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The Current Transcript for April 14, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

VOICE: People don't know what Laurentian is going to look like in the fall. Quite honestly, a lot of people are afraid that if the doors don't close altogether, they're going to come back to one hollow institution where they won't be able to get quality education.

MATT GALLOWAY: Laurentian University billed itself as a unique school connecting the English, French and indigenous cultures of northern Ontario. All of that was thrown into jeopardy when the university sought protection from its creditors and chopped more than 60 programmes and more than 80 faculty members in 30 minutes to look at where that leaves students, staff, the school itself and the community around it. Also this morning, everything seemed to be going well, as Ashley Bristow prepared for the birth of her second child:

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: They said, oh, we're just checking his blood sugars. I said, OK, that's good. Go ahead. And then a nurse came towards us and everything seemed to start to unravel from there.

MG: Her son, Alexander, was born with an extremely rare genetic disorder. In an hour, the Calgary writer is here to talk about her new memoir detailing her fight for his health and for people to recognise his humanity. But we begin with a search for a serial killer and the missteps made by police. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Report finds ‘systemic discrimination’ in Toronto police handling of missing persons cases

Guests: Nicole Borthwick, Haran Vijayanathan, Lorimer Shenner

GLORIA EPSTEIN: Bruce McArthur killed eight people. All were gay or bisexual. All but two were men of colour. All were valued. Tess Richey went missing in 2017. Police failed to discover her body, her mother did. A short distance from where her youngest daughter was last seen. Alloura Wells, a member of Toronto's trans community, also went missing in 2017, although her bodily remains had been in the morgue for months. It took too long before they were linked to her disappearance. This, too, is the account of what went wrong in these and other cases and an examination of how things can be done differently.

MG: That was former Judge Gloria Epstein yesterday laying out her report in the handling of missing persons cases, including the victims of serial killer Bruce McArthur by Toronto police. That report found systemic flaws in police investigations. And we'll hear more about that in just a moment. But first, Nicole Borthwick knew three of the men killed by Bruce McArthur; Andrew Kinsman, Dean Lisowick and Selim Esen.

MG: Nicole, good morning.

NICOLE BORTHWICK: Good morning.

MG: You knew Andrew Kinsman best, you worked together and you were friends. Just briefly tell me what he was like.

NB: Andrew was very friendly. He was a warm, warm, loving guy with a lot of warmth, a lot of love, a lot of kinship with his friends and family. And he was a very positive person, always made sure that people were looked after, worked in the food bank at the person with AIDS foundation and did anything for anybody, when asked.

MG: How did it feel to see this report come out now? It's been more than two years since Bruce McArthur was sentenced to eight charges of first degree murder, including murder of Andrew Kinsman. So given your ties to Andrew, but also the time that has passed, how does it feel to see this report come out?

NB: I feel that it's a little too late for these families. These families have gone through a lot, not only grieving their loved ones, but the healing process and the grief never goes away. So for these families to wait and, you know, see this damning reports of inadequacy in the system is impossible for people to wait that long and to know that you can have closure.

MG: Tell me about the work that you and friends did to help find Andrew. I mean, I remember going through The Village in Toronto, in downtown Toronto and seeing the posters of his face up on telephone poles. Tell me about that work that you did.

NB: My friend Greg Downer and myself put together some posters and we basically splattered them all over town. In The Village, in the downtown core, at every subway stop possible, parks, places that Andrew would go, he was a walker, so he was very out there, you know, make sure that his face was everywhere.

MG: Why did you feel like you needed to do that?

NB: We did it for family. We did it for the community. We felt that this was the least we could do. So every day I went down and got a pile of posters and went postering. We thought that for every poster we put up, there was a face and there was a soul within that picture. So, you know that meant a lot for me. It meant a lot because it was somebody I knew and it was somebody that we loved.

MG: The Review Council Mark Sandler yesterday said that there were a series of lost opportunities during police investigations and there were a number of people in the community who felt as though those investigations weren't being taken seriously. Is that in part why you also got involved to help, you know, move this investigation along in some ways?

NB: Yes. I mean, it doesn't, it shouldn't take a year to find a murderer. You know, these families have gone through a lot. They've been through a lot of grief and they've gone through time. A lot of time that they didn't know what to expect. They didn't know from the finding of McArthur and brought to justice. And now the report is another layer of healing that they have to go through and it's not going to end. The grief will be a lifelong kind of grief.

MG: Just before I let you go, I mean, the report lays a lot of questions at the feet of Toronto police and calls for change. What do you want to hear from the Toronto police in the wake of this report?

NB: I think that the apology that the Toronto police are willing to give isn't enough for these families. It doesn't repair the damage that's already been done to the community or the families.

MG: And so what would you want to hear in light of that apology?

NB: That swift action be taken in terms of an agency that is supposed to protect people and not just straight people, not just people that don't have any much marginalised systems against them. You know, the police are there to serve and protect everybody, not just the certain chosen ones.

MG: Nicole, I'm sorry for what you've been through, but I really appreciate you talking to us this morning. Thank you very much.

NB: Thank you so much.

MG: Take care of yourself. Bye bye.

NB: Thank you. Bye bye.

MG: Nicole Borthwick is a friend of Andrew Kinsman, Dean Lisowick and Selim Esen. For more on this report, I'm joined by two guests. Haran Vijayanathan's work focuses on social justice for the HIV, AIDS and LGBTQ communities. And he was part of the report's community advisory group. And Lorimer Shenner is a former Vancouver police department detective and lead investigator of Vancouver's Missing Women Investigation.

MG: Good morning to you both.

HARAN VIJAYANATHAN: Morning.

LORIMER SHENNER: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Haran, you were involved in getting the support in place now that it's out, how does it feel?

HV: It's a sense of completion, and I do feel for Nicole and the community at large when they say that it's a little too late. However, you know, the details that went into the report and the length of community engagement and really trying to understand the situation and poring over the papers, I think it came up with a real solid report that really points out some of the significant deficiencies within the current system. And, you know, for me, when I was reading through the first volume, I was like, well, was it arrogance or ignorance or was it both? And either one should not be playing a part in a police service organisation. So I'm glad it's out there. Some really strong recommendations and it's another layer to this whole mystery. And again, I agree with Nicole when she said, you know, the grief is there for families and communities and hopefully we'll just work through and take some time to address that grief as it pops up.

MG: One of the things that came out in the report is that LGBTQ sex workers, members of the LGBTQ community, sex workers and those who use drugs in the community were under policed, under serviced and discriminated against. As somebody who's part of that community, gay and Southasian, how did the handling of the Bruce McArthur cases impact the community?

HV: You know, it just goes back to showing that the ignorance part still exists, I think the homophobia that we had initially said existed in terms of people's understanding, the fact that they didn't even use their own resources within the organisation, whether it's the liaison officer or the internal support networks or other LGBT officers, to really help guide and shape some of these incidences and where marginalised communities overpoliced and not necessarily under police and for all the wrong reasons. You know, we're always seen as people causing the trouble rather than people with trouble facing them and that they need support as well. And so a lot of the individuals, especially the first three men, a lot of attention wasn't paid. And there wasn't a real collaborative effort between police organisations as well to address some of the issues. And I kept saying earlier in the investigation, and I still maintain that if we paid attention to the first three really, really well and followed the processes, I don't know that eight people would have had to die, especially given the technology that we had available to us in 2010.

MG: And I mean, the other part of this, and this was raised yesterday in the release of the report as well, is that weeks before Bruce McArthur's arrest, the then chief of police, Mark Saunders, said there was no evidence of a serial killer.

HV: Yeah, and again, it's the continuous misleading of the community. I mean, that's where there's the transparency. The request for transparency comes out in this report, as well is engage the community, be transparent with us, give us the information that we need to know, but not... but be really, really cautious about the whole impacting the investigation piece, which I think that's fair, but engage us and speak to us as we're intelligent individuals and not just people that need saving or problematic people. I think it's an unconscious bias that sort of creeps into people's brains when they're dealing with the public and in particular marginalised communities. And so when we're looking at sex workers, folks who use substances, people with mental illness or intersections of race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and all of those things we kept being pushed further away, so we are not taken so seriously. So, Alloura Wells and other trans folks, particularly trans folks of colour, are often ignored and not represented at many tables.

MG: Lorimer Shenner, you spoke with Gloria Epstein when she was working on this report. And now that it's out and you look through some of the findings, given your time working on the Robert Pickton case, do you see familiar failures, if I can put it that way?

LS: Well, I definitely do, and Matt, I just want to express my condolences to Haran and to the entire community for the losses that they've felt and that their voices haven't been heard until this point. There were a lot of horrifying similarities, I think, to the missteps that Toronto took that we certainly took in Vancouver. And I think that was the toughest part in seeing the McArthur case play out, is that so much of this seemed to be avoidable to me in terms of just the availability of reports and resources to the Toronto police that laid out a lot of the types of missteps that we made in trying to solve these kinds of crimes that affect intersectional communities. So it was, you know, as Haran said, it was unavoidable, much of it. And I think that was a very difficult thing to see. But I do think that this report and again, my perspective is not the important one here. I think the important one is community members like Haran, because this report to me seems very community centred. And I think that's something that's been lacking in the past. And it does seem to really hold feet to the fire in terms of where to go forward.

MG: One of the things that comes up in the report is the issue of perceptions and stereotypes, particularly of communities that might be marginalised. So, from your experience, Lorimer, I mean, how do those stereotypes and perceptions impede an investigation?

LS: Well, the, you know, stereotypes and biases are in every investigation, and where they impede investigations is when officers have blind spots to what their own stereotypes are. None of us expected to not have those stereotypes or biases or sort of a starting place when we begin these investigations. But we have to understand that we have blind spots. We have to understand that we need to know the communities that are being served. And if, you know, if you're a cis, het, white man, you know, from Mississauga and you come in to investigate crimes in the gay village, you have to put yourself into the lives of these people. And you have to understand the intersectional identities of the people that you serve. And if you don't understand the world, you can't possibly investigate it.

MG: Which is in part, Haran, why one of the recommendations in this and there are 150 of them. They have got a lot of attention. One of them is, is the idea of civilian involvement in these cases. And you said engage us. What would that civilian involvement do you think do?

HV: Well, I think, you know, there isn't the intimidation of a police uniform. So an officer coming in to offer condolences, carrying a gun, it doesn't make sense. And sometimes, you know, the fear factor of folks who may not have status in the community or have had negative interactions with police in the past who fear being persecuted for being a victim of a crime simply because they might be a sex worker or they might have used drugs. I think that takes away from a lot of that. It takes away that barrier, really, and a civilian going in to have conversations and they'll have the time to sit down and actually just do some of the social work aspects of it and have a more solid understanding of community and of the issues they're facing and provide that guidance through the system because it is intimidating. Talking to the police. I mean, even with me sitting around at some tables with officers there, it can be quite overwhelming. So if you're a victim of a crime, having someone who is a civilian, especially a missing person's case, it certainly does take away a lot of those barriers. And I think you'd see a lot more engagement.

MG: Lorimar, as a former police department detective, would civilian oversight and civilian involvement help a missing persons investigation?

LS: Well, I think it's critical to these investigations, I think where it breaks down, as in police culture, because there's historically not been an acceptance of that civilian input into any police investigations. And I think that, you know, Haran mentioned trust. And I think that's a really big part of it, is that, you know, the police always reach out or say they're reaching out to the community and they and they want the community to trust them. But there's no reciprocity there in terms of trusting the community. And Haran hit the nail on the head when he said, you know, there's that sense that intersectional communities can't be trusted to not, you know, go and show confidential information from the rooftops. I mean, that's, again, just a stereotype and a bias that has no place. And so for this kind of cooperation, collaboration to happen, there has to be trust on both sides. But it has to actually be, it has to be really woven into the fabric of police culture where right now it's not at all. It's the opposite of that right now.

MG: The interim chief of police in the city of Toronto says he hasn't read the full report, but that he does recognise the shortcomings. He's apologised, has said that all of the recommendations will be implemented. Haran, how much trust do you think there is within the community now when it comes to Toronto police? Because at the heart of it, that's what this is about in many ways is creating a sense of trust.

HV: Absolutely. I think when you have years of abuse, trust is not going to be built over a night, over a day or after what is released. It's going to take some time. And I think it's going to take some solid actions because there has been... apologies have been given before. But those apologies have to be followed by action and meaningful action and engagement and transparency. And it's going to be over many, many years that that trust is rebuilt. But I mean, there is hope. And I think that's that's the theme of the report, according to Justice Epstein. And I think, you know, with all of the other points that exist, I think it's time for not just the Toronto police services, but I would also argue that all police services in this country take this to heart and really make that change and start building those alliances.

MG: When you talk about those steps that are taken, how much of that is about humility and acknowledging that mistakes were made, Haran?

HV: 100 percent. I mean, the first step of reconciliation of any sort is to acknowledge a mistake was made and truly, meaningfully apologise for it. But again, it doesn't mean anything because we have heard apologies and regrets before if no action is taken to solve them.

MG: Justice Epstein said that working on the report "changed who I am and her outlook on diversity". Those are her words. So, Lorimer, what do you take from that?

LS: Well, I think it's huge and I think just the fact that the word humility was used several times yesterday in the, you know, the press briefing and in the report really speaks to that understanding that she gained from working on this. And, you know, these things don't occur in isolation. This is a long, long, historical problem between police and LGBTQ communities. This isn't a situation where individual officers who are well-meaning can just come in and say, hey, well, I'm one of the good guys, trust me. This is a very long standing, systemic history of abuse, quite frankly. And so it's going to take time. And that humility is absolutely the first step. Defensiveness of the police has to be broken down. They have to step back from that and be willing to engage.

MG: I was going to say briefly, are you confident you mentioned police culture or are you confident and optimistic, given what you've seen coming out of the report following, for example, the Pickton case, that this could lead to real change in the way police do their work?

LS: Well, I'm confident and optimistic on one level in that Justice Epstein has expressed her own willingness to really try to ensure that these recommendations are enacted. Unfortunately, I'm a bit jaded. I've seen it before. And, you know, I've seen reports languish in desks and never, never see the light of day and recommendations not be implemented. Hopefully, I think it still comes down to police leadership and police supervision, which, you know, again, is a bigger conversation, especially given the events of the last year in North America. But I'm confident that in Toronto, the police are not actually going to be able to not implement these recommendations. I think the pressure is going to be too great.

MG: Lorimer, it's good to speak with you about this. Thank you very much.

LS: Thanks so much, Matt. Thanks Haran.

MG: Haran, we've spoken about this many times, it's great to talk to you again. Thank you.

HV: Thank you so much. Have a good day.

MG: And you. Haran Vijayanathan was part of the report's community advisory group. Lorimer Shenner is a former Vancouver police department detective.

[Music: calm piano instrumental]

MG: It is important to remember the men that this report focussed on, they were Selim Esen, Abdulbair Faizi, Majeed Kayhan, Andrew Kinsman, Dean Lisowick, Krishna Kumar Kanagaratnam, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam. And the report also spoke about the lives of Tess Richey and Alluora Wells. [Pause].

MG: The CBC News is next. And then:

JADE HOWARD: I started crying. Instantly, it was, well, what's the point of writing this exam if my program might not be here?

MG: Laurentian University students say they have been blindsided by program cuts in the middle of cram season. What the future holds for them and for the entire institution, coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

Impact of Laurentian University cuts on staff, students, community

Guest: Aly Beauparlant, Darrel Manitowabi, Glen Jones

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, Ashley Bristowe was at the height of her career, had a happy young child and big plans for what was next, she never imagined a baby with a rare genetic disorder being painted into that picture. I'll speak with her about her new book and her son Alexander in about 30 minutes. But first, what do you do if you find yourself studying for exams in a university program that suddenly no longer exists?

[Music: Theme]

JADE HOWARD: While I was writing my exams, actually, specifically an anthropology exam at the time, and I got the email, so of course they checked it and reading that my program had been cut broke me down almost entirely. I instantly started crying and I found it very difficult to continue writing my exam. It was just very discouraging because for me, instantly it was, well, what's the point of writing this exam if my program might not be here and I might not be able to finish?

MG: Jade Howard found out this week that her program at Laurentian University is no more. On Monday, the school in Sudbury, Ontario, cut nearly 70 undergraduate and graduate programmes and fired more than 80 faculty members, an attempt to simply keep the doors open after Laurentian filed for creditor protection in February. Critics say this is the culmination of decades of financial mismanagement, and the deep cuts are particularly tough for Francophone students. Aly Beauparlant is a first year student at Laurentian University.

MG: Aly, good morning.

ALY BEAUPARLANT: Good morning.

MG: How did you find out that these cuts were happening?

AB: So I found out these cuts were happening, we received an email on Monday regarding all the programmes that got cancelled, Laurentian.

MG: And what was it like to get that email?

AB: Discouraging, terrifying. They cut almost every single program to the point of what is left at Laurentian?

MG: Tell me about how this affects you directly. I mean, you're currently in the social work program. And so, practically speaking, can you continue to take the classes that you wanted to take?

AB: So with my social work program, I was planning on taking some indigenous courses and some woman courses, as well as some Francophone courses and unfortunately, indigenous studies, women's studies and a lot of the Francophone courses got cut completely from Laurentian.

MG: So what happens?

AB: Well, I either change schools or I continue my studies and find an alternative way.

MG: I mean, you're a Francophone student and as you mentioned, a lot of the programmes that were cut were part of that French stream. Just I mean, from your own personal perspective, given, as I say, that you're a Francophone student. What does that mean to you?

AB: I believe that this is very unfair as a Francophone student, because we have in the past have fought so many years to have an education and to be able to learn in French only to get it taken away from us now and for us to if we want to pursue our education and French have to find now a new university to to do those studies.

MG: What have your professors told you? I mean, you get this email and it says these are the cuts that are happening to the programmes in the school that you're in. What have those professors said to you about this?

AB: As a student, I have not gotten anything from anyone I have messaged [inaudible], I have tried to contact my faculty left with nothing because nobody knows what's going on. So nobody has any answers for us students.

MG: Not even the professors whose courses you're taking have said anything to you?

AB: No, I have one professor in my woman and gender studies course who has emailed us just to sign some petitions, get us to protest, but really, that's the only... only proff. that has actually given us anything that we can do.

MG: And so beyond that, you say that, and the email that you got saying this is what's been cut, you've had no support offered from the school itself to help you figure out what's next?

AB: No support whatsoever. Us students got this big bomb dropped on us on Monday with no help from our university.

MG: Are you going to stay at Laurentian University?

AB: As of now, I think I will not be attending Laurentian next year because... Yes, they say that this is the end, but how are we supposed to put our faith into a university that doesn't support their students? That doesn't help us. What will be next for Laurentian? What will happen now? Are other courses, are the programmes going to be cut? Like it's just we are really just there's no answer to anything at the moment.

MG: So what's next for you? I mean, you're just coming out of first year. You're just getting started. What are you going to do next?

AB: So I believe that it's either I'm taking a year off or I will be attending College Boreal in Sudbury.

MG: What a week. I'm sorry for what you've been through, and I wish you the best of luck. Thanks for talking to us, Aly.

AB: Thank you for having me.

MG: Good luck.

AB: Thanks.

MG: Aly Beauparlant is a first year student at Laurentian University. It's not just the programmes that have been cut that are causing concerns. Some people are worried about the health of the ones that remain, amongst them indigenous studies. Darrel Manitowabi is a former faculty member in indigenous studies at Laurentian University. Now the Hannah chair in Indigenous Health and Indigenous Traditional Medicine at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. That's a joint program between Laurentian and Lakehead universities. He's also a member of the Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory.

MG: Darrel, good morning to you.

DARREL MANITOWABI: Good morning.

MG: What went through your mind when you read about these cuts to Laurentian University, to the programmes in the faculty at a school that you know so well?

DM: It was unbelievable. I expected there to be some cuts, but I did not expect there to be the level of cuts that there was.

MG: Aly was talking about what it means as a Francophone student to see these programmes that she feels close to disappear. What do these cuts mean for programmes in indigenous studies?

DM: Well, it's the potential of the undoing of indigenous education in northern Ontario, northern Ontario, through the University of Sudbury, has been a long standing leader of indigenous education since the 1970s. And so we have a legacy of contributing to reconciliation in northern Ontario and even nationally. So we have been known as one of just a few handful of indigenous studies programmes in Canada. So alongside with Trent University in Ontario, we have been here. So it's really devastating in that way.

MG: The potential of undoing of indigenous education.

DM: Yes, yes, that's that's something I never thought I would say I was witness to the growth, the tremendous growth of indigenous education. Laurentian was a national leader in reforming the university education to be more inclusive of indigenous perspective and indigenous curriculum. And so I was witness to that process. I'm also witness to a process of this un-doing as well.

MG: A lot of that process was done with the community itself, the community that surrounds Laurentian. Tell me about those ties that the Indigenous Studies Program had with the community itself.

DM: I'm a past chair of the Indigenous Studies Department at the university of Sudbury, and I know the intimate connection that the program has with community. I've had the pleasure of overseeing guest lectures, workshops that were open to the public, and we would attract community members from Manitoulin Island, the north shore of Lake Huron, so they would travel to Sudbury to bear witness to speakers that were profiled at university. And we would also host community based events. We would have meals, we would have social gatherings. So it played a tremendous role in bringing community to the university. It's one of those qualitative deep impacts that the program has had in the region.

MG: And so what message do you think the cuts send to indigenous students who are at the university now?

DM: It sends the message that. That indigenous education is no longer possible at Laurentian University to the extent that it was in the comprehensive way that the markets itself and one of the reasons for this is that the professors are the conduits to connection to community, they're conduits to education, indigenous education. So if they're not there, you lose that connection.

MG: You wonder if it also sends a message back to that community about what is and is not valued?

DM: Yes, it does, and there's many community members who have... who are graduates of Laurentian in the region and many have taken indigenous studies or perhaps even have a degree in indigenous studies. So they know intimately the history and the context and the ramifications of what this all means.

MG: Part of the context, if you step back a little bit, is coming out of the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And I mean, as this nation continues to move along this path of reconciliation, perhaps not fast enough for for many people, where does this leave the big picture of reconciliation if... and this is it's one university, but a university that in many ways branded itself and took measurable steps to try and address the issue through creating an indigenous studies program, where does that leave that whole issue of reconciliation?

DM: Well, it's a case study in the undoing of reconciliation and reconciliation and reverse. So the university Sudbury Indigenous Studies was doing reconciliation even before it was part of the public discourse. It dates back to the nineteen seventies. There was a lot of innovative programming that was happening at the time. And so we were well ahead of the curve. And so at the university, we were of the position that others are finally catching up to what we've been doing for decades. And so now what we're seeing is the reconciliation in reverse.

MG: We did ask to speak with the university president, Robert Hache. He was unavailable to speak with us this morning, but has said that the school remains committed to its tri cultural mandate, meaning that it will continue to offer programmes that reflect the English, French and indigenous character of the region in and around Sudbury. How confident are you in that statement?

DM: I'm concerned you need human resources. I was part of much of the academic program development at the university over the past 16 years, so I'm intimately aware of the courses, the programmes, the requirements. I've played a role in administration, so I know the requirements even just to, for instance, put together a graduate committee for a graduate student pursuing an indigenous focussed program of research. It requires human resources. And if you don't have professors there to sit on committees, if you don't have professors in the classroom, it's very difficult to deliver indigenous education.

MG: You sound I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you really do sound shaken by this.

DM: Yes, yes, I definitely am. You know, it's like a social bomb has been dropped at Laurentian university because I've worked there for 16 years now. So I know intimately many of the individuals who are no longer employed. And I know the valuable role that they have. I've played hockey with some, we've had a faculty hockey team. You know, you see them in the hallway and you visit and it's part of a social community. So when you have a third of your social community no longer present, and even I can just imagine coming back to the campus when we can and just is walking the hallways, it's going to be... there's going to be a lot of empty office spaces and less conversation taking place.

MG: Just before I let you go, I mean, what has to happen to ensure that those ties that you talked about to the community remain?

DM: There needs to be recognition of the legacy and leadership that Laurentian University and University Sudbury has played in indigenous education, and it's my understanding that some of these decisions have not been finalised. So there remains an opportunity to rectify the potential long term damage that this will cause.

MG: Darrel, it's good to speak with you about this. Thank you very much.

DM: Thank you.

MG: Darrel Manitowabi, a former faculty member in indigenous studies at Laurentian University. Now the Hannah chair in indigenous health and indigenous traditional medicine at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, which is a partnership between Laurentian and Lakehead universities. The situation at Laurentian is more dire than most, but this pandemic has shaken the financial stability of other Canadian universities as well. Glen Jones is a professor of higher education and the Dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

MG: Glen, good morning to you.

GLEN JONES: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Have you ever heard of anything like this at a Canadian university?

GJ: No. I mean, this is simply unprecedented. I've been trying to think of new adjectives and adverbs, but it's simply an unusual, unprecedented situation across Canada and North America, as far as I know.

MG: All right. So explain to me, as you understand it, how does this happen? How does a university have to cut? As I mentioned, you know, dozens of programmes fire dozens of faculty members just to try to keep the lights on?

GJ: Well, I mean, clearly, this is a financial problem that didn't suddenly emerge. I mean, did covid play a role? Undoubtedly. But this has been going on for ages. I mean, people have known for quite some time that this institution has had financial challenges. I think the magnitude of those challenges have shocked everyone. But I mean, to me, it's a primary example of a governance failure. I mean, the institution did not take the steps necessary to address its financial challenges. Those challenges got worse over time. And it's reached a kind of crisis point. And usually, you know, you have a board of governors that has oversight over the institution. You have a senior administration that works for the board. You have ongoing financial reports, a financial situation or a financial crisis is identified. And you create a multi-year plan to get you out of those problems. And whatever happened, that plan didn't work or that plan wasn't substantive enough. But between the board and the senior administration at the university, these issues are supposed to be addressed. I mean, sometimes you have to go to a bank and ask for some funds in order to carry you forward because you run a deficit for a few years. But you normally take care of these issues without taking this unprecedented step of going to the company's creditors arrangements act and essentially declaring insolvency. The institution is supposed to be better at this than it was.

MG: I guess I'm still trying to wrap my head around how that happens if, you know, as you said, that this was coming and people didn't take steps to prevent it. So how does that happen at a major university?

GJ: Well, that's the point that I don't understand. I mean, you know, universities have financial challenges from time to time. I mean, there are universities that clearly have to run deficits, but they always develop plans to get them out of those situations. There are certain things you can't control. You know, universities in Ontario especially. Both, the largest source of their revenue is student tuition, the second is government. And both of those are controlled by government. And of course, in the case of Ontario, the government reduced student tuition by 10 percent a few years ago. So that's a bit of a drain. There's been no increase in operating grants. So on the revenue side, you can't depend on increases in revenue. So you have to deal with things on the cost side. You know, I can imagine a whole series of issues that fed into this, whether it's notions of government grants, covid certainly didn't help, but there's a structural challenge here. And at some point, the institution should have taken the steps necessary to get itself out of this. And that might have been a two year plan or a five year plan. But whatever happens, it should never come to this point. So it's an example of a situation I've never heard of before, where essentially the appropriate steps were not taken. And the board and the university itself, through its senior administration, did not do what it's supposed to do. I mean, after all the dust settles as we go through this process, you know, clearly there's huge restructuring taking place. And I can only empathise with the community because, you know, we've all been suffering through this notion of covid and suddenly you've got this new earthquake that's come to town and you're learning almost daily about the devastation associated with this. And universities are, you know, like webs they are interconnected with the communities in which they focus. So the implications aren't just for the students and the faculty. They have tremendous implications for the entire community. So you've got this taking place. But, you know, after whatever the restructuring takes place, clearly there has to be some sort of review of the governance of the university because both the community has to understand what happened and I think other institutions need to learn from this experience and the government needs to understand what's happened here. So you're going to have to go through this building of... Some sort of notion of rebuilding trust, you're going to have to go through some notion of ensuring that the institution is financially sound, but there's going to be a need to understand exactly what happened and not just in financial terms, but in terms of why decisions weren't made, the processes that were in place, whether the the board understood the financial challenges and whether it was satisfied with the planning that was taking place.

MG: How much of an impact do you think... you mentioned the pandemic. I mean, universities in many ways rely on international students who often pay higher tuitions to come and study at their institution. There's also, I mean, students on campus, perhaps the drop in enrolment because kids might have taken a gap year rather than go into an uncertain year. How much of an impact has that had not just on Laurentian but on universities across this country?

GJ: Well, on the tuition side, I would think the changes are relatively modest. I mean, most students have continued to attend university. They've moved online. A lot of international students have simply moved online into virtual classrooms. So the impact on enrolment hasn't been as substantive as it could have been, mostly because everybody understands the situation they're in. And it's not as if you can take a year off and travel the world. You know, the situation is we're all sort of at home. And so the kind of changes that people have, the options that people will have are limited. So a lot of people are simply continued with their studies. I think the dramatic changes associated with covid are on the other side of the equation. So, you know, your residences now have to have half as many people in them, probably, in order to promote social distancing. You've had to close your buildings, but still operate them and keep the lights on so that the, you know, buildings don't freeze. In some cases, you've had people having to go in in order to fulfil essential functions. So you have to have additional cleaning. You've lost your revenues, associated with some of the residences, with food services, with parking. You've probably had to make adjustments on the staffing side on those things. So there's you know, universities are involved with a wide range of activities. Where teaching and research are a component part of this. But they also run a lot of businesses. They run a lot of activities and those have all been threatened or impacted by covid there's no doubt about it.

MG: We just have under a minute left. Do you see this as an outlier or should other universities I mean, should this be a cautionary tale?

GJ: Well, it is an outlier. I mean, this has never happened before. I cannot imagine these kind of circumstances, which is why I think we need some sort of a review after the dust has settled in order to understand what happened. What I think the danger is doing this as something that's working across the system, because I think the rest of the universities are looking at this not not with a sense it could happen here, but with the notion that this has an impact on the kind of notion of trust and prestige of the entire system. So, you know, obviously universities don't want the government to interfere because they value their institutional autonomy. So they're looking at this as the kind of worst case scenario that's happening somewhere else. And it has implications on trust within the system, it has implications on the prestige within the system. It's just an unprecedented crisis.

MG: What a nightmare, Glen. Great to talk to you. Thank you very much.

GJ: Thank you.

MG: Glen Jones, Dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

MG: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. We've been doing this virtual road trip across the country, coast to coast, to coast. This week we head to Yukon. Most of the people there are now vaccinated. And in many ways life is back to normal. But the Yukon relies on people from elsewhere, real life road trips, not just virtual ones, to help keep the economy going. During the summer, take Dawson City, a town full of gold rush history, and it usually starts swelling with tourists in a month or two. Not this year, though. We dropped by one of the local haunts for a pint.

BOBBY: My name is Bobby and I work at the Westminster Hotel. The snake pit, if you will, this is a building that's been here, it's pretty much the oldest bar in Dawson. It was around here just during the gold rush. So it's pretty relaxed. Everybody's having a nice time chatting. Seems like everybody's in good spirits. Yeah, I think there was a show in town tonight, so most of the people are coming from that. I've got lots of family and friends elsewhere in Canada and even beyond, and I know that they're in a way tighter situation. It definitely occurs to me on a daily basis how lucky we are to be able to be in a bar, you know, sans masks and conversing with people in close quarters and stuff, whatnot. So it's pretty great. It definitely helps with the long winters up here and stuff like that. So we're pretty lucky. Just kind of have to continue holding on to your gratitude about the fact that we've got it so easy up here. And, you know, some people don't. They're having a hard time with it. I know that it's been really tough for me to be away from friends and family elsewhere for over a year now. But as far as being able to live a semblance of normal, it's been pretty nice. When the tours drop is definitely a huge thing in town. It's definitely made a large impact, I imagine, on a lot of businesses and stuff like that as well. There's far fewer people wandering the streets on any given time right now. But, you know, winters... the town, you know, it's pretty much slashed in half on any given year. So it just kind of felt like winter all the time here, all summer, granted warmer weather but I'm sure everybody has taken a hit for sure. Things have slowed down. I think it's been probably pretty tough for every business in town. I'm not sure there's anyone that's booming. But other than that, yeah, I mean, I think I think people are still pretty good at going out and, you know, feeling the local businesses and stuff like that. So it's been good. It's really community driven here.

MG: Bobby Ramka serving drinks at the Westminster Hotel in Dawson City, Yukon. That is our next stop on our virtual road trip, Canada's Road Ahead. Tomorrow, we pull into Dawson City, virtually, alas to speak with residents and business owners and hear about what it's like to be vaccinated ahead of the rest of the country and much of the world. Lucky them. Coming up after your regional update:

ASHELY BRISTOWE: The way we've decided to address disability in Canada is to put it on wait lists, put it last, cut it first and say this makes everybody uncomfortable. So maybe you could just...

MG: Ashley Bristowe knows firsthand what it's like to navigate disability supports in this country. Her new memoir tells the story of her son Alexander and a system that she says needs a rethink. Ashley's here in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

[Music: Theme]

Ashley Bristowe on her son’s rare genetic condition, and creating inclusive communities

Guest: Ashley Bristowe

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current.

MG: When Ashley Bristowe's son, Alexander, was born in May of 2009, he was a welcome addition to an already busy life. Ashley was a photographer working on a book and living in Calgary with her husband, Chris Turner, and their first child, Sloane. They had, as Ashley puts it, ten thousand ideas for the future. And then baby Alexander changed everything. He was born with a rare genetic abnormality, and as Ashley and Chris would come to find out, that meant that he would grow up severely disabled. And that news sent Ashley on a new path, fighting to give Alexander his best life and for others to recognise his humanity. That fight is chronicled in Ashley's new memoir. It's called My Own Blood.

MG: Ashley, good morning.

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Good morning.

MG: Tell me, this book features a number of signposts when things changed in your life and when things change, particularly around Alexander's birth. So tell me about his birth and when you got the sense that your life was going to be different from the one that you had imagined.

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Yeah, we had a lot of plans for after our second child was born. We had big projects coming up in Europe and we both had booked projects for that fall. And Alexander's birth, the birth process was fast. It's in the book. All the... I think it's... I've been told that it's a very realistic portrayal of labour. And after the labour, they took him to the NICU and they said, oh, we're just checking his blood sugars. I said, OK, that's good, go ahead. And then I went to the NICU to join Turner and the baby was sucking fine. And then a nurse came towards us and everything seemed to start to unravel from there. The nurse said, Do you see how he's flailing his hand against your breast? And I said, Yeah, isn't that cute? And she said, that means he's in distress. And it felt like a slap because it was just such a little baby and he was sucking. And how did she know that? And that was our first moment of oh, no. And then everything seemed to be OK after that, he stayed in the NICU. I went to the maternity ward. My cousin and Turner tucked me in. And then suddenly another nurse came running into the room and said, you need to go back to the NICU right now, right now. And I told Turner to run. And my cousin put me in a wheelchair and she ran me down the hall. And then when we got there, it was. The biggest anticlimax you can imagine, the woman was like, oh, yeah, we're going to just supplement his feeds, so we need your permission. Yeah, I gave permission for that. Anyway, it just sort of went on like that with the healthcare system. I mean, there are incredible people working in the healthcare system, but I'm not a health care worker and I don't have any background on child development. I didn't have any sense of how to navigate this world that we were suddenly sliding into with this child, with this series of mysterious problems.

MG: And these mysterious problems. They take a while to figure out. And as you're moving forward in trying to get a diagnosis, there is this long period in the book where your family is kind of in limbo waiting to find out what's going on.

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Yeah, we were in a long limbo. Many families, I should say, many families wait a lot longer. We only waited eight months. Alexander received his diagnosis on December 3rd, 2009, only three days after we moved house. And he had all kinds of appointments at the hospital. He was being... he was slow to develop. So we were at something called infant team and getting sort of assistance through occupational therapy and physical therapy and hearing clinic. And then suddenly the genetics department called us and they said, oh, we notice you have an appointment today and we wonder if you could just pop by after. And as I put down the phone, I was like, they found it. They know what it is. And my husband, Turner, said, Oh, don't worry. No, Ashley, don't, don't be so pessimistic or worried. It's completely fine. They probably just want us to sign something. And I was like, no. No, no, they found it and they had found it.

MG: And what is it?

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: So Alexander at that time was diagnosed with something called 9Q34.3 telemetric deletion syndrome, which meant that he was missing one gene at the bottom of one of the alleles on his ninth pair of chromosomes. And at that time, 9Q34.3 telemetric deletion syndrome was characterized by heart abnormalities, ear folds, hernia, and then a sort of a big list of developmental difficulties that would cascade sort of over his childhood and then lead possibly and probably to seizures, possibly psychosis in his teens, regression. And it was just this very terrifying list of possible outcomes.

MG: And incredibly rare, too.

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Incredibly rare. When we went into the appointment. Alexander was the 72nd person diagnosed worldwide. Now there's almost two thousand people just because of how testing has changed. And geneticists think that there are probably a lot more. But it's certainly not a common diagnosis. It's not a common diagnosis.

MG: Once you had the diagnosis, what did you do?

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: The author that I was working with on the book when Alexander was born, her name is Gill Deacon and she's fabulous and I think she's a colleague of yours.

MG: Yes.

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: And Gill said to me, I have a neighbour whose son was born with a portion of his brain missing. Her name is also Gillian. And I'm going to put her in touch with you. And Gillian Irving called me and she said, OK, this may not work for you, but this is what I did. I found this book called What to Do About Your Brain Injured Child in the stacks of the resource centre at Sick Kids in Toronto. And I read it and then I went to this place that wrote the book. It's called The Institutes, it's in Philadelphia. They designed a very intensive program for our son. Again, it's not for everybody. But this might be something that would help you, and so I suggest you get the book and at the end of that call, Gillian said it's going to be OK. And a lot of people had said that to me by that point, but when Gillian said it, I believed her. She was the first, you know, she was the first person I believed. And so when the diagnosis came, as we're driving home, I was like, oh, dear, I'm going to have to read that book. And I'd read the book, but I re-read it. And I think I knew from then that we were going to Philadelphia to find this place.

MG: Tell me about the organization in Philadelphia, The Institutes. What is this place?

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Sure. So it was founded in 1955 by a physiotherapist who came home from World War II and started working with brain injured adults who had... And people who had epilepsy. The Institutes in Philadelphia gradually became a Child Brain Development Institute to assist children with what we call cerebral palsy. So brain hypoxia, so a lack of oxygen at birth. Somebody began using their methods with Down syndrome children in Brazil, and they had such great results that they sort of widened their patient demographics to all children that required assistance in development.

MG: So you packed up the whole family to go down to Philadelphia, to this place that kind of looks like a college campus. And this is a big move. I mean, given everything that's going on. What were you hoping for?

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: So we packed up the whole family and my dad came and my mother in law came in. My mother in law's sister, Mary Elizabeth came and we all went down there to do a week of lectures. It was the first series of lectures on how to handle starting a program with your child that has developmental delays of any kind, and they really trained us, and then the following week we went to a clinic on campus for two days where they modified and personalized the program specifically for Alexander.

MG: You meet. A young boy named Javier when you're there. Tell me a little bit about him and his family.

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: This family was from Mexico. Javier, had been born with what we would call cerebral palsy, and he was very disabled, all of us have seen a child or person like this curled in on themselves, almost like what the brain brings to mind, the image of a praying mantis, small, unable to move on his own. And he couldn't communicate with verbal language. And they carried him in and he was moaning and kind of moving unusually. In our society, we don't... I mean, it's hard to say we don't integrate these people, it's not that we don't integrate them, we don't accept them as part of everyday life. We expect people who are responsible for children and adults like that to please put them in another place so we don't have to deal with that, because it makes us all very uncomfortable. And this child came in and this was on day three or four of the lectures where we've been doing all of this work and and all of this learning. And I had this sudden fear of, oh, no, they're going to try and show us, like, tricks that this disabled child can do. And instead, they had a translator who spoke Spanish and English and his parents and the woman, Susan Ason, who was teaching that class, said, I'd like you all to meet Javier and his family. They're from Mexico City. And what you're about to see is just run of the mill communication for us here at The Institutes, so I just want you to just watch and and experience what's going to happen. So Javier's mother took his hand and held it lightly by the wrist above a board, a laminated piece of cardstock that had the alphabet and numbers on it? And Javier, they asked him questions and he answered using what's called a choice board or an alphabet board.

MG: He would spell out kind of the words that he wanted to say with his hand.

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Exactly. And they demonstrated, amply demonstrated that Javier not only was communicating directly with his mother and us, he was able to correctly do math, and read high-level language, and analyze it in a way that was unquestionably true. It wasn't a trick. It shattered, it shattered my world.

MG: Can you read a little bit of that from the book? Just it's the bit about what he says to parents like you who are watching him.

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Javier shifts and moans. His mother repositions him. So he is facing out to the audience. The poking begins again, loud now. We can hear Javier's fingernail hitting the laminated cardstock peck, peck, peck as he spells out the words through the interpreter. You have come from far away because you can't talk to your children. You don't know how to help them, but you want to help them, your children are like me. Your children want to talk to you. Every day I thank God for my mother who did not give up. She taught me how to speak to her through this card. And there was an explosion. I had words for the world. I swam into light after years of darkness. My mother discovered that I was inside this body, that I am me. Do not give up. Your children are waiting for you. The whole world shatters. Oh, my God. There's a child trapped in that body. Oh, my God. Disabled children are prisoners of bodies and brains that won't obey them. Oh, my God, we are failing them all.

MG: What did that mean for you and for Turner? I mean, you say that it shattered you. You just said that in that passage. I mean, given what you're going through and what you have come to The Institutes looking for, if I can put it that way, what does that mean?

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Oh, like it was. We live in a very ableist society, and I don't even think I would have had that language at that time because it didn't apply to me or anybody I knew. And I had probably made choices to make sure my world was ableist to that point.

MG: What do you mean?

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: In that I... Well, I mean, in high school, I had the opportunity... We had a program called Agencies where grade 11 students were sent out to various community agencies to work on Fridays afternoons as volunteers. And all of the opportunities -- there were about six -- dealt with disabled adults or mostly children. And then there was one that was an immigration society. And we toured all of these. And when I... It didn't appeal to me at all to work with disabled individuals, I just felt like, oh, this is not my department. I have other things that I'm interested in. And I really wanted to work with the immigrants and I ended up working with the immigrants. And so I had spent my entire life to that point, doing other stuff and very worthy things, you know. Like I'm a feminist and I've worked in housing planning and I'm an activist in my community and I a truth teller. I speak the truth. And I'm brave in the world. But I wasn't brave in the world around disability. It just wasn't my wheelhouse until Alexander was brought to me and given to me and. Well, your own kid, like, OK, I guess this is what I need to change.

MG: You had to really fight. Part of this is... I mean, it's individual, but it's also systemic. You had to really fight through the medical system to ensure that you got the attention and that he got the attention that you both deserved. There's a line... What is it you say? I do dislike having to get on my broom, but I'm learning. What did you have to do to be able to... Yeah, to fight for that attention?

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Well, yeah, I had to kind of chop down the door like a crazed maniac wielding an axe, like, unfortunately, the system is set up for families to be pushed away by the barriers. The system is set up to... The system... And when I say the system, I'm talking about the healthcare system. I'm talking about the educational system. I'm talking about the bureaucracy of governments and philanthropic organisations that have as their target community people with vulnerable, vulnerable Canadians. There are a lot of barriers to access, and those barriers work to weed out the people who cannot persist until the door comes down. And so I say in the book that I have a lot of privileges in the sense that I speak English as my first language. I'm Canadian born, I'm white. I have a dad who is a senior physician in Calgary. I had cancer at the age of 18, so I've gone through the wringer in the health-care system and I'm not afraid of doctors. I only have one other child. I have a stable marriage and I own my home. All of those advantages are enormous and give me a place from which to spring when I'm chopping down doors and it gives me that sort of surety that allows me to go. No, we're going to do it. No, you're going to have to call me back. No, I'm going to cc' your manager like I'm the Karen banging, ring the bell going, sorry. No, it's going to be me and my kid. But the barriers to access are meant to weed people out. And what it means is anybody who doesn't have all those advantages or some kind of crazed drive to get it, to get in, get weeded out. And then what happens to those kids? They go home, they don't get services. They end up in the school system without support. I mean, I have a cousin who works on the West Coast, she works in the prison system, and I asked her once, what percentage of your client base do you think has developmental disabilities or difficulties? She was like, oh, easily 80 percent.

MG: When you put that work in, you start to see the fruits of it. I mean, when did you start to realize that Alexander might be able to talk and might be able to walk, despite the fact that there are a lot of experts told you that this was not going to be possible?

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Yeah, well, we started this program at our house and we were full of vim and vigour and we saw results right away. We saw Alexander begin to vocalize about three weeks after we began the program at home. We saw his, what they call distance program expand, so he could pull himself kind of along the floor using his arms. And we saw him starting to, like, be more regular and left, right. And then begin to use his legs and later go up into a crawl position. And we saw all this development. We saw... He would say eventually ah as yes. So we would say, is this seven? And he go ah, and if you stayed silent, like we'd hold up a card that had seven dots on it and he'd say or he'd stay silent, that was a yes or a no. And so we saw quite soon a huge leap forward for him. It was... And it also was just I mean, when you don't know what you're doing, as I didn't, throwing myself... Coping through action was the only way forward for me. I needed to just be the crazed train going down this track. It was the only thing that made me feel like I wasn't dying.

MG: But that takes a toll, too. And again, I mean, there's a real toll on you and the rest of your family as you go through this.

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

MG: Do you think of how things might have been different had you not been as committed to making the best for Alexander, to working as hard as you can to, as you say, you know, chopping down those doors?

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Yeah, I do. I don't think about that anymore, but I have. It would have been very straightforward to find someone who could have taken care of Alexander, wheeled him around the community, taken him to swim lessons. There are, you know, various programs that will essentially keep these kids busy. And it would have... I would have received a lot of support for that. The way we've decided to address disability in Canada is to put it on wait lists. Put it last. Cut it first. And say, you know, this makes everybody uncomfortable, so maybe you could just...[hum] I'm not going to invite Alexander to the birthday party because, you know, he really doesn't get along, doesn't know how to play the games or whatever. That's how we deal with disability in Canada.

MG: Just before I let you go, let me just ask you, I mean, how's the family now? I mean, we're all in this pandemic and it continues. And that's a strange time for everyone. But for you, I mean, how's your family doing?

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Our family is doing great. I should say that all of this work was so worthwhile and changed us enormously. And now my older child, Sloane, is 16, doing amazing, playing for the Alberta provincial baseball team as a pitcher. And Alexander is a 12 year old who walks and talks and reads and can swim in the ocean independently in big waves. He really loves the singer Bjork from Iceland, and in particular her song Moon, which is a single from 2010. I am really sure that we have heard that song more times than she has ever performed it. We hear it all the time.

MG: Could you have imagined when you were describing, you know, the car sliding off the road that this is where you'd be?

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: No, I didn't. Alexander's prognosis was so dire that the thing that I felt I could, you know, reach furthest for and maybe accomplish was hoping that he could learn to read, hoping that I could teach him to read so that he could have an inner life. They said he would probably never walk and certainly never talk. And I mean, he'd blown past all of the predictions and all of the best case scenarios by the time he was three. And now, I mean, I took him across Canada in like I bought a crappy old camper and a Second-Hand truck in September because I'm immunocompromised and Alexander's aides had been cut in school, and I couldn't send him back to school, and Sloane wanted to go back to school. So Alexander and I drove across Canada in this truck with this camper dragging behind us. And we kept a travel journal and he threw rocks in every lake across Saskatchewan and Manitoba, all the way through northern Ontario and all the way down to Barrie. And I mean, his language is amazing and he's obviously not a quote unquote, normal little kid, but he's a delight. You know, we're in the Wawa grocery store and everybody's masked and, you know, six feet apart. And everybody's just like he's like momma, it's the produce section. It's the produce section. I'm like, it is the produce section. He's like, where's the eggs? I'm like, usually at the end of the produce section, he's like, let's go take a look. [laughter], like, lovely. He's a lovely force in the world.

MG: This is a really powerful book, and it's not easy, I'm sure, to tell these stories, but there are a lot of people who will find themselves in what you've written. Thank you very much.

ASHLEY BRISTOWE: Thank you so much,

MG: Ashley Bristowe's new memoir is called My Own Blood, that is The Current for this Wednesday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q, Tom Power, who'll be speaking with the Canadian photographer Chris Buck. Ashley Bristowe was talking about her son's favourite song. Moon by the Icelandic singer Bjork, and so here it is, for Alexander.

MG: I'm Matt Galloway thanks for listening to The Current. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

[Sound Clip: Moon by Bjork]

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