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The Current Transcript for April 18, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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Al I know is that I am not the same. I can't even walk around the block anymore. I go for a walk I got to know where every bench is. The problems I have are all related to the sponge.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: The sponge is a surgical sponge left behind inside Jim Wiseman after an operation. And now even after another operation to remove it, the complications have changed how he can move, what he can wear, what he can do. His search for compensation has so far created only more frustration. Statistically it is increasingly difficult to sue a doctor for medical harm in Canada and even more difficult to win if you do. In a moment Habiba Nosheen takes us through what the data tells us. And then flight recorders.

SOUNDCLIP

Birdwatchers, when there're 300,000 of them working together for a common purpose, goes through can fundamental change how we know the world around us.

AMT: Science is trying to track migratory birds, now have an app for that. eBird has birders and other enthusiasts logging sightings of 117 different species and handing the priceless data to researchers. In fact regular folk, lay people, armed with low cost and high quality tech are adding millions of data points to research on everything from galaxies to radiation. In half an hour here how citizen science is changing the scope of scientific research. And:

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I worried about her constantly and thought it is a certainty that she's going to die and if she dies that means I'll have to die.

AMT: We got so much heartfelt feedback over our discussion on postpartum depression that we asked the lead researcher in the field to talk to us about what's being done to ensure health professionals can be more responsive. Hear her in an hour. And immediately after that,

SOUNDCLIP

I have not read the Mueller report. I haven't seen the Mueller report. As far as I am concerned, I don't care about the Mueller report.

AMT: Well that may be but the rest of us will be talking about it, in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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'A real access-to-justice issue': Why lawyers are reluctant to take on medical malpractice suits

Guest: Habiba Nosheen

AMT: Medical mistakes are not uncommon in Canada but a new CBC News investigation has examined data going back decades and it is found that the number of patients winning in court against their doctor is decreasing. In 2017 more than 800 lawsuits were launched against doctors. Only 62 of those cases went to court nationwide, and of those just 14 cases were decided in favour of the patient. The CBC is investigative correspondent Habiba Nosheen has been looking into this trend and what is behind it. And she's with me in our Toronto studio. Hi Habiba.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Hi Anna Maria.

AMT: So how common are medical mistake?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Anna Maria, one thing that might surprise you is that mistakes happen in our medical system all the time. In fact according to the Patient Safety Institute, death as a result of an intended medical harm to a patient is the third highest cause of death in this country.

AMT: Third highest. Which brings us to those patients who are affected by the mistakes. What are their options?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Well let's start with the story of Jim Wiseman. Jim is in his 70s and a few years ago he had bladder cancer. After some unsuccessful procedures doctors suggested taking out the bladder. He knew he had very limited options so he agreed. He went into the hospital near his home in Innisville, Ontario. Bladder is removed. He's recovering in the hospital. All is going well. Then a few days later, a problem.

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JIM WISEMAN: I started getting pains in my stomach area. I started to bloat.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: The pain seem strange to the doctor on call gets concerned.

SOUNDCLIP

JIM WISEMAN: He took a look and he said I'm sending you for some tests. It was a CAT scan and x rays. But he knew there was something wrong inside me and the evidence was a sponge. He showed it to me on his camera. And he said we have no choice but we get to operate immediately. I was devastated. Totally devastated.

AMT: A sponge was left behind in the original surgery?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Yes, and there are many complications even after the sponge was taken out.

SOUNDCLIP

JUDY: This was October the 21st. Jim has a bad night. Sending him down for more tests. X rays show colon is expanded...

HABIBA NOSHEEN: His wife Judy kept a pretty detailed diary of the whole experience.

SOUNDCLIP

JUDY: That did not work. One tube on each side of the [unintelligible] plus tube in the rectum. How long this was staying is not too sure.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Jim ended up staying in the hospital for 27 days and he'd only expected to be there 10 days at the most.

AMT: How's he doing now?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: He says he's still suffering more than two and a half years later. When I speak to him he's sitting in his recliner in his living room. He says his stomach is still bloated. He says he's developed the hernia as a result of this and he's still pretty angry.

SOUNDCLIP

JIM WISEMAN: I've been through a lot of pain through a lot. I live in trackpads. I can even get on a regular pair pants. If I go to try upon a regular pair of pants, I can't put a belt on and because of this. I have to have expansion. I need plastic to get over the hump. I feel like like eight months pregnant. I'm not a happy camper, let's put it that way .

HABIBA NOSHEEN: And you know, it doesn't help that his wife Judy had the exact same surgery a couple of years before him and she's doing fine in here he is looking, as he describes it, eight months pregnant.

AMT: So how does this affect his life?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: You know it's been really tough for him for sure.

SOUNDCLIP

JIM WISEMAN: All I know is I'm not the same and I never will be. And that's the frustrating part is not being able to do what I used to be able to do. I can't play golf anymore. I used to love to play golf. I can walk around the block any more. I go for a walk I got to know where every benches is. I've heard neighbors say to me 'Jim, if you need to sit down I got chairs on our porch. Come up and sit down on the porch if you can't make it home.' The problems I have are all related to the sponge. If the sponge was not left in me I would have been probably back to normal, back to the way I was when I went in the hospital, wearing a pair of pants with a belt on.

AMT: What can you do about this, Habiba?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Well the only way to get compensation when a patient has been injured in Canada is really to sue. So that's what he decided to do. And one of the people he sues is the doctor who did the initial surgery. And by all accounts there is no doubt that a mistake was made. I mean a sponge was left in him but he launches legal case two and a half years ago and there is still absolutely no resolution in sight.

AMT: How common is it that patients like Jim are actually getting compensation in the end?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Well that's what we really wanted to find out. So our teams are now says of the past 40 years shows that as the number of doctors has increased in Canada the rate of patients suède has actually dropped. For the cases that do make their way to court the chances of a patient winning has actually also gone down. The data that we examined shows that in the late 70s roughly one in three cases that went to trial was decided in favour of the patient. And now it's closer to 1 in 5 where a patient actually wins.

AMT: Where do these numbers come from?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: In Canada most doctors belong to an organization called the Canadian Medical Protective Association also known as the CMPA and this is the group that provides the legal defense for doctors were sued. We were able to obtain these reports going back four years and that's where we got a lot of the data in our investigation.

AMT: So the numbers tell us fewer patients are suing. Why is that?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Well there are a few reasons for that. So I showed these numbers to Paul Harte. He's a medical malpractice lawyer any used to defend doctors and now mostly he represents patients.

SOUNDCLIP

HABIBA NOSHEEN: These are the legal action for each year according to their reporting.

PAUL HARTE: Right, and you can see that the peak in around 2000...

HABIBA NOSHEEN: And he says one thing that explains why fewer Canadians are suing their doctors in Canada is because it's actually not easy to find a lawyer to take on these cases.

SOUNDCLIP

PAUL HARTE: It's not hard to sue, but it is hard to win. And the reality is, is because of that, lawyers are reluctant to take on those cases, non-specialized lawyers, are reluctant to take on those cases and people end up not being able to find a lawyer to take the case in the first place. Our firm porbably receives over a thousand calls in a given year, out of which we're probably going take 20 to 30 cases. So there's lots of people there who have legitimate claims who can get access to justice because their claims are too small, or there's just not enough medical malpractice lawyers to take the cases on. Most lawyers, medical malpractice lawyers, would not really look at a case that's worth less than 250000. That's a very significant case with a lot of damage. That's a real access to justice issue. Essentially what we're saying is, unfortunately you haven't been harmed enough and therefore we can't take on a case.

AMT: Haven't been harmed enough. And did he just say 250,000 dollars?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Yes he says is so costly to go up against a doctor that any patient who has been injured but their damages are worth less than that, they're simply out of luck.

AMT: What makes it so hard to go up against a doctor?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: So as I mentioned most doctors in Canada are covered for malpractice by one organisation and that's the Canadian Medical Protective Association the CMPA and they can be a rather intimidating body to go up against, one reason, they recently reported arse's worth 4.5 billion dollars.

AMT: Billions of dollars is a lot to work with.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Yes. It means they can hire some of the top lawyers in the country and they usually do. And as an organization they operate differently from other typical insurance. Take car insurance for example. If you get in a car accident and it's cheaper for the insurance company to settle the case than say to go to court. They'll likely settle. But the CMPA also exists to defend the reputation of the doctor. So they are necessarily looking to make decisions based on what's the cheapest. So even if a patient has been harmed but they can make an argument why doctors shouldn't be held accountable for that they will throw a lot of resources to defend their doctor, and patients don't always have that kind of resources.

AMT: So if the CMPA is spending a lot of money in court cases where did they get the money?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: So doctors pay a yearly fee to belong to the CMPA. And there is the interesting fact, in Canada the provinces and the territories actually reimburse the doctors a huge portion of their CMPA fees.

AMT: Why is that?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: So a quick history lesson until the 1980s doctors in Canada are paid for most of their coverage out of pocket, but the fees eventually got too high and the provinces and the territories at that point agreed to step in and start subsidizing the doctors malpractice coverage. So fast forward to 2018 a huge share of these fees today are actually being subsidized by the taxpayers.

AMT: And in real terms what it is that share that is paid by provincial governments?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: So that's all I wanted to find out. We ask the provinces and the territories how much they have paid out in CMPA fees in the last few years to doctors. And the total for the recent four years adds up to more than one point eight billion dollars. That's roughly 75 percent of the fees that the CHP collected from doctors during that period.

AMT: So tax payers are paying the majority of the fees.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Well that's not how does the CMPA sees it. We spoke to Dr. Douglas Bell of the CMPA. He's second in command there and he disputes the notion that tax payers are funding the CMPA.

SOUNDCLIP

DOUGLAS BELL: Reimbursement systems were negotiated between the ministries of health and the provincial territorial medical associations in lieu of compensation of the physician so it's part of the compensation package...

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Sure but it's not fair to say is not funded by taxpayers. Because it is. It's heavily subsidized by the taxpayers, right?

DOUGLAS BELL: It is fair to say it is the physician's earnings that pay for the system.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Sure and it's also fair to say that this is subsidized by taxpayers.

DOUGLAS BELL: So physicians are paid through the health system and that is money that comes to physicians from providing services. It's through the physician compensation package that the reimbursement is part of which pays for the fees that members pay to the Canadian Medical Protective Association.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: So from the employer's perspective doctors fund them not taxpayers.? Even if the doctors are being reimbursed by the provinces and the territories for these fees later. But certainly the patients we spoke to felt like it was their own tax money being used against them when they tried to soothe their doctors.

AMT: What about the issue of the organisation being so hard to take on because it does have so much money how did Dr. Bell respond to that?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: We did talk about that. I asked him why the CMPA has a reputation of being so tough to go up against in a lawsuit.

SOUNDCLIP

DOUGLAS BELL: Clearly the medical professional association prides itself on providing an ethical defense for physicians meaning that we defend the defensible. If it becomes clear that the care is not defendable then we move to the next step which is providing the patient with appropriate compensation.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: So one patient who we spoke to he had bladder cancer and his doctor suggested removing his bladder. When he underwent surgery, there was a sponge left in him. He's been trying for the last two and a half years to seek compensation for what happened to him because to him that's unfair and this was wrong and it shouldn't have happened. And what he told us is that he feels that he's up against a system where the guards are totally stacked against him. He doesn't have the resources to fight the legal fight that the CMPA can put on for a doctor. What would you say to a patient like him who think that the system is rigged against them?

DOUGLAS BELL: Well the example you've cited where a sponge has been left behind, there clearly has been an error made and so the reality is how did this happen? Who is responsible for the error and who should be paying the compensation? This person would be eligible for compensation because people agree that leaving a sponge behind is what's considered in never. It shouldn't have happened. So really the issue is how did it happen and what's the appropriate compensation.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: My understanding is the doctor doesn't seem to want to settle. That's what the patient has come to understand.

DOUGLAS BELL: So the physician is an integral part of the defence. The CMPA does not defend the case which is not defensible. So we would be interested in providing compensation to the patient.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: I should mention Anna Maria we did request an interview with the doctor involved in Jim's first surgery and he and his lawyer declined to comment.

AMT: So if it's a clear mistake and it's a case that is not defensible as he puts it, how long should these cases take?

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Well according to Dr. Bell case that's as clear cut as a sponge being left inside a patient would normally resolve in a year or two.

AMT: You said Jim Wiseman's been waiting two and a half years.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: True and he's so disheartened. He's not even sure that this will resolve in his lifetime.

SOUNDCLIP

JIM WISEMAN: Two years five months. I am very angry. I've gone through enough and I don't need anymore. I'm sure they're probably thinking maybe I'll drop dead and they won't have to worry anymore. That's an awful thing to say but that's the feeling I'm coming to. As I've had it put to me, if I was 25-26 years of age, this wouldn't have happened. They would look and they'd say 'Oh my God that man's got so many years left to be here'. But with me, at 78 years of age I guess they figured if they keep [unintelligible] on this it'll go away. Well it's not going to go away because I'm not going to let it go away.

AMT: He sounds so frustrated with the system.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Anna Maria no one we spoke to suggested that we should do away with subsidizing the legal defense for doctors. After all we do have a publicly funded health care system. But what people did point out is, hey, is this the best way to compensate patients who've already been harmed by their doctors? We did request an interview with Minister of Health Ginette Petitpat Taylor but her office declined to comment.

AMT: Well okay thank you, Habiba.

HABIBA NOSHEEN: Thank you Anne Maria.

AMT: Habiba Nosheen is with this CBC investigative unit. You can find more on the story at cbcnews.ca. We want to hear your stories as well. Are you the victim of a medical mistake? Did you try to sue your doctor? Reach us through the contact link on our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. Find us on Facebook or Twitter. We are @TheCurrentCBC. And this is the current on CBC Radio One. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. In Washington D.C. today and frankly read around the world anticipation is running high because the investigation that has overshadowed much of U.S. President Donald Trump's time in office is finally set for its release to the public. The special investigator Robert Mueller submitted his report to the attorney general William Barr last month. Remains to be seen how much of that report will be redacted when it is released. Coming up in about an hour on today's program we'll have more about the report's potential ramifications for power in Washington. But in the meantime here's a reminder of just how it got to where it is today.

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TRUMP: Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails...

Has called Pennsylvania for Donald Trump, this means that Donald Trump...

TRUMP: Today is that we are transferring power from Washington DC and giving it back to you, the people [Applause].

TRUMP: This Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election. They should have won.

[Music]

VOICE 1: I've been authorised by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counter intelligence mission is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential elections...

VOICE 2: There is breaking news out of the White House. President Trump had informed FBI Director James Comey then he has been terminated and removed from office...

VOICE 3: Former FBI director Robert Mueller immediately takes over the Justice Department's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. He is now in charge of prosecutors and FBI agents...

VOICE 4: Tonight tonight's ongoing Russian investigation has reached President Trump's innermost circle. Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn says that he is cooperating with the special...

VOICE 5: The New York Times has just reported today, raided the offices of President Trump's long time attorney Micheal Cohen, seizing records related to multiple topics including...

VOICE 6: Today's guilty plea by Paul Manafort it marks the fourth former Trump presidential campaign to admit the federal crime as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

TRUMP: The entire thing has been a witch hunt. There is no collusion between [unintelligible] myself and my campaign and the Russians zero. I think it divides the country...

VOICE 7: Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it.

TRUMP: They are spending millions and millions of dollars. There is absolutely no collusion.

VOICE 7: He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars.

TRUMP: I didn't make a phone call to Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia.

VOICE 8: This is a Fox News alert. Again Robert Mueller has submitted his report on the Russian investigation to Attorney General William Barr.

TRUMP: Who has just announced there was no collusion with Russia.

VOICE 8: The move now setting up a potential showdown.

TRUMP: There was no obstruction.

VOICE 9: There is an easy answer to this. Release the Mueller report.

TRUMP: The most ridiculous thing I've overheard.

VOICE 10: While this report does not conclude president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

TRUMP: It was a complete and total exoneration.

VOICE 11: The report will speak for itself and that's why it wants to get it out.

[Music]

AMT: We will have more on today's release of the special investigator Robert Mueller's report into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign in about an hour. The CBC News is next and then harnessing the power of voters by sharing their data through the eBird app, birders or helping scientists create a real time picture of bird populations around the globe. That's just one high flying example of citizen science. We'll have more in our next half hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is the current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, online on cbc.ca/thecurrent, on podcast and on your radio app.

eBirders helping identify hotspots for migratory bird conservation

Guests: Richard Schuster, Chris Woods, Muki Haklay

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: On Monday I spoke with two Canadian women who've opened up about their experiences with postpartum depression. In half an hour, we're going to read some of your many responses and I'll speak to Dr. Simone Vigod about postpartum mental health. Plus a report on the Mueller report. But first, birders without borders.

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JEAN IRON: Well right now we're hearing a Ruby Crowned Kinglet singing in the background. And also we still have lots of Dark Eyed Juncos that are left over. You know they're still here from the winter. They've been around all winter. We have a Fox Sparrow which is bright red streaked beautiful Sparrow.

AMT: You can tell that Jean Iron is an avid birder. She is pointing out some of the feathered visitors in her own Toronto backyard. But for her the allure of birding goes beyond the birds. It is about being part of a global community of birders, all of them connected by an app called eBird.

SOUNDCLIP

JEAN IRON: eBird is the most amazing thing for birding that was ever invented. Really. If I'm out birding I have an app on my phone and when you enter a birding area, especially if it's a birding hotspot, the app finds your location. Then it brings up the checklist for that's hot spot. And then as you go you just click the species you're seeing and the number of birds you see. They give you graphs and statistics over time. It's wonderful. And all the photos as well. We never had anything like this before. My hope for contributing to eBird is I'm very interested in bird conservation in protecting important areas whether it's for grassland birds, forests birds. I want us to know about declines in bird population before they get too low that nothing can be done to save them. Going to Point Pelee every year since I started in 1989. We all know that the warblers and song birds that are coming back in May coming back in much smaller numbers. It's very obvious. Plus we know all about the changes in climate and how that's affecting birds. I go to Iceland and I'm very unhappy when I hear that because of changes in the temperature and the ocean currents that birds, like the Atlantic Puffin, declining very rapidly.

AMT: So as you're hearing, eBird isn't just about sharing beautiful pictures of beautiful birds. It is also about collecting data. Every time Jean Iron goes bird watching she uploads information to eBird about which birds she sees. That app will know her location and the time of day. Hundreds of thousands of birders around the world have been doing the same thing for the past 15 years and they've created a growing database with hundreds of millions of data points. It's a burgeoning area of research called citizen science, in which lay people track and analyse everything from endangered to safari animals in Cameroon to nuclear radiation levels in Fukushima, Japan. And it is reshaping the possibilities of empirical investigation. We will talk more broadly about citizen science in a minute but my first two guests specialize in birds and the impact of eBird. Richard Schuster is a postdoctoral researcher at Carleton University in Ottawa. He's the lead author of a new paper published this week in Nature communication which used eBird data to assess migratory bird conservation. Richard Schuster is in Trerace, B.C. and Chris Wood is joining us from New York. He is the director at eBird. eBird is run out of Cornell University's ornithology lab. Hello you both.

RICHARD SCHUSTER: Hello Anna Maria.

CHRIS WOOD: Good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: Hi to both of you. Now Richard I want to ask you first of all what specifically are you studying about migratory birds?

RICHARD SCHUSTER: So what we did was look at a data; of 117 species and all of them come to Canada to have their [unintelligible]. And what we are interested in is following them throughout the year. So for week after year we actually have an idea of where leader species are and what types of habitat they're using. And we are using this information to pinpoint the locations that are most important to conservation. The new and exciting part is really dead we can do it throughout the year.

AMT: So in other words you always knew sort of where they started and where they end up. But you're now able to find out where they go in between and literally where their little rest stops are?

RICHARD SCHUSTER: Yes that's right. And that's largely because we do put quite a bit of effort into figuring out where to go for breeding. But there's a lot less information about migratory places to go to or like to stop over sites. And then there are places where they spent their winter.

AMT: And so what did you find about how they stop and where they go?

RICHARD SCHUSTER: So it varies between species but overall we found here's a lot of places where birds and humans are actually using the same locations. So it is really important to think in terms of conservation about the places that we used for agriculture or even our cities. And that we think about ways how to co-exist with the birds to actually use those areas throughout the year.

AMT: How does that differ from conventional thinking about bird conservation?

RICHARD SCHUSTER: So, if you would imagine, so in Canada we have protected areas especially like national parks. There are often areas where you don’t have any agriculture or other human activities in them. But given the vast areas that birds migrate- So for example one of the warbler species that your guest earlier was mentioning so one is the [unintelligible] warbler. They are moving over5000 kilometres. So there's just no way we're going to national parks to protect the whole range of what they need.

AMT: And so what do you do instead?

RICHARD SCHUSTER: So one really interesting part, this is for different species, but those are species that [unintelligible] species like ducks or something like that. In California has been a program put in place where you incentivize farmers to keep their rice fields flooded for longer, and so that allows those species to actually use that part of the land for a couple weeks a year but you dont have to protect that area for a whole year. So you don't need a national park. You work with to people that actually use- so you use the land in order to actually have temporary conservation areas.

AMT: How important was the eBird database in learning about this and reaching some conclusions?

RICHARD SCHUSTER: That is the most exciting part for me. And its really in line with what earlier guest was saying. For her exciting part is collecting the data and having the information on the eBird app. But for me I have done [unintelligible] collected data before myself but on a really small scale, but now with the eBird data there is just no other data, so as that we could have done this, especially at that scale that we're looking at it. And it's just such an amazing resource for us researchers to know that there's all those [unintelligible] that actually help contribute to the database and to run also the conservation efforts.

AMT: Chris Wood, how many researchers like Richard Schuster are using data collected from eBird?

CHRIS WOOD: You know I think this is one of the most exciting things about eBird, is we've had thousands of people download the eBird data set and they use it for a really huge variety of different types of research projects.

AMT: So what kinds of things would they be tracking?

CHRIS WOOD: So most often people are interested in using birds to understand natural systems. And so most of the work as you would expect is focused on the feel of ecology. But because of the data collection process, and because we have data from all around the world and it’s not evenly sample, some of the approaches to analyze the data are very similar to work that you would do in epidemiological research. So computer scientists and statisticians who really have nothing to do with understanding birds at all use the data set because it's an open data set that anyone can use. And they can develop new techniques that sort of that interface of statistics and computer science that will advance other fields.

AMT: How much data is in eBird? How many countries? How many people?

CHRIS WOOD: So we have data from every single country in the world. There’s about 450,000 people who have contributed data. There’s about three million people who come to the save each year and play around of the data. They'll use it to figure out where to go to see birds or figure out what birds are in their area. And at this point we have more than 650 million records which makes it one of the largest biodiversity databases in the world.

AMT: How did it start?

CHRIS WOOD: So eBird began with a National Science Foundation grant out and it was in cooperation with National Audubon here in the U.S. and the idea really was that you have you know hundreds of thousands of birdwatchers, like Jean Iron, who go out and look at birds every day. And the idea was is that each of them carries really useful information in those notebooks. And could we come up with some mechanism that makes it fun enough for them to spend their free time to record their information so that scientists like Richard can have access to these data, come up with publications that then the scientific community and also the conservation community can use these data to make better decisions.

AMT: So this is the upside of the smartphone, huh?

CHRIS WOOD: It is. It is.

AMT: You're collecting data gathered by laypeople. How do you know it's accurate?

CHRIS WOOD: That's a great question. I would say I spend about a third of my time thinking about data quality. So the first component that we do is in every country in the world we have regional experts. And so if we were to look at something like British Columbia, British Columbia may have 30 different data quality filters that are set by a combination of experts and then the data that are gathered in eBird itself. And so if you think that you cite something that has never been recorded there that is recorded very infrequently, you'll get a message on your app when you're there in the field that says 'this is unusual, the count is unusual'. And because so many people now have cameras or you can take your smartphone and take a picture through your binoculars or through your scope. You can document that bird right there when you're in the field so that there's a higher degree of data accuracy. But then there's also several different ways that we have and even just getting it the differences in expertise that birdwatchers have. You know Jean Iron is one of the very best birders in Canada, incredibly good, knows the calls, you know she could identify the fox sparrows, the juncos, just by short little calls. My mom who's a terrific mother. She just kind of watches the birds in our backyard. If birds are carrying she may not be able to identify them. So we also spend a lot of time using the data to be able to understand the differences in birdwatchers and we sort of think of them as our sensory network, and we need to calibrate that sensor network against itself. And then when we're doing research, like the type that Richard is doing, we can then make predictions for what an expert observer would see, instead of somebody who's maybe a beginning birdwatcher.

AMT: Richard Schuster what else would you like to do with eBird data?

RICHARD SCHUSTER: For me, the kind of next steps from what we have done just with [unintelligible] papers that we also want to put dollar values to the analysis that we are doing, so that we actually can then approach government, NGO partners, to let them know how much money we think different actions would actually cost. And also think about the risks that also should [unintelligible]. So that's the next step just coming out of that paper. The thing that I am really excited about is, aside from that, is that we want to also think about ways to make the data or the results that we're producing more accessible to the eBird community and just the larger population in general. So what I am working on is kind of creating tools to let people interact with those kind of analysis. And so for example if you think about 4000 Juncos that were mentioned earlier, that now people can use our approaches to then explore for themselves what kind of places would be important for a bird in different stages of the year, like different weeks of the year.

AMT: So in other words you can create conservation spaces more accurately. You probably save a lot of money to then.

RICHARD SCHUSTER: Correct. Yes.

AMT: What kind of money could you save?

RICHARD SCHUSTER: You mean they come much money you could save?

AMT: Yes like it like in terms of budgets for conservation their areas. I saw some figures that said you could actually reduce the costs because you'd know exactly what you needed to do.

RICHARD SCHUSTER: That's correct. It's that specific values, they're hard to pinpoint, but it is the case that you can be are a lot more cost effective, especially over time when you track the results which is one of the really, from my end, really some new features of eBird which is called Status and Trend. So now it is actually starting to come out products where they producers are maps of bird species that let you track the status or how well a bird is doing in a place over time. So this, in conjunction with the kind of approaches that we're developing, would then allow you to track the money you spend on the one hand, but also then track the results of the money that you spend. So like how well are the birds actually doing in the places that you're protecting or putting some conservation measures in place?

AMT: Chris Wood, then you need the point that other people are using eBirds. You've got bigger plans for it?

CHRIS WOOD: We always have great plans for what we'd like to do in the future. What we really try to do is focus on these different communities. So you know continue to develop new features for the birding community. One of those is an application called Merlin where we use the date in eBird that allows you to then- the application sort of knows what birds are most likely in any place in the world. So if you go to Point Pelee and you see a bird that's flying around you can either answer a few questions about where the bird was, what colours it were. It's sort of like having a bird expert in your pocket. You anser these questions and then it gives you a list of what species are most likely along with photos and sounds that come from the McCarley library here at Cornell. Or you can take a picture of the bird and then through some machine learning algorithms, within about a second, Merlin will let you know what bird that is. And you know like eBird, Merlin is free and open to everyone.

AMT: Okay well, we'll leave it there. Thank you both.

RICHARD SCHUSTER: Thank you.

AMT: That is Richard Schuster postdoctoral researcher at Carleton University. He's the lead author of a new study on migratory bird conservation. He's Terrace, B.C. Chris Wood is the director Eddie bird, it runs at Cornell University's ornithology lab. He's an Ithaca, New York. They mentioned Point Pelee which is in Ontario. It's actually - a little fun fact - the most southern point in Canada depending on how long the split goes from the sandbar down- sometimes that's longer than other times - and when it's at the right point it's got the latitude of Northern California, most southern part of Canada. But let's get back to birds. Tracking birds is just one of the many fields where the public is contributing more and more to the work of science. Muki Haklay is a professor in the geography department at University College London and the Co-Vice Chair of the European citizens Science Association and Muki Haklay joins us from London, England. Hello.

MUKI HAKLAY: Hello thank you very much for [unintelligible].

AMT: What are you thinking about what we just heard about eBird?

MUKI HAKLAY: So eBird is just one example, and the interview utterly also demonstrated something that a lot of time we tend to miss about citizen science, is that actually the social part of it is just as important as the technological part.

AMT: So this is a way for people to kind of connect in get more involved in science.

MUKI HAKLAY: Yes and in addition to that, what was interesting is that Jean was using a lot of technical and scientific notions and terms. And actually something that device a lot of citizen science is the fact that we've been through a massive educational transition. So for example just recent statistics about Canada, between the age of 25 and 34, about almost 60 percent of young women have degrees. That means that the potential number can participate in scientific project understand what science is about and understand conservation has just grown really really significantly over the past 15 years.

AMT: So how important is citizen science to scientific research?

MUKI HAKLAY: So citizen science is changing a lot or aspect in different areas. For example the type of things that eBird is doing it would be impossible to have such a range of observers over large areas. The same thing can be said about another app that is growing rapidly, iNaturalist, were people observe different parts of the whole of flower [unintelligible] but also a citizen science is also adding in specific locations where you wouldn't get a scientist. Otherwise it provides, as Caren Cooper always mentions, access to one of the most inaccessible places to science which is people's backyard. If scientists would try to get there it would be extremely complex and time consuming, but it allowed that to happen. And finally it also allows different voices to get into the scientific discourse. It allow representation or for local indigenous knowledge into a different work or scientific research.

AMT: Tell me about some of the more novel research being done with data collected or shaped by citizen scientists.

MUKI HAKLAY: So some of the more recent aspect is the scale of research that has been done, for example combining Earth observation satellites in ground based monitoring. So what is happening is that satellites provide us again massive amount of information and a lot of it is calibrated only in a few points across the world. But when we have people observe on the ground and provide additional information, that can improve their accuracy and detail of what we can see from satellite. So it is kind of combination between the two. Also we see a combination between artificial intelligence and people and kind of instead the usual discourse that put them one against the other, we are in a situation where they collaborate. So people classify images then that is being used by artificial intelligence to suggest classification of other images. But when the computer can classify something it sends it back to people and doing things like that. So that's another fascinating area in that. And then there are things that are using human skills. So there is the European project called D-Noses that is involving people in odor monitoring. So when there is a bad smell from a factory or something like that people can start to report about. And the collection or many people reporting together provide evidence and help the authorities to manage environmental conditions.

AMT: What's that called? D-Noses?

MUKI HAKLAY: Yes.

AMT: Like digital noses or something, like that. Is that what it stands for?

MUKI HAKLAY: It's distributed network of something.

AMT: Just listening to that. You have iNaturalistic in it and you have eBird and D-Nose. Everybody comes up with clever little--

MUKI HAKLAY: Exactly, it's clever days yes.

AMT: You know we've seen a rise in conspiracy theories in fake news in emotion based arguments, a real undermining of empirical science by some leaders and online communities. What role do you think citizen science can play in counteracting those things?

MUKI HAKLAY: So one fascinating aspect is that part of the rise of fake news is through scientific methods. So things like using very scientific tools inside social networks is promoting those things. But going back to citizen science it's actually provide people with direct experience with the scientific process and they get a much better understanding of uncertainty of all kinds of things, that especially when we're talking about people we only undergraduate degrees or even high school education, they are being taught that science is something very specific and always get the right answer. And actually through citizen science we starting to ask questions. You are starting to see the critical aspects of science and you start to understand also how to look at scientific literature and information and how to use it in different ways. So it's a lot of space there to kind of educate people and open up different opportunities.

AMT: So it kind of creates sort of an atmosphere of critical thinking. That's what you're saying.

MUKI HAKLAY: Indeed just as importantly it's actually also making the scientist open to the public. So they become more aware of the questions that people ask. They are over promoting the issues that concern them and create the much better alignment between scientists and the public.

AMT: Okay well thank you for taking us through it.

MUKI HAKLAY: Pleaser, thank you.

AMT: That is Muki Haklay a professor in the geography department at University College London and Co-Vice Chair of the European Citizen Science Association. He joined us from London, England. Let us know what you think. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent and stay with us in our next half hour. It is Mueller's time. Reuters investigative reporter Mark Hosenball is going to join me on today's much anticipated report. We're also going to get to your experiences with postpartum depression. We've got a lot of heartfelt mail. And we want to share some of that. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Baby blues vs. postpartum depression: How can new parents tell the difference?

Guest: Dr. Simone Vigod

AMT: Hello I am Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

AMANDA MUNDAY: I wanted to watch her breathing. I felt like it was my duty to stay awake and make sure that she wasn't going to die in her sleep. I worried about her constantly and thought it is a certainty that she's going to die and if she dies that means I'll have to die.

AMT: That is Amanda Munday, Toronto mother of two talking about the obsessive thoughts that took over as she spiraled into a serious case of postpartum depression after the birth of her first child. I spoke with her and with Calgary author Theresa Wong on Monday. They have both written memoirs about their struggles with mental health after childbirth.

SOUNDCLIP

AMANDA MUNDAY: There is a misconception that postpartum depression means that the mother or the birther doesn't love their child or that they're disconnected from the bond, when in fact I felt a fierce love for my child. I was overwhelmed in this idea that I created a human and they are here and now I am solely responsible for keeping them alive. And I want people to know that there wasn't a failure on my part in bringing it on. Some way you know this happened there was a normal and down to lack of sleep, lots of factors so many factors that go into being in a depressive state.

THERESA WONG: I totally agree. And for me I feel like one misconception is that postpartum depression just looks like a lot of crying and there is a lot of mis-diagnosis out there, where were people just say you have the baby blues and you'll get over it just with a little bit more subtly. Whereas for me my depression inertially looked fine on the outside. When I went out with my baby no one could tell that anything was wrong. But deep inside I was feeling so dumb, and so foggy and so- like I had lost myself.

AMT: In fact it was Theresa Wong's doctor who first told her she just had a bit of baby blues. She eventually went to another doctor who helped her get treatment in the form of counselling and medication. Amanda Munday meanwhile ended up being admitted to a psychiatric ward nine days after her daughter Fiona was born. After we heard their stories we had an outpouring of response from listeners sharing their own experiences, including many many mothers who had had their babies decades ago and who still had a vivid memory of their own depression. Diane Wade of Nanaimo wrote: "I am 73 and only wish this information was available when I had my kids in the 70s. I had three children within three years and suffered depression after the third but society would frown upon you if you mentioned you were unable to cope. So one had to persevere". Maureen Webber of Humboldt's Saskatchewan wrote to us about her postpartum depression and her daughters: "In 1982 I had my first child and was bewildered and distressed that I did not feel happy. In fact I was in despair. After several months of crying I saw my doctor who flippantly declared that all I needed was to have another baby to fix this. By the time my baby was seven months old I had gotten to the point where I feared I would hurt her or myself". And then Maureen continues: "Two years ago one of my daughters had a child in Ontario and she too experienced severe postpartum depression. My daughter was flagged even in pregnancy as a risk for postpartum depression and after she brought the baby home she was visited weekly by a public health nurse trained in being a support for postpartum depression. Because she did not have the luxury of family close by this support was absolutely essential". And from Victoria we have a note from Kelly Danson who writes: "I relate to everything these women spoke of particularly in relation to violent intrusive thoughts, breastfeeding, difficulties, the expectation I had for the soft rosy glow of motherhood and the thoughts of running away and committing suicide when I felt I had failed my son. The intrusive thoughts I had of tragedy befalling my son still haunt me to this day. There are times from this period I simply cannot remember. They are a complete blackout". Kelly Dennison goes on to say that after finally getting treatment and getting well this experience did create a bond with my son that is so incredibly strong, "I think because I felt like I lost out on those first six months of his life due to postpartum depression that once I began to get better I was able to love him twice as hard. He just turned six last week and I am so proud to be as ma'am that I fought to be here". So many of your stories were about how hard it is for women and sometimes even their doctors to recognize what they're going through is actually depression. And to find the right treatment. It is coloured by an unhealthy dose of guilt and shame around being sick when you're supposed to be the one caring for a new baby. Doctors Simone Vigod is at the forefront of trying to help women with postpartum mental health issues. She is chief of psychiatry at Women's College Hospital in Toronto and she's the program lead for its Reproductive Life Stages Program. She's with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

SIMONE VIGOD: Hi. Thank you very much for having me.

AMT: Nice that you could come in and talk to us. What struck you about the stories as you listened?

SIMONE VIGOD: I think what struck me most was how familiar they are to me working more than 10 years now in a mental health program that specializes in seeing women with mental health issues, including in Pregnancy and Postpartum. A variant of these stories comes into my office and the office of my colleagues so frequently. So what struck me and what always strikes me when I see these women is the story or a variant of it happens so often and yet women feel that they're alone.

AMT: How common is it for someone to be admitted to a psychiatric ward the way Amanda was?

SIMONE VIGOD: That happens far less often than what Teresa described and Teresa describe what we sometimes talk about as the walking wounded. Right. Nobody can tell that anything is wrong then and yet inside there's so much turmoil. About one to two in a thousand women will experience postpartum psychosis which would be extremely severe postpartum mental illness and required admission to a psychiatric ward. In Ontario more women than not who are also admitted with very severe postpartum depression like what Amanda was describing, but we think the rates are still quite low like maybe five or six per every thousand births.

AMT: How good are health care providers at recognizing when someone is experiencing postpartum depression?

SIMONE VIGOD: Well it was interesting to me hearing the reflection about someone coming in at 10 days postpartum crying a lot and the idea that it could only be baby blues. So baby blues is something that we know about 80 percent of women are emotional post childbirth, have these blues crying at the drop of a hat, feeling a little bit irritable. But usually what happens as the symptoms start to improve over time. And by about a month plus postpartum you would expect them to not be present anymore. So when someone presents after that first month, I think it's far less likely for someone to say that's the baby blues, and far more likely for health care provider to say something maybe that requires treatment might be going on here. But I think it's those first few weeks that are really confusing in terms of how do we know this will just improve on its own or whether this is something that requires treatment.

AMT: What do you want mothers to know about when it's time to ask for help?

SIMONE VIGOD: That's such a good question. What I tend to say to mothers is it's about how severe or serious the symptoms are, and also how persistent they are. So the things that I would ask a mother would be, you're really really tired and you're overwhelmed. But when the baby sleeps can you sleep? And if the answer's no, I have you know thoughts going through my head over and over and over and I can't let them go, then that to me means more likely this is something that might be a postpartum depression or part anxiety that requires treatment. The same thing with these terrible thoughts. It's not that uncommon you have a new baby you're there to protect take care of the baby. So to have a thought of Oh my goodness did I forget to feed the baby. Oh my goodness I'm going to drop the baby. If that thought is only there for a second or a minute and then you're okay again and you can shake it off, that's fairly common. But if the thought is sometimes is a bit sticky. The thought is sticky and it won't go away and it won't go away. And at some point not even being able to separate from whether they were true or not. So the more stickiness of the thoughts also say that's a clue to. So it's really about do you feel badly and then you bounce back and you feel okay here a few minutes later or are you really not having periods of good?

AMT: If a woman has already experienced depression before her pregnancy does that make her more susceptible to postpartum depression?

SIMONE VIGOD: So the biggest risk factors for postpartum depression are having a history of depression particularly if it's untreated. So if someone has depression during pregnancy and has symptoms and it isn't treated they're not going to get better postpartum. With the sleep deprivation transition they may get worse. And so the history of depression is one of the biggest risk factors. The other big risk factors are social support and life stressors. But there are many women who become depressed in the post paradigm who don't have a history who have no risk factors at all, and we do think that there is something biological about the transition to post-partum, something to do with the way that the hormones shift and some women's brains being really sensitive to that, that will bring on a postpartum depression or anxiety or other mental health problem even with no risk factor.

AMT: You were involved in a big research project that looks at the genetic links to post-partum depression.

SIMONE VIGOD: Yes we're involved in an international study where we are collaborating with the U.S., the U.K., Australia and Denmark where we've developed a web application, an app that women can download whether they have symptoms of postpartum depression now or whether they've had them any time in the past. And then what the women are helping us do is if it looks like based on the assessment that they might have had it or have it, many of them are agreeing to send us our genetic sample. And the idea is that if we can put all these genetic samples across the world together maybe we can figure out either some kind of genetic marker to predict who may become ill. And there is good evidence that psychological treatments can prevent postpartum [unintelligible]. So if we could do that would be amazing. And then also if we knew something more about the genetic basis maybe we could even develop treatments that we don't have right now that could do a better job, even then some of the treatments that we currently have. So that's really exciting. We recruited close to 1200 women all across Canada already and they think we have about 500 samples already in the bank. So you know there seems to be women who are hearing about this really seem to want to give to this project. This just shows I think what an important piece that is in women's lives.

AMT: You know we talk about postpartum depression, anxiety can be a big part of this as well, can it not?

SIMONE VIGOD: I think in some ways postpartum depression has become a euphemism brand name for postpartum anything else. And so common mental health issues in the postpartum are depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive symptoms, even some post-traumatic stress comes under that same umbrella. The good thing is I think to use the word postpartum depression is a good thing because as one word we can use to advocate, but I do get feedback from women that they sampans feel like they're mislabelled, that they're not considered. And so it is important to think about you know while the treatments for some of those issues are similar, there are exactly the same. And so I think it's really useful to point out that there is a wide range of common mental health problems that people can have and depression often is extremely anxious in the post-partum.

AMT: And to what extent are drugs the solution or are they used?

SIMONE VIGOD: So it's a good question. I mean all of the guidance about how you would treat postpartum mental illness is that you would use something called the step care model. So if you have mild symptoms you would want the interventions that look like they're effective are even things like peer support, support from a public health nurse, a postpartum support group might be enough to help women with mild symptoms. When either a woman has more slightly more severe symptoms or those things don't work that's when you'd want to be looking at psychological treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy or other types of therapies. If either a woman has very very severe symptoms that you would need to treat very quickly, so a therapy, a psychological therapy you might need to be in it for 10 or 12 weeks to start to see a lot of improvement. So if you need to treat it quickly or the psychological treatment doesn't work then that's when we should be considering medications. I think one of the problems in Canada of course is universal access to high quality psychological treatment is a problem. So it you know it's unfortunate if someone can't pay for psychological therapy or can access it through a universal system, she may be offered a medication but we would want to reserve medications for a more severe or when the psychological treatments didn't work.

AMT: What are the risks of taking antidepressants while breastfeeding?

SIMONE VIGOD: So most antidepressant medications and most of the sort of the first second third choices that we would use for women pass minimally into their breast milk or not at all, or when women have used them you can't detect it in their breast milk. So we can never say anything is a zero risk situation. It's usually if a woman has symptoms that are severe enough to think about using a medication probably the benefits outweigh those risks, but that doesn't make it any easier for a mother.

AMT: Yes. And you just touched on it and I want to just ask you a little more about it. It is true that not everyone will have access either for socioeconomic reasons or even geography. It really depends on where you are in this country, what kind of help you might be able to get.

SIMONE VIGOD: That's right and we don't want to be in a situation where there is a postal code lottery. We want to be in a situation where we can provide the kind of care that a woman needs wherever she is. And so we're doing a lot of research now looking at the use of virtual technologies to be able to match women wherever they are with what they need. And you know what, even if they don't live up in their North let's say very far away from care, babies also sleep at- you know you don't know when they're going to sleep. It takes two hours to get them out of the house. Imagine trying to come for a year two o'clock appointment every Monday for your psychological treatment for 12 weeks when you have all that to manage. So even for women who might be close to health care, it's a challenge to come in person.

AMT: Or getting on a waiting list and having to wait two months when you need help right away.

SIMONE VIGOD: Correct.

AMT: Okay well thank you for coming in. There's even more questions to ask but I will leave it there for now. Thank you.

SIMONE VIGOD: Okay thank you.

AMT: Dr. Simone Vigod is the chief of psychiatry at Women's College Hospital in Toronto. You can find like really a conversation with two mothers Amanda Munday and Teresa Wong on our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent or on pod cast or on the CBC radio app.

[Music]

Washington on Edge as Mueller Report Release Nears

Guest: Mark Hosenball

AMT: I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current. This is a big day in American politics. The long awaited report by former special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has just been released to both Congress and to the public, though in redacted form. To take us through what we have learned from the report so far in these early stages, I'm joined by Mark Hosenball. He's an investigative correspondent for Reuters. He spent a lot of time in the past couple of years digging into questions around the Trump campaign and Russia. Mark Hosenball joins me from Washington D.C. hello.

MARK HOSENBALL: Hello. How are you doing?

AMT: Well I'm really curious to know what you know. So this report is 400 pages long. It's just been released. What have you seen so far that has caught most of your attention?

MARK HOSENBALL: I'm looking at the first section now which is the section on so-called collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. As you may already know the attorney general the United States in his press conference releasing the report - announcing the release of the report and in previous correspondence with Congress - declared that the special counsel found no evidence that there was serious collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. However as I read through this report, the section on which seems to be at least close to 200 pages on the Trump campaign's interactions with Russia, I'd say that the attorney general put a kind of gloss on this in Trump's favor. It turns out that the report says that there was a lot of effort by various people, not only connected directly with the Trump campaign, but sympathizers the Trump campaign in Congress, to engage with the Russians, to engage with WikiLeaks, to obtain hacked e-mails that they thought WikiLeaks and other people had embarrassing to the Clintons. These are things that some of us who have been following this for a while knew about it. But you know there is stuff documented here and much more detail. I'm just reading a section about how the Trump campaign, at the Republican convention in Cleveland Ohio, sought to basically stamp on or kill an amendment proposed by a conservative delegate to the Republican convention and urging the U.S. to provide arms to the government of Ukraine to protect themselves against the Russians. That proposal was killed and I kind of reported that at the time this had happened with Mueller, clearly looked into some of this stuff and established that he was telling the truth. Also a it appears what Miller did establish that the Trump campaign was more interested at least than they admitted and engaging with WikiLeaks, although from the looks of things - and again I haven't read the whole thing - that Mueller did not establish clearly that the Trump campaign engaged directly with WikiLeaks in any substantial way. And I mean that's what Wikileaks has told me for many many months.

AMT: Okay so let me let me jump in here because I'm looking at some of Reuters on bullet points here. So it says Donald Trump Jr. had direct contact with WikiLeaks during the presidential campaign period it sent - WikiLeaks sent - Trump Jr. a password to access the website Putin.trump.org, told campaign staff he was successfully using the password. Wikileaks asked Donald Trump Jr. to tweet link to Podesta emails. Four days later he tweeted the link right.

MARK HOSENBALL: Again that's, on the one hand it shows enthusiasm on both sides and the willingness to cooperate. On the other hand it's fairly perfunctory exchange in the sense that all WikiLeaks really was doing it was giving Donald Trump Jr. a link to material that was already public. And I think that really is the extent of the direct dealings. But the evidence the Mueller report suggested the Trump people were actually more interested in various ways in engaging with WikiLeaks than they actually succeeded in doing. At one point Trump's longtime advisor Roger Stone directly tried to engage extensively with Wikileaks and even feed them some questionable material which WikiLeaks didn't take. And eventually WikiLeaks sent Roger Stone the message saying stop claiming that you're associated with us here, we really don't want that much to do with you.

AMT: Let me move through a couple of other quick points here. We do read as well that, according to what the Mueller report finds, Trump repeatedly asked White House counsel Don McGahn to intervene with the Justice Department. Report says there were substantial- So repeatedly asking Don McGahn to intervene with the Justice Department, is that a point that would be debated on whether that could be obstruction?

MARK HOSENBALL: Well I think that's at least what the general context of that reporting would suggest. I mean it's certainly been suggested - and again I haven't got to that section of the report myself so I don't really know - but it certainly suggested in previous reporting that one of the reasons that McGahn might have been in touch with the Justice Department as special counsel is to somehow get them to back away from prosecuting or investigating Michael Flynn. Trump's very briefly serving as a national security adviser and there is the chill here in this report that I see on Michael Flynn but I just haven't read it carefully yet.

AMT: Fair enough but I think we just want to hit the highlights right now. And obviously we'll be doing more reporting as well on The Current tomorrow morning when some of this has sunk in. The report also says when, then Attorney, General Sessions told Mr. Trump a special counsel was being appointed, Donald Trump said 'this is the end of my presidency'. I mean he understood the gravity, even though he has continued to kind of call it a witch hunt and everything else, he understood the gravity of what was happening.

MARK HOSENBALL: They're so aggressively spinning you know the results in their favor which they are again. You know if you only listen to Barr you would have concluded that whole thing was almost, he almost justified Trump's assertions that the whole thing was a waste of time and a witch hunt and all that. But if you actually begin to read the details of the thing, there is a serious investigation here and you know at least on the Russian side which is a bit I'm dealing with. You know there was a serious effort by a bunch of people around Trump to engage with Russia, there are serious efforts - very serious efforts - by Russia to engage with and help people around Trump and help Trump himself. That may not add up to any criminal conspiracy. I'm not sure that it doesn't quite see the crime or the direct crime myself. But you know the idea that this is a complete whitewash of any Trump campaign dealings or even efforts to deal with, or interests in dealings with Russia that's just not true. It lays out a pretty extensive series of contacts and evidence that the Trump campaign or these people affiliated with the Trump campaign were very interested in this, even if it didn't go very far although WikiLeaks did serve rather aggressively as a Trump surrogate in releasing material embarrassing to the Democratic Party and embarrassing to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

AMT: And so let me pick up on what you said about Mr. Barr, because in his early comments and in his short news conference before this was released, there was concern that he was biased toward President Trump. He was explaining- He said we have to take this in context, this is a president being faced with all of these accusations. And he was asked about this by a reporter in that question period after he delivered those remarks earlier this morning. Listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER: Here you have remarks that are quite generous to The President, so what do you say people on both sides of the aisle, who are concerned you're trying to protect the President?

BARR: Actually the statements about his sincere beliefs are recognised in the report that there was substantial evidence for that, so I'm not sure what your basis is for saying that I'm being generous to The President.

REPORTER: He faces an unprecedented situation. It just seems that there are a lot of efforts to go out of your way to acknowledge how--

BARR: Is there another precedent for it?

REPORTER: No. But it's unusual that--

BARR: Okay, so unprecedented is an accurate description, isn't it?

AMT: Okay so Mr. Barr getting a little testy there. What do you what do you think of what the Attorney General chose to say at that news conference today?

MARK HOSENBALL: Well I think it's I guess the best way I would describe it, having now actually begun to read the report, is he put a pretty [unintelligible] gloss on the content of the report although the bottom line of the report namely no hard evidence of collusion or intentional collusion on the part of the Trump campaign or Trump himself in Russia, and in conclusive evidence or insufficient evidence to move for or against any criminal case on obstruction of justice. That is indeed what Mueller found. But Barr sort of portrayed this I think in a way that is particularly or could come across as particularly favorable to Trump, and did not in any way even really allude to - from what I saw - you know some of the bits of the report that are much less flattering to the Trump campaign anyway.

AMT: So where does this go from here, Mark?

MARK HOSENBALL: It's going to be very very very aggressively investigated and looked into by Congress. There are still bits of the report particularly related to WikiLeaks, Roger Stone and Russia that are still censored that I've seen. So there'll be a lot of pressure to uncensor those and Congress will conduct its own investigations of course. Congress is sharply divided with the Democrats in the House having, not only a majority, but a majority that gets the power to issue subpoenas to obtain evidence as they wish. And the Trump administration could fight some of that in court and at least delay the turning over of materials, but the Congress does have some power there. On the other hand Republicans of Trump's party still controls the Senate. So any real serious effort to launch an impeachment investigation which could in any way result in the Senate convicting Trump and throwing him out of office seem seems so unlikely, at least in terms of the Senate, such a Senate vote. You know how far the Democrats are going to push with the impeachment line, I don't know, but they're certainly going to conduct- I mean the Democrats had already multiple congressional committees, almost every congressional committee in the House side, is conducting some sort of Trump investigation and this report is certainly not going to discourage them in any way. It's going to encourage them to investigate further.

AMT: Okay well we'll leave it there. Mark Hosenball thank you.

MARK HOSENBALL: Thank you.

AMT: Mark Hosenball is an investigative correspondent with Reuters and we reached him in Washington D.C. So the 400 pages are out and as you can hear the reporters have been on this story for a while are going through line by line. They're going to know more and we will know more as well as the day goes on on CBC News as well on The Current tomorrow. So that's our program for today. Tom Powers waiting in the wings with Q and we will have more analysis tomorrow on what is in that Muellar report. On the Friday edition of The Current Piya Chattopadhyay will be here. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti thank you for listening to The Current.

Thursday April 18, 2019 Full Transcript

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