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The AIH transcript for November 27, 2023

PETER ARMSTRONG: Hello, I'm Peter Armstrong, sitting in for Nil Köksal.

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

[theme]

CH: Tonight:

PA: Stretching the truce. Israel and Hamas agree to continue their temporary ceasefire for two more days. And a former Israeli diplomat says -- given the political pressures at play -- the truce might last even longer.

CH: Power play. Alberta’s premier invokes the Sovereignty Act to defy Ottawa’s proposed clean electricity regulations -- saying it’s the only way to ensure her province, and its people, have the power they need.

PA: Uncovering the uncovered. Anishinaabe journalist Tanya Talaga says an 11-year-old's untimely death a month ago should have been front-page news, but wasn't -- because too many people think of the suicide of an Indigenous child as “normal”.

CH: How they got everything ironed out. A Toronto laundromat owner catches a woman stealing from his business -- but their interaction ends with compassion, rather than conflict.

PA: The genuine article. Well, adjective. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has unveiled its honest-to-goodness, 100 per cent real word of the year.

CH: And… She can see both sides. A local tour guide reflects on New York’s decision to crack down on souvenir vendors whose sheer numbers make it hard for people to cross the Brooklyn Bridge.

CH: As It Happens, the Monday edition. Radio that looks at a congested bridge, and wishes people could just get over it.

[theme]

Part 1: Israel-Hamas Deal, Youth Suicide: Tanya Talaga, Brooklyn Bridge Vendors

Israel-Hamas Deal

Guests: Alon Pinkas

CH: The pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas has been extended for two more days. Today, Qatar announced the truce extension -- which Qatari officials helped broker over the weekend. The White House confirmed that an agreement had been reached, and Hamas says the terms remain the same. That likely means more Israeli hostages will be freed, more Palestinian detainees released, and more aid sent into Gaza. The negotiations around the ceasefire have been tense and complicated, and it's unclear how long it will hold. Alon Pinkas is a former adviser to the Israeli government. We reached him in Tel Aviv.

PA: Alon, how is the news of this two-day extension being received in Israel?

ALON PINKAS: Well, it's received very positively. I mean, people needed the respite, but it's also received as something that was expected and pretty much predictable. I mean, if you take, if you, notwithstanding the proviso of some Israeli politicians -- prime minister prime among them -- of we will continue and we will attack, and we will relaunch, and we will resume. As far as the public is concerned, there are probably going to be, or they expect at least even more extensions.

PA: Right. Is the, the expectation that we would get to this point mostly because of the such good feelings of seeing the Israeli hostages, of people coming home and the impact that that's had over the past few days?

AP: Yeah, well, of course, it depends, Peter, who you ask. I mean, someone involved with the families, obviously -- and naturally -- that's the answer. If you ask the average Israeli, he or she are, you know, subject to an emotional and sentimental storm. And, you know, the hostage issue of the release of some of the hostages, obviously is, is what determines the mood. If you ask people who take a little a broader perspective, they also expect this because they understand that the alternative is an ongoing military operation that will entail a lengthy Israeli presence in Gaza. And even people with the most gung-ho attitude toward let's shoot and let's destroy and bomb understand viscerally and cerebrally that that will not and cannot and should not be done. And so, from any angle, you support these ceasefires.

PA: There are so many calculations to make, whether you're a citizen watching this, the family of somebody who's still being held, somebody who's been released. But also, if you're in Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet and in his government trying to figure out the political and military calculations. Can you just walk us through what, what the calculation being made first by the Israeli government is here?

AP: Well, just begin with this. The devastation of October 7th was on such a scale and of such magnitude that the absolute immediate and intuitive response was to retaliate massively.

PA: Mm-hmm.

AP: But that did not include a clear and coherent political goal. And so, 52 days later, Israel still doesn't have a clear and coherent political objective relating to the question of, okay, and then what? What's next the day after? Who's going to control Gaza? And so, the government's calculation was more motivated by this let's eradicate Hamas and obliterate Hamas and annihilate Hamas. Let's hit them as much as we can and maybe then -- maybe then -- start contemplating the next phase. But, you know, you never run a war independently of other factors and outside pressures. And the U.S. has been pressuring Israel to come up with some kind of an idea or some kind of a vision on where this is all headed, which Israel until now has failed to do. So, that's right now, the calculus. We need to prove what the government says. We need to prove that we won. In order to prove that we won, we need to degrade Hamas to the point that it is incapacitated politically. The question is, was this reached already or not? I don't know.

PA: You know, the concern at the outset was that a prolonged pause, whether you call it a ceasefire or not, but a prolonged pause would allow Hamas to dig in and retrench. What, then, is the calculation from Hamas's side? Do we even know?

AP: Well, I think, Peter, that, that goes to the difference or the gap in both sides definition of what constitutes a win. If for Israel, a win constitutes what I just mentioned, you know, annihilating, eradicating Hamas. For Hamas -- which is a non-state terror organization -- all they need to prove that they won or to define this campaign as a win is to stand on their feet and wave a flag, even if it's the last flag being waved. And so, for them, there is an added incentive for these ceasefires. Israel could obviously change the way the narrative is packaged and say the idea was to topple Hamas as a, as an effective political power. And that to a large extent has been achieved already. And so, even if in the next two or three weeks, you will see several surgical operations, limited incursions. In that respect, all Hamas needs to do is to stay alive even after these kind of attacks. And I think militarily they can, they can actually achieve that. Politically, I think, I think that Hamas has been devastated. There's no question about that.

PA: Right. You know, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here. This is an extension for a mere two days. But if it's working, do you have a sense of how long we might be able to see a pause in these hostilities?

AP: Well, yeah, yeah. That's subject to the release of hostages.

PA: Right.

AP: Don't forget, there are two distinct groups of hostages here. There are the women and the children and the elderly and the, let's call it, the non-combatants, including the men. But then there's another group. These are IDF soldiers -- men and women. It is doubtful that Hamas will negotiate their release as a quid pro quo thing unless there's a grand bargain to be made. Everyone for everyone.

PA: Right.

AP: Meaning all Hamas prisoners for all. Until that happens, we could see a series of truces or pauses, as you called it correctly, interrupted only by limited operations. So, I think this is where the war is headed in terms of its dynamics.

PA: Well, there's a lot of questions still to come. But Alon, we do have to leave it there. So, really appreciate your insight on this today.

AP: My pleasure, Peter. Thank you.

CH: Alon Pinkas is a former adviser to Israel's foreign ministry and a former Israeli diplomat. He's in Tel Aviv.

[ambient electronic]

Youth Suicide: Tanya Talaga

Guest: Tanya Talaga

CH: Tomorrow marks one month since Elaina Cecilia Nancy Beardy died. One month during which the 11-year-old girl's suicide has received hardly any coverage at all. And during which, her northern Ontario communities of Kingfisher Lake First Nation and Sachigo Lake First Nation were forced to wait two weeks before burying her while her body travelled to and from Toronto for an autopsy. It's a shocking story. And in her column for the Globe and Mail today, Tanya Talaga writes that it should have been a front page story. Mr. Talaga is an Anishinaabe and Polish journalist and speaker, whose mother's family is from Fort William First Nation. We reached her today in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

PA: Tanya, what went through your mind when you first heard about Elaina Beardy's death?

TANYA TALAGA: Devastation. You know, it's so awful hearing time and time again that an 11-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 13-year-old, a 14-year-old, A 15-year-old. Has taken their life by suicide. It's just awful. And it just doesn't seem to stop.

PA: What is it that you think keeps this from the front pages of this country?

TT: That's a really big question. There's almost as if we don't we don't see the people behind the numbers. We don't see the children behind the numbers. There was a time about five, six, seven years ago there was a lot more reporting on suicides in the north. And then, that seems to have abated. I don't know why that is. Is it the COVID crisis? Is it everything else turned our gaze away from the fact that we have children in this country that want to die and not to live? I mean, 11 years old, like, that should be blazing front page news. You know, that, to me, is just awful. And it speaks to a greater and broader mental health crisis, one that is very deep in our communities in the north, but it's also across Canada. We have a mental health crisis right now across the country with our youth. And this should be number one in everybody's minds.

PA: You wrote about this young woman who had, you know, this bright, warm smile. What have you been able to learn about Elaina from her, her family and those who knew her?

TT: Her family used to call her Princess Elaina. And when I was speaking with her great uncle -- Lott Sainnawap -- he was telling me about her, about how kind she was and how helpful she was. And, you know, there is a photo of her that I've seen and she has this beautiful smile. She has dark hair, she's got glasses, but she looks like an 11-year-old girl, right?

PA: [whispered] Yeah.

TT: And it's just astounding to me when, when you see her face, and then you think there is a child that the society should have saved. Suicide is preventable. All suicides are preventable. And the fact that we have so many. I also mention, mention in the column that there have been 599 suicides of all ages from 1986 to June 2023 in 33 First Nations communities. That's an astounding number, and it speaks to a massive mental health crisis that we're not getting a handle on.

PA: And that's a number that's already dated.

TT: Exactly. Exactly. And how awful is that that by the time we're talking about it, it's higher.

PA: Yeah. There's a detail in the story that, that really stood out to me because I didn't understand it. That Elaina's family had to wait two weeks to bury her because her body had to be flown to Toronto for an autopsy. How common is that? What's going on there?

TT: Well, in Thunder Bay, it's a huge problem. There are not enough services whatsoever. Medical services, coroner services. So, what happens is that when an autopsy is needed in death by suicide is, an 11-year-old girl, an autopsy is needed, she has to be flown to Toronto. That is so far from her home community. Which is about 400 kilometres north of Sioux Lookout. And that's not just for Elaina. That's for so many of the people that die in our communities or in the city of Thunder Bay. There's just no capacity here. So, people have to be flown south and then flown back north.

PA: Suicide, as you say, is preventable. It is also, as we know, it can be contagious. What are people in Elaina's community telling you about their fears for the future in the wake of her death?

TT: So, this is something that we've seen before. So, this fear is incredibly real. I spoke about in the column girls that I had written about before. Girls that knew each other, and this was six years ago, seven girls who took their lives. And these girls all were in contact with each other. They were all touching base on social media, even though they were taken to group homes in order to access mental health care in southern Ontario. So, they were taken out of their communities. And those girls were actually the subject of my Massey Lecture in 2018.

PA: Right.

TT: And that's the fear. Part of the driver of all of this -- and it's something that's so hard to get a handle on -- is cyberbullying. And add to that issues such as, such as lack of, of consistent mental health supports, lack of the ability for First Nations people and communities to control their health care spending dollars. Our community should have the right to be able to hire doctors and nurses and form our own health systems instead of having to rely on a health system that is thousands of kilometres away from our communities and not controlled by our people.

PA: It's been such an important thing to shed light on this. I wonder on the risk of contagion. How do you balance that? That on the one hand, you want to bring attention to these stories, but there are frankly unique considerations when reporting on suicide. How do you deal with that?

TT: Mhm. Meegwetch. I appreciate that. Well, you know, you have to take care, right? You can't be salacious in your reporting. You can't be giving all the details. But it's, I think, it's important to make people care that these are our children. These are Canada's children. And so, Canada needs to know these stories. And to know that they're not just numbers, right? That Elaina was an 11-year-old girl. She had hopes and dreams, and she had a family that loved her. She had a school. You know, she had a community. She had her own things that made her whole. And that light has gone out now. And we have to really come to grips as a society to try and figure out why that is constantly over and over again and to stop it.

PA: Hmm. Well, thank you so much for your work on this and for making time for us today.

TT: Meegwetch for having me.

PA: Thank you.

TT: Take care.

CH: Tanya Talaga is an Anishinaabe journalist and speaker. We reached her in Thunder Bay, Ontario. If you or someone you know is in crisis, there is help. Call Talk Suicide Canada at 1-833-456-4566.

[sombre rock]

Booker Prize

CH: People like to talk about how books have the power to transport us. To help us escape our own world and give us a sense of what it might be like to inhabit another. To take us away from the here and now in ways that can transform. All those things are true of all the contenders for last night's Booker Prize. But it's uniquely true for some of their readers. Just ask Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. The British-Iranian dual citizen was freed in March 2022 after spending six years in prison in Iran on espionage charges. In a keynote address at last night's awards ceremony, she said that while she was in prison, contraband books were her salvation.

SOUNDCLIP

NAZANIN ZAGHARI-RATCLIFFE: Dr. Thorn, by Anthony Trollope, was the first book I read. The fact that a story written in the 19th century can speak to you across time and space, throwing you into another world hundreds of years later, is phenomenal. This story of power, money and politics was so captivating that while I was reading it I did not take any notice of the crying and banging on the door going on in the other cells. When I finished the book, I realized there were some blank pages at the back. I had found a pen under the carpet, hidden by a previous inmate, but no paper. I started writing things in my nude handwriting on those pages, and I spent hours plotting how to stick them together using the honey I had in the cell so that the guards wouldn't notice. I also read War and Peace. My husband and I had watched a TV series together with a cup of coffee on the sofa in London a couple of months before I was arrested. It wasn't just Tolstoy's story. The book was a vehicle to take me back to my home in London when I was a free person. Then I moved to the general ward where there was a community of people. It turned out we had a secret library in the ward, with the majority of the books hidden in inmates beds. Through this hidden gem, we circulated the books between those be trusted. We were not willing to let prison control us over what we read at a time that they controlled everything else. One day, a cellmate received that book through the posts. It was Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, translated into Farsi. Who thought a book banned in Iran could find its way to prison through the post? We hit the cover with the newspapers to avoid being caught on the camera. There was a long waiting list of inmates wanting to read the book, as well as one of the guards. Later, I read The Return by Hisham Matar -- a paralyzing the story of a man in search of his father, who had disappeared many years earlier in prisons of Gadhafi. The story was so bitter I had to drag myself to finish the book. But the name of the book kept me going. I wanted to return.

CH: British Iranian translator, writer and charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, speaking at last night's Booker Prize gala.

[international]

Brooklyn Bridge Vendors

Guest: Amber Field

CH: There's a problem on the Brooklyn Bridge, and it's a little hard for me to get across. Well, hard for everyone to get across. A lot of people have complained that it is hard to enjoy the landmark due to the sheer number of vendors selling souvenirs to tourists. City officials are calling not just for an abridgement but for a total ban on what they describe as pedlars, vendors, hawkers and hucksters on all the city's bridges. Amber Field describes herself as "New York's Only Good Tour Guide". She regularly takes visitors on a guided historical tour of the Brooklyn Bridge. We reached her on the bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

PA: Amber, how are things looking on the Brooklyn Bridge today?

AMBER FIELD: It's looking pretty good. It's almost sundown. The light is hitting the Manhattan Bridge in a very beautiful way. And there are a lot of cars on here. And a woman winked at me, so I said hi back to her.

PA: [laughing] Can you just paint a picture for me of the situation with these vendors on the bridge? Just how packed can it get there?

AF: Okay, I'm going to start off by saying, like, I'm only talking about what's going to happen to, like, safety and, like, money that's going in the pocket of Brown around people. At the same time, the Brooklyn Bridge, which is like about a mile long, I after, I think 2021, we moved the bike lane down where the road is, and it opened up a lot of space. And vendors ended up taking up much of the bridge to the point where I've seen vendors taking up what I would call, like, 40 per cent of the bridge. But also, I make up numbers my head all the time.

PA: It's crowded. I've been there. And it's kind of, it's very, you feel almost claustrophobic walking through parts of the bridge.

AF: Yeah.

PA: Just for people who haven't seen this before, like, what are the most kind of common souvenirs you're going to see them selling?

AF: I mean, if you close your eyes and imagine New York City souvenirs, they'll be selling it. They sell everything from like T-shirts to plastic trinkets, to I've seen weed being sold on the bridge. A person does a DJ set for tips. [PA chuckles] And also, they do this vandalism thing where if you put locks on the bridge, it's like a good luck thing, and people will be selling locks. So, it varies from a thing that you'll eventually throw out to a thing that the city has to throw out, eventually.

PA: [chuckling] And there's also -- this I didn't actually see -- but I've heard tell of this. That vendors sell these like 360-degree video shoots, all playing the same song. Tell me about that.

AF: Yeah, okay. So, there's one if you can hear Alicia Keys playing in the background right now. If I ask people at home to imagine like a tuna can that's like about three feet wide that spins around, that has a stick pointing out of it that has a camera attached to it. It's a device that spins around. So you can take a photo for TikTok or the Instagrams. And you'll have background music. They'll be playing Alicia Keys on there, except for there's about, like, eight of these little devices on the entire bridge. So, like, for me, as a tour guide going across the bridge, I'm hearing Alicia Keys every 30 seconds. And not just that, but the same 30-second loop.

PA: It must be a little maddening.

AF: I am not a fan of it. And it's something that I testified to our Department of Transportation for them to start enforcing.

PA: And here we get into sort of the crux of the matter. You know, you're there with, with visitors all the time.

AF: Yeah.

PA: Do the number of vendors, does that interfere with people's experience of visiting the bridge?

AF: I'm going to pivot on that because, I think, a more important thing to talk about is that, like, all these vendors are very inconvenient. And they are also, like, a safety problem because this bridge has been congested, and there has been tramplings on this bridge historically. At the same time, vendors have been on this bridge since before it was actually a bridge and just two towers that were, had a drawbridge put in between it. Excuse me, a rope bridge put in between it. And what I'm looking at with the bridge being so aggy is failures of our mayor and a lot of other very powerful people in our city to deal with our migrant crisis. We have a bunch of humans coming into our city, and we're not taking care of them. So, they're trying to survive in the way that they can. And so now, the city is effectively providing free subsidized retail space for people on the bridge. And everybody like me who depends on this bridge for a career, or people who just want to look out and a nice vantage point at sunset as it's setting right now, we have to put up with that because our leadership is lazy and lacks an incredible amount of imagination for how to care about people.

PA: You mentioned the historical aspect. It's, you know, we follow your TikTok account, so we know you're something of a historian yourself.

AF: Oh, that's embarrassing! [chuckles]

PA: That historic tension over how people use any public facility, in this case, a bridge. You know, this isn't a new thing, is it?

AF: No. I mean, the bridge has been witness to giant political fights since before, like, we even started doing any of the underwater digging. It has cost about a couple of dozen politicians their career, and it has made the careers of a couple of other politicians. You know, I think, like, what is political about a bridge is basically, it's two, it takes two opposite things and unites it together. Like, the thing I'm jumping on top of right now is a suspension bridge. It's, you got a giant plank and then a bunch of suspension wires holding it up. Or, like, it connects Brooklyn and Manhattan. And, you know, I think it kind of rhymes with, like, the problems of the bridge that has always been historically there. Like, right now, I'm a white transwoman in poverty, and I'm being pitted against a bunch of, like, people of colour who, both of us, are trying to survive. And because, like, people more powerful than us aren't doing their job to make sure that everybody's taken care of, we have to have tensions inside of a community, even though I have more in common with this woman who's, like, texting somebody while, like, people are trying to buy candy from her than I do with any of the mayors or millionaires who are, like, withholding funds that could go to the city.

PA: Listen, the backstory of how it was built is amazing, too. And you do a great job of telling that story. But I think we'll have to save that for another day. So, thank you for this. Really appreciate it.

AF: Thank you very much. Have a good one. Bye.

CH: Amber Field is the self-described Only Good Tour Guide in New York City. We reached her on the Brooklyn Bridge.

PA: Now, the other sort of side of the argument here is that the government says that by shifting away from natural gas, that Albertans are going to see these soaring energy prices. There's going to be an increase in brownouts and blackouts in the middle of the summer or the dead of the winter. How justified is that as a fear?

JM: A few months ago, the Alberta electricity system operator -- that's a Crown agency that would be subject to this Sovereignty Act regulation should it be enacted -- they said that they've looked at the proposals and the rules that Ottawa has proposed. And they said it can't be done. With current technology, with projected trends in solar or wind and other developments that we would be risking blackouts in Alberta in certain periods. And that is of great concern. We have a lot of companies who produce natural gas and other electricity in Alberta saying that they could maybe go net-zero by 2040s, maybe by 2050, but not by 2035. There are a number of economists and experts out there who, while they support the net-zero goals, say that some of what Ottawa's proposing is going to be very hard for any government, no matter how well-meaning, to enforce. Now, Alberta has, and despite declaring these unconstitutional and putting this we're not going to recognize this as valid, are still identical shooting table on some of these things.

PA: Right.

JM: But this certainly is a provocative thing to place on that table.

PA: Walk me through the Crown corporation part of this. Like, what is it supposed to accomplish in the premier's eyes?

JM: This is where things get unclear. There's a lot unclear about this. And we're just unfolding this. But Danielle Smith is worried that some, some natural gas plant, especially some of the older ones, would be barred starting in 2035 under the clean electricity regulations. So, one of the things that she's exploring with the idea of this Crown corporation, which again is just an idea, is that it would buy up some, some natural gas plants that are no longer allowed under these regulations and act and operate them as though the clean electricity regulations don't exist. She's also musing in this about building and commissioning some new natural gas plants that may not necessarily be allowed under these these clean electricity regulations. It's not immediately clear why a Crown corporation would be able to do things that private sector companies are not. Of course, she talks about this eventually heading to a court of law, where it will be a judge, not a politician's, that determination about whether or not what I really want to do is constitutional or not.

PA: Looming over all of this has been the suggestion that there's potential legal risks of not meeting these 2035 targets. That, you know, private companies and members of them might face potential jail time. Federal Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault has noted that, you know, Ottawa has only issued warnings, compliance orders or, in some cases, fines, under the 1999 Environmental Protection Act. When you zoom out and you look at that aspect of it, what we heard today, where we're sort of headed in all this, how much of what we're seeing, Jason, is, is political theatre?

JM: Alberta has been a source of spicy politics between itself and Ottawa for many decades. And Danielle Smith has certainly ratcheted some of that up with her Sovereignty Act. It is no coincidence that this occurs a few days before both Danielle Smith and then Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault go to Dubai for the Cop28 Environmental Conference, where Steven Guilbeault will be promoting the net-zero by 2035 proposals, which are, you know, G7-wide commitment.

PA: Right.

JM: As Danielle Smith will also be there saying that it's her intention to continue to produce and burn fossil fuels as an energy source. With some abatements, with some improvements toward 2050. But we would be standing firmly in the way of what Steven Guilbeault and the federal government want to do.

PA: All right. Now, a wild day, as always. We appreciate your analysis.

JM: No problem.

CH: Jason Markusoff is a writer-producer for CBC Calgary. We reached him in Calgary.

[country western]

Palestinian Students Shot

CH: Hisham Awartani's family thought it would be safer for him to go to Burlington, Vermont than home to the Israeli-occupied West Bank for the holidays. So, the 20-year-old college student spent American Thanksgiving weekend with two friends at his uncle's home. On Saturday night, the three young men decided to take a walk around the block, which is when they were shot. They were reportedly speaking a mix of Arabic and English at the time, and two of them were wearing Keffiyehs -- traditional Palestinian scarves. A 48-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder. Police say they are still investigating as to whether it was a hate-motivated crime. All three students are still in the ICU -- and Mr. Awartani is facing the possibility of paralysis. Today, his uncle -- Rich Price -- talked about how the men are doing.

SOUNDCLIP

RICH PRICE: I want to say that these three young men are incredible. And that's not just a proud uncle speaking, but it's, it's true. They are, they have their lives in front of them. They are committed to building incredible lives. They each go to great schools. They were our house guests for Thanksgiving -- as they have been the past few Thanksgivings. We had just been to my eight-year-old twins' birthday party. These three college students, who, if you're in college, who wants to go to a eight-year-old birthday party? But these three guys did. And they came, they played with my boys, we had just come home, and they were walking around the block. And this is when this happened. I can tell you that I've, I've been with them almost constantly since Saturday evening. I've been listening to them talk to one another and try to process the events. And I'm blown away by their resilience, by their good humour in the face of these difficult times. I never imagined that this sort of thing could happen. And my sister lives in the occupied West Bank, and people often ask me, aren't you worried about your sister? Aren't you worried about your your nephews and your niece? And the reality is, as difficult as their life is, they are surrounded by incredible sense of community. And tragic irony is not even the right phrase. But to have them come stay with me for Thanksgiving and have something like this happen speaks to the level of civic vitriol, speaks to the level of hatred that exists in some corners of this, of this country. It speaks to a sickness of gun violence that exists in this country. And I'm proud of, even though this is devastating, that this happened in this community, I am really proud and grateful to the community that is here and has rallied around. I believe the families fear that this was motivated by hate, that these boys were, these young men, were targeted because that they were Arabs, that they were wearing Keffiyehs. I think that is our fear. We believe in the sanctity of the presumption of innocence and, and due process. And so, we'll support the authorities as they go through their investigation. But it certainly seems that's our fear.

CH: That was Rich Price, whose 20-year-old nephew -- Hisham Awartani -- was shot on Saturday night in Burlington, Vermont.

[slow, bright piano]

Word Of The Year

Guest: Peter Sokolowski

CH: This has been a peculiar and stressful year, which, of course, is a thing you could say at the end of every year. But it's really true this year. We've had all kinds of environmental catastrophes, plus an ongoing existential crisis over artificial intelligence. Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail when he isn't in court. And a movie about a 64-year-old doll was a colossal box office hit and hailed as a contemporary feminist classic. With all of that in mind, it was impossible to predict what Merriam-Webster Dictionary's word of the year might be. But we reached someone who agreed to tell us, the dictionary's editor-at-large, Peter Sokolowski, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

PA: So, Peter, give it to me. What's the word of 2023?

PETER SOKOLOWSKI: Merriam-Webster's word of the year for 2023 is authentic.

PA: Ooh! All right. Before we get into the whys and the hows, could you just give us the dictionary meaning?

PS: We have a definition that means not false or imitation. And those are given as synonyms of the words real and actual. And we also have another meaning, which is true to one's own personality, spirits or character. Two great meanings for the word authentic.

PA: And what is it about that word? Why do you think it was looked up so much this year?

PS: Well, I think we are experiencing a kind of crisis of authenticity in the broader culture, and that connects to a bunch of different things. On the one hand, we have heard a lot about artificial intelligence -- A.I -- chatGPT. Can we trust someone's homework? Can we believe our own eyes? But also, the recent actors strike where they were concerned about their likenesses or image. And so, what we realized is this has been on our minds collectively for quite a long time. But authenticity also connects to identity, and there are lots of words that are often found next to each other, like authentic cuisine, authentic self, authentic voice. And it just seems that we value something more when it is put into question in the way that authenticity has been in recent years. And needless to say, we've gone through a period where we hear about fake news or alternative facts. So, I think we're all kind of in a way more alert to the authentic and to the truth.

PA: I wonder why people look it up, though, right? You know, it's not like the word has a bunch of counter indications. You're like, I wonder what it is about authentic that they get onto the, onto the site and look it up. What is it that's drawing people to look up this word?

PS: Well, you hit upon an important point. It's something that we've learned and that I've learned personally from watching the dictionary data over the years because some lookups are fairly surprising, like this one. [PA chuckles] And in point of fact, words that are abstract and that have classical roots tend to have a high number of lookups on a daily basis. So, to take other examples, the words integrity, or ubiquitous, or paradigm. Those are words that are looked up quite a lot. Not for spelling, we presume, but for nuance of meaning. And authentic is one of these. It's not a word that had an individual story attached to it for a huge spike like the words vaccine or pandemic in recent years for very obvious reasons. What we connect with authentic is a broader, if you will, zeitgeist. A broader idea of if something is put into question, it's something that is worth exploring, and our curiosity leads us to the dictionary.

PA: It's a funny thing, the human brain, isn't it? I mean, [PS chuckles] like, when we spoke, we spoke to you back in 2016. And back then, [chuckle] the word of the year was surreal. Last year, it was gaslighting. What does it say to you? Like, as you look at that sort of evolution of the thing people have been thinking about, what does that tell us about the time we're living in?

PS: Absolutely. I mean, these are, these are words that express a crisis of belief, a crisis of truth, you know, a crisis of authenticity. That is just simply the place that we're in as a culture. But what's, you know, encouraging to me is that people do turn to the dictionary, that words matter and that people are paying attention.

PA: Interesting. What were the other words then that were, were sort of pushing, you know, what, who was, who got runner up to this?

PS: Sure. I mean, another related word is the word dystopian. And that's often used in the context of artificial intelligence and its consequences for policy, for example. But this is an interesting word because it connects with whether we believe our own eyes and our own ears. But also, this is a word that connects to stories of climate change.

PA: Right.

PS: And the fires and the smoke in Canada and in Hawaii. But oddly, this is also a word that we have of many connections with entertainment and dystopian theories. And, you know, like The Last of Us that was early this year that got a huge amount of critical attention. And many think pieces about a dystopian future. So, this is an odd word because it's very serious, but it also represents a kind of entertainment category.

PA: One of our producers said their favourite word -- indict -- was near the top of the list. Is that true?

PS: Yes. Well, indict, of course, connects to a specific story. [PA laughs] We have a former president who has been indicted a number of times. And there are trials ongoing, as you know. But, of course, Indict also has that very unusual silent C. And so, there could be good reasons for spelling to look it up as well.

PA: And it is the silent C, It has something to do with, like, the reverse-engineered a Latin root to the word. Have I got that right?

PS: [laughing] That's exactly right. I mean, English borrowed a lot of words from French. And this is one of them. All of our legal vocabulary comes from French because of the Norman conquest. And it's a long human history. But, you know, the Normans imposed their system of laws. And so forth like judge and jury and arraign and acquit, they're all French words. Indict is one of those words, and we pronounce it indict because it's very similar to the way it was pronounced in French. However, in the Renaissance, there was this reawakening -- this rebirth -- of connection to the Latin roots of many words. And scholars found that indict originally came from indicere the word that gave us to indicate. And so, that C was present. So, they popped the C back in. But that was 400 years after, [PA chuckles] after we had been used to pronouncing the word without the C. So that's also, by the way, why we have a silent B in the word doubt.

PA: That's right. And were there any fun ones in there? Something to bring us a little relief in the language world.

PS: [chuckling] Yeah. There are always words from entertainment that sparks the interest of the word. The word rizz -- R-I-Z-Z. It's a new word to me. It means romantic appeal or charm. It's kind of use that the word charisma. And some people think it actually is a shortened form of the word charisma because it has that sound in it. The other one that's kind of funny is egot -- E-G-O-T -- which stands for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. And that refers to a person who has achieved the distinction of winning each of those four awards.

PA: Well, I hope you win an award for this. This has been great fun. And like I say, we look forward to this day every year. It's a big day at shows like this.

PS: Well, thank you. It's a treat to talk to you.

PA: Take good care.

PS: Thank you.

CH: Peter Sokolowski is the editor-at-large of Merriam-Webster Dictionary. He's in Springfield, Massachusetts.

[indie rock]

Laundromat Theft

CH: When Alex Winch checked his security footage recently, what he saw dismayed him. The tape showed a woman walking into his Toronto laundromat, removing someone else's sweaters from a machine, and walking out. So when Mr. Winch saw the same woman again, he confronted her. But the conversation didn't go quite as he expected.

SOUNDCLIP

ALEX WINCH: When I asked her why she had taken the sweaters? There was no disputing that she had. Her immediate response was because I'm F-ing freezing. And I asked her, well, what about the woman whose sweaters you've taken? And her response, she had seen the customer looking for her sweaters as she -- the customer -- approached the dryer. And the response from the person who had taken the sweaters was, well, she's got a home and I'm homeless.

DAVID COMMON: What did you think in that moment?

AW: What a moral dilemma. How cold do you have to be to justify stealing a sweater? And how do you use the laundromat and have your sweater stolen? There's no right answer in that. And we're just at the start of cold season. It's going to get colder from here.

DC: What has your response been?

AW: Well, I walked with the woman who had taken the sweaters. I stepped out of my laundromat and we walked together for four or five blocks. And it was clear I was not going to recover my customer's sweaters. In hindsight, I wish I had had a sweater or a hoodie or something to give her. And I realized that I have a coat on my hook at home that I could have given her. But how to make that happen? So, I put up a coat rack outside my shop where people can donate a coat. People in the middle of the night who are cold can pick up a coat. There's no hours because the greatest need is the middle of the night when it's the coldest and darkest and dampest. And most doors are locked and most coats and comfort are unavailable.

DC: I know many people have stepped forward to donate to that coat rack. What does it tell you about your community?

AW: It's a blessing. It's a blessing that we have people who are willing to, not for praise or public recognition, just go into their closet and pull out a coat and put it anonymously on a rack. It's a blessing that we live in such a community.

CH: Alex Winch is the owner of Beach Solar Laundromat in Toronto. He was speaking with David Common, host of Metro Morning.

[lo-fi]

Part 3: COP28 Investigation, Smoking Ban Scrapped

COP28 Investigation

Guest: Justin Rowlatt

CH: When Cop28 kicks off in Dubai later this week, fossil fuels will be at the top of the agenda, as in phasing them out. But apparently, the United Arab Emirates saw the UN conference as the perfect place to phase more oil and gas deals in. The BBC -- working alongside independent journalists at the Centre for Climate Reporting -- got hold of documents that revealed the host country planned to use the climate talks to pitch oil and gas deals to 27 foreign governments, including Canada's, and that the UAE team had compiled talking points for this year's Cop28 president. Justin Rowlatt is the BBC's climate editor. We reached him in London.

PA: Justin, can you give us some examples of some of these talking points that you were able to get your hands on?

JUSTIN ROWLATT: So, for example, with China, they say ADNOC -- the giant UAE giant state oil company -- would like to jointly assess opportunities for liquefied natural gas in Mozambique, Canada and Australia. Then, they say, for example, in a in a meeting planned with the Brazilian foreign minister, they talk about wanting to discuss a multibillion-dollar purchase of Latin America's largest petrochemicals company -- oil and gas processing company. They say there -- it's quite explicit -- they say ask for a meeting or a phone call with the relevant minister. And then, for example, in Colombia, they say, you know, ADNOC -- the gas, the oil company -- is ready to help Colombia develop its fossil fuel resources. So yeah, I mean, they're very clear in this 15 countries in which there are, there are businesses associated with fossil fuels discussed. Twenty-seven countries where, in total -- so the other countries, about 20 countries -- there's business suggested -- suggested discussions -- about business with the state renewables company, a company called Masdar.

PA: And not to be too obtuse about this, but these are supposed to be meetings about fighting climate change, right?

JR: You know, and when you talk to people in the UN about what the process is, they say, look, the presidency -- the COP president and his team -- are custodians of an ongoing process. Yeah, it's Cop28. I mean, this is the 28th conference. It's actually been going on for 29 years. And it's an ongoing process designed to bring the world together with, as you say, this objective of driving down carbon emissions. And I mean, the UN secretary general commented on this today. He said he found it astonishing to do their own, effectively, do their own side deals that might drive up emissions.

PA: And yet, I mean, it was always a little bit weird that the UAE would hold the presidency of this in particular. So, can we just zoom out for a second here and tell us who is Sultan Al Jaber, this year's president of the Cop28?

JR: So, he is the head of the state oil company. He's the head of the renewables company. He's actually the head of all sorts of other important UAE institutions as well. And, and, yeah, so he's been entrusted by the government of the UAE to head up the Cop process, this UN climate conference that's happening in Dubai and will end on the 12th. Well, it probably won't end on the 12th; they almost always run over. The 12th of December. So, two weeks’ time.

PA: Right. The idea of a state oil and gas CEO heading up, really, the world's most important climate talks. It is something of an oxymoron. What was the pitch in the first place as to how he could be the right person for that?

JR: Well, that's the decision of the country that's running. They appoint. So, the country that's, that's hosting the COP appoints the president. So, that's not in the gift of the UN.

PA: Right.

JR: I would, I find myself defending using, you know, the, the UAE's defence of its presidency to defend the choice of the UAE. Because what they said was, listen, look, you know, yeah, you know, oil companies are part of the problem. They produce the, the, the oil that creates the carbon emissions. But you guys all burn the oil. You know, you're all, you're all responsible as well. This isn't us on their own. This is a compact that we have globally between, you know, oil producers, consumers and governments that say, you know, this kind of trade is fine. So, you know, it's not illegal to sell oil. So, why should we be bought? In fact, they said, look, you know, we really should be at the table because you can't solve the problem without talking to us. And I actually thought there was force in that argument. I mean, I have to say, you know, a lot of activists and, you know, campaigning organizations said the conflict of interest is irreconcilable. You know, I said, let's wait and see how they do. But I have to say, the evidence we've collected [both chuckle] does make those criticisms of a conflict of interest far more pointed today, I think.

PA: And yet, they made those arguments quite forcefully that there is no climate solution without the oil producers of the world and oil-producing companies, countries of the world. We have these talking points that you were able to report on. How, how has the UAE, how has Sultan Al Jaber responded to your reporting? Do they deny any of this?

JR: This is, this is really interesting. So, we obviously sent them a huge kind of right of reply letter where we documented everything we had and said, what happened? Did you, we said use, meetings arranged as part of the COP process to try and do fossil fuel deals? And they said private meetings are private. We're not going to comment. So, that is not a denial. And then they go on to say, look, where, you know, Dr. Jaber has been, you know, tireless in his efforts to get a transformational outcome at COP. And to suggest any different would, and I quote, be a distraction. And that also is not a denial.

PA: And have any of the other countries involved confirmed that some meetings might have taken place? Has Canada, for example, shot them down?

JR: I think Canada is one. There's 12 countries that got back and said that either they didn't have meetings or there weren't commercial discussions in the meetings they had.

PA: Right.

JR: And I'm almost certain Canada is one of those. And the rest, we don't know. We certainly know of one where they followed up on a commercial proposition of a fossil fuel deal that was suggested in one of these meetings.

PA: If this is the kind of thing that' coming up before we've even started Cop28, what hope is there of countries making any real concrete deal here?

JR: Well, look, I mean, you know, yes, I mean, it has certainly raised questions, doesn't it? One hopes that because it's so obviously in the world's interests to do something about this really serious existential threat that we all -- the entire world community -- faces, you hope that they would put aside this and say, well, we're going to get an ambitious outcome anyway. And just on that, I think we should just remember how extraordinary the COP process is. The fact that we can convene all the countries in the world in a single meeting. We've got, you know, obviously The Pope's coming, King Charles the third, 167 other world leaders. We're going to have a there'll be representatives from from Palestine and, and Israel there sitting together in the same room trying to solve a bigger issue that the whole world faces. And the fact that still happens shows how invested, frankly, the countries of the world are. How they understand this is a problem we need to tackle. And I guess I'm saying we need to hold on to that thought. The thought that they get it and they know there's a serious problem we need to tackle and hope that that ultimately decides, drives that judgement the decisions that are made in Dubai.

PA: Fair point. And listen, great reporting on this and thank you so much for making the time to speak with us on this today.

JR: Cheers! Thank you. Thank you for, thank you for speaking to me. Cheers.

CH: Justin Rowlatt is the BBC's climate editor. He's in London.

[pop]

MTL Jewish Org Targeted

CH: When dozens of members of Montreal's Jewish community gathered last night to talk about funding for improved security, they knew the need was pressing. But it was even more pressing than they’d realized. Just hours after the meeting at the Jewish Community Council of Montreal, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at the building. No one was injured in the incident, which damaged one of the entrances. Marvin Rotrand of B'nai B’rith's League for Human Rights says the incident demonstrates the need for more funding. Not just for security, but to investigate crimes like this one.

SOUNDCLIP

MARVIN ROTRAND: Shock and a sense of real disappointment. This is the fifth major crime against a Jewish institution in the past month. We haven't seen this before in Montreal. There have now been two attempted firebombing, some Jewish institutions, a synagogue and now the Jewish Community Centre. We had two schools attacked that were shot at. One school, twice. And we're lucky nobody's been injured, nobody's been killed. In one of the schools, there's a dormitory. And the students inside the building when the shots were fired. The Jewish community is grateful that the police department has increased visibility, and that patrols have been augmented. But that's not the solution. We need a major increase in the resources going to the police hate squad unit. Toronto's massively augmented the number of officers allocated to its hate squad unit because of what's happening, the large number of incidents targeting various communities. And here in Montreal, we've had an explosion in hate incidents and hate crimes between the 7th of October and early November. It's continuing. And the police department's told us that 75 per cent of these incidents have affected the Jewish community. So, something needs to be done. The message I'd like to hear is solving these crimes and making arrests is now a priority for the police department, in fact, a top priority. If we want to reassure the Jewish community, we've got to see arrests and we haven't seen them. In fact, we haven't even had the information from the police department that they're classifying all these incidents as hate crimes. They're still open inquiries. So, it's not necessarily a positive message. I'd like to have more information from Chief Dagher on a regular basis, more officers working on solving these crimes, arrests being made and the community being reassured. But this is obviously attempt to spread fear. But we won't be intimidated as a community. The police have got to put this at the top of the list.

CH: That's Marvin Rotrand, with the Jewish advocacy organization B'nai B’rith. He was talking about the Molotov cocktail someone threw at the entrance of the Jewish Community Council of Montreal, early this morning.

[glassy guitar]

Happy Tree Part 2

CH: On Thursday, we brought you the horrible -- or great -- news about the surprising end of Happy Tree. Happy Tree, of course, is the cheerful -- or sinister -- gigantic animatronic Christmas tree whose tenure at a St John's mall has come to an abrupt end, despite his successful years of fundraising for charity with his annual Happy Tree Campaign. And, just as I fear and strongly suspect will happen to me one day, he's been replaced by a virtual talking elf. Now, some might argue that, given his beloved -- or befeared -- presence, that the termination was without cause. Even if you consider the enormous googly eyes that seem to follow you EVERYWHERE you went. And the tree’s hauntingly ambiguous grin. Clearly, even amid all the polar-themed decorations of the Christmas season, Happy Tree was especially polarizing. Unless you're Sophie Harrington. The long-time Happy Tree champion told Krissy Holmes, host of The St. John's Morning Show, how she got the news.

SOUNDCLIP

SOPHIE HARRINGTON: You know, I just found out on social media. It was, it was pretty devastating to, to find out that way. But yeah.

KRISSY HOLMES: So, what did Happy mean to you?

SH: So, as someone, I'm admittedly not a very Christmasy person. It's, it's, he was, so he was a bit of a kindred spirit for me, I think. He's, you know, he was, he was admittedly not that happy-looking. He was a little curmudgeonly. Pretty tired most of the time. But, you know, I think deep down, he had a heart of gold and wanted to do some good for the community. So, I kind of like that. I kind of like that at a time of year when everything was very polished and organized and clean, we had something, you know, just a little off kilter that, that represented this time of year as well.

KH: Okay. So, I mean, just to help us understand why you would characterize Happy as maybe not the happiest Christmas tree out there? [both chuckle] Like, what was it? Like, I mean, just let's get inside this. Let's explore this a little, yeah.

SH: [laughing] Have you guys seen him? He wasn't overly happy-looking, you know? He was. He was a little odd. And I think that was his appeal is that, you know, great sense of nostalgia about him, you know, because he's been around for a while. And, and, and, you know, had kind of taken many different forms. So, it's nice to have things that aren't always, you know, I don't mean to, to sound too curmudgeonly, but, you know, does everything need to be a digital screen these days? There was something kind of nice about, you know, that he inspired imagination. And, and, I think, you know, a little bit of smiles on people's faces. But, you know, whether it's Happy or the new Elf, it is an incredibly worthy cause as, as, as much as I'm being tongue in cheek, tongue in cheek about it all. I am very sad about my best friend Happy. But just, you know, encourage all the listeners to, to make a donation to Happy, in Happy's memory. I think that's the best way to honour him and his giant eyeballs. And, and just piercing look that he gave into your heart.

CH: That was Sophie Harrington, mourning her recently axed seasonal pal, Happy Tree.

[ambient electronic]

Smoking Ban Scrapped

Guest: Lisa Te Morenga

CH: New Zealand's generational smoking ban was the first of its kind. The law prohibited anyone born after 2008 from legally buying cigarettes. And it was immediately heralded as a win for public health, prompting other countries to propose similar legislation. But a year later, that ban has been tossed aside before it could come into effect, like a cigarette butt out a car window. The decision was announced after the country's new prime minister, Christopher Luxon, was sworn into office on Monday. He said the shock reversal was part of a broader plan to improve the economy. Lisa Te Morenga is the chair of Health Coalition Aotearoa in New Zealand. We reached her in Dunedin.

PA: Lisa, the new prime minister hadn't made this reversal a part of his campaign. So, what was it like to hear the news that the ban would be scrapped?

LISA TE MORENGA: You know, on Friday, I don't think any of us in the public health sector could believe it. [chuckle] It was a real kick to the, to the guts and a total surprise.

PA: Just before we get into all, everything that will happen now, just go back to the, the origins of this band itself. What did you, what did you hope it would accomplish?

LTM: 'Kay. So, we passed this legislation in 2022, which was amendment to our existing smoke-free laws. And this legislation was designed to reduce the addictiveness and demand for tobacco. And ultimately, to save up to 5,000 lives that are lost every year prematurely, directly as a result of smoking. So, the legislation was really world groundbreaking, I guess, and the first of its type in the world. So, one of the most important measures was de-nicotization. So, mandating that the nicotine levels in tobacco products had to be below a certain level by 2025, so that they would no longer be addictive. The second part was reducing the number of outlets in New Zealand that are legally allowed to sell tobacco products. And the third one was this idea of a smoke-free generation. So, it would be illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone born after the 1st of January, 2009.

PA: Even after they had reached the age of -- what we call -- the age of majority -- adulthood.

LTM: Exactly.

PA: And your organization, if I've got this right, has, has pointed out the the specific harms of smoking on Maori populations. What do you fear will happen?

LTM: We already have a high level of health inequities experienced by our Maori population in New Zealand, in much the same way that Indigenous people in Canada, you know, face greater burdens of health loss. So, the smoking rates amongst our Maori community, although they have dropped substantially -- as they have in the whole population -- they still remain twice as high as rates in the general population. The smoke-free legislation had the potential to make, have a much greater positive impact on our Maori community. So, as the repeal is, you know, just really disappointing. My own grandmother -- my Maori grandmother -- died at the age of 63 as a consequence of smoking addiction.

PA: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had said that reversing this legislation was, was part of a larger plan to prioritize improving New Zealand's economy. Basically, the taxes on cigarettes would help fund tax cuts. Have I got that right?

LTM: Yes, you have. It sounds crazy, but that is right. Taxes on cigarettes and not to generate revenue for the country. Taxes us on cigarettes have been put in place to make smoking less appealing. And those taxes should go directly into smoking prevention and health care costs directly related to smoking. This government wants to use those taxes -- and these are really super high taxes, way larger than on anything else. They want to use those, that tax revenue to pay for tax cuts. And we know that the poor in our country, you know, have higher smoking rates. This is a very addictive product, very hard to get off. And there are lots of, you know, social conditions which make it a lot harder for the less well-off to break that addiction. And now, they're going to be funding tax cuts for wealthier people because we know that our wealthier population are going to benefit more from the tax cuts proposed by our government.

PA: How does that make you?

LTM: So it's just immoral. I find it reprehensible and unbelievable that they are happy to have people die of a preventable cause to fund tax cuts.

PA: Now, the tax cuts is one side of it. The other, the government says, is the black market. That by, you know, this reversal will prevent the black market from emerging. What do you think about that?

LTM: Oh, that's just rubbish. There's a tobacco industry line that's been pushed for a long, long time. And actually, it's never panned out to be true. In fact, this legislation was designed to reduce demand for tobacco by breaking addiction. So, demand for black market would fall with this legislation not grow.

PA: Is it really the role of the state, though, to tell adults, like, it's one thing to say this to kids, but to, to grown adults that, no, you can't make this decision because you're born after a certain year.

LTM: This is one of the most highly-addictive substance in the world up there with heroin. And it kills many, many or ends many, many lives prematurely in quite horrible ways. You know, if you think of the impacts of lung cancer, it's the government's responsibility to protect us from harmful things. You know, we've banned leaded petrol because it's not healthy for people. So, I do believe the government needs to step in some cases. Also, we got to think that the tobacco industry has had decades of using every trick in the book to keep people hooked, to grow their products, to mislead and to influence governments, to allow them to keep selling those dangerous products.

PA: I'd like you to just sort of scale out the implications of this reversal, if you could. You know, the U.K., for example, had proposed a generational smoking ban in October. What, what message do you think this sends to other countries who were maybe considering a similar move?

LTM: I hope these other countries, you know, don't back down. I hope they see our government for being the cowards or libertarian ideologues that they are and stick to their guns.

PA: Well, listen, we have to leave it there, but really appreciate you coming on the show to talk about this today.

LTM: Thank you.

CH: That was Lisa Te Morenga, the chair of Health Coalition Aotearoa in New Zealand. We reached her in Dunedin.

[jazz]

FOA: Cool Lobster

CH: If it were a lottery ticket, he would be a rich man. Instead, Maine fisherman Jacob Knowles hauled in something else he had a one-in-50 million chance of winning: a weird lobster. This ultra-rare lobster's shell is perfectly divided down the middle -- one side red and the other blue. The creature is also equal parts male and female, and has been given the name "Bowie" -- after the androgynous rock star who gave us the lyric, "put on your red shoes and dance the blues." And whose eyes, incidentally, appeared to be two different colours. But extraordinary lobsters -- and the names they're given -- are nothing new here on As It Happens. In June, guest host Helen Mann spoke to Lindsay Forette, the lab co-ordinator of the University of New England's rare lobsters collection. From Our Archives, here's their conversation about the bright orange crustacean that had just joined the collection.

SOUNDCLIP

LINDSAY FORETTE: She's settling in very nicely, so I was putting together a burrow for her. So basically, a kind of rocky structure that mimics what she might be encountering in the wild, and while I was trying to construct that yesterday, she was chasing me around the tank and kind of lunging and trying to pinch me. So, looking like she has some natural behaviour going, looking like she's a little bit aggressive and defensive rather than lethargic. So, we really like to see that a little bit of spice.

HM: We have heard she is orange. Just how orange are we talking about?

LF: When I saw her at Turner's Lobsters, when we picked her up, I thought she looked like highlighter orange. So very, very vivid and bright.

HM: Wow. So, does she have a name yet?

LF: She does not. Right now, we've been kind of taking suggestions from the faculty, staff and students at the Marine Science Centre. We've actually had a couple of members of the public reach out and make suggestions, so we're in the process of compiling all of those suggestions, and our plan is to kind of send the list to our summer research students and have them weigh in and kind of vote or determine what name fits her best.

HM: Can you share a couple of suggestions?

LF: Sure. So we've had things like Tangerine, Papaya, Pumpkin, Lemon. And then, just this morning, we had somebody suggest Cayenne. [laughing].

HM: Cayenne!

LF: So, I'm in the process of, like, making sure I don't leave anybody's suggestion out.

HM: I suggest Saffron.

LF: Saffron. All right, I'll make sure that that makes the cut. [both laugh]

HM: What did the lobster fisheries who caught her tell you about finding her?

LF: Out of the entire lobster string that they were pulling that day, this beautiful orange one came up in their very first pot, and she was the only lobster in that trap. They had only caught two lobsters on that entire string. And one of them was her. The other one was just a regular-coloured lobster.

HM: She's exceptionally rare, as I understand it.

LF: Yes. So I've seen a couple of different estimates. So, orange lobsters are probably somewhere in about one-in-30-million is what I've seen most consistently. So, same probability for having a yellow lobster or a calico lobster.

HM: So, you mentioned yellow and calico. I gather you have some of those. Tell, tell me about the unusual lobsters that, that live in your tanks.

LF: Sure. So, our probably most famous lobster is Banana. So, Banana came to us back, I want to say, in February or around February of 2021. And her name was inspired initially by her colouration. And then it kind of became a theme for the most part here. So, a lot of our lobsters are named after either fruits or foods. So, we have Blueberry, who is intuitively a blue lobster. Mango is our calico, which comes from kind of the orange colouration that matches with the black. We have Banana Split, who's actually a split lobster. So, half of him is a orange colouration, and the other half is that typical mottled kind of greenish that you see in what we say, regular lobsters. And then we also have Larry. So, Larry has more of a regular colouration, but he has a growth off of his crusher claw. And that growth, it almost looks like a little non-functional claw. So that's why he was donated. He's our largest lobster. So, Larry gets a lot of attention because he's about five pounds at the moment. So, when all the students and visitors come to our centre, they're always shocked to see kind of this rather large lobster, you know, swimming around in one of our tanks.

HM: Well, he's also, you know, one of these things are different than the others. You got Banana, Blueberry, Mango, Banana split and Larry.

LF: And Larry. So, Larry predates me being here. I would say he's been at the Marine Science Centre at least six years, if not more. So, he, he's kind of like one of the, he's like the old man in all of our, [laughing[ in all of our tanks.

HM: Well, now, you mentioned an unusual claw. It's my understanding this new orange lobster you have also has a claw issue.

LF: Yes. So, our new female lobster, she's missing one of her claws. And what we've observed with. Banana, so Banana is our yellow lobster. She regrew, regrew both of her claws. So, we expect the same thing out of this new female. That growing should start hopefully in the next couple of months. And the new claw will grow right out of the joints where her missing claw is. And it'll continue to grow and grow as kind of soft, fresh tissue. And whenever she does moult, she'll go through that entire process. And whatever the size of that claw is at the time that she moults, it will harden into that size.

HM: That's amazing. Here on As It Happens, we have done a lot of stories on lobsters with unusual colours before. That includes a, a blue lobster delivered to a seafood restaurant. There was another one rescued from a grocery store here in Ontario. What do you know about what causes these unusual colours in nature?

LF: For the lobster shell colouration, we do know that there is a genetic basis that's associated with it. What we've observed here at the Marine Science Centre is as we've kind of fed our lobsters here in captivity, the colouration of their shell changes just a little bit. So, to me, that suggests that there's something else besides just a genetic basis that's occurring. So, we think that diet most likely plays an important role. And there might be other environmental or physiological factors that could go and influence that.

HM: Before I let you go, you said that you've never seen anything like this orange lobster before. Is there a "Holy Grail" lobster out there that you would like to see, [LF chuckles] the ultimate rare lobster?

LF: Yes, I think the Holy Grail lobster, for me, would be able to see either another split lobster or one of the white lobsters. I think the white lobster is considered the rarest. But yeah, they're just incredible, incredible animals.

HM: It's been so much fun to talk with you about this. Thank you so much.

LF: Thank you so much, Helen.

CH: From Our Archives, guest host Helen Mann speaking to Lindsay Forette of the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine. Our producers checked in with Ms. Forette today -- and that bright orange lobster that was un-named at the time of the interview is now known as "Peaches".

[different version theme]

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 The World at Six.

PA: And you can read more about the stories and conversations featured on As It Happens on our website; www.cbc.ca/aih. I’m Peter Armstrong. Thanks for listening.

CH: And I’m Chris Howden.

[theme]

The AIH transcript for November 24, 2023

NIL KÖKSAL: Hello, I'm Nil Köksal.

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

[theme]

CH: Tonight:

NK: Bittersweet return. Doron, Raz and Aviv Katz-Asher are among the youngest of the Israeli hostages released today -- their cousin tells us about the moment he could finally believe they were home -- and safe.

CH: The calm between the storms. Gaza now has four days to recover from seven weeks of intense bombardment. And a humanitarian worker in the territory tells us it won't be nearly enough to meet the need he's seeing.

NK: Putting time back on their side. A one-year pause on the usual statute of limitations on sexual assault cases in New York gave many survivors a second chance to seek justice. We'll reach a lawyer who says that pause should be permanent.

CH: A master of movements. The late Joan Jara was much-admired for her grace as a dancer -- and for her courage as an advocate for the people of Chile, after her husband Victor Jara was killed for opposing the Pinochet regime.

NK: Roadblocks. Climate change has made the usual -- and already tough -- ways of getting supplies to a remote part of the Northwest Territories increasingly unreliable. One mayor tells us if his community is to get those much-needed deliveries, it needs Ottawa to deliver.

CH: And… Kind of a flipper flopper. An endangered sea turtle that got lost was found frozen and near death in the Bay of Fundy -- but not to worry: now he's chillaxing in Bermuda.

CH: As It Happens, the Friday edition. Radio that guesses he wasn't dressed warmly -- despite his turtleneck.

[theme]

Part 1: Hostage/Ceasefire: Hostage Release, Hostage/Ceasefire: UNICEF, Joan Jara Obit

Hostage/Ceasefire: Hostage Release

Guests: Dori

CH: For seven weeks, they've occupied a limbo between fear and grief. But today, some of the families of the more than 200 hostages abducted by Hamas felt emotions they haven't felt in a while: hope and joy.

SOUNDCLIP

[a group of people sing "Hallelujah" along to a guitar]

CH: Sounds from Tel Aviv tonight in a plaza dubbed Hostages Square -- as 24 hostages were released and made their way to Israel. They were released as part of a deal that includes a four-day ceasefire and the release of 39 Palestinian women and teenagers from Israeli prisons. We'll talk more about the ceasefire in a moment. But first, among the released hostages are Doron Katz-Asher and her daughters, four-year-old Raz and two-year-old Aviv. Chen Dori-Roberts -- who goes by Dori -- is Ms. Katz-Asher's cousin. We reached him in Austin.

NK: Dori, there's been so much build-up and so much anxiety -- I can only imagine -- for all of the families waiting for news. What did you do when you found out that Doron, Raz and Aviv were coming home?

DORI: I took a big, deep breath. I checked my phone. My phone was, was going off, everything, all the messages from all the groups, everybody was trying to reach out. And it hit me really hard. And I got really emotional to step away for a little bit and kind of like take a moment for myself to appreciate. This is, like, the day after Thanksgiving, and it's got a lot of impact of, of what it means to be thankful and grateful for, for life itself and for family and loved ones. So, it was a very emotional moment for me and my family.

NK: Have you had a chance to talk to them yet?

D: I have not got a chance to talk to them yet. I want to give them the space and privacy to reunite with their father and husband -- Yoni Asher -- who's been carrying such a big load on his, on his shoulders throughout this entire day, almost 50, almost 50 days until today since they were kidnapped. And they need some, some alone time to catch up and to be together with all that. Her mom -- Efrat Katz, my aunt -- was murdered in front of her eyes on the way to Gaza Strip. And there's just a lot of going on right now for them. So, I'm very glad that they're home, and I just want to be respectful and give them the time. I know that they're safe. And one day soon, hopefully, in the holidays, I'll be able to to go there and get reunited with, with them together and hug them and hold them and tell them, like, how proud I am for them to hold for such a long time and in such harsh conditions all throughout all this time.

NK: Yeah, that's, that's your plan then to, to travel there as soon as you can?

D: I want to travel there as soon as I can. We still have many other hostages. We're still under war, and there's still a lot going on. I still have, my aunt's partner for 20 years is still held captive. And a half-cousin who is still held hostage. We want to make sure that every single one of those hostages held by the Hamas will return home as soon as possible. We, we're very happy and very, very grateful for the gift that we have received back in our life. But we want to make sure that every single family that have a family member as a hostage will be able to reunite and rejoice and celebrate the holidays with the loved ones.

NK: Can you tell our listeners a little bit about Raz and Aviv? They're so little.

D: They're so little. They're such charming little girls, love life, love to play and cook, love to travel with the parents, love their open airspaces, love nature, their little silly, it's just the perfect little two girls that just love to be with people, love being a kid and being with, with family. So, we're so happy that they're back now in the safe arms of their dad's and their family.

NK: I can't, I can't imagine the reunion and the emotion.

D: Yeah, for sure.

NK: Do you have any sense -- I know you haven't spoken to them directly, but through the chats that you're having with people who are there -- do you have any sense of, of how they're doing right now in these early hours?

D: I'm pretty sure that everybody's just happy and very joyful. And we're taking this moment to celebrate. We're reunited with with our family and friends but I know that everybody knows that we're still a long, long way from completing the mission of returning every single hostages back to their loved ones. So, we're taking a little bit of moment of celebration, but we still have a long ways to go. And, hopefully, it's not going to be a long, a long way, but it's going to be a short way now that we found those, those path that we're on. And, hopefully, we'll be able to get them out of harm's way and out of being a political card and for negotiation and be back to their life as civilians, not as hostages.

NK: Hope and optimism are certainly difficult to come by right now. Does this four-day pause and this deal so far, does it give you a little bit of both of those things right now? Or is it that same roller coaster that you were feeling before today's release?

D: It's, I think I can relate more to the roller coaster because every day that passes and every new list published and every new person that crossed the border, it's a, it's a wave of hope. But at same time, we have to remember that like we're not going to be able to really reunite or completely celebrate a victory before all the hostages are returned. And even if they're all back home, we still lost 1,400 people in one day. Those are family members, they're our friends, they're our colleagues. It's very bittersweet, you know what I'm saying? It'sm it's really a moment that you can just breathe and know that your loved ones are safe. But we buried my aunt right next to my mom. That that's where the last time I saw her -- three months ago -- at my mom's funeral, when she was holding me and telling me that, you know, everything will be all right. And now, she's there laying next to her in the ground, buried right next to my mom. So, we all lost somebody really in our life during this horrible war. And we want this to, to be over as soon as possible. We don't celebrate death on either side. We mourn. We, we, we grieve for the, for the loss of any human life. It doesn't matter on which side. But we allow ourselves to take this moment to celebrate and to rejoice with our loved ones. But nobody feels like this mission is complete. We still have a long way to, to make sure that everybody's safe back home.

NK: Dori, I'm sorry for your loss, but, but glad that you have some good news today. Thank you for your time.

D: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate that.

CH: Chen Dori-Roberts is the cousin of Doron Katz-Asher. She and her two young daughters were among the 24 hostages released by Hamas today. We reached Chen Dori-Roberts in Austin.

[cold into next story, no music]

Hostage/Ceasefire: UNICEF

Guest: James Elder

CH: As we mentioned -- in addition to the release of those Israeli hostages -- 39 Palestinians have reportedly been released from Israeli custody -- many of them minors. And in Gaza, there is a temporary pause in the fighting for the first time in seven long weeks. The four-day ceasefire marks a pivotal moment in the war, and it will allow crucial aid to enter Gaza. But it's also a fleeting moment due to expire early next week. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder is among the humanitarian workers who've been able to enter the Gaza Strip in the midst of these negotiations. That's where we reached him.

NK: James, what are you hearing from people today in Gaza?

JAMES ELDER: Well, they're expressing a huge amount of, of exhaustion. And it honestly nearly feels like fear and sorrow of sort of taken root in everything here. Certainly, I've not encountered this many children with wounds of war. I'm in the south, remember. It's the north that's borne the greatest brunt of this. So, they're telling me, they're showing me their exhaustion, their fatigue, that the parents are so terrified that they're losing options to look after their children. Nothing could be more fearful for parents. And they all tell me, every single person I listened to today told me they lost a loved one. Every single person, and I sat with dozens of people today.

NK: We're not saying specifically where you are for security reasons to make sure you're safe, but what can you tell us about what you've been seeing and what it feels like for you there?

JE: Yeah, I mean, basically today is, I'm seeing, you know, the devastation of a place essentially. There's a palpable sort of tension in the air and everything, and the whole place bears the marks of distress, whether it's the way people look or whether it's just shattered walls and broken windows or people sleeping in cars that have been damaged. And again, this is the south. A lot of people just want to get back to the north. They're desperate to get back and see family, try and look for family, try and recover anything that they can. The population has been given a clear sense that they're not able to, they're not allowed to leave. And this was spreading amongst the communities even as I was talking to them. But there is a great eagerness, of course, and I can so understand why they want to go back. But I think many understand it's not safe, and others know there is nothing of theirs to go back to.

NK: Does this pause in fighting then -- given everything you've said -- leave any room for them to be optimistic?

JE: That's a great question. No. And it reminded me of Ukraine, of you don't say how are you to someone. Because out of their politeness and their, you know, cultural respect, they will answer. But you know the look in their eyes is like, well, look around you. So, I didn't see that. I still saw people laugh and speak in the, in, in, in the, you know, going among their daily business. But I saw a lot of stress on people's faces. And anyone I was able to sit down and talk to, then unfortunately, no. Any sense of optimism was completely absent from their voice.

NK: You mentioned the aid that has managed to get in so far. What is in those trucks? How will it help people, given the level of devastation you're speaking of?

JE: Today was the biggest humanitarian convoy since October 7th. So, more than 100,000 letres of fuel. You know, large-scale medical operation, food, water, medical supplies, all these things are absolutely critical. For UNICEF, that's going to be, you know, millions of litres of water is what we're looking for. Again, medicines, hygiene kits, you know, the number of adolescent girls I saw today, just hour-long queues for them to get to a bathroom. And it's, it's, it's, it's horrendous for, for a teenage girl here. And, of course, it's getting cold, Nil. It's getting cold. So, you know, nighttime, we need tents, we need blankets. All those things are critical. So, today was a very good starting point. We will do the same for tomorrow, the same the day after that. But we hope we can do the same for days and weeks on end.

NK: Obviously, UNICEF focuses on children. And earlier this week, your executive director -- Katherine Russell -- was warning the UN Security Council and wrote a piece in The New York Times as well about the threats to children, but specifically child wasting, which is the most severe form of malnutrition in children. Are you seeing evidence of that firsthand as well?

JE: Certainly, what I saw today was large numbers of children who are suffering from diarrhea. And this is the first stage of a child getting sick. Or the father I spoke to with a two-year-old and a nine-month-old, both really sick because I didn't have clean water to give them. He knew the water was not from a safe source, and he knew some of the water was salty. A highly educated man, he just had no choice. And that's the context I have. So, when we start to see that en masse, that's when we really risk, you know, a mix of disease outbreak and malnutrition. They just seem to go hand in hand. That father I spoke to who has a two-year-old and the nine-month-old getting sicker and sicker from diarrhea, he said to me, you know, James -- in perfect English said -- James, there's only one thing I want to do when this war ends. I asked him what that was. He just said, I just want to cry. He just means he's at his wits end. He's doing everything he can. He knows as a father, he's got to keep that strength up. The strength of appearances that he's, he's on top of this. But he knows he's not. He knows that parents have lost the control to look after their children, to keep them safe from bombardments, to provide them with safe water, to be able to cook for them. He knows that. And now, he's just trying to hold on with that brave face.

NK: How are you preparing, then, for when this ceasefire ends, James, and fighting resumes?

JE: Oh, very good question. It's difficult for me as, if I have to wear, like, two hats. I feel, me, while as a humanitarian, while as a father, I can't quite still believe that we are literally going to have a respite for four or five days. And then honestly, going back to seeing hundreds of children killed. I mean, on average, reported deaths of more than 100 children killed a day. We're going to return to that. I, I'm staggered by that, I'm bewildered by that, and I'm heartbroken by that, particularly as I've seen that today. And yet, as you rightly allude to, that's what we have been told. So, I know that, you know, many organizations are very brave. Many colleagues who have been on the ground here throughout have plans for now, for tomorrow, for the next day, for seven days time. And that will, that will cover all these eventualities. I mean, everyone, I think, has a natural impulse to protect children. I just hope the scale of this crisis is not actually breaking that.

NK: James, I thank you for your time. Stay safe.

JE: No, Nil, thank you. Thank you so much for the interest.

CH: James Elder is a spokesperson for UNICEF. We reached him in the southern Gaza Strip.

[sombre instrumental]

Joan Jara Obit

Guest: Kate Clark

CH: As a dancer, Joan Jara was interested in precision, passion and control. All three of which were also crucial factors in her activism. Ms. Jara died this month at the age of 96. She had dedicated much of her life and work to seeking justice for those murdered during and after Chile's 1973 military coup. That included her husband -- the acclaimed folk singer Victor Jara -- who was killed for opposing General Augusto Pinochet -- the military leader of the coup who became the dictatorial leader of the country. Joan Jara was from England, but she fell in love with Victor in Chile. In 2008, she spoke to Al Jazeera about her husband's death and why she kept fighting for him.

SOUNDCLIP

JOAN JARA: I have to say that it's not for a wish for revenge. It's not not because of a sort of being filled with hatred or anger, really. As my own daughter said very recently, this isn't for the past. It's for the future. It's for the young people today who have to see that justice can be done and that the truth can be found. It's very important for people in Chile, for the Chilean society.

CH: Kate Clark is the author of the book Chile in My Heart and a friend of the late Joan Jara. We reached her near the town of Matlock, U.K.

NK: Kate, that was your friend Joan Jara speaking in 2008. Does it sound like your friend?

KATE CLARK: It does. It makes me feel a bit emotional to, to hear her voice after all these, this time, yeah.

NK: I was struck by one of the things you wrote in your piece honouring Joan. You said the last time you saw her -- she was 89 at the time -- so, several years ago. But you said she was still an interesting conversationalist, straight-backed.

KC: [chuckle] Yeah.

NK: And still walked with a dancer's poise. What did you talk about when you last saw her?

KC: Yeah, that's right. What did we talk about? We talked about the work of the Victor Jara Foundation, which she set up. When it was possible after the the end of the dictatorship, she set up the Victor Jara Foundation to try and keep alive Victor's name, celebrating his life, his records, old LPs, anything that had to do with Victor Jara. And I took one or two posters that we had produced here in London in the solidarity campaign.

NK: She was, she was an accomplished dancer, a mother. But her life, you know, she dedicated her life, as you've been describing there -- and as we heard in the clip as well -- to getting justice for, for her late husband and for keeping his memory alive and speaking out for other victims of the Pinochet regime. But what did she tell you about what that was like for her, you know, having so much of her identity intertwined with all of that work?

KC: She was very brave in those early years in the '70s when she had come back from Chile in such terrible circumstances after having found his body in the, in the morgue. Somebody told her where his body was, and she saw his broken hands and all that. She just coped with life and and tried to do her best to keep Victor's name alive and also to, to do what she knew that Victor would have wanted, which was to continue the fight for all the other prisoners who, you know, hadn't been killed initially, like he had, he'd been killed. And for the disappeared people, because that was like a new phenomenon at that time that people could be detained and then their relatives couldn't find out anything about them.

NK: I thought it remarkable that, that she said that she felt fortunate and lucky, given that at least, despite the horrific way her husband was killed -- that he was assassinated -- that at least she and her family knew what happened to him.

KC: Yes. Well, that's right. And, you know, she did at least have her two daughters who were very supportive, but they were going through early teenage years, you know, when they lived in London. So, it was a pretty sad time. And now, when she told me that she was going back to Chile in 1984, I think it was?

NK: Yeah, 10 years after.

KC: It was before the end of the dictatorship, yeah. She very bravely decided to go back. And I was happy about that because she always told me that she had felt happier as a woman, as a person. She had sort of realized herself more in Chile than she ever did in Britain. It was the country that she loved. It was not only Victor that she loved, but she loved the country.

NK: Both of her --

KC: So, she was happier in Chile than she was in Britain.

NK: And both of her passions, I mean, clearly, she she was able to, to carry out and carry out both of them there.

KC: Yes. Well, she was, [chuckling] I remember, I don't know if it was the, I think it was was the last time that we met. And we, we took a taxi to her house, and she was still able to lift her leg right up, you know? [both chuckle] She was, she, she was still a dancer who practiced dance, you know? And she, and she, oh, she had a lovely, a lovely, a lovely straight back and lovely blue eyes. Very, very startling blue eyes. And a very infectious sort of smile. But she was a very private person. She was, you know, she wasn't someone who loved to be in the limelight. Not at all. No, she was quite retiring. But a good friend, a good, a good person, a very kind person. And I admired her greatly. I think she played a wonderful role. Because I often thought to myself, if it had been Recardo -- my husband -- who'd been killed, would I have been able to live all those decades as a widow, you know, without personal sort of, well, without the kind of happiness that having a loved man, a loved man in your life brings, or a loved partner. [warm chuckle]

NK: Did she feel that she had achieved justice?

KC: You know, no matter how satisfied she might have been when she, she knew that these people were at last being put in prison because it's quite recent that they've been put in prison. It's not, you know, so they've been free for a long, long time. But at the same time, I think her real satisfaction was in 2019 when in this mass protests that there were in October 2019, when throughout the country and all the big cities, there were really, really massive demonstrations for very simple things like for free education, against poverty, for decent housing, all those things. That's what the protests were about. And in those protests, people -- young people, very young people who couldn't have, I mean, they didn't live during the time that Victor Jara lived -- but they sang his song, you know, not only the right to live in freedom, in peace or in peace, but other songs of his as well. And it was taken up by the mass of the marches. And I think that must have given her enormous satisfaction to, to know that the young generation was also singing Victor Jara songs.

NK: Kate, thank you for sharing your memories.

KC: It's a pleasure.

CH: That was author Kate Clark talking about her late friend, the British dancer and activist John Jara. We reached Ms. Clark near Matlock, U.K.

[orchestral]

NS Sea Turtle

CH: It's not the first time a young sea turtle has ended up on Nova Scotian shores, but it is the first time in a while that the story has a happy ending. After a week-long stay with some veterinarians, an endangered green sea turtle named Scottie landed in Bermuda yesterday -- where he will be returned to the wild. Kathleen Martin is the executive director of the Canadian Sea Turtle Network. She was with veterinarians Pat Pryor and Chris Harvey-Clark as Scottie was being packed up for his big journey. If you listen closely, you can hear Scottie's flippers slapping against Chris's hands.

SOUNDCLIP

CHRIS HARVEY-CLARK: So, here's Scottie the turtle. She's in beautiful shape, weighing in at 5.17 kilos. We managed to not have her traumatize herself, which has been amazing because she's been so active in captivity, and she's looking really good. She's just about ready for transport. We started salting her yesterday. You can see her plastering looks great. Super vigorous. And believe you me, it's, she's got a lot of force in those muscles. [slapping] She's going to do really well in the wild.

PAT PRYOR: Last night, what I found is if you just hold her front pecs for a second --

CHC: Yeah, she'll slow down.

PP: She'll stop here.

CHC: Yeah. And she's, okay, if you want to just restrain her, I'm just going to put these eyedrops in.

PP: Let me just hold her down.

CHC: There you go, sweetheart.

PP: Okay.

KATHLEEN MARTIN: She'll start, no one likes eyedrops either, Scottie.

PP: Yeah.

KM: Humans, Turtles, no one wants them either. [chuckling].

CH: You didn't have to listen that closely, as it turned out. [chuckling] That last voice was Kathleen Martin. And she told Jeff Douglas -- host of Mainstreet in Halifax -- the rest of Scottie's story.

SOUNDCLIP

KM: Dale and Peggy Brown found her -- as you noted earlier -- on Thursday. They were walking the Scots Bay beach, which they do daily to collect garbage. And which is amazing. And they called us, and we picked her up Thursday. I hope I have my days, the weeks, the days of all blended with Scottie's experience here. And gave us a call, and we were able to collect her and get her to veterinary care right away. Sorry, they called MARS -- which is the Marine Animal Response Society. And then our colleagues at MARS called us. And then, we were able to get her right away and get her to great veterinary care with Chris and Pat, as you heard.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Well, what was she like? What was her condition when she was found?

KM: She was lethargic, for sure. At first, Peggy and Dale weren't sure if she was alive or not. In fact, they had found other sea turtles that had died previously. And so, just assumed this one was also dead and picked her up. And when they went and as they described to me, Dale was telling me when, when Peggy picked her up, had assumed she was collecting a dead animal. And then, Scottie liffted up her little head and she was like [gasps]! And then, Peggy carried her about a kilometre back to, to take her off of the beach, which was a lifesaving move, really. And the fact that they found her when she was still, she was clearly hypothermic, but she wasn't beyond rescue, right?

JD: Obviously.

KM: Which is, typically, we find them, and they've died already, or they're almost dead.

JD: Because she looks very healthy [chuckling] and quite, quite robust.

KM: Yeah.

JD: Like a solid little creature.

KM: Yeah. When we first found her, she was, she seemed really tired, right, when we got her. And she was, her head was really resting low down, and she didn't have a ton of energy. And she was cold. Her internal temperature -- Chris was taking it -- was quite cold. So, it took a bit for her to warm up. But you can see even after a couple of days how much, how well she did and how much more robust she became. And, and so, and she was well enough to travel, right? So typically, like I said, she's the second turtle in 25 years that has not died within 48 hours.

CH: That was Kathleen Martin -- the executive director of the Canadian Sea Turtle Network -- speaking with the CBC's Jeff Douglas -- formally As It Happens's Jeff Douglas -- yesterday.

NK: Hey Jeff!

[chillhop house tour music]

Part 2: NY Adult Survivors Act, NWT Shipment Problems

NY Adult Survivors Act

Guest: Susan Crumiller

CH: Yesterday, you could file a lawsuit over a sexual assault in New York State, no matter how long ago it happened. Today, you can't. That's because the Adult Survivors Act expired at midnight. The act was a special exemption to the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases in the state. But it was only open for one year. With last night's deadline looming, cases were filed against high-profile figures like New York Mayor Eric Adams, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Axl Rose and Jamie Fox. The law also enabled E. Jean Carroll's case against Donald Trump. The total number of suits filed was estimated to be upwards of 2,500. Susan Crumiller is a New York attorney specializing in sexual abuse cases and the co-founder of the Survivors Law Project -- which seeks to see the Adult Survivors Act reinstated. We reached her in Brooklyn.

NK: Susan, the door that was open to survivors yesterday is now closed. So, what will that mean for people in New York State now?

SUSAN CRUMILLER: So, our hope is that the window will be reopened. And there are legislators who are talking about that as a serious possibility. And, of course, we're advocating very strongly for the window to be reopened. But as of now, it means that survivors -- adult survivors -- whose claims are otherwise time-barred because the assault's happened too long ago -- if they didn't file during the window period that's now closed -- it means that they are no longer able to file.

NK: What message does it send to survivors when you have a door like that closed?

SC: Well, I think one main reason that a lot of survivors didn't file in the window is because they didn't know about it. And so, it's very frustrating for them when, when they hear later on that there was this window and they had this opportunity that they didn't know about. We saw this also with the Child Victim Act, where we still get calls from survivors of child sex abuse who didn't know that they had this opportunity to bring their claims that was now gone. And it's tough [chuckle] because, you know, before the window opened, these survivors thought that justice was unavailable to them. I mean, and they were right. And so, once the window closes again, you know, for some who never knew about it, it just came and went unnoticed. But then, people who find out about it too late, it's, it's, it can be very, very difficult.

NK: We often hear about the length of time it can take for people to come forward. Why is it important to have a wider time period for people to be able to tell their stories?

SC: So, statute of limitations, in general, are designed to protect, you know, wrongdoers or people accused of wrongdoing. In other words, we have the right to move on with our lives and not worry that someone will come after us for something we did 20 years ago. It's very sound logic when it comes to things like a breach of contract, or a slip and fall, where people experience something and then they decide what to do, and then they move on. But sexual abuse, people process trauma differently. It takes time. It takes years, often. Sometimes, decades for survivors to even recognize what happened to them, let alone to feel that pursuing legal action is necessarily the right step for them. So, I think that as a society, we need to just better understands that the traditional model of statute of limitations doesn't work for sex abuse. We need a different model. And we need to decide that we value the voices of survivors and survivors' right to seek justice more than we value the offenders' right to move on from what they've done.

NK: Do you have a sense -- based on, on the influx of cases leading up to the deadline -- that there's a different kind of understanding, and maybe a higher likelihood of a shift to the kind of model you were talking about there?

SC: You know, I certainly hope so. I don't like to speculate with respect to specific legislative actions. But I certainly hope that other states will follow suit. You know, I think New York was only the second state to open this type of window for adult survivors as opposed to child survivors. And I think we've seen how important it is a chance for survivors today to hold their perpetrators accountable. We're just, we're living in a different world now than we used to. And the same. And stigma is still there. The fear is still there. But it's not prohibitive in the way that it used to be.

NK: As we mentioned in our introduction -- and we've certainly been seeing over the last several weeks and days -- lawsuits being filed against very high-profile men, politicians, celebrities. Those make the headlines, certainly. But are they typical of the type of claims being filed over the past year?

SC: I wouldn't say they're atypical, but, you know, for every high-profile case, there are countless cases of sex abuse against marginalized individuals. Prison abuse is extremely common. And I believe actually the majority of the cases filed have been on behalf of prisoners. Certainly, a very large portion. And we have filed some cases on behalf of prisoners ourselves. This is the type of abuse that goes unnoticed and is so widespread. These cases of disenfranchised, marginalized populations where abusers just think they can get away with it. I mean, that's sort of the common thread often with celebrities and with these powerful institutions is that they truly don't think anyone is powerful enough to stand up for them. They understand how scary they are. [chuckling] You know, celebrities are well-resourced, well-heeled. They understand that making public accusations against them is extremely daunting. So, that, that same logic applies to protect institutions as well as celebrities. But we don't hear about those cases as much.

NK: Certainly, I would imagine a large number of the cases involve women. But I think it's also important to stress that it's probably not only women that are coming forward.

SC: Absolutely. Absolutely. We've filed, we file cases regularly on behalf of male survivors. And we're very proud to. Men are survivors. Non-binary individuals are survivors. And I think it's always important to note that transgender individuals are by far the greatest risk of sexual violence.

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

SC: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for your attention with this issue.

CH: Susan Crumiller is an attorney and the co-founder of the Survivors Law Project. We reached her in Brooklyn, New York.

[bright piano]

NB Mom

CH: A year ago this week, Luke Landry was found dead near city hall in Moncton, New Brunswick. Frontline workers had revived him after an overdose earlier in the day. But they couldn't find a bed for him in any of the city's shelters. His body was found in a public washroom. Mary MacDonald is Mr. Landry's mother. She lives in Prince George, B.C. She had sent Luke money for winter boots and warm clothes shortly before his death. This week, she talked to CBC Radio about marking the anniversary of her son's death.

SOUNDCLIP

MARY MACDONALD: What I hoped would come out of it is that they would recognize people on the street and/or addicts and/or homeless are not necessarily there because they want to be. People have an attitude, like, that they want to be there. That's not necessarily true. I don't know anybody who wants to be sleeping out on the side of the road in the wintertime. I don't believe that's true. I believe that some of these people, that their addiction is stronger than anything else, and they can't necessarily fit into some of these shelter places, but there still should be some place else. There should be a drying out centre, or some place where they can even put them in jail and have a safe place for them to lay that's somebody keeping an eye on them. It's better than putting people on the street. And God knows we have enough empty buildings in every city that could be able to accomplish that. The average person is not understanding that these are somebody's family. I think they would rather shun and walk away than understand that these people need your prayers, not your, not your, you don't need to condemn them. They've already condemned themselves.

ALEXANDRE SILBERMAN: Starting December 1st, there's going to be a new shelter in Moncton, which will, it's designed to take in people that the other existing shelters won't take. And they say they're going to take people who are using substances. They can't be using at the shelter, but they can be there even if they're under the influence. Is that something you think will be beneficial and could help people in, in similar situations to Luke?

MM: That makes me very happy. That makes me very happy to hear that. I haven't heard that, but I appreciate you telling me because I did not hear that. And yes, that that makes me happy. We have to start somewhere. And trying to keep the most vulnerable safe is the place to start. And if they're doing that the 1st of December, power to them because I think that's a wonderful place to start. Did they say how many they could house?

AS: They're going to have space for 60 people, but there's capacity to add more if that's needed.

MM: That's very good. That makes me very happy. Very happy. That's the first thing I've heard positive. Thank you.

CH: Mary MacDonald's son -- Luke Landry -- died in Moncton one year ago this week. She was speaking with the CBC's Alexandre Silberman.

[lo-fi]

NWT Shipment Problems

Guest: Frank Pope

CH: In an ordinary summer, the town of Norman Wells, Northwest Territories gets its supplies through barge shipments coming in on the Mackenzie River. And in the cold months, those essential items come via a winter road. But both of those routes are becoming increasingly unreliable. This summer, low water levels on the Mackenzie meant several barge shipments couldn't arrive via the normal routes. And meanwhile -- as temperatures get warmer -- the window for a functioning winter road keeps getting shorter. This week, representatives from the community in the Sahtu region were in Ottawa for the second time this month, sounding the alarm over the situation. Frank Pope was one of them. He's the mayor of Norman Wells, and that's where we reached him.

NK: Mayor Pope, what's your sense of things right now? How reliable is that road going to be this winter?

FRANK POPE: We have great concerns on how long it's going to last because of the way it's built. It is actually just frozen snow-packed on a frozen muskeg. And this year, we are having such warm temperatures already this winter. We need 35 to 40 below for the next month and a half to make this road even work for a short period of time. And we're very, very concerned that this road -- if it does open -- will not last very long. In recent years, the winter road is actually open right around Christmas for very light traffic. And then about the beginning of February, if the road gets frozen hard enough and then they can increase the load limits. We can usually go from about the 1st of February to, say the end of March. But even in the last few years, it's got from the 1st of February to about the middle of March, and then the roads start to deteriorate very quickly.

NK: How does that impact life for people there -- the 750 people -- who who call it home?

FP: Well, we're about 3,000 people in our region.

NK: Sure.

FP: Norman Wells is a hub community for five total communities. What's happened a couple of years ago, in fact, a lot of people from the north will drive south with their trucks, go and do a whole bunch of resupply purchases. A lot of the last few years, we did not even make it back. The road went out so quickly they were out there with their trucks and their vehicles, ended up having to drive to Yellowknife, fly home and leave their trucks down south until the barge system opened again in June. So, we have had some serious impacts already, and we are sort of forecasting we could have more of the same.

NK: And summer is becoming an issue as well. There are usually shipments then as well, right? So tell us what's happening then.

FP: Okay. Normally, we would have about I'd say eight barge shipments into Norman Wells and into this region. This year, the route north of us between Fort Good Hope and Norman Wells is a set of rapids. That rapids came prmanent very early, creating a blockage for traffic going south, sorry, going further north from here. We were able to get a lot of our shipments in early in the season. By mid-August into late-August, the route was already in trouble. The coast guard were have are having trouble navigating the river. The barge system were able to still do some partial navigation up as far as Norman Wells. But then, they had a big set of wildfires down south, creating a problem, which was a double whammy to us. They evacuated from Hay River the people who work in the harbour there who load the barges. So, while we still have some navigable waters, we had nobody to load the boats.

NK: Right.

FP: We did get a few extra loads in eventually, but I think we ended up with thousands of tons of freight that did not come in on the barge.

NK: And these are vital supplies as well, right across the board. Everything that the folks there need.

FP: Groceries, building materials, trailers, homes, which people get built down south and then shipped up here. One of our contractors had a lot of material because he does contract work up here for Imperial Oil Resources. A lot of his material did not come in. Because he had a contract to fulfil, he ended up paying in excess of $500,000 out of his own business to get the material here.

NK: You were just in, just in Ottawa and you made a presentation to the Senate Committee on Transport and Communication. What did you say to them? What was the message you wanted them to hear?

FP: The message we wanted them to hear was, if we can't have resupply by barge in this summer, we can't have resupply by winter road in the short winter framework. Where the heck is our highway? We were expecting going back to Diefenbaker, he called for a road for resources way back in the '60s to go through -- we imagine -- the Mackenzie Valley. That did not take place. These central lines for that road were cut in the 1970s by the federal government. Then, because of political issues, the road was not built. That's 50 years ago. We are not looking for a highway. We just need a safe road that we can drive on and get materials in here affordably.

NK: The territorial government has said an all-season road to Norman Wells could be ready, could be completed by 2037. Does that reassure you?

FP: [chuckling] Yeah, well, we heard that. That was when the jokes all started. We may not exist by then because our big problem here is because of our cost of living, increases in our cost of living are going up 300 to 500 per cent at our local grocery stores. Who would want to live here? I was in Edmonton a few months ago with my wife and bought a few bottles of pop and a few bottles of water just to throw in the fridge in the hotel. I paid $18. I came back home and said, well, let's try this out of here. I got the same four bottles of pop, the same two bottles of water, $54. We are talking about major increases in the cost of living move up here. And that means the date of 2037 to complete our road is [beeped]. That is just not acceptable. And something's got to be done sooner. We, as a community here, are going to get together with the new Northwest Territories government once they get a cabinet in place in the next couple of weeks, and we are going to offer to do a lot of the work on their behalf to come up with a business plan that we can present to Ottawa who would fund the highway. And that is where we are right now. We can't sit back and wait for other people to look after us.

NK: Mayor Pope, thank you for your time and your candour.

FP: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to get the word out. And you guys have a good day.

CH: Frank Pope is the mayor of Norman Wells Northwest Territories. That's where we reached him.

["The Doctor Who Theme"]

FOA: ‘Doctor Who” 60th

CH: The haunting, memorable original theme song to Doctor Who. This week marks the 60th anniversary of the time-travelling, mind-bending, science fiction show -- which is being marked with the launch of three new hour-long specials this weekend. That's great, because being celebrated for one's accomplishments is important. At a minimum, you should be acknowledged. Unfortunately, while she was alive, electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire mostly wasn't. But she helped make that theme song as haunting and memorable as it is -- a sonic feat she accomplished before the invention of electronic instruments. Although her work went uncredited. In 2017, Delia Derbyshire was posthumously awarded an honorary doctorate from Coventry University. A fellow composer and sound designer at the BBC named Mark Ayres accepted it on her behalf -- and told our former host Carol Off about what the moment meant.

CO: Mark, how did it feel to collect this award for Delia Derbyshire?

MARK AYRES: Amazing and a long time coming. Delia has been an inspiration to me all my life and to many people in the UK who are interested in electronic music. We grew up listening to her work and the work of her colleagues at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. They did music, obviously for Doctor Who, which is the most famous creation. We really were brought up with this stuff, it stuck with a lot of us.

CO: And just the thing is is that she had so little credit for it during her lifetime didn't she? Because you mentioned we played some of the music for Doctor Who, but the score was written by Ron Grainer and that's the name that's been on it. Why wasn't she recognised for her contribution to that theme?

MA: There's two things. One, she was as much as she could be. She was a BBC employee, she was a BBC studio manager as part of the BBC Radiophonic workshop. And at that time there wasn't that much credit given to individual people who were employees of the BBC. Credits were even worse than they are now, you know, they flashed by very quickly and there weren't that many people listed, so they didn't get individual credit. But I have to say, to say that she wasn't recognized — you know, I knew as a teenager in about 1970-71 — I knew that Delia Derbyshire made the recording. So those who were interested certainly knew and could certainly find out. I mean, Delia said to me in later life that the best thing her parents had given her was her name. Delia Derbyshire was it kind of slips off the tongue. And I remember hearing this name when I was 10 or 11 years old and thinking ‘Who is this is this lady and what does she do?’ I love what I love the sounds. Only really with the benefit of hindsight, I think we can see quite how ground-breaking it was and how special all that stuff was.

CO: And I want to get to how ground-breaking is but just to stay on this for a moment about her recognition because she struggled. It wasn't just that she had difficulty in the industry, it was impossible to work in this industry and in some studios Decca Records where she tried to work did not employ women — it was policy.

MA: No she applied to Decca Records before she applied to BBC in the late 50s. And they said “no we don't employ women engineers.” And that was awful of course, but I have to say it wasn't normal. I mean, the BBC was always a prolific employer of women and quite rightly so. And Delia always said that she was in a post-feminist before feminism was invented. She certainly didn't feel that as a women she was held back at all.

CO: Now to get to the ground-breaking sounds that she created and this is before modern synthesizers and machines. Let’s talk about the Doctor Who theme because that's the most familiar to people. How did she create that sound?

MA: Well there were no synthesizers back then. This is way before anyone had really thought of them, they came in a few years later. So the way they were getting their sounds was by using Musique concrète techniques. Musique concrète being a French expression that means, music from the sounds around you, music from found sounds. So the way they would work is they would find sounds from strictly non-musical sources. So the bass line of the Doctor Who theme is a recording of a single plucked string on a piece of tape. They then played the tape back at various speeds to get the different pitches. They would then cut all the notes they needed out and they cut them to right length with razor blade, and then join them all together with splicing tape in the right order. And that's the way they worked. And they did that on every line. The melody was created again no sympathizers. But what they did was test tone oscillators, it was test equipment and it was used for testing electronic circuits, but they had it marked in musical notes she did that with by literally turning the dial on the test equipment to create that melody, recorded it again on a piece of tape. Did that for all the different lines of the melody then join them together. And then because there were no multi-track tape machines, they had to bass line, the second bass line, the rhythm line, the melody line on separate pieces of tape. And they would they were set up on tape recorders next to one another in the room and then they go three, two, one and start all the tape recorders playing at once.

CO: And that's the sound that we heard back in the 1960s and has that theme has been reengineered since then I would imagine?

MA: Yes, Delia altered it a bit during her lifetime. They created the original master then they tampered with it a bit before it went on air. And then in 1967 she overdubbed some additional sounds onto it. In 1970 and 71 they did the same again, more new bits and pieces added but always treating the original mix.

CO: That was when that cliff-hanger scream was updated right?

MA: Yes, absolutely. But before that they used to literally start the theme and then fade it out when the episode started and then just fade it up at the end of the episode, and then fade out when the credits is finished. But the new producer who came in, Barry Letts, in the early 70s wanted something far more specific. They introduced this screaming sound, which was the cliff-hanger at the end of every episode. And that was created by playing the very beginning of the theme where we join it, backwards through an echo chamber. Speeding the tape up and then adding a synthesizer sound over the top of it, and then playing it back the right way round again and cutting it back on to the beginning of the master tape. I mean, just extraordinary.

CH: From 2017, that was BBC sound designer Mark Ayres speaking to our former host Carol Off about electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire -- the unsung hero of the Doctor Who theme song. This week marks 60 years since the show first aired.

[hip-hop beat]

Part 3: FIFA AI President, Ottawa Fun Commissioner

FIFA AI President

Guest: Maggie Murphy

CH: FIFA is not exactly a bastion of gender equality. In its 119-year history, the organization that runs world soccer has never had a female president. In March, its current head -- Gianni Infantino -- was re-elected unopposed. Controversies over pay equity, gender-based discrimination and corruption abound. And Hope Sogni is hoping to change all of that.

SOUNDCLIP

HOPE SOGNI: If a World Cup winner can be sexually abused in plain sight, and if a manager sacked by his Federation for his treatment of women can walk straight back into international football, or the bidding process for a World Cup can be fast-tracked to hand it on a plate to a nation that oppresses women and the LGBTQ+ community, is it not time for the football world to say enough is enough? FIFA must hold up its own mirror and decide whether what they see looking back is, in fact, a beautiful game. Because all I see is a century of misogyny that has overshadowed its ability to truly be a game for all.

CH: Hope Sogni is running for the FIFA presidency. And if she wins, she'll be the first woman in the role. Except she's not actually running... Or a woman. Hope Sogni is actually a hypothetical candidate powered by artificial intelligence, and created with input from real life female footballers. Maggie Murphy is chief among them. She's the CEO of the Semi-professional Lewes Football Club in East Sussex, England. And we reached her today in Brighton.

NK: Maggie, why not put all of this energy behind an actual human woman's candidacy?

MAGGIE MURPHY: I love this question because I do every day. [both chuckle] And a lot of women in football around the world are constantly lifting each other up, pushing, promoting, supporting, championing. In fact, the women's football network around the world is very, very tight. And that's why we kind of know some of the key challenges that face women around the world, regardless of country, regardless of continent. And so, yeah, collectively, there's been a lot of women's voices that have gone into Hope. So, even though Hope might not be real, she definitely has a lot of real voices, real, real input that has gone into her positions on things.

NK: And we'll talk about that voice and that input in just a moment. But I wonder what, what it says about our world -- and the FIFA world, in particular -- that an AI woman, you think an AI woman might speak to or reach more people to get your point across than an actual woman?

MM: Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly the point that we're trying to make. We've never had a female FIFA president, even though, you know, the world of football has plenty of issues, plenty of challenges. A lot of people don't particularly like a lot of things in the football world. So, it made us wonder a little bit how decisions could be different if we had a woman in charge. And there are lots of women working in football. They just don't often get allocated significant decision-making roles, so they don't get elevated. I know of women personally who've been elected into a position and then told not to say anything if they want to keep that seat. [NK scoffs] You know, and I think there's, there's others who are not able to speak up at all. And I think that's one of the other things that Hope can do. She can speak for the women around the world that are in positions but might face repercussions if they actually said what they thought. And who have to tread a very diplomatic line every single day.

NK: I chuckled when you said that, but it's, it's actually infuriating. I think it's fair if I if I say that. And it must be for the women who, who experience this. When, when those stories are shared, does it invigorate women to, to push further? Or do you find that it's keeping them on the sidelines?

MM: I think that it depends. It's why the network is so important because I think that, you know, individually, people can be crushed by the barriers that they face. But when they have that collective network around them, you know, there's a little bit more support to help people understand that, first of all, it's not a completely unique situation, but because it's not unique, it means that there's other people that have experienced it and might have some lessons learned that they could apply. And I think the other thing is that, you know, Hope has drawn from some absolutely incredible people. People who I admire and look up to every day, who are forging a path. And, you know, I'd love it if those women were not special. They are special to me. But I just like even more of them, if impossible.

NK: Well, let's talk about about their input. And the experience you had of programming Hope.

MM: Yeah, so, I'm not a techie person at all. [NK chuckles] So, basically, when I was working with the designers and the agency team, they were kind of saying to me, why does, why does this woman not exist? And, first of all, I had to say, no, they really do exist. [NK chuckles] Check out Moya Dodd. She, she's one of my absolute personal heroes -- a former Matildas vice captain. And she has done a lot of work in governance and football. She's the constant champion of women's football, but also women in football. So, I was like, okay, anything that Moya Dodd has said, written, talked about, scoop all that up and get that into, into Hope's brain. And that's the same for other people like there's an incredible human rights lawyer called Kat Craig. She's based here in England, and she was working with a number of Afghan female footballers who actually had a rape case against the president of the football association in Afghanistan. So, she worked tirelessly to help those players through that process. So, whatever Kat Craig has said on the issue of sexual abuse in football, scoop that up, figure out what Kat Craig would do if she was in charge and get that into Hope's brain. And so, we did that with a number of people who, who have, you know, just such incredible breadth of experience. And put that into, into --

NK: Into Hope.

MM: Hope's brain. And, you know, Hope then can synthesize all of those positions. And she comes to a position herself.

NK: And how did you come to that name?

MM: We played around with the name. We weren't quite sure what she should be called. There are actually a number of brilliant women called Hope that work in, in football. But it was more, you know, what's a name that people are going to look at and go, yeah, we know what you're getting at.

NK: Understood. And, and what she looks like and how she delivers all of those words. How did you decide those things?

MM: Yeah, well, actually, I really didn't trust Hope when I first talked to her. Even though she was saying the right things, I realized I had a barrier up. And I was trying to figure out why. And I realized it was because she had been made to sound very corporate -- as a lot of men working in football at that level sound. And so, I spoke with the developers, and we said, you know, I just don't think that I trust her. I want her to sound more like a female leader that I would admire.

NK: It's interesting that was their default, though, right, the developers? [chuckle].

MM: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and it took me a while to realize that that's what it was. I couldn't figure out what it was. And what we ended up doing was just naming some female leaders -- not necessarily from football -- that we actually respect and admire and, and like to listen to. And those were people like Jacinda Ardern, or Michelle Obama even, Megan Rapinoe. And so, that's why Hope's accent, it sounds a little bit American, but it's more like an international English.

NK: Yeah. And we should mention Hope is a woman of colour. And that was not an accident, I assume?

MM: No, definitely not an accent. I mean, for all the time we might spend talking about how women are marginalized from positions of power, you can say that for people of colour, whether male or female. And so, this definitely had to have an insexual lens as well.

NK: It's a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you, Maggie.

MM: Thank you so much for having me.

CH: Maggie Murphy is the CEO of Lewes Football Club and the co-creator of Hope Sogni -- an AI candidate for the FIFA presidency. We reached her in Brighton, England.

[dance music]

Kamloops Parade

CH: When Kamloops gathers to celebrate its annual Santa Claus Parade, it will be a big night for one man in particular. Well... Two men. It's, obviously, it's a big night for Santa. But I was referring to Tom Hammer. For three decades, Mr. Hamer has played a major role in the Kamloops Parade -- including 27 years as its marshal. But after this weekend, he will be hanging up his safety vest for good. Doug Herbert of Daybreak Kamloops caught up with Mr. Hammer before Sunday's big event.

SOUNDCLIP

TOM HAMMER: My name is Tom Hammer. I started working part-time at Thompson Park Mall for a friend of mine during the '90s. And he asked me that Christmas if I would help him with the Parade. And I said, sure. So, basically, my job was just making sure the floats went to the back of the Thompson Park Mall parking lot before they started parking and taking people off and unloading. And I've been doing it ever since. When I started with the Parade in '93, it was Thompson Park Mall's way of getting Santa Claus to the mall for their Christmas display.

DOUG HERBERT: Okay.

TH: Yeah. Yeah.

DH: I guess you've made a lot of relationships over the years.

TH: Oh, tons of friends. Yeah, it's been a, a lifetime thing for me, yes!

CH: That was Tom Hammer, speaking to the CBC's Doug Herbert This Sunday. After 27 years, Mr. Hammer is retiring from his role as the marshal of the Kamloops Santa Claus Parade.

[Spanish guitar]

Regina Pothole Road

CH: Everyone has that one pothole that gets under their skin and axles. I mean, we all hate them all. But there's one that you clunk down into every morning on your way to work or school. One you can't seem to remember, even though it loudly betrays you every single day. The one that fills you with rage and that the city seems incapable of filling at all. Well, this year, residents of Regina's Normanville neighbourhood have decided to give that dreaded pothole a bit of Christmas cheer. Normanville resident Daryl Brock spoke to CBC reporter Darla Ponace about the Christmas pothole tree.

SOUNDCLIP

DARLA PONACE: So, how do you feel about the Christmas tree over there?

DARYL BROCK: Well, it's a good addition to the neighbourhood. The city is not taking care of anything out here, but everybody in the neighbourhood's kind of got behind it, and that's good.

DP: And how do you feel about that pothole that was where the Christmas tree is now?

DB: Well, it's a pothole. There's lots of them in this city. So, the city needs to do a better job of looking after all their potholes but.

DP: And do you feel the tree brings more festive vibes to the street?

DB: Oh, I don't know whether it has or not or if it's just a good city joke -- neighbourhood joke -- here. But it started as a small hole underneath the barricades there. And I think it was late July, early August, that it was first there. The city came along and put up barricades and did nothing about it that whole time. And then, oh, about a month ago, the little Christmas tree went up, and somebody came along and put a stand underneath it and lights and then presents and socks. It's just been kind of growing from there.

CH: Daryl Brock of Regina, Saskatchewan, speaking to the CBC.

[light rock]

Ottawa Fun Commissioner

Guest: Deek Labelle

CH: New York, of course, is the city that never sleeps. Ottawa, meanwhile, is known as the city that never wakes up. It may be the capital of Canada, but its nightlife is typically considered lowercase, which isn't fair. Which is why Ottawa has set up a nightlife economy action plan -- which will be presided over by a nightlife commissioner -- who will be responsible for ensuring the concerns of the nightlife industry see the light of day. The city is slated to vote on the position in December. In the meantime, we'll talk to an expert who has been a party to all kinds of parties. Deek Labelle is the general manager of Ottawa's oldest bar -- Chateau Lafayette. She's in Ottawa.

NK: Deekk, what's a fun night out like at Chateau Lafayette?

DEEK LABELLE: [chuckling] Every night's a fun night at Chateau Lafayette, but.

NK: [chuckling] What makes it fun there?

DL: The Laf is, it's a simple place, you know? We're not we're not mixed up with a whole bunch of bells and whistles. You can check your pretension [NK chuckles] and whatever at the door and come on in and just relax and have a good time.

NK: Yeah, Laf is built --

DL: No cover. Our food is simple, our, and made in-house. Our our prices include tax, so you don't have to math, you know? [NK chuckles] It's, it's a simple, it's a good night out.

NK: One of Canada's oldest bars, we should mention; there since 1849. And Laf is right in the name, as you said. So, built in, fun built in, it sounds like.

DL: Um-hmm.

NK: I've never been, but good to know for future reference. You've been on the scene in Ottawa -- on the nightlife scene -- for, for quite some time now. But, you know, it does seem to have -- the city has -- this reputation for being the city [chuckle] that fun forgot. Do you, how do you think it has earned that title?

DL: I don't think deserves that title, to be honest. One person's opinion does not a city reputation make. And, in my opinion, fun is what you make it. And you're only going to find a boring night out if you're boring. [NK chuckles] So, sorry for those people out there that, that agree with that sentiment. But I disagree, I think Ottawa has a lot of hidden gems. It has a lot, a lot to offer and a lot of potential. So, try me. [NK laughs] Try and, try and stump me on a, on a, on a poor night out.

NK: Deek is going to make sure you have fun. Are you, are you gunning for this position, first of all, for nightlife commissioner, I should ask?

DL: Heck no! [both laugh] I mean, I could probably do a pretty good job at it, but I'm, I think that there's, there's bigger fish to fry. And I'm not sure that this position is necessary. I think it is a, I think it's redundant, to be honest. I think that there's enough people working in, you know, on, on this in Ottawa, and there's enough other issues that should take precedent before a role like this is introduced. So, that's my point of view. [chuckle]

NK: Well, that's why we're talking to you, to get your point of view. City council hasn't decided on this yet. They're going to vote on whether to create this new position of nightlife commissioner. You don't think Ottawa needs one. We should mention other, other cities around the world have nightmayors, Amsterdam, London -- London, England, that is. Those phrases you used, hidden gem, lots of potential. How are those going to come to the fore? How will more people know about those gems and that potential if you don't get someone like this? What should the city be doing, in your view?

DL: I think we need to focus or spend a little bit more attention on what's already being done to address the issues that they're trying to solve with this nighttime commissioner. And, you know, what I'm hearing are, you know, better access to lists of events and entertainment. Well, I can provide you with five to 10 people who are already doing those things. You know, better use of the directories and the sites that are already available with, you know, the Byward Market is, it's undergoing a lot of changes right now in terms of, you know, governance and how the area is, is managed. And so, improvements are already underway for, for finding those, the spots and the smaller events that, that may not get as much attention as the big ones. But if you are capable of using the internet, the information is out there. So, if it's just a matter of communication, I don't think that's a full-time job.

NK: What's a perfect Friday night for you in Ottawa?

DL: For me, when I go out, what I look for are three things: great food, great people and a great view. And that can come from many different aspects. Whether it's the view happens to be the band I'm watching, or it's the view I'm looking out at, or it's the people I'm watching. Or, you know, the vibe going on around. But it's, those are the things I look for when I go out. So, those can be had anywhere. And that fun is who you're with and what you're eating. And if you're doing things that you love doing, with people you love, watching things that are beautiful, how can you have a bad time?

NK: So, what? What are you, where are you going tonight?

DL: Where am I going tonight? Actually, I'm going to tell you about where I went on Wednesday.

NK: Okay.

DL: Because I got --

NK: Wednesday night in Ottawa is a good time. Okay, that's a plot twist!

DL: Right?! So I, it was very last-minute, and I was invited to the NAC Orchestra.

NK: Fantastic.

DL: And the tickets -- the last-minute tickets -- are very, very affordable. And I experienced culture and wine and 12 minutes from, from my home. And, and it was an absolutely wonderful night out. And I couldn't believe the number of people that were out as well. And our walk home, you know, around 10 p.m. through the Byward Market was absolutely beautiful. There was hustle and bustle and people everywhere you looked, enjoying, enjoying the evening. So, you never know [NK chuckles] what you might like. So, open your mind to new experience and try something new. I didn't know I was a fan of classical music, [NK chuckles] but the experience made it that.

NK: Sounds like a really good time, Deek. Thank you.

DL: My pleasure.

CH: Deek Labelle is the general manager of Chateau Lafayette. We reached her in Ottawa.

[orchestral]

NS Flooding Grants

CH: When dramatic flash flooding saturated Nova Scotia this past summer, John Connors' sneaker store in Bedford Place Mall wound up underwater. The owner of East Coast Kicks estimates that he lost up to $150,000 in damaged inventory and flooring alone. Fortunately, his insurance will cover some of those losses, but he's still on the hook for a deductible. And for the revenue that stopped coming in during the months-long closure, he was hoping a provincial grant might help soften that blow. But months after he applied for that program, he received some disappointing news from the province.

SOUNDCLIP

JOHN CONNORS: This relief program does not even exist. Essentially, it was left on their website for businesses like mine to go fill out in high hopes of getting this $2,500. And apparently, it's all been a mistake and left on there for no reason.

GARETH HAMPSIRE: And there was an apology in that?

JC: There was an apology for leaving it up, yes. Not so much that they didn't do anything for us, just that this thing was left up on their website for businesses to go fill out. And sorry for the inconvenience, is pretty much what they said. I mean, kick us while we're down kind of mentality with this one. I know businesses could have definitely used that $2,500. I mean, it's 10 per cent of my deductible. So, I mean, it would have been something. I went through a significant part of my life. I'm never going to forget it. I've never lost so much in that six-hour span, ever. I'm never, and even dealing with insurance and dealing with the mall and dealing with everything that $2,500 in the back of my head the whole entire time that I was going to get, right? So, I mean, a lot of businesses probably really counted on that $2,500. And for them to take that away now, it's, like I said, kick me when I'm down, right? A lot of, a lot of businesses around here went through a tough, tough time. And the government did not help one bit.

GH: So, this apology of sorts -- and the acknowledgement that you've got -- what does this mean to you?

JC: I mean, it's, I'm happy that it's gotten to this point because now I know and I can bring light. Like, listen, they literally had it up there saying that we were going to get $2,500 and are now taking it away from us. So, that's how our government, to me, works, right? And I mean, it's not good. It's, but like my perception, I'm going to hand that off to other people. So, like, I mean, they can, they have the chance to make this right and help the businesses that actually lost in this.

CH: East Coast Kicks owner John Connors, speaking to CBC Nova Scotia's Gareth Hampshire. Yesterday, the province's minister of economic development said that her department is in contact with 11 businesses that applied for the non-existent program to see if they qualify for other financial support.

[pop]

SOD: Space Compositions

CH: Artists draw their inspiration from many different places. But in a recent project, composer Sophie Kastner didn't just draw inspiration from a particular source -- she also drew the foundation of the piece itself. For years, a NASA project has translated data from telescopes into sounds. And now, Ms. Kastner has helped the centre turn that data into sheet music, that can be played by musicians. Here's a sample of the resulting music. It's our Sound of the Day.

SOUNDCLIP

[This sounds like piano and the whistling of the San Fran bridge, oh there’s also a bunch of woodwind instruments]

CH: The work of composer Sophie Kastner, who wrote that piece for musicians based on NASA telescope data. It's our Sound of the Day

[different version theme]

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 The World at Six.

NK: And you can read more about the stories and conversations featured on As It Happens on our website; www.cbc.ca/aih. I’m Nil Köksal. Thanks for listening.

CH: And I’m Chris Howden.

[theme]

The AIH Transcript For November 27, 2023

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