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The Current Transcript for August 19, 2019

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We will have to do it in a bucket, but I mean that's ine. And we boil water and freeze dry fruit bags and eat that and that is quite good.

MATT GALLOWAY: Quite good may be in the eye of the beholder. It is the opposite of flying first class and that in some ways is the point. That's Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist talking about the grim conditions that she'll be enduring as she crosses the Atlantic Ocean by boat. The 16-year-old whose Fridays for future climate strikes have inspired a generation is on her way to New York City to speak at the U.N. Climate Summit. And she's on the water because she refuses to fly, citing the environmental footprint of air travel. Just how big is that footprint? Increasingly, climate activists like Thunberg have begun calling out frequent fliers. The Swedes even have a phrase for it , "Flygskam" or flight shame. This morning as you perhaps returned from a far flung summer vacation or get set to go on one, a conversation about the environmental impacts of air travel and whether naming and shaming those who fly helps or might actually hurt the fight against climate change. That's in just a moment. Then.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: She was just like all of us. She was laughing, friendly and always outgoing, you know. She was a part of the family.

MG: That's Wayne Semaganis, the chief of The Little Pine First Nation in Saskatchewan. And it is there in the community where Cleo Semaganis Nicotine spent time as a young girl that Connie Walker travels this morning in Episode 6 of her CBC podcast, Finding Cleo. You'll hear what she finds in 30 minutes. But first, the trails in the sky and the shouting down here on the ground. I'm Matt Galloway and this is the summer edition of The Current.

Shaming people into fighting climate change won't work, says scientist

Guest: Katharine Hayhoe, Ryan Katz-Rosene, Ken Caldeira

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: By stop flying, you don't only reduce your own carbon footprint, but also that sends a signal to other people around you that the climate crisis is a real thing.

MG: A real thing indeed. That's 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, Greta Thunberg. She's taking the long way to get to New York City from Europe for the upcoming U.N. climate summit. Instead of flying she set sail from the English port of Plymouth for a two week trip in a solar powered sailboat. She put out a tweet the other day saying that it was like camping on a roller coaster. It is a good deal less comfortable than a plane. Quite a bit slower as well. But the main point is that her trip will produce close to zero carbon emissions. Thunberg's trip has prompted well wishes and support, but her trip has also provoked a lot of vitriol and backlash, especially on Twitter.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Hi Greta. I've just booked some long haul flights for my family to enjoy some winter sun on the beach this Christmas. Level of guilt being felt? Zero percent.

VOICE 2: Freak yachting accidents do happen in August.

VOICE 3: If the Swedish pixie chooses to put herself in the public square and to set up an absurd trans-Atlantic stunt, she must expect legitimate comment.

MG: Swedish pixie. Most of that commentary may be coming from critics of Thunberg's climate change agenda, but even among climate activists and scientists, Thunberg's trip has reignited a discussion about whether opting out of air travel and pressuring others to do the same is an effective way to help save the planet. Certainly the pressure is growing. Last week Prince Harry was flight shamed and branded a hypocrite for taking a private jet to Google Climate Change event in Italy. As it turns out he wasn't alone. Italian media reported that 114 private jets were scheduled to land in Palermo during the summit, although it was not clear if they were all chartered for the event's guests. Joining me now to talk about the issue of air travel and climate change are three guests. Ken Caldeira is a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology. He's in Stanford, California. Katharine Hayhoe is a Canadian climate scientist who teaches at Texas Tech University and she is in Lubbock, Texas. And Ryan Katz-Rosene is a professor in the School of Political Studies at University of Ottawa, president of the Environmental Studies Association of Canada and he is in Ottawa. Hello to you all.

RYAN KATZ-ROSENE: Hello. Thanks for having us.

KEN CALDEIRA: Good morning.

MG: Katharine at the risk of getting too deep into this, I think it's worth just mentioning right off the very beginning and getting you to comment on, how bad is flying for the environment? Do we know? Do we have a sense as to how bad it truly is?

KATHARINE HAYHOE: We do. So overall the worst part of our contribution to climate change is burning fossil fuels which we do for transportation for industry for heating cooling our homes globally aviation is not that big, but for many of us our individual carbon footprint, flying can be the biggest part of that.

MG: So given that gratitude, Greta Thunberg has decided that she's not going to fly to New York City. She's going to take the slow route by boat. And you heard some of the commentary there. Ryan Katz-Rosene, the tweets pretty pointed, pretty harsh. What do you make of what people are saying about what she's doing?

RYAN KATZ-ROSENE: I think those are unfortunate comments. I think she's taking it in stride. She said she said herself look I'm not telling anyone what to do but she's taking responsibility for her own actions and she. She's recognized that she's coming from this from a place of privilege to an extent and she can do this. And that's what she said. She's going to take responsibility for her own impact given that she's able to do so.

MG: People are celebrating her, but they're also criticizing her. Why do you think she's such a lightning rod for criticism now, Ryan?

RYAN KATZ-ROSENE: Well I think people feel threatened. Ultimately is they worry that their way of life, their comforts, their daily you know consumption habits are under threat in a world where we take climate action seriously, but that's not necessarily the case. I think she's trying to make that case and maybe her message is getting lost in the Twitter sphere, but she's demonstrating that no we don't necessarily have to make a big sacrifice to deal with climate action.

MG: Katharine I heard you in the background. Do you think that the people feel threatened by Greta Thunberg?

KATHARINE HAYHOE: Absolutely. I think that when we see her actions, we have two reactions. Either we are afraid that she's right and we attack her out of guilt or we allow her to inspire us. I'm a sailor, but I can't afford to sail across the Atlantic every time I go to Europe. And frankly her trip itself is not carbon free because they are flying some of the crew members across the Atlantic to bring the boat back. But what she is doing is she is showing us that the world can change and that is a very important message because in order to stick climate change, it must change.

MG: Ken I want to talk about the larger issue of this, this flight shaming in a moment. Your thoughts first though on the criticism that Great Thunberg is getting for taking this step. As Katharine mentioned, she's privileged and able to do this, but she's decided that she wants to take that step to head to to New York, not by plane, but by boat.

KEN CALDEIRA: I don't think anybody can criticize Greta for attempting to reduce her own emissions or even if it doesn't really reduce emissions to make a symbolic statement. I think the issue comes when this issue of flight shaming, which I don't really think it's coming from Greta directly, but you know for example, I recently flew to be with my sick mother and I'm glad I did that and I wanted to be with her. But I did do so out of CO2 emissions and I don't feel good about that and I think some of that may be for projection of guilt or fear that others are trying to put guilt on you, I think has generated a response to her, but I don't think it's coming from what she's doing directly as what people are imagining or feeling around what she's doing.

MG: Go beyond her then and you talked about your own flight, what is your sense as to the effect of people calling out those who might be flying? Whether it's Prince Harry or whether it's others who, I mean it's summer. People are on on holiday right now. Maybe they are getting on a plane and going somewhere abroad.

KEN CALDEIRA: I think we're going to solve the climate problem by developing good clean technologies that allow people to do what they want to do and I do worry about a backlash by associating dealing with the climate change as that means that people are going to have to deny the things that they want. They have to deny themselves the pleasures that they appreciate in life. And I think it's important to send a message that we can deal with the climate change problem and that y ou can still have a fulfilling life. In fact your life was indeed better and more fulfilling if we address the problem and emphasizing the idea that dealing with problem means self-denial, I think can be counter-productive.

MG: It's interesting because this has actually turned into a bit of a business opportunity. We mentioned that Flygskam movement in Sweden the flight shaming movement and there are activists in that country and elsewhere who've been saying you shouldn't fly. You need to figure out a different way to get around. There are other ways to get around and there are businesses that are catering to those travellers who perhaps would rather take the train rather than getting on a plane. Have a listen to Suzanna E who runs a travel agency.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Five years ago I went by train abroad because I know it's not so sustainable to fly and it was quite difficult to go by train. I think it's more important to inspire people than to shame them actually. So the idea of my company is to inspire and get hope to people that they can act in another and a more sustainable way.

MG: Katharine Hayhoe is it more effective to inspire somebody or to shame them?

KATHARINE HAYHOE: 100 percent inspire. It's been shown recently that our sense of efficacy, in other words whether we feel that we can make a difference, is one of the most important factors in terms of us supporting climate action. And when people ask me well what's the most important thing I can do and what gives us hope? I say the most important thing we can do is actually talk about this issue talk about how it matters to us personally and what we can do to fix it. That includes reducing our own carbon footprint, but as Ken said, we need systematic system-wide change because even if each of us does what we can, that still is not enough. We need our systems to change and that includes looking for other sources of fuel like biofuel, an algae based fuel that airlines like United are already using in some of their flight, so that flights can continue in different ways. We have to break the hold the fossil fuel has on our society if we are to succeed.

MG: Can you nudge people politely to do that though or do you need to to call them out and say listen the flight that you're taking has an enormous environmental footprint and I'm sorry, but I'm going to say that because that hopefully will inspire you to do something different, Katharine.

KATHARINE HAYHOE: I think that we need to understand the fact that many of our actions do produce heat, trapping gases, food waste is a huge source. If it were its own country, it would be number three after China and the U.S. And eating lower down the food chain, reducing our intake of meat, especially red meat and pork is really important and looking at how we travel. So understanding that our choices do you make a difference is key, but also understanding that we need to advocate for change and that's particularly important for us with an election coming up soon here in Canada.

MG: I want get to Ryan in a moment, but have you changed your own. Given the work that you do, have you changed how you get around? Are you flying less for example because you know of that environmental footprint that you talked about at the beginning of our conversation?

KATHARINE HAYHOE: Absolutely. In fact we ran some experiment to see if a talk issued via video has the same effect on the audience as an in-person talk and it turns out it does. So now I have a PBS Digital series called Global Weirding on YouTube. I've transitioned about 75 percent of my own talks to virtual. I do them over the computer, whether by Skype or Zoom or other software. And when I do travel I group my events together into a critical mass, such that I typically do not travel unless I have at least three or four, sometimes as many as 15 or 20 events in the same place.

MG: Ryan Katz-Rosene, if you read about this flight shaming, the Flygskam movement, it seems like a bit of a wedge issue within the environmental community. Is that fair to say?

RYAN KATZ-ROSENE: Yeah I think it's fair to say. This has become the debate of the year for sure and like you know climate scholars and people who do climate change research, this debate about collective versus individual scale action. What's the relationship between these two? You know is there, you know unequivocally we know we need, as the other guests have mentioned, we need those collective systemic scale regulatory action to deal with climate mitigation. But the question is you know what is the role of the individual? What is the role of even consumer-based actions and sort of instigator or facilitating or creating the instigation for political scale action.

MG: And so within those circles, within those communities where you're hearing this conversation, are people getting judgey depending on how much somebody flies or the other person flies?

RYAN KATZ-ROSENE: Yeah a little bit, but I think there's also as some respect. And ultimately people often seem to be saying the same thing. Ultimately in this debate. But look no nobody wants to judge and nobody wants to be judged and I agree with the other guys. You know there's no, there's also a danger in you know shaming other people and calling people out. I think there's a little bit of a different space or perhaps a bit more space to call out people in positions of power like you know the prince or so and so forth. But yeah ultimately this issue comes back to this question of taking responsibility, that's the way I see it. Instead of taking you know shaming other people or feeling shame, take responsibility for the way you're travelling and the impact that you have on the planet.

MG: Ken you mentioned the idea in the United States where this is playing out that there's this you know sense that perhaps they're taking away something, they're taking away what we heard about it when it could have been concerns around the impact of meat. That they're taking away your hamburgers and your hotdogs. Now they're taking away your trip to Disney World. How dangerous is that for the environmental movement as a whole?

KEN CALDEIRA: I was watching Fox News the other day and they were laughing about store bans on plastic straws and you know it's easy to get the coastal elites at major universities to feel shame or feel guilt over one time use plastics or flying an airplane, but really we need to get that Fox News viewer on board if we're going to solve this problem. And I think if we tell this Fox News viewer that you're going to take away your plastic straws or take away your vacation that it's really going to make this sell hard and so I think you know these kinds of things are really good at motivating coastal elites, but we're really afraid that we're alienating a lot of people in the heartland. And so I think really meeting people where they are and say OK what do you want to do and now how can we figure out how you can do what you want to do in a way that's consistent with environmental preservation. It's really we need to, I'm all for personal action because I think personal action leads to political action, but it's really the political action that we need.

MG: Maybe this picks up on that, this is interesting. Brendan O'Neil is a British opinion writerm he's the editor of Spiked Online. Have a listen to what he said when he spoke with the U.K. radio stationm LBC.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I think environmentalism has all the ingredients of a religious cult at the moment. You know it's obsessed with sinful behaviour. It's obsessed with our destructive impact on the planet. It's convinced that the end of the world is coming, the end of days and now it has its own messiah in the shape of Greta Thunberg. And I think her trip across the Atlantic is almost like her version of 40 days in the desert and everyone is looking to her as this child messiah, this child saint who could save humanity from doom.

MG: Is that the UK equivalent Ken of what you're hearing on Fox News?

KEN CALDEIRA: I agree with this and I was thinking I have to be a fan of Richard Wagner and he has his hero who's supposed to be the the idiot hero who knows no fear. Now I don't want to call it, but the idea of a naive hero who knows no fear and so a lot of people credit Thunberg has been put into that role of the classic naive hero who is fearless in her pursuit of her goals and so she is filling a mythic role for a lot of people I believe.

MG: Katharine Hayhoe, what do you make of that?

KATHARINE HAYHOE: Well I find it fascinating that he used that language because I run to quite a bit of that. The first time I was ever shamed and I actually get it quite a bit now. If I mentioned I'm going anywhere someone immediately says well you know are you going there on your solar panel car? And I do have a solar panel car that I live six hours from anywhere. The first time I was shamed was by somebody who we were sitting at a meeting talking about how to bring this message to faith based groups and somebody turned to me and they said you know every time you turn on your car, you're sinning. And I remember that vividly because my visceral reaction to somebody saying that to me was oh so when I take my child to the doctor, you're saying I'm sinning? When I go to work to support my family I'm sinning? And that shaming made me want to just go out and find a Hummer and drive circles around that person because they were telling me that my life is sinning. And so that's why I just don't think shaming works that well, but focussing on the companies, the industry, the big emitters, that are not only responsible for keeping us addicted to fossil fuels, but actually actively invest in PR to confuse the issue that type of shaming I think can and should be effective.

MG: So in the last couple of minutes that we have, I mean pick up on this Katharine. How do you go about better meeting as Ken was saying the people where they are and not making people feel terrible for the choices that they make, but helping them understand that those choices can actually help you know improve the outcome of the environment.

KATHARINE HAYHOE: When we have a conversation the most important thing to do is to begin that conversation with what we most agree about, rather than what we most disagree about. So whether we both enjoy going to the cottage, whether we're worried about who to vote for in the upcoming elections, whether we think about our kids or the place where we live. Talk about values that we share. Connect the dots to how that matters to climate and how that affects us and then talk about positive solutions that we can get on board with that make our lives better.

MG: Ryan?

RYAN KATZ-ROSENE: Yeah I mean just going back to the previous point, I think it was Michael Mann who was pointing out a similar thing. You know there it becomes a danger when this becomes a fixation. You know again it turns into people just trying to prove that they have these environmental credentials. but again that's ultimately you know that that's one part of the story. I think ultimately there is a value and there is a connection between individual and collective skill action and there's a value in taking these individual actions in terms of you know signalling that climate change is an urgent priority. There's a credibility issue with those of us who are involved in the environmental sphere and you know making sure that the research shows that there is a change in the sort of perceived credibility of a intellectual if they're producing an impact and not walking the walk so to speak. So I think there's a value in doing that.

MG: Ken in the last few seconds that we have, I mean you started up by talking about the flight that you took. Do you feel bad about that flight?

KEN CALDEIRA: No I think there is an effort to make this into a morality play about good and evil and there is some morality overlay, but really there's some good hard policy decisions that need to be made and some infrastructure that needs to be built on the ground. You know we need a good transportation system and electricity and you just need to set about building what we need to build.

MG: Can a conversation like this help that happen?

KEN CALDEIRA: I think Greta bringing the climate change question into public discourse and having programs like this is helpful.

MG: It's great to talk to you all about this. We will follow her trip across the ocean and thank you for joining us.

KATHARINE HAYHOE: Thank you.

RYAN KATZ-ROSENE: Thank you very much.

KEN CALDEIRA: Thank you.

MG: Katharine Hayhoe is a Canadian climate scientist teaches at Texas Tech University. She was in Lubbock, Texas. Ken Caldeira, climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology. He was in Stanford, California. And Ryan Katz-Rosene, professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa, president as well of the Environmental Studies Association of Canada, he was in Ottawa. Your thoughts on this welcome. You can reach us through the website cbc.ca/thecurrent or on Twitter@TheCurrentCBC. CBC News is next. And then Episode 6 of the CBC original podcast, Finding Cleo. Our reporter Connie Walker discovers how Cleo died and goes back to the Little Pine First Nation in Saskatchewan where young Cleo's story really began. That's coming up. I'm Matt Galloway. This is the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo - Episode 6

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway the CBC original podcast, Finding Cleo is all about a family's desperate search to find out what happened to their sibling Cleo Semaganis, a Cree girl from Saskatchewan. The family lost track of her after she was adopted by an American family in the 1970s and they thought that she died trying to hitchhike back home from Arkansas. In today's episode, host Connie Walker, returns to a world far from where Cleo died, back to the Little Pine First Nation. But first, we're back with Connie on the doorstep of Cleo's adoptive mother. Here's Episode 6 of Finding Cleo, Little Pine.

SOUNDCLIP

[eerie music]

[car door shuts]

Marnie: Are you okay?

Marnie: Hold on a minute, we’re just going to pull around the corner and reposition, okay?

Marnie: Are you okay?

Marnie: I’m assuming we’re driving away, right?

Marnie: She took her life.

[solemn music]

We finally know where Cleo is and how she died. But my conversation with Mrs. Madonia makes me realize that this story is far from over. Why did she do it? What happened in the weeks, months, and years before Cleo died that lead to her feeling so hopeless? Mrs. Madonia said that the way Cleo was taken from her biological mother was very traumatic and difficult for her to overcome.

Marnie: She knew Johnny was there?

Connie: But the agency refused.

Connie: Yeah, it’s just, just heartbreaking to imagine they could have reconnected in their new lives and somehow, that could have been the support they both needed.

Marnie: Oh my goodness, how did she seem? Like, was she shaken talking about it?

because it sounds like she thinks that Cleo was just unlucky, that the trauma she went through that may have contributed to her death was accidental. I’m not suggesting she’s wrong. She obviously knew her daughter Cleo and what she went through before she died. But I wonder if it’s much more complicated than even she realizes. Because Cleo’s death is not an anomaly. Death by suicide is an all too common outcome for children who were taken during the Sixties Scoop. I don’t fault Mrs. Madonia if she doesn’t know the truth about Canadian history. She may not know how tragically predictable her daughter’s life and death were. What happened to Cleo, what happened to Johnny, what happened to April, Annette, Mark and Christine, wasn’t a matter of luck. Instead, their devastating experiences as children, as adoptees, are echoed in Indigenous communities across the country. Some say these tragic experiences are a direct result of a system designed to "deal with the Indian problem" in Canada. First in residential schools, then in the Sixties Scoop. A system of oppression that many say continues to fail some of the most vulnerable people in Canadian society: Indigenous children. Children who are more than twice as likely as other Canadian children to live in poverty. Children who are four times more likely to become involved in the child welfare system. Children, who are seven times more likely to take their own lives. We now know that Cleo's death was a suicide, not murder. But we still don't know why. What led a 13-year-old girl to take her own life? Who is accountable for her death? Why were Cleo and all of her siblings taken from their biological mother in the first place? To find out the truth, we need to go back to the beginning: back to where it all began. Back to Little Pine, Saskatchewan.

Connie: It’s a few weeks later and Marnie and I are back on the road, somewhere quite different than the urban sprawl of Marlton, New Jersey. We’re in rural Saskatchewan on a gravel road that leads to the Little Pine First Nation.

Connie: This Cree community is where Cleo was from, and some of her family is still here. We’re here to find out as much about Cleo’s early life as we possibly can. Right now, we’re looking for the school, because we’re late for a meeting with the Chief. We brought a camera guy with us. Don is from Saskatchewan, but he doesn’t know his way around the reserve, either.

Man: Follow this road. You see buildings over here. School there.

Don: Thank you.

Connie: A few minutes later, we arrive at a building that looks like the school. But school is out and the parking lot is empty.

Connie: Next door to the school is a trailer and a few houses. The man with the weedwhacker is working on the lawns out front.

Connie: I’ll ask here. We’re looking for Wayne? Is he here? We're looking for Wayne.

Connie: What is this here?

Connie: It’s a gorgeous summer day. The sun is shining, the grass is green, and the big prairie sky is bright blue, dotted with white fluffy clouds. I’m from Saskatchewan so maybe I’m biased, but it’s beautiful here. Little Pine looks like a lot like my reserve. Actually, it looks like a lot of the reserves I’ve been to in Saskatchewan. Dusty gravel roads, small prefab houses, and a few trailers. One of those trailers is a makeshift band office, a temporary shelter while the new one is being built. We’re outside only a few minutes when a black truck pulls up.

Wayne: Good morning.

Wayne: Nice to meet you.

Marnie: Hi Gavin, nice to meet you.

Gavin: Good.

Gavin: No, I like the noise here!

Connie: Can I ride with you in your truck?

Connie: Wayne isn’t just the Chief on Little Pine, he’s also related to Cleo and her siblings. He’s her first cousin and they grew up together here on the reserve.

Connie: So I don't think I've ever been to Little Pine before.

Connie: Okanese.

Connie: Way down south.

Connie: My dad is Howard Cameron, I don't know if you guys knew him.

Connie: Really?

Gavin: Oh you’re close eh?

Gavin: Oh man, it’s crooked.

[laughing]

Man: I suppose you don't talk Cree either, eh?

Man: Oh, yeah.

Connie: Can I come in?

Connie: Oh…

Man: That's Curtis.

Paul: Paul.

Earl: His Cree name is Wapokswis. It means mouse.

Connie: So do you guys all speak Cree?

Wayne: If Alex comes here, yeah. [speaking in Cree]

Wayne: A lot of the things that people talk about is going to be hurtful emotionally, harmful, I just want them to let it go in a good way so that there's no negative effect after, so just ask the grandfathers to help ‘em, that they heal, that uh you know…[fades out]

Wayne: Then you'll know what gives us strength you know, what gives us purpose. What it is that First Nations people hang onto that we don't want to become brown white men. There is a reason you know, and it's a god given reason, and we hang onto that, so for you to do your series, and you'll have a better understanding of what we have and we want to keep. And we understand you well enough, but nobody's ever turned around and tried to understand us, so it's, understanding has to go both ways.

Connie: Gavin is an elder in the community, but he’s also kind of like the community’s historian.

Gavin: Yeah, I knew Lillian, I knew Samson, I knew the girls. Samson is in Pennsylvania, last time I talked to Samson was 1981.

Connie: Gavin’s lived here forever and he knows all of the families and a lot of the secrets. We’ve been wondering for months about Cleo’s biological father, so we ask Gavin what he knows about it.

[poignant music]

Gavin: He's still around.

Wayne: Oh, Alex is here! He's the one who's going to do the pipe ceremony. We'll sit with them, come and I'll introduce you.

[men talking in Cree]

Connie: Nice to meet you.

Wayne: Alex is my uncle, I had asked him to come here and come and pray with us. So I had asked them to bring his pipe, but the boys are going to make a fire first, so we’ll have some coal here.

[men speaking in Cree]

Connie: It’s so nice to be here. We smudge and the smell of the sweetgrass reminds me of growing up on my reserve. Of spending time at feasts and pow wows.

Connie: Wayne is telling Alex that he just went to visit his Aunt Annabelle. Annabelle, or Marlene as she’s sometimes called, is Lillian’s sister. We heard that she got a letter from Cleo after she was adopted, begging to come get her. I’m disappointed to hear that she doesn’t want to talk to us.

Connie: I forgot how much I missed hearing Cree. I think about Cleo. This is the language she grew up hearing and speaking. Did she miss it when she moved away? Did she miss the culture? Her family? The community she lost? Is that why she took her own life? I can’t help but wonder what would Cleo’s life have been like if she never left Little Pine. Would she still be here, speaking Cree with her cousin Wayne? I think about Cleo’s siblings and I also think of their mother, Lillian. I want to know what happened to Lillian. Why were all of her children taken away? What happened to her after they were gone? I hope Wayne will help fill in some of those answers.

Alex: We're praying that things will be better for our young people, that things will be better for your people, that we'll understand each other. I'd like to be able to walk into Cut Knife restaurant and not experience any racism towards me, but we all know that racism is alive and well. And we need to educate each other as to how to stop that, and that's what I'll be praying for when I lift the pipe here, that real reconciliation will take place. Okay. That’s good.

[silence, followed by birds chirping]

Wayne: Used to set snares all over there and go for them. First thing in the morning before you go to the school, before you even eat, you've got to run and get the rabbit snares.

Johnny: I always tell people first eight years of my life I was Indian, lived on the reservation. Food was pouring water down one hole and getting the gopher on the other end, and that was lunch, you know. Snaring rabbits. We ate it and everything, that's what we had in the morning and the evening, it was food.

Wayne: Cleo was a little bit younger, but she played more with my sister.

Wayne: She was just like all of us. Laughing, friendly, always outgoing. But she was three years younger, I think, or three and a half years younger. So she played with my sister more, 'cause us boys were already out there doing horseback, going swimming, rafting on the river, so it was different for them. But you know - she was a part of the family.

Wayne: We lived in Paynton quite a bit, for a while. At least two, three years that I remember.

Wayne: Quite a bit of the time. They were there quite a bit of the time, and my grandma looked after all of us. It was a really good - living with my grandmother was nice. It was a very good, safe home. She was very loving, very capable. We were never mad that we were so crowded, we were just happy, just happy being around our grandmother because she was everything to us. We never - we were never hungry. And we never felt afraid or unwanted.

Connie: Your grandmother.

Wayne: Yeah. They just pushed her out of the way. And they just took off in the cars. But it was very, very scary. You know? [sniffs with emotion] My grandmother, she cried lots that day. And I remember standing upstairs at the window because they just left, and all you hear is car doors slamming and I was sitting at the window and all I could see is Cleo looking back and crying, and away they went, I never saw them again.

Wayne: Yeah, yeah, because it was the same thing with her, what do you do when complete strangers come and grab you, throw you in a car, and push your grandma out of the way, and they take you away? Like imagine them, they were younger, this is all they've ever known. It's just, just not, I could never understand how such a thing could happen Especially in such a nice safe home which my grandmother always gave us, why was it necessary to take her grandchildren away from her?

Wayne: That's all I ever heard was that she had been killed. And then to find out that they've asked for information and that they're not given information - I don't know what kind of law that is that makes that happen. Even criminals in jail, when they die, the family gets to hear what happened to them and how they died. But for some reason, Indians don't even have a right to know how their relative died or where they were buried or what happened.

Connie: Do - I mean, is it okay if I'm the person that tells you, or -

Connie: Well, she told us that she took her own life. She was 13.

Connie: Do you wanna take a minute?

Connie: I can only imagine what Cleo’s family feels when they hear this news. It’s shocking and there is so much we don’t know. What led Cleo to take such a drastic step? Her friends in New Jersey didn’t give any indication that she was unhappy. In fact, they said the opposite. Was any part of the story her biological family heard true? We are still hoping to see what's in that thick police report into her death. But for now, Wayne wants to show us how Cleo lived and takes us on a tour of Little Pine.

Wayne: Yup, this is where our house used to be, right here. The old grey house.

Wayne: Down here is David’s beach. There’s a river that goes right down there.

Connie: Oh yeah!

Connie: It’s obvious that Wayne loves this community. And now that he knows the truth about Cleo, Wayne seems even more determined that Johnny, or Sammy, should come home.

Connie: I hear the emotion in Wayne’s voice and I think of Johnny, Christine, even Mrs. Madonia. In our pursuit of the truth about Cleo, we’ve unearthed so many painful memories for so many people. So I ask Wayne a question I’ve struggled with in all of my reporting about our communities.

Wayne: It's important. For the brothers and sisters that are left, they need to know. They need to know. But they also need to hear from us. They're not gonna find those answers out there, they're not gonna find those answers with their adopted family. The things that are troubling them are from their original family they were born into, and they need to come back for that. The very bottom line is they need to know that we miss them over here, that we love them over here, that we care for them. That's their greatest fear - why was I out here? Maybe I wasn't wanted over there. That's their biggest fear. That's why Sammy's staying in Pennsylvania. He's afraid to come home and find out that he was right. That's the biggest fear. That nobody cared for him, nobody loved him, his biggest fear is to find out that what he's been told and what he's believed all his life is true. And it's not true. [long pause] I need him to come home.

Connie: We started this podcast with a Cree phrase: Kikway ka-akawatamihk. It means longing and wishing for. Spending time with Wayne makes me realize it wasn’t just the ones who went away who were left longing. Wayne wants so badly for Johnny to come back to Saskatchewan, but every time we broach the subject with him, Johnny is adamant. He doesn’t want to go back.

But he’s still nostalgic about his childhood home.

Connie: Did you recognize it?

Connie: Like when you when you were adopted or when you were in foster homes, you would send mail home?

Connie: Johnny has told us about some of what he went through as a child, but I don’t fully understand how difficult it was for him until I read his ward file. The ward file is that record kept by Social Services. It outlines every interaction they have with families and children. Johnny requested his from the Saskatchewan government a few months ago. When it arrives in the mail, he sends us a copy of it and says it’s okay for us to share. The file is huge: it’s 75 pages long. It’s been redacted to protect the identities of his immediate family, so about half of the pages are just blank. But even so, it is incredibly detailed and gives us such insight into Johnny and Cleo’s childhood.

Male Voice: Johnny Samson was born on December 11, 1961 at Maidstone, Saskatchewan. He is of Indian racial origin and Protestant religion. He weighed 8 lbs 14 oz at birth and developed at a normal rate.

Male Voice: Of Cree origin, she completed grade eight in school. She is five feet seven inches tall, weighs 130 pounds with brown hair, brown eyes, and an olive complexion. She is quite neat, attractive woman and was known to be a bright person intellectually. Her interests are beadwork, sewing, swimming, reading.

Connie: The file says that in 1967, Lillian voluntarily asked Social Services to take her children. They weren’t taken because of blue birthmarks. They were first taken because Lillian needed help.

Connie: It doesn’t say for how long her kids were in care or when they were returned to her.

Connie: Lillian was 17 when Johnny was born. By the age of 23, she was a single mother with three kids and another one on the way.

Male Voice: The children…

Male Voice: ..were apprehended from their home on above date. Recording outlining reasons and circumstances of the situation will be forthcoming from protection worker.

Male Voice: Complaints regarding the neglect of the children, lack of parental controls, irregular school attendance. Mother caring for children... tense, nervous and hostile feelings towards children.

Female Voice: Though she loved all her children very much, she gradually began to realize that a family of [muted] children was more than she could care for. She frequently absented herself from home, leaving the children either by themselves or with relatives.

Male Voice: ..is in good general health but had a four day observation period in hospital for depression prior to Crystal’s birth in 1971.

Connie: Lillian was told...

Connie: And she said...

Connie: She would be there to pick up her children immediately.

[pause]

Johnny: I was put in charge and she'd go out drinking, and she never came back most of the time. When I was younger, I didn't realize, you know, it was a problem she had. That's why we never got along. So I have no reason to go back, anyway. But I do miss my grandma, that's most thing. She was always there for us.

Johnny: Yeah, at the time I didn't know, I was just doing what I was told. But you know when you're that young, you don't realize. I didn't know any better, I guess.

Connie: Johnny says that if his mother was gone for too long, he would go out and try to find her.

Johnny: To see if she was ever coming back. I mean, when you're feeding the kids and changing the kids' diapers and stuff, and I mean, you want her to come back. I knew where she went, but she never. You just don't think at the time that your mother doesn't love you and she has more important things to do than take care of the kids. But like I said, I come to grips with it.

Johnny: She was.. I know she was afraid ‘cause I'd leave her there in the middle of the night like my mother did and I felt bad. But I always came back.

Johnny: Yeah. I always came back. Without my mother.

Johnny: I don't know if you're familiar with North Battleford, South Battleford, there's a bridge you got to go across the Saskatchewan River. And I'd have to… I'd go at night time, so there's nobody there anyway. I'd find her and she'd be drinking and she wouldn't come back till the next day.

Connie: I didn’t really understand Johnny when he said that he wanted to be adopted or that he didn’t mind being in foster homes until I’m at the bridge that he walked across looking for his mother. It’s an old iron bridge. It runs about a kilometre across the North Saskatchewan River from South Battleford to North Battleford.

Connie: It’s closed to vehicles now, but walking across the bridge, I imagine a little boy out here at night in the winter looking for his mother. And I understand why Johnny was glad to leave and why he’s so reluctant to come back.

Connie: I’m amazed by Johnny. He has incredible strength and resilience to endure such a difficult childhood.

Connie: I can’t help but wonder how Lillian’s time in residential school affected her as a parent. We don’t know much about her experience, but Christine is trying to get her records. We’re hoping that they will help us understand more about what was going on in her life before her children were taken for the last time.

Connie: Johnny’s ward file describes the day that he and Cleo and all of their siblings went to the courthouse in North Battleford. The day they were all made permanent wards of the Province of Saskatchewan

Connie: Wayne wonders if Lillian actually knew what would happen when she asked the government for help. Did Lillian understand that when they became permanent wards, her children would be put up for adoption and she would lose them forever?

Connie: Johnny’s ward file continues documenting his life in various foster homes while waiting for an adoption. The social workers note that he asks about his siblings, but it doesn’t say he gets to see any of them until June of 1974.

Connie: Her name is blacked out in the file, but Johnny says it was Cleo. It was one of the last times he saw her.

Connie: Learning more about what they endured together as children reminds me of the promise Johnny made to Cleo the last time he saw her. She was crying and upset and he told her he would find her. I can't help but think of what Mrs. Madonia said about how she tried to connect Cleo with Johnny.

MG: We've been listening to episode six of the CBC original podcast, Finding Cleo, hosted by CBC reporter Connie Walker. Cleo's story continues on tomorrow's summer edition of The Current.

[Music]

MG: Well that's our program for today. Stay tuned to CBC Radio One for Q. Gurinder Chadha is a very successful filmmaker. She has a couple of films of note. One is Bride and Prejudice, the other Bend It Like Beckham, which got an entire generation of young girls interested in playing soccer. What you may not know about Gurinder Chadha is that she's a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. Her new film is called Blinded By The Light. It opened this past weekend and it is about a British Pakistani teenager, grows up in an area just outside of London and discovers the boss's music and discovers himself along the way. Bruce Springsteen himself saw this film and said I love it. Change nothing. Gurinder Chadha will speak with Ali Hassan on Q about making this film and the importance of seeing South Asian stories told on the big screen. That is coming up next on CBC Radio One on Q. My name's Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

[Music: Theme]

Aug. 19, 2019 episode transcript

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