloyd.

ME: Well, did she tell the press or did she tell the head of the Magic Circle or...

JW: What we did we, we did tell the press. But when it came out in the papers, the Magic Circle were furious.

ME: Now, Raymond is there. Sophie is there with you.

JW: Sophie is here as Sophie tonight. Would you like to speak to her?

ME: Yes, I would indeed. Thank you.

JW: Thank you very much. I'll pass you over.

ME: All right.

SOPHIE LLOYD: Hi, Michael.

ME: Hello, Ms. Lloyd. How are you?

SL: I'm all right, thank you.

ME: You are now, Sophie. And not Raymond anymore.

SL: Tonight, I'm Sophie. Yeah.

ME: Why did you agree to become Raymond and disguise yourself?

SL: Well, I did it for Jenny. Well, you see, Jenny is a magician, and she's always so unfair that lady magicians couldn't get into the Circle. Yeah, and I just loved the idea. I enjoy acting. And I suppose I did it, really, for Jenny. First lady in the Circle.

ME: She taught you the magic?

SL: She taught me magic, yes. Brilliant magician.

ME: Did you have to pass a test or something?

SL: I had to pass a test. Yes. I did a show for 20 minutes and had her various magic in. And afterwards I spoke to the examiner for 1.5 hours, drinking a pint, [ME: drinking a...] a pint of beer, yes.

ME: And you were dressed as Raymond, as a man?

SL: I was dressed as Raymond, as a boy, actually. He's 18, a very young looking 18 year old.

ME: And clean shaven, of course.

SL: Oh yeah. He's got a bit of a moustache. Not a lot, just a little bit of as we call 'Thumbs up'.

ME: What did you do about your voice? Did you have to drop your voice a bit or.

SL: I know of course, I had croaky little croaky voice.

ME: What did you talk about over the pint for an hour and a half? I mean, weren't you afraid he was going to find out that you weren't...

SL: Well, yes, absolutely. I was really, really worried. Just got through the show. I was going to shoot off, and he wanted to talk to me, and I said oh, get me out of here, Jenny, for God's sakes. And she said, No, I can't you've got to do it. So, I thought oh hell. So I sat there and we talked about, he was going to help me with my magic [laughs through words].

ME: Sophie, did you wear a baggy suit or something? I mean, you know, Raymond and Sophie don't exactly look alike. I'm wondering what you did about that.

SL: No. Well, ah, that's the illusion. Well, I had to do a lot of different things. It wasn't just don a wig and spectacles. I mean, I had to do a lot of things, and I didn't strap down my chest, no we're a bit cleverer than that. I had to obviously have a little boy's body; you know.

ME: Yes.

SL: So, you know, without letting, you know, too much [ME laughing]. So it wasn't just literally putting on a wig and glasses and a baggy suit and going out and doing it. I actually studied the character for two years. And, you know, with Jenny and I did it very well. I also got on children's books as a little boy. I did quite a lot of things.

ME: Did you go to the club? Was it I mean, was it, did you fraternize with the other members and so on?

SL: Yes, I did. Yes. On a couple of occasions I did. Yes. It was very hairy and I have to confess, I didn't stay very long. [inaudible] I'm only five foot two, around these huge man, you know, But I don't think I thought he was an oddity. I think they just thought he was terribly young.

ME: The people who run the Magic Circle, all those male magicians are furious. They're having rabbits over all of this.

SL: They're such twits. I mean, honestly, I really, Michael, it is pathetic. I, I am actually, you know, to be honest, I'm not into magic. I really. I did it to Jenny. I'm not. And this is really, to me, it's really put me off, you know, But just to grind them up, [laughs over words] as Raymond.

ME: And so does Raymond now retire?

SL: No, no. A lot of people want Raymond. A lot of people want to see the little chappy.

ME: Congratulations. It sounds terrific.

SL: Thanks, Michael.

ME: Take care. Enjoy your party tonight.

SL: Okay. Alright, thank you very much.

ME: Goodbye now.

CH: From our archives, Jenny Winstanley and Sophie Lloyd speaking with Michael Enright in 1991. At the time, Ms. Lloyd had just been booted from the Magic Circle for gaining entrance to the all-male club by pretending to be a man. The Magic Circle is now hoping to track her down and apologize.

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CH: You've been listening to As It Happens on the CBC Listen App. Our show can be heard Monday to Friday on CBC Radio One after Your World Tonight.

NK: And you can always read more about the stories and conversations we feature on As It Happens on our website, cbc.ca/aih. I'm Nil Köksal.

CH: And I'm Chris Howden.

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The AIH Transcript For November 18, 2024

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