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The Current Transcript for April 9, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: This isn't about Humboldt, it's not even about Saskatchewan, it's about Canada and our world so people are out there, they want to know what's happening with those who are still in hospital, people care.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: They could not have been more quintessentially Canadian on that Saskatchewan highway Friday evening; a team of young men their coach team personnel, another hockey playoff just hours away. And so when news broke of a horrible crash that took so many of their lives, they became everyone's sons, everyone's brothers, everyone's team. Canadians across the country have responded with an outpouring of concern and sympathy and shared grief. As families rushed in from across Western Canada the billet families were also mourning those who had become their other sons. Gail Chilman coordinates billets for another Saskatchewan team the Estevan Bruins. A long-time billet mom, one the very first hockey player her family invited in more than 20 years ago, lost his life in that crash Friday: Humboldt Broncos Coach Darcy Haugan.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: He was one of the kindest most gentlemen that you've ever met. He was spiritual, he was loving. He never forgot us. He has a place in our heart. His wife tells us we had a place in his heart.

AMT: You'll hear more from Gail Chilman at the end of our program today. And before that insights from those who have sadly lived this before. Peter Soberlak survived the Swift Current Broncos crash in the '80s. Stephen Brunet was mayor of Bathurst, New Brunswick when a highway crash took the lives of the high school basketball team. We are devoting our first and second half hours to the voices in the tragedy that has devastated the community of Humboldt and reverberates across this country. In our third half hour we had planned something else for today the backstory behind statistics showing women entering the workforce in Muslim countries in record numbers — 50 million in the last two decades. But we begin in Saskatchewan with stories of generosity and support in the midst of unbearable loss. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

'He was like another brother': Humboldt Broncos player mourned by billet family who took him in

Guest: Geoff Turner

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Let Humboldt receive healing tonight as we sing and as we hear the music tonight.

[Sound: Singing Amazing Grace at vigil]

AMT: For all the collective mourning being done across this country for the young hockey players, and the others who died on that team bus on Friday, the grief for whom it is most raw was evident last evening at the vigil at Humboldt's Elgar Petersen hockey arena.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Singing Amazing Grace at vigil]

AMT: Parents, people who billeted players in their homes, friends and family joined each other in that arena which previously brought so much pride to the small city of Humboldt, Saskatchewan — home of only about 6,000 people which is where The Current’s producer, Geoff Turner travelled this weekend. He joins me now from our Saskatoon studio. Hello Geoff.

GEOFF TURNER: Hello Anna Maria.

AMT: It’s been a very emotional weekend, and I understand that even before you got to Saskatchewan you were catching some of the ripples of this tragedy, can you tell us about that?

GEOFF TURNER: Yeah, absolutely. On my way to Regina I had to change planes in Edmonton and there was a later flight to Saskatoon at an adjacent gate, and as I walked up the flight attendants made an announcement. They had a couple that was desperate to get home because of the crash and they were looking for someone to volunteer their seats because the flight was full. I was just struck by the emotion in the flight attendants voice, and almost immediately they got a volunteer. Christopher Beck was the person who made that announcement and so I asked him about what he'd managed to do by getting them seats on that flight and this is how he responded to me.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Unbelievable. We are blessed to fly some of the best people in the world and I take no credit in this, it’s all these kind folks and just to be able to be a piece in that puzzle to kind of help is empowering.

AMT: You can hear how moved he was.

GEOFF TURNER: Absolotely. I also spoke to the couple who volunteered their seats, Marilyn and Lionel Stehr of Saskatoon.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We looked at each other, nodded and that's all we needed to do and Lyle went up to the counter.

VOICE 2: It just wasn't a question I mean they needed to be there. If we don't get home tonight that doesn't matter but they need to be there.

VOICE 3: We just know that people need to be with family at this time.

GEOFF TURNER: And I should point out that Anna Maria that Marilyn uses a walker.

AMT: She was more than willing to wait. So hours before you even got to Humboldt you were already seeing how people were responding Geoff.

GEOFF TURNER: Yeah, exactly. The ripples were going out across the country.

AMT: What was it like when you got there?

GEOFF TURNER: First I should probably give people a sense of this part of the country Anna Maria. I drove up from Regina — a two hour drive — and this is through the Saskatchewan of the Canadian imagination. Big skies and snowy fields that go on forever. And then you'll come upon a small town — there might still be an old grain elevator – I was surprised how much there still are — and probably a hockey rink. And several of the towns I passed through had signs at the entrance to town announcing all the NHL players the area had produced. So it's long, straight, cold roads and hockey that bind these communities together.

AMT: And how evident was that once you got to Humboldt?

GEOFF TURNER: Well once I got into town, I went straight to the Elgar Petersen arena — the home of the Broncos — and even by 10 o’clock on Saturday night there were people there.

AMT: That's where I met Exveria Bird. She lives in Lanigan, a half hour down the road from Humboldt. She was standing alone looking very pensive and I asked her what brought her to the rink.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: To give my condolences to parents, to families, to friends. I've lost many loved ones in my life, I know the feeling it hurts, and especially being a parent and knowing that your kid was in hockey and could be here today and gone tomorrow. When we moved to Lanigan four years ago my son was a hockey player, he's been in hockey since four-years-old and he got asked to be part of Humboldt Broncos team and I kept on encouraging him and I kept on saying “My son come on, you got to join their team, you're going to be famous one day. And he said “I can't do it mom, not right now.” And I was kind of upset with him when he said he didn't want to join the hockey team and I told him “Come on, we can go travelling all over the place, I'll be right behind you, I'll follow that bus I told him.”

AMT: She can really empathize. That arena became a gathering place for people all over the region really quickly.

GEOFF TURNER: Yeah, it really did. There was a crisis centre set up. It was the natural place to gather and pay tribute, a makeshift shrine – I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures — that formed on the main stairs to the bleachers.

AMT: I have seen it. The fact there was a crisis centre says so much about the depth of this tragedy. What did you see as people tried to cope?

GEOFF TURNER: I got a strong sense of that when I visited a church service on Sunday morning. It was at St Augustine's Catholic Church.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Church]

GEOFF TURNER: And just to set the scene, Anna Maria. As soon as you pass through the doors, the first thing you could see is a Humboldt Broncos sweater draped before the holy water font. The church was packed, there were people standing and even seated in the foyer. During the service Father Joseph Salihu spoke of the tragedy and invited family members directly affected to come up and receive special prayers. After the service wrapped up I approached a couple, they were matching Broncos sweaters and it turns out they weren't just fans.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I'm Doris Tratch and uh big Bronco fan plus I work with Celeste and she lost her son which makes it very, very unimaginable and to have her suffer, I want to say it’s almost not fair, Jacob was her son.

GEOFF TURNER: Doris is referring to Celeste Leray-Leicht who is the vice principal at St. Dominic's Catholic School and she lost her son Jacob. And Doris' husband Dan used to be on the board of the Broncos and he has a long connection to hockey going back to their years in Melvillle, Saskatchewan. In fact he has past experience that makes this tragedy feel very close.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I know what the bus driver was...what it’s like to be on a bus driving with so many young people behind you.

AMT: He was a team bus driver as well himself?

GEOFF TURNER: Yeah, so you can imagine what that connection felt like when the news started to come out on Friday. That's how it was the whole weekend in Humboldt. Everyone I spoke with had some connection to the Broncos.

AMT: So clearly this has affected so many in the broader community, did you meet any of the families directly affected?

GEOFF TURNER: Yeah, on Sunday afternoon, I was fortunate enough to be invited into the home of a family that had been hit hard.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Footsteps]

VOICE 1: Hi there, I’m Geoff from CBC.

VOICE 2: Geoff?

VOICE 1: Yeah, nice to meet you.

VOICE 2: Thank you, I’m Laurie.

VOICE 1: Hi Laurie. Thanks so much for allowing me into your home at this time.

[Sound: Door closes]

VOICE 1: You’re welcome.

VOICE 2: This is my husband Dudley.

Voice 1: Hi Dudley.

VOICE 3: Hi Geoff, nice to meet you.

GEOFF TURNER: So Anna Maria the Warford’s who you’re hearing there were the billet family for 18- year-old Evan Thomas of Saskatoon. They've been taking billets for 10 years and in that time they've housed six players and three trainers.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We get so attached to them and everyone that we have had has been you know in contact with us over the last couple days and you know they all hold special memories and thoughts with us as a family and the community as a whole and being billeted out at this age and is a huge impact on the people they are today. And you know Evan was same thing, he was well on this way, he was bright future ahead of him, and he was a most respectful boy we've had here.

GEOFF TURNER: So Anna Maria, with that kind of connection, that kind of emotional bond, you can imagine what it was like to get word that Evan was among the dead from Friday's crash.

AMT: Oh they much have just been devastated.

GEOFF TURNER: In fact when I first tried to ask Laurie about her connection to the team and to Evan, it was too much.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I Can't uh...I can't. We've billeted for 10 years... we've had six players, uh three trainers, and we've loved every one of them.

[Sound: Sobbing]

GEOFF TURNER: But eventually, with a bit of help from the cat, Laurie was able to compose herself and she and Dudley told me a little more about Evan.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Evan was very shy. He had the utmost respect for us, for his surroundings, for his teammates. He was devoted to hockey. He was eventually talking about becoming a doctor if his hockey career didn't take off, but his connection was part of the family. you know the game nights and the Xbox playing with our son, and you know just different family events he was always a part of it.

VOICE 2: We make him a part of our family and of course when something like this happens you lose a family member and that’s hard so...my kids are very attached to Evan, even our pet cat. I mean it was something that you know Evan's family like I said his mom and dad and sister they are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people, I can't say enough good things. They raised themself a wonderful individual, a loss that can never be replaced and it’s going to be hard for us for a long time.

AMT: It’s so sad. They mentioned their own children. How are their kids doing through this?

GEOFF TURNER: They have three kids and they're all doing their brave best, but it's clearly a struggle, and this was especially evident with their youngest one.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: My name is Shelby.

VOICE 2: How old are you Shelby?

VOICE 1: 13. He was like another brother and he was really funny and there was one time [starts to cry].

VOICE 3: I wonder what story she was going to say.

AMT: It's so hard for her to even talk about him. She can’t even speak.

GEOFF TURNER: Yeah, their son Colten told me about how having billets helped create a little balance with his two sisters.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: It was a really good relationship. We spent a lot of time downstairs in the gaming room whether it was playing Xbox or playing a game of pool or just whatever we cared to do or going out to Tim Horton’s for an iced cap or... it’s nice to have another guy around whose like your brother that you never had and you get attached to them so quick when they are here for six, seven months at a time. He's just really nice to have around.

GEOFF TURNER: Anna Maria I wanted to mention that after I left the Warford's house I had this nagging feeling that the kids names sounded really familiar. I took out my phone and looked at a picture I had taken from that makeshift shrine at the arena. It was a box of Kraft Dinner with a little gift card on it that read: "To Evan game day special. Love, your billet brother and sister, Colten and Shelby.

AMT: It really does like he said another sibling.

GEOFF TURNER: They’re obviously so close. And even their oldest daughter Taryn who is 23. She lives in Saskatoon and she didn't know Evan all that well, but billets were a part of her life growing up. And it clearly made a big impression on her life.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: It's just so hard to think about how especially the young ones how they are feeling and the parents who have to explain that their Bronco isn't going to be coming home...just absolutely heartbreaking and I just...it’s just very hard to think about everyone and what they are going through you know the shoes left at the door, their spot at the table. It’s just very very sad.

[Sound: Sobbing]

AMT: She paints quite a picture. The everyday life. The shoes at the door, all the reminders that someone is not there anymore.

GEOFF TURNER: Yeah and it speaks to the suddenness of this tragedy. I was really struck with this when I asked Laurie and Dudley about their last communications with Evan.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Jeez he was sleeping when I went to work Friday morning so Thursday night. We were just talking about a game of Scrabble...and uh I think my son there that water bottle is still sitting on the table because I asked my son to clean off the table after supper and he says “I'm not cleaning that's Evan's.” So I mean it’s still sitting there. But you talked to him Friday before he left

VOICE 2: Yeah I spoke with him. It wasn't a lengthy conversation but it was one that it...at times like that you never expect what happened to happen so it’s like, if I would have known that something was going to happen. But it’s always that fear I mean we live in a hockey country and when those individuals go out on those bus rides and face the highways of Saskatchewan or wherever there's always that fear in everybody’s mind and their parents as billet parents it’s like we want to make sure that they come home there's no doubt about it.

VOICE 1: My last text to Evan was Friday after work, so I worked till five and I got home just before leaving I text him and I found it really odd that he didn't reply because he always does, and it was good luck tonight buddy see you on Sunday hopefully on home ice and now here we are tonight going to a vigil.

AMT: So devastating Geoff. He said something really important there that you always have that fear, so many people know that feeling, their kids getting on a bus to go play in that game somewhere.

GEOFF TURNER: Yeah, in those cold, cold roads in the winter. That said both Laurie and Dudley say they are determined to continue with billeting. It’s that sense of what Dudley was suggesting there that responsibility for these young people. Laurie told me how important it is to her to create an environment where the families know their sons are being looked after. And I should mention that even before the vigil, which was certain to be an emotional time, the Warford’s had another big experience coming up. Evan's parents were planning to visit, because they wanted to be in the place where he spent his last days.

AMT: Hard to imagine how tough that would be for all of them. Did you talk to any other billet families?

GEOFF TURNER: I did. I was in the home of Colin and Amanda Brochu and their experience is quite different in that this was their first time billeting.

AMT: First time?

GEOFF TURNER: Two players, both of whom were on the bus. They had forward Layne Matechuk staying with them and fortunately he survived. But they also had the team captain Logan Schatz with them, and he died in the crash. When I visited them at home, the family still seemed in a state of shock. Amanda told me they still hadn't gone near the boys' rooms. And Colin was just trying to make sense of it all. But in talking about Logan, Amanda left me thinking about why this tragedy is so overwhelming for everybody that got a chance to know them or know of them.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: He was dedicated. Not only did he love the sport of hockey, he loved this community. He was funny. He liked to sleep a lot. Not that this is or should be a learning experience but if there's anything you know that I have learned is that there is so much more to these boys there, you know they come to Humboldt to be Broncos and they are here to play hockey but they are musicians. They are artists, they are so much more.

AMT: It’s such a terrible time and to remember that they were so important to so many people, these young men.

GEOFF TURNER: They sure were but they’ve got an incredible community behind them too.

AMT: Geoff, thank you.

GEOFF TURNER: You’re welcome Anna Maria.

AMT: Geoff Turner is a producer with The Current. He’s in Saskatoon today.

[Music]

AMT: What you are hearing is Xavier Labelle playing a piano recital four years ago, he was just 14, subsequently posted on YouTube. He plays hockey for the Humboldt Broncos. He was one of the players injured in Friday's crash. Stay with us, this is The Current.

Where 'the culture of every team is formed': Why the bus is more than a ride to the game

Guests: Tristan Jones, Peter Soberlak, Stephen Brunet

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

[Music: Theme]

AMT: We're going to continue our coverage of the tragedy of the Humboldt Bronco's hockey team crash with some people who know first-hand what it's like to ride those big team buses across the highways of rural Canada.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: You know you think about all the times and hours you spent on the bus yourself, it's devastating.

VOICE 2: Spend a lot of hours on the bus and you know that's where you develop a lot of good friendships as well so um, you know it's a sad day and definitely feel for everyone involved.

VOICE 3: You know it's something like this it's something we've all done, we've rode the bus, we've gone through those years long hours on the bus trips and you're going to play the game you love and you never expect something like this to happen.

AMT: Just a sampling of some of the reaction from NHL players on the weekend, after the bus crash that killed 15 members of the Humboldt Broncos. My next guest knows firsthand not only the bonds formed between players on the bus, but also in the communities where they live and play. Tristan Jones is a former junior hockey player and coach and we've reached him now in Kamloops, B.C. Hello.

TRISTAN JONES: Hi. How are you?

AMT: I'm wondering how you're doing. We know this story is hitting people hard across the country, what have you been thinking in the aftermath of this tragedy?

TRISTAN JONES: Well I mean it obviously leaves a lot of Canadians with very heavy hearts. In the last couple of days I've thankfully reached out to a couple of my friends from junior hockey and we've had some discussions. But it definitely just puts a lot of things into perspective for sure because I think most people growing up in Canada they understand some of what goes on in hockey — in the minor hockey level. But when you get into the junior ranks that bus it's a home away from home and to see something like this is just very upsetting.

AMT: And you used to play junior hockey, help us understand what that experience is like for young people.

TRISTAN JONES: Yeah it's definitely unique. I mean you go from minor hockey where you know you're still showing up in your parents van or in some cases people playing you know major junior or some high level bantam now. But when you get into the rink it's different, especially in the rural communities where the teams are such a big part of the community. I know when I was a 19-year-old it was shocking and amazing to have kids come up to you and wanting your autograph and you know we would have community events where we would take children out trick or treating on Halloween. So you know we would give back to the community and be a big part of that.

AMT: How many teams did you play for?

TRISTAN JONES: I only played two years but both years I happened to get traded so I ended up playing for four teams.

AMT: Who were they?

TRISTAN JONES: There was a team in Armstrong, British Columbia called the Armstrong Sharks; the league no longer exists there, and that was my junior experience. And then I played in Ontario for a team called the Nipissing Alouettes, in a league that I don't think exists any longer. Unfortunately I'm a little bit of a dinosaur on leave now. And my final stop was in Témiscaming, Quebec, which was definitely like one of my favourite places to play. It was the smallest community I played in as well which I think was one of the reasons it was so amazing to play there because you'd get about 1,100 fans for a game in a town of about 2,000.

AMT: So you really know what it's like to be on those buses to going to and from games?

TRISTAN JONES: Oh yes especially in Ontario. I mean you'd spend eight to 10 hours sometimes in the blistering cold. And I mean one of the most unique experiences when I was playing in Ontario is our owner actually; because every team you play for it's kind of different. And most teams they think they'll charter a bus tour but we had a unique experience where our owner had actually purchased an old school bus and painted it blue. And so you get some interesting experiences out there. Not everybody's junior hockey experience on the bus is the same. Not every bus is the same. But the back of the bus, the feeling that you get there, that family, the knowledge, it's kind of that home away from home and everyone in there is you know one of your brothers. It's unlike any other feeling that's for sure.

AMT: You know yesterday we spoke with 17-year-old Dustyn McFaul. He plays left defense for the Pickering Panthers in Ontario. This is his first year of junior hockey. Listen to what he told us about the connections made on those bus trips.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Just taking bus rides in general, like it's a bonding experience that you can't beat. And obviously you see that through some of the pictures of the team, how they are so tight knit. It forces you to talk to people; it forces you to learn more about your teammates, their habits, everything about them really. And I think you get to know everyone on your team a lot better and you get to share memories and old stories. The more bus rides you go on, the more stories that are shared, the closer you become and that's what makes it a family.

AMT: Tristan he calls it a family just like you call it a family.

TRISTAN JONES: Yeah I think you'd be hard pressed finding a hockey player who spent time on the bus that wouldn't call it a family there. And it's a national family. We understand that it goes outside like it's not just a one team thing. I think that especially as someone who's been traded it's also where a lot of the culture of every team is formed. So when you're able to jump into that environment and you know we'd spend hours upon hours playing cribbage in the back there and just talking and get to know people on a level that you might not otherwise get to know them especially in today's day and age.

AMT: And you talk about that blue school bus that you were on, what was that one like?

TRISTAN JONES: Oh that was interesting especially in the extraordinarily cold winters that Northern Ontario gets because the school buses don't have an undercarriage for the luggage. So at the end of our game if we were in Espanola or wherever we were on the map you know piling all of our wet gear into the back of the bus and we would always have a bunch of blankets and then all the players would huddle up in the back and we would basically just cuddle up in the back of a bus to stay warm whether we were driving to the hotel or if we were driving to another city. So yeah I mean that was one of the more interesting ones for sure.

AMT: Of course many young players as you did move away from home to be able to play the game they love. How welcome did you feel by the communities you were playing in?

TRISTAN JONES: I mean generally speaking the smaller the community the more aware they are of their team and the more important those teams are to them. And so when I was going into the smaller towns certainly you notice it right away. You'll get invited onto the local radio shows or into write for their local newspaper for a little blurb there. It's a really really kind of special thing and the communities all jump in. I think that we've talked a lot about and we've heard a lot about the impact on the players and their direct families but the communities are an extension of that. And the billet families that come from there those are all just major players that I don't think often get a lot of mention as well.

AMT: And of course we've seen the outpouring over the weekend like it really does strike a nerve with Canadians across the country.

TRISTAN JONES: Yeah. And even outside of that I mean you know whatever side you fall on with the United States I mean the fact that the president even tweeted about it is pretty substantial. You know obviously it transcends even the national boundary at this point. Yeah.

AMT: So what are you thinking about today?

TRISTAN JONES: I mean it's just going to be a lot longer some heavy hearts here. I mean I'm reminded of the tragedy in Russia not long ago with the plane crash and Pavol Demitra there and how long that took. And then that wasn't on soil and not everybody has the experience flying. The bus it just resonates with everyone. It's definitely not something that will be forgotten anytime soon.

AMT: No and of course there are a whole bunch of other teams going on busses this week too.

TRISTAN JONES: Oh yeah and they're all heading out to playoffs.

AMT: It continues.

TRISTAN JONES: Oh yeah it's got to continue. As difficult as it is for Humboldt I know that the people there would not want things to stop because the teams that are playing for them and in front of them and representing their communities they mean so much to those communities. Yeah. So I think that this the best way we can support is just you know to make sure that we continue to give our outpouring of support to Humboldt. But you know we have to keep moving on and keep supporting our game, keep supporting our communities.

AMT: Tristan thanks for sharing your thoughts today.

TRISTAN JONES: Yeah of course, thank you very much for having me.

AMT: Tristan Jones is a former junior hockey player and coach. He was in Kamloops, British Columbia. My next two guests know all too well what the grieving families and friends in Humboldt are going through. More than 30 years ago, the rural community of Swift Current, Saskatchewan experienced an eerily similar loss when four members of the Swift Current Broncos died in a team bus crash. Peter Soberlak, who was 17 at the time, was among the survivors of that 1986 crash. He's now a performance advisor for the WolfPack at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C. But when he heard what happened to the Humboldt Broncos, he booked himself on the next flight to the community. And that's where we've reached him today. And we've also got Stephen Brunet on the line from Bathurst, New Brunswick, a community that lived through a similar tragedy in 2008, when seven members of the high school basketball team and their coach's wife were killed. The team was returning from a game in Moncton when the van they were travelling in collided with a transport truck. Stephen Brunet was the mayor of Bathurst at the time, and had also been a teacher at the high school. Peter Soberlak and Stephen Brunet, hello to you both.

PETER SOBERLAK: Good morning.

STEPHEN BRUNET: Good morning.

AMT: Peter I want to start with you. You got on a plane right away yesterday to travel to Saskatchewan. Why did you know right away to get on that plane?

PETER SOBERLAK: Well it was interesting. I got a text from a friend Friday evening and my first thought was to call my good friend Sheldon Kennedy and I actually texted Sheldon and he called me back immediately and we just started to talk. And I also called Bob Wilkie and immediately; I don't even think we discussed whether or not we were going to go, we just discussed who is going to book the flights and how we would make it together to leave from Calgary together because I had to come in from Kamloops. So there wasn't any hesitation. We decided right off the bat that that's what we thought would be best for us and best for the community and the players and the survivors. And we just wanted to be here to lend our support.

AMT: And of course Sheldon Kennedy and Bob Wilkie survived that crash with you.

PETER SOBERLAK: Yes. Yeah.

AMT: So what was it like for you guys to meet with members of the Humboldt community yesterday?

PETER SOBERLAK: It was a tough day. It was a long day. But it was an incredibly powerful and meaningful experience. There were a lot of tears and a lot of hugs. But at the same time there were a lot of smiles and a lot of laughs. And we just felt that you know we could share our experience with some of the parents and some of the players that were able to communicate with us and it was a really special and rewarding day. And I know we talked as a group afterwards and I know none of us will forget that for a long time.

AMT: What did you say to people?

PETER SOBERLAK: Well it just depends. In cases we didn't say a lot. Some people wanted to talk. Some people were a little more reserved with their emotions. But we just tried to show our support and particularly with the players to let them know that we know what they're going through and things are going to be ok. It's going to be tough but they'll get through it and we're going to be there to help them through it down the road. And so we tried to be as positive and supportive and optimistic as we could for them because they're really having a tough time.

AMT: Your very presence, just being there.

PETER SOBERLAK: I think so. Yeah. You know I think it's a powerful thing when you're able to just show support to strangers. There was an instant connection with all of us. And I mentioned to the group at the beginning when we first came in that you know unfortunately we've all become a family and we have a connection forever. So I think we all felt that.

AMT: Stephen Brunet what went through your mind when you first heard about the Humboldt Broncos bus crash?

STEPHEN BRUNET: I was very, very saddened. It's still hard to believe that it happened. I look back on our time here. It was very, very sad time for our community. But I mentioned community our community got behind the parents, got behind everybody, and it took the whole community to get us through this. There were so many leaders that stepped forward and that brought it all back when I got that call on Saturday morning I said, “Wow.” Very, very tragic thing that happened. And yet as was said here by a couple of your speakers we live in a rural country, we live in a rural area, we're on the road all the time with different teams, every time you're on the road there's possibility of an accident I suppose. But you never dreamed something like that could happen again.

AMT: It stays with you Stephen... Never goes.

STEPHEN BRUNET: I'm sorry?

AMT: It stays with you what happened. It never goes away, does it?

STEPHEN BRUNET: Oh it does. We had a Titan hockey game on Saturday night and that's Quebec Major Junior and we had a full house of over 3,400. And you could hear a pin drop when they had a moment of silence for Humboldt and its community. And we went to church yesterday and there was a moment of silence after Mass there too or before and the whole community here is still reeling I guess from what happened to us just 10 years ago because I was stopped various times at the hockey game and said “Stephen you remember when you were in that same predicament, at that microphone, talking about the accident and bringing the community together like the mayor there has to do.” You know everybody talked about it at the game the other night.

AMT: Peter Soberlak what do you remember most from the time following the crash of the Swift Current Broncos bus?

PETER SOBERLAK: Well you know it was a long time ago and I think it took me back just in the hospital I think and just with the kind of the panic and then almost the chaos. I mean obviously it's organized chaos. But at the same time it's just a flood of emotions and a time where people are just in a state of shock. So I felt that and you know it's reflecting on it. You know I didn't really go back to feelings of 30 years ago in 1986. I mostly projected kind of my feelings forward to what these families are going through and the experience that was ahead of them. So I think again my feelings were more kind of proactive and moving forward of how they're going to get through particularly these next — I mean it's only been a couple days and there's a long road ahead for a lot of people here. So I think it's a real challenge that we all face dealing with and accepting what's happened.

AMT: Yeah, it's kind of visceral almost. You just understand that it has just begun, right, the grieving.

PETER SOBERLAK: Absolutely. It will be a long journey and there are many, many stages. I told some of the folks I mean you know I'm 49-years-old and I still deal with it and I still have those vivid memories and those feelings. And I think in a way as well for Sheldon and Bob and Darren and I this has been therapeutic for us as well just to be able to share our feelings and connect with people on an emotional level. It was very, very heartwarming for us and we all really treasured the opportunity to be there with those families and people.

AMT: Stephen Brunet, I have a clip here from someone you know ... Jordan Frenette was team captain of the Phantoms, the Bathurst team that was involved in that crash ten years ago. He was home sick the day of the accident. Here's what he told us about his own grief and the long road to healing.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Well initially it was shock and disbelief for the first few days really; nothing really had processed for me it was kind of a surreal experience. As things kind of settled in it was obviously deeply saddening and depressing for lack of a better term in a lot of ways. It was a real challenge to try to get through that time in my life for sure. The most important factor I think in my own personal healing after the situation was just the outpouring of the support from mutual friends and family members and even people that I wasn't necessarily really close with at that time from the community that had a connection to some other member of the team. Certainly it's something that will be a part of the fabric of their communities I would think forever much like it has been here. I mean we just had our ten year anniversary and in a lot of ways it feels like yesterday. I know it doesn't seem that way now but in due time with the support that they're going to give each other there with their community and from the surrounding community as well eventually things will take a turn for the better, that much I'm sure of.

AMT: Stephen Brunet you talked about already the kind of conversations going on in Bathurst and the moment of silence. I'm wondering how you’re doing 10 years later.

STEPHEN BRUNET: When it happened the community came up to me the other night, so many members, and it brought back a lot of memories and I had a tear or two for sure and still very emotional even today as I'm speaking to you because I grew up with some of those parents that lost their children here and [unintelligible] with some of them I [unintelligible] some of the parents themselves. So we were very, very close and the community came out in full force to help the parents. I think that's what has to happen now in Humboldt. They have to deal with the immediate; they have to deal with now. What are they going to do? How are they going to get those grieving together? And we did different things like we opened up our civic centre to the public and had parent committees come in and they provided coffee and lunches just steady and just gave people the opportunity to speak and talk about what happened. And then of course there were the funerals to deal with. And then of course the after we get the parents together various times to deal with some of the issues that came along. So it is going to be a long road to recovery but recovery will happen especially if you have good leadership there.

AMT: And of course you know after the cameras leave and people go home and yeah there's a whole other level of grieving that goes on isn't there?

STEPHEN BRUNET: That's the thing they go home and are by themselves and they're hurting. I think that in Bathurst we were able to pull them out of their homes and get them together and different organizations put together different events in order to get them out and talk and to grieve with the parents and grieve with the students like those young boys that we lost they went through the whole school system here. It wasn't just the high school that was affected. It was all levels because they started school here and went through the system here and were then in high school. So many teachers were affected and upset, and TAs and just the staff at the school. So they all had to be brought together and talk about it and hopefully they can do that in Humboldt.

AMT: And Peter as a player who survived and lost his friends, what advice would you give to the people who have survived this and are injured and have to find a way to move forward?

PETER SOBERLAK: Well you know that was the topic of conversation with a few of the young players in the hospital and my advice to them and to their families as well was to be happy and it's ok to celebrate. And of course in your own family but it's ok to be happy and feel lucky and fortunate and that's ok. Everyone who has made it out alive from that horrific accident is fortunate and it's ok to feel that and my message to the parents particularly and the players was to make sure they seek professional help and reach out and get the help they need because there are supports in place for them. And I think the most important thing is for them to talk. I think as athletes and particularly you know athletes in power and performance type sports, we're not really encouraged to share our feelings, and that side of people is not really you know engaged a lot in these cultures. And I think I just really encourage them to feel, to cry, to talk, and make sure they let themselves experience everything because if they hold it inside or push it down it will come up later on. So just really proactively understand how important it is to tackle these issues head on and in an effort to make sure that there is forward progress in movement.

AMT: Gentlemen we have to leave it there. Thank you very much for your thoughts today. Thank you.

STEPHEN BRUNET: You're welcome.

PETER SOBERLAK: Thank you Anna Maria.

AMT: Stephen Brunet was the mayor of Bathurst, New Brunswick, when a van carrying the high school boys' basketball team collided with a transport truck, leaving seven students and the coach's wife dead. He joined us from Bathurst, New Brunswick. And Peter Soberlak survived a 1986 bus crash in Saskatchewan that left four members of the Swift Current Broncos dead. He joined us from Humboldt, Saskatchewan. Stay with us, this is The Current.

How 50 million Muslim women are revolutionizing the workforce

Guest: Saadia Zahidi

AMT: Hi, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. A little later in this half hour we will hear from billet mom who's one of her first billets was the man who later became the coach of the Humboldt Broncos and was killed in the crash Friday evening, Darcy Haugan. But before we get there we had plans to talk about something else today as well and we'll get on to that story now.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: As more and more women become financially independent and more confident part of the workforce, it definitely will have a very positive impact. Kids will grow up seeing mothers, working mothers, getting more respect in the household. My kids see me and my husband as quite equal in the household. So for them, this is normal, that you know, women work, women do the same things as men do, and I think they feel proud of that.

AMT: That's Maliha Quadir, the founder of Shohoz, an online travel company in Bangladesh that runs ride-sharing programs as well as selling tickets for bus and ferry lines. And her view of a positive change is shared by many women in the Muslim world. Since the start of this millennium, an extra 50 million women in predominantly-Muslim countries have entered the workforce, bringing the total number of working women in these parts of the world to over 150 million. They make up a formidable economic force, and they're changing the countries they live in culturally and politically too, even if their own governments are sometimes struggling to catch up. Saadia Zahidi has looked at this phenomenon in her new book Fifty Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Transforming the Muslim World. Saadia Zahidi is the head of education, gender and work at the World Economic Forum, a non-profit foundation that looks at global politics, economics, and social issues. And she joins us from Geneva, Switzerland. Hello.

SAADIA ZAHIDI: Hi. Good to be here.

AMT: Who are these 50 million women who have recently entered the workforce in predominantly Muslim countries?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: A lot of them are the young women – millennials mostly - who have been to university for the first time. They're a generation that never had mothers or grandmothers that even completed high school in many cases, much less university, and they've gone into a range of fields. At the same time it's not just the younger women and it's not just white collar women, there are a number of older women as well who are going into the service industry, going into blue collar work, really feels that were off limits to women in the past.

AMT: And what has driven them or in some cases allowed them to start working outside the home in such large numbers?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: So a large part of it is the investment in education that these countries made. So I look at 30 of the largest economies across the Muslim world, they make up 1.2 Billion people and a lot of their governments actually spent quite a bit of time and effort in expanding particularly public education at a tertiary level. And a number of women took advantage of that. And as it became socially acceptable for women to start going into higher education they are now testing the waters of going into the workforce. And the last 15 years in particular have been incredibly successful in accessing economic opportunity in a way that previous generations simply would not have dreamt of.

AMT: Saadia when did you personally realize as a child that women could work in fields that you thought were dominated by men?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: So my dad is a geophysicist and I went with him to gas fields for the first time and I had seen of course women in teaching professions, I had seen women doctors. The numbers were very low. But I thought there were just a few areas that women could work in and here on the gas field when I was about nine or 10-years-old I met this female engineer who was the first woman to be working on that gas field. They had just built a bathroom for the first time for the one female employee on this gas field. And I saw this woman with her veil and her hard hat and her boots. And suddenly I thought wow there's a possibility for women to go into things that I never would have imagined.

AMT: And where were you living? Where were you growing up?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: In Islamabad, in Pakistan.

AMT: What is your family's history with women in paid work?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: My grandmother was in a newly independent Pakistan amongst the very first women that ever went to university. You know she had a number of brothers but no sisters and it was just not normal or acceptable for her parents but she fought for that. She built out a career in teaching and she had four daughters. So my mother and her sisters are all women with, you know, PhDs and master’s degrees and they all work. So that one generation that makes that shift can then create this multiplier effect across many others and while this used to be an anomaly I think there are a lot of women in today's millennial generation in Pakistan, in Iran, inside Arabia, in Indonesia who are amongst the first to have access to the workforce and what their daughters will do and what their sons will think about the role of women will be completely different than it has been in the past.

AMT: Well actually how sons think about the role of women matters, right, or brothers?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: Yeah I wanted to understand each family, each of the 200 or so women that I interviewed, try to understand from them you know how did the men in their family react and what was so positive is a lot of the fathers, the husbands, the sons, the brothers they were initially very hesitant but then very quickly saw the returns. Whether it was the economic returns or whether it was just having a whole new level of respect for this person that they previously saw as perhaps somewhat helpless. But at the same time you know I asked a number of experts as well can they see anything derailing this trend and most people thought there's almost no chance that this trend will change except for the possibility of the angry young men who grew up thinking he is supposed to be the breadwinner and suddenly his sister or his daughter or even his mother is accessing the workforce and then he suddenly feeling lost about his role.

AMT: I want to ask you about some of the women you spoke to. You spoke to a woman named Samira Negm who like Maliha Quadir who we heard from earlier is an entrepreneur in transportation. She started up her own ride sharing app in Cairo. How many women are entering this type of untraditional field?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: The fact that there are fewer role models in the previous generation that has been this blessing in disguise because it also means they're fewer stereotypes. And so Samira has a degree in computer science, worked for car companies designing code for auto parking features. And that's actually how her new platform started out. She ended up using a ride sharing app in Germany and she came back and she thought ‘well I spend almost three hours a day and my commute in Cairo, if I use public transport there are huge sexual harassment issues and so can I think about bringing this model here and can I think about transporting it to this culture where people are very unlikely especially women to travel with strangers?’ But if it's people who are their colleagues then they're much more likely to use it. So she basically combined the social network aspect along with this ride sharing app. You know she's a young woman who wears hijab. And you know I found myself reflecting about who do we think of as a tech entrepreneur. Most of us tend to think about the mythical man in a hoodie in Silicon Valley and I think in a lot of the Muslim world it's actually a young woman in a hijab who is solving societal problems around her using her background in science technology, engineering, math, computer science.

AMT: Well the Western stereotype of women from the Muslim world is very far reaching and I'm just wondering a lot of your book actually really upends that. Muslim women as they're seen in the wider Western world are not the women that are in your book. There's a disconnect still in our western view of who a Muslim woman even is.

SAADIA ZAHIDI: Yeah. And part of the purpose of this book is to try to change that stereotype because I think we have to recognize where progress is happening and we have to support that progress. This is not to say that there aren't massive cultural issues, massive discrimination issues, that there isn't violence, that there aren't a lot of challenges for women across the Muslim world. But at the same time I think this change is organic. It has grown locally. The fact that women are coming into the workforce now a good 30 percent across the entire Muslim world is a critical mass that we have to build upon.

AMT: And you have a range of women who have really worked hard to get themselves to a place where they can be contributing and out there feeling more independent. You spoke to a woman named Mozah in Cairo. Tell us about her.

SAADIA ZAHIDI: Mozah is a 50 something woman from a lower middle class family and a few years ago she had lost her husband. For the first time ever she had to think about earning money herself and she had just never worked outside the home except when she was a child and she had been supporting her parents in the small pet shop that they used to run. But ever since she got married at a very young age she had basically been the homemaker and she had a son and two daughters. And the reason the financial responsibility was falling on her was in part because her son as a driver was earning just about enough to support his family, his wife and children, but there was no way that he could also support his mother. And one of her daughters who had never thought that she would work outside the home had newly gotten divorced and had moved back in with her mother. And so the two of them had to really figure out what to do and the one skill that Mozah thought she had that could be marketable was basically being an excellent cook. And combining with her daughter who was much more able to use technology and take orders over the phone she basically started this business from the home. I think for her the most important part of this was the self-respect she had gained and the confidence she had gained now in her 50s when all her life she'd really thought that she couldn't really do this kind of role. It had made her less afraid and less worried about the fact that her daughter was divorced and how she was going to support herself. And at the same time it made her son very unhappy. He didn't understand what his role was now if he couldn't provide for and support his mother and sister.

AMT: And she actually tells you, does she not, that he would maybe try to stop her but he can't?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: He was sitting there. We were having this conversation in front of him. He was you know not in a great mood. And she said that he would want to stop me. But one, he can't because I'm going to do what I want. And two, he knows that then he would have to take on the financial responsibility and he's not quite capable of doing that.

AMT: I have another clip I'd like to play you from Maliha Quadir. Her family has a history of women doing paid work, and she says she rarely thinks that the challenges she faces at work are specifically because she's female. But she says she does get some comments about her gender on the job.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: So I have had clients who have told me, you know, to my face that you know you're a woman, you have a husband who makes money, what if you decide one day that you want to go raise your family and not do business, what will happen to us because your company will collapse? To that, basically my answer is, you know, I show them the results. You know, we've been in business for four years, going very strong. And yes, we just have to work ten times harder than our male counterparts in proving to these people that we are serious and that we are as business minded if not more than the male people you are used to working with. It's the same thing, even in Wall Street, you know. When you're negotiating with a woman, people feel that, you know, it's going to be an easy run, she's just going to give in. We women face the same challenges everywhere.

AMT: And I should just say that Ms. Quadir says she faced the same sorts of issues as a woman when she was working in finance on Wall Street as she does now in the transport industry in Bangladesh. Saadia Zahidi what did you hear from the women you spoke to across the Muslim world? Are the challenges the same as faced in the West?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: I think some of them are the same. But a lot of it can be quite different too. So you know the perspective that I found the most enlightening on this was some of the male and female CEOs that are being pioneers in hiring this newly educated work workforce of women they’ve had to take on some sometimes fairly risky experiments inside their organizations to make some of this feasible. So some of the most pioneering companies have for example put in place guaranteed transport for women to and from their homes. Some of them have had to for the first time create floors that are for women only in case they feel more comfortable. And then there are others who have recognized that all of this is worth it because more women are coming out of universities in the Muslim world than men. And second they've tended to find you know like Maliha was saying that the women might actually be better at their roles. There is this hunger for opportunity and so there's also this desire to deliver and over deliver as compared to some of the men around them. So I think yes there are challenges and yes there are some very customized solutions for the local culture and local environment that a lot of organizations are putting in place but too many of them it's worth it. There's an actual business case for bringing in more and more women into their companies.

AMT: What does Islamic scripture say about women working outside the home?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: I looked into this and in terms of the most sort of accepted translations and it's very clear that women and men are expected to fulfill their full potential according to Islam. Whether that means education, whether that means working outside the home, all of that at its most fundamental is supposed to be there for women and for men. Now there are slightly different stipulations for how women and men are supposed to engage with each other. But as a basic fact education and work should not be off limits to either women and men. And I think the most interesting role model for this is actually Khadijah the first wife of the Prophet Muhammad who was a 40-year-old businesswoman very successful trader who had inherited a slightly smaller business from her father and then grown it much bigger and she had actually hired the profit to take one of her caravans and there was a 15-year age gap between them and she had married him later on. And so the first convert to Islam was actually a female CEO. And I think that story this new generation of women that are coming into the workforce are very often using that story of Khadijah to make it more acceptable to people around them. Interestingly the aging… she pointed out to me she said “Well you know it's also acceptable in Islam to have child care solutions while mothers are doing other things including being part of the workforce.” And she also pointed out how she had always learned that the Prophet Muhammad had been raised by a nanny for the first six years of his life.

AMT: Well that plays right into that what I wanted to ask you about next which is the third way. Tell us what the third way is.

SAADIA ZAHIDI: Yeah this is a phrase that in one form or the other came up from really all of the women whether it was women in Turkey, or Indonesia, or Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan they all felt that in this particular generation that they're a part of there is sort of a transition generation. They don't have a lot to count on in terms of role models from previous generations. There is no road map for them to follow. And so they have to tread quite carefully. So they're still the ones who have to take on most of the responsibility in the home. So they are wholly responsible for figuring out childcare solutions doing all of the unpaid work in the home. But it's also left up to them to figure out how they do that whether they get family help, whether they get hired help, or whether they find some other solution of their own. They're the ones who are primarily doing it and they're not pushing very hard on that. They're not necessarily asking for men to play a bigger role in the home certainly much more than their own fathers ever did; but nothing close to equality in the home. And the reason they're not pushing on that is because they don't want some of this early access and freedom that they have into the workforce to start disappearing. They are putting in the double shift because they think this is the way to then ensure that after this transition generation has put in that double shift that future generations will have the opportunity to really do what they want. A lot of the women mentioned that I'm ok with a third way but I'm going to make sure that my daughter knows that she will have a very very different life. That from day one it's not a surprise to her that she's now able to access the workforce. That it's something she's really aiming for and aiming for in the most sort of ambitious way.

AMT: It's interesting because the third way is what a lot of on different levels women working outside the home in the West subscribe to as well.

SAADIA ZAHIDI: Yeah absolutely. I think if you look at the data on you know how many minutes are spent on unpaid work by women versus men women spend many more much more time on unpaid work than men do. And that's a pattern that holds true in the Muslim world too. But I think there's a difference depending on who it is and depending on the socioeconomic bracket they come from. So a lot of the upper and middle income or upper middle income women are basically getting hired help women who come from lower income backgrounds to provide some of that work inside the home. Now that's creating on the one hand a bit of a virtuous cycle where those women are then freed up to go out into the workforce and there's a new earning opportunity for some of the lower income women. But I think what's going to be important in the next few years is do those lower income women end up having broader opportunities over time or are they then stuck with this new status quo that's emerged where they're basically doing a lot of the lower paid blue collar work.

AMT: You also spoke to a doctor in Pakistan named Sara Khurram. What's the company she helped found?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: Yeah. So Dr. Khurram is trying to solve a very sort of unique problem in the country. So the country has a shortage of doctors overall for almost 200 million people — very few doctors. And it's women that tend to graduate in much higher numbers from medical schools. By some estimates 70 per cent of all graduates from medical school are women. And there is this premium in the marriage market for women who have medical degrees. A lot of families and this is a society in which there are a lot of arranged marriages still; a lot of families are hoping to get daughter-in-laws who are women with medical degrees because education is now prized. But they don't actually want them to ever go into the workforce. So a lot of women are coming out of medical colleges and then not practicing. So what Sarah has done is created a platform that is allowing a lot of women that have degrees to work to get a little bit of retraining and then to use this video platform to practice from the home so they can balance all of the other family obligations they've got and all of the expectations of their families. And at the same time provide a very valuable service in particular to women in remote parts of the country that otherwise would simply never have access to a doctor.

AMT: Fascinating. How are the governments in the countries you looked at keeping up with these social changes?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: You know mostly they're not. They're not keeping up. So society has changed. You know workplaces have changed. Society has changed. Families have changed. And a lot of the governments have to play catch up. Now the good thing is some of them are playing catch up and some of them are taking proactive measures. So in particular in Saudi Arabia which is one of the countries that has been amongst the lowest in the world in terms of women's participation outside the home has also had relative to its starting point the biggest change in the entire world not just in the Muslim world but out of 140 plus countries has had the highest relative change and that has been driven in some parts to very proactive efforts on the part of the Ministry of Labor and others who are trying to get some of these highly educated women who are coming out of university into the workforce. If Saudi Arabia wants to diversify its economy beyond oil in the future they're going to need all of that talent. On the other hand there are many parts of the Muslim world where I think governments have to deal with very polarized societies. So the 155 million women that are currently working across the Muslim world they are still only 30 percent of the adult female workforce in the 30 or so economies I cover. So there's still 70 percent of the adult female workforce that's not working outside the home and that's the majority. And so for a lot of these governments they're having to balance between very conservative views in society; balance between you know religious forces and others who would much rather see women in the home and at the same time provide some of these new services and infrastructure on child care and social services for this new generation of working women. So those governments really do have a balancing act that they're trying to play.

AMT: What can women in the West learn from working women in the Muslim world?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: You know I think for me the most interesting part of this was just seeing the tenacity of the women that are driving these changes — the 155 million that are currently working across the Muslim world. They're working against a lot of odds. They're doing this without any roadmap to follow. And they're also doing it in a way that will make this trend sustainable in the long term. So one of the women that I spoke to Lubna Ali who is one of the most powerful women in Saudi Arabia; she said we want to make these changes but we don't want to break society while doing it. And that really stayed with me. I reinterpreted her statement basically as we might not win this revolution by being out on the streets protesting but in a quieter way by bringing everybody else along actually we might make this change much more sustainable not just for ourselves but for our daughters. And I think there is something about that quieter approach to change that has to be looked into. Now it works in that particular cultural context is that something that should be done in the West? I don't know but it does work in this particular context.

AMT: So how do you think women in the West and in the Muslim world can build bridges to work together to strengthen their economic power?

SAADIA ZAHIDI: A lot of the women that are creating their own businesses, some of the women entrepreneurs, I think they're already learning from models that exist elsewhere. So you know Samira, she was inspired by a model that she saw working in Germany but she's looking for ways to access markets around the world, and by no means limiting herself to Cairo or to Egypt, but trying to go across large congested cities across the emerging world. There is no gender aspect to her ambition. There's no geographical aspect to her ambition. She wants to find the right sort of business partners and work with them around the world. So I think for a lot of these women it's about you know finding the right ways to expand their businesses and that's what they're looking for. And if women in other parts of the world want to help them do that I think that would be very welcome.

AMT: Well you've given us lots to think about and you brought us up to speed on really important changes going on in the Muslim world. Thank you for your work.

SAADIA ZAHIDI: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

AMT: Saadia Zahidi is the head of education, gender and work at the World Economic Forum, a nonprofit foundation that looks at global politics, economics, and social issues. She is the author of Fifty Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Transforming the Muslim World. She was in Geneva, Switzerland. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Finally today, there's been an outpouring of grief for the 15 people killed Friday in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash. Earlier we heard from families who billeted some of the victims. As you've probably been hearing, the Broncos head coach Darcy Haugan was killed in the crash. As a young player back in 1995 he was billeted with Gail Chilman who never forgot him. She's the billet coordinator for the Estevan Bruins, another Saskatchewan team that Darcy Haugan played for. Here is Gail Chilman remembering Darcy Haugan. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: To me personally it's like losing a son. Also still billeting hockey players so I guess when the next time they get on the bus fearful of what will happen, which will probably never happen again in my lifetime. But it is just unbelievable. Each boy becomes a part of your family. They have a place in your heart. They are just a part of your family. You watch them grow up, you watch them grow through their hockey career, you watch them go on in their lives whether it be university semi pro on into their lifetime careers. I can remember at the end of the season and we also had a young man from Slovakia here staying with us. Being Darcy’s roommate and both of them realizing that this being my first year that I was very very sad that they were going to be leaving and I wasn't going to be seeing them on a daily basis. And they stayed two, three days extra just to kind of let me get into the groove of knowing there were not going to be here anymore. I think the first couple are very special. He always returned. He was one of the kindest most gentlemen that you've ever met. He was spiritual. He was loving. He never forgot us. He has a place in our hearts. His wife tells us we had a place in his house.

April 9, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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