The provinces' latest COVID-19 measures

Guests: Marie Vastel, Robert Benzie, Murray Mandryk

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Canadians have stepped up themselves to one of the highest rates of vaccination in the world, and for people who continue to hesitate or to choose not to get vaccinated, they are losing privileges to do certain things at the provincial levels. They're looking at measures that will work for them. This Quebec proposal is something that obviously everyone is is paying attention to right now, but there are still many details to know and how it balances the values and the necessity of keeping people safe.

MG: That's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday, a day after Quebec announced it would tax those who refused to be vaccinated against COVID 19 for non-medical reasons as this pandemic crashes into its third year. Some provinces are considering new and controversial ways to contain the virus. Others are facing criticism for failing to adapt. And increasingly, it's not only premiers coming under scrutiny for those decisions, but in several cases their chief medical officers of health as well. Our national affairs panel is back to talk about politics, science and public trust. Marie Vastel , parliamentary reporter for Le Devoir, is in Ottawa. Robert Benzie, Queen's Park bureau chief for the Toronto Star, joins us. And Murray Mandryk is the political columnist with the Regina Leader Post. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Morning. Good morning. Maori Vestal. The prime minister was not particularly definitive when he was asked about Quebec's plan to tax the unvaccinated. What do you make of that?

MARIE VASTEL: Yeah, I thought, not surprisingly, he was very prudent, insisting that he. He's waiting for the details and to make sure that it respects the Canada Health Act, but he also, I thought, essentially endorsed what he called strong measures to encourage vaccination at every occasion, at every question he was asked. He repeated what his government did federally by imposing vaccination for the public service for people travelling on trains or planes. And he pretty much went as far as saying he doesn't oppose in French. He does say he doesn't oppose those strong measures to encourage vaccinations. Let's not forget on Friday, last Friday, his Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, said he believed that all the provinces would get there one day. In in talking about mandatory vaccination, so I thought it was quite striking that the prime minister actually got very close to endorsing the principle of what Quebec is proposing. Obviously, we'll have to wait for further questions arise. But he certainly didn't seem to object the principle, and he was also, not surprisingly, probably immediately criticised for it. In English Canada.

MG: Murray Mandryk Saskatchewan is near the bottom compared to other provinces and territories, according to CBC's vaccine tracker, just slightly ahead of Alberta and Nunavut when it comes to COVID 19 vaccinations. How do you think an idea like Premier Legault's would go over in Saskatchewan?

MURRAY MANDRYK: Oddly enough, it's been rejected here, and I say that because despite this being the birth place of Medicare, which I'm sure you've heard a zillion times this government doesn't subscribe is a very conservative government to the principles is much. They've certainly talked about privatising certain aspects of health care just to simply catch up with the backlog of surgical waiting lists that have been caused by the pandemic and other matters. But oddly enough, Premier Scott Moe, who incidentally now has called it, has basically rejected the idea outright, saying that they don't believe that people should in any way be prohibited or barred from health services based on their vaccine status. One suspects strongly because of Premier Scott most previous positions that this is simply because he is sending a message to those that aren't vaccinated. We have not been hard on those that are not vaccinated. As a matter of fact, Premier Scott Moe met with groups that promote the notions of not getting vaccinated for an hour. He's been criticised for that. So, but oddly enough in terms of this, despite the controversy over whether it breaches the Canada Health Act, I believe it does. Premier Scott Moe is basically saying, No, we're not going to allow this level of privatisation or anything that breaches the Canada Health Act anyway.

MG: Rob Benzie 85 percent of Quebec growers have already had one dose of the COVID 19 vaccine. As you watch from Ontario, and we'll ask you what Ontario in a moment, but do you think an idea like this is actually going to help when it comes to boosting vaccination rates in Quebec? Or is this just the premier in the year of an election playing politics?

ROBERT BENZIE: I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, it will encourage some people not to get vaccinated just as Quebec's proposal to have. Show your vax pass to get to buy liquor or cannabis in a government store in that province led to a little bit of an increase in in first doses of people getting their shots. So I mean, it's, you know, it's the carrot and the stick approach. The problem is that I'm not sure that there are there are going to be people that are just not going to get vaccines. So telling them that you're going to be punitive isn't isn't necessarily going to drag them to vaccine clinics. And the problems that Quebec and every other province in the country is having right now with Omicron are not just because a very, very small minority of people aren't vaccinated. I mean, I still think that you would have problems at at hospitals if that remaining 15 percent had had their shots. I mean, it's because vaccinated people can can get this too. Obviously, it's less serious consequences, and they are for sure, over overrepresented. But I just think you have to look at the Pandora's box that this opens because remember, the Canada Health Act, one of the key five principles of it is universality and accessibility. And if you make it so that some people can't afford it, that's opening the door to two tier health care in this province. I think that's one of the unintended consequences of the cheerleaders of this proposal haven't maybe considered.

MG: Could you ever imagine a premier Ford in Ontario opening that Pandora's box?

ROBERT BENZIE: Well, no, he rejected it. When we asked him about it two days ago, he said that that's not something that we're going to do.

MG: And he also rejected the idea of vaccine passports.

ROBERT BENZIE: Yeah, and then and then he was dragged to having one. Yes, that's true. It's not a political issue. The same in Ontario that isn't Quebec vaccination. I mean, all three major party leaders new democratic. Leader Andrea Horwath and Liberal leader Steven Del Duca immediately denounced Legault's proposal because they are worried about the two tier health care, you know, opening a crack to saying, Well, let's just have private clinics that do this are private clinics that do that. It's just we already have some private elements in medicine in Ontario and in Quebec. I don't know if that if there's an appetite for Tav even further privatisation.

MG: Marie Vastel.

MARIE VASTEL: I want to clarify that is the Quebec proposal isn't about charging people when they go to hospital because they have COVID or are charging access to health care. It's about well, in a way, but it's about adding a levy, perhaps a tax time for people who are not vaccinated. I'm not. I'm not saying one is good or the other is that, and I will let experts say it that respects the carbon tax or the charter, but I just want to clarify essentially what is being proposed.

MG: Fair enough. Now the announcement came Marie Vastel at a time when we saw the face in some ways of public health in that province. Dr. Arruda, out of a job, at least out of that public facing job, there's some debate as to whether he resigned or whether he was pushed. What sort of pressure was he under?

MARIE VASTEL: He was under a lot of growing pressure, the government was being asked fairly regularly before before Christmas if he had lost control of the pandemic, and it's actually interesting because Dr. Arruda predicted this two years ago when people were were, you know, embracing him and talking about his Portuguese tarts and really falling in love with this doctor, the scientist, he said. You know, as as quick as you rise, the fall will be just as fast, and that's what happened. I think three things happened for Dr. Arruda. He he changed positions on a few issues, like rapid tests like masks. In his defence, so did public health officials everywhere else in the country or in the world with evolving science. He also was accused of being too seen as too close to the government before Christmas. Because some will remember Premier Legault came out in a press conference saying he was hoping for 20 25 people get together for Christmas time. And a few days later, Dr. Arruda seemed to sort of submit and agree with that. But I think also, unfortunately for him, he was. He's colourful, he's charismatic, and he became so such the faces. As you see the pandemic fit, his personality made him a good scapegoat for what I do believe is a government who was worried. Seeing that they are their support is slipping. Not a lot. Jason Kenney would be jealous of premium support, but slipping a little bit in the polls and support for sanitary measures is also slipping. So a good scapegoat for a government whose only eight months away from an election. And I think that played a big, big part in Dr. Arruda departure.

MG: Murray Mandryk, how concerned in Saskatchewan are people about Dr. Saqib Shahab, who's the chief medical officer of health? He has also steered that province through the pandemic. Do people in that province have have confidence in him given where Saskatchewan is at this point?

MURRAY MANDRYK: That was a really interesting observation by Marie. I thought in terms of medical health officers rising and falling because I think the same thing has happened here. Dr. Shahab is very low key, very likeable man, just an absolute sweetheart of a guy, if you get to know him, a tireless worker has has endured all kinds of things that none of us would want to endure during this panic pandemic related to racism. Premier Scott Moe has supported him on that particular matter has been very hard. All that said, I think like the pandemic like that the variants themselves, people are getting sick of, of medical health officers to and from both sides of the spectrum. There's always those that have not been happy in this province. About Dr. Shahab promoting gatherings or promoting the smaller gatherings and and perhaps restrictive measures. But from the other side of the spectrum, there's been those who have been very angry that he's not been aggressive enough and has not been forceful enough with Premier Scott Moe. And oddly enough, I think there's cases to be made on both sides. He is a very low key guy, he said. His style is not to aggressively push. Sometimes he's wonderful for a clip, but generally not when he's sitting down next to the premier, saying that, no, we should not be having what we're doing right now. We should be having together at some level of gathering restrictions that don't exist in Saskatchewan. We're one of the few provinces where large crowds can still gather, and that's a particular point, and our cases are now starting to go through the roof on the Omicron variant. So he's being very much criticised for that at this particular moment.

MG: Robert. What about in Ontario? Dr. Kieran Moore, the chief medical officer of Health, arrived to a lot of people saying This is the guy that we need in this moment. This is the doctor that we need up front now. I mean, for what it's worth, he faces fierce criticism on Twitter. But from your perspective, are we seeing some politicisation in the way that public health decisions are being made or interpreted?

ROBERT BENZIE: I mean, I think, you know, to to Marie and Murray's point, there is always going to be a degree of that. I mean, remember here in Ontario, the chief medical officer of health, Dr. Moore is is a public servant. He works for the government of Ontario as in an advisory capacity. He's a bureaucrat. He's not a politician, not a political staffer. But he, Dr. Moore, is listened to by by Premier Doug Ford. I know that on pandemic Twitter. It's seen as a free for all, and that's just not true. It's it's the fact of the matter is the reason that we've done a lot of the things that we're doing is because Ford is listening to the doctors and there is for sure some ire at that within Mr. Ford's progressive Conservative Party in the public as well. You know, we we're in a lockdown right now in Ontario. You know, restaurants and gyms aren't allowed to have indoor services until at least January. Six yesterday, Dr. Moore said January 26 may not be an open [unintelligible] day, I guess you could say. And I think there's there's a lot of pushback from that, but we haven't heard anyone from the political side contradicting Dr. Moore. And we might, I don't know, but I know that on the school's reopening, which was quite controversial here, Matthew and I talked about it before on the schools we're supposed to open on January 3rd. Then it was moved by Dr. Moore with the Premier's endorsement to January 5th and then on January 3rd, the premier said no schools are now going to open as of next Monday, so we had a fortnight of virtual learning for kids and I remember in Ontario, kids have been in school online for 27 of the 97 weeks of the pandemic. That's the longest stretch of any jurisdiction in North America, and parents are at their wits end. Kids are at their wits end, teachers are at their wits end. So there's been a lot of pressure on the government that way. And and, you know, the mixed messages that that that Dr. Moore and Premier Ford, what people interpret as mixed messages from them have have taken a toll, for sure. I mean, I don't I don't know what's going to happen and we have an election in June in Ontario. I don't know if it's going to be two to Mary's point. Premier Ford would love to have the polling numbers that Premier Legault has right now, even though Ontario Ontario has had arguably a much better pandemic than Quebec in terms of death toll and curfews, we haven't had curfews, things like that.

MG: Marie Vestal is it is it unfair for critics to blame Dr. Arruda or Dr. Deena Hinshaw in Alberta or Dr. Bonnie Henry and British Columbia? All figures who were at the beginning of the pandemic very popular and now face a lot of criticism? Is it unfair to to criticise them rather than the premiers or other elected government officials who are the ones who are actually making those decisions?

MARIE VASTEL: Yeah, I mean, they are the ones invited advising the decision. So I imagine if you disagree with them, either because you find them too lax, it's because you find too strict. You will think it's legitimate to criticise them. But I think this all comes from this double role that that they are playing. Dr. Rouda was deputy ministers, so advising the government, but also the head of public health, a scientist, and he was sort of torn between those two roles. But you're right, these decisions are ultimately government decisions. They can or can refuse to to follow public health advice. But of course, I think governments removing public health officials are encouraging them to remove themselves, avoid AH, governments taking, blaming and and to to Robert's point, I'd be interested to see with the election coming up in Ontario faster than ours in Quebec. It's the state of Dr. Arruda might be an indication of what what could be to come in Ontario or even in Alberta. Let's not wish that on the doctor more. But I wonder if this this relationship between political and science advisor might get strained.

MG: As you said, the scapegoat.

MARIE VASTEL: Yeah, at least in provinces where we're heading into elections.

MG: Murray, what about you in Saskatchewan? I mean, there was no real delay in terms of school students went right back after the holiday break. Do parents, but also medical experts, have trust in what happened? And do they think that the measures were put in place to keep the classrooms safe given the rise in all the crime?

MURRAY MANDRYK: Well, that's an interesting question, because we really don't know. And you're right, there was not only the schools in Saskatchewan go back on the third or fourth, depending on the school system in Saskatchewan after the new year. But there was actually no plan in place which the education minister and the premier of the province are enduring significant criticism for sending kids back in school without really understanding what's going to happen. When you have a lot of teachers calling in sick, a lot of kids calling in sick, I have a kid in Grade 12 right now in high school. They no longer in this province, in this particular school and in schools across the province. Notify you on individual cases. They notify you per classroom. And I get that in our school, there's about 1600-1700 kids. There's going to be a lot of classrooms that are higher. And but there's just so many cases in in this school and in schools across the province. That's right now that they have to do that. So it's very worrisome for parents. We haven't had a good online component. I don't know if this is one of the areas in which the chief medical health officer is bearing blame, but certainly the government has received significant amount of criticism. That said, there's also been significant amount of criticism for the notion of kids having to stay home. It's not a popular idea in this particular province, and generally speaking, there's been widespread support for a lot of of the premier's measures. This one is is still up in the air as to whether there's going to be universal support for what we're doing for our school openings without without having really the proper things in place to make the kids safe.

MG: Rob Benzie, I guess in the last 90 seconds or so that we have, what is that balancing act look like then for premiers and medical off? A series of health to figure out the way forward as we go into year three of this pandemic with everything that is coming at them and the criticism that they're all facing, whether it's on social media or in the polling or beyond.

ROBERT BENZIE: You know, it's difficult. Canadians are frustrated as people around the world are frustrated. Sometimes we get so myopic here we don't realise that we're actually don't have it so bad. Canadians are more vaccinated than most other countries in the world. Our health system? Yes, it's under strain, but it has not collapsed the way we've seen in other parts of the world. But I think there is a fatigue. It's been twenty two twenty three months and people are fed up. They're sick of looking at politicians on TV, telling them that things are going to get better one day. Maybe, possibly. And and I think there also is a wariness of doctors, public health officials who have done their best. But to what Maori was saying earlier, things have evolved. Remember, it was don't wear masks now. You don't need to wear a mask. Now you wear a mask. Don't do this. Don't do that. I mean, people are just frustrated and fed up with all of the shifting changes. But I think we have to, as Canadians at some point realised this is not just happening here and we are more fortunate than many, many others and we will get through this. All pandemics end. And this one will end. And it may even be ending now with al-Omicron numbers here in Ontario and in Quebec seeming to have peaked. You know, I'm going to be optimistic. Matt, just because I just know any other despair I'd be, I'd be in the foetal position under my desk.

MG: What did you say? One day this will maybe end. Possibly?

ROBERT BENZIE: It will. It will.

MG: Fingers and toes crossed.

ROBERT BENZIE: All pandemics end

MG: It's great to speak with you all this morning. Thank you very much. Marie Vestal parliamentary reporter for Le Devoir. Robert Benzie, Queen's Park Bureau Chief for the Toronto Star. Murray Mandryk, political columnist for the Regina Leader. Post your thoughts on this as this drags on, is trust starting to erode? Do you have questions around trust when it comes to medical officers of health and or the politicians who execute the decisions that those medical officers of health perhaps recommend? You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca. The CBC News is next and then.

SOUNDCLIP

This is a crisis, right? This is a pandemic of violence against women. Helen is a symbol of that, but she's not the only one, unfortunately. So how do we get to the point where we have women in those unfortunate situations where they do not have to take the action that Helen herself?

MG: Helen Naslund sentenced to eight years for killing her abusive husband a court cut that sentence in half this week. We'll talk more about why some advocates say that's not enough. That's coming up.

Alberta top court slashes prison sentence for woman who killed abusive husband

Guests: Christina Fargou, Elizabeth Sheehy, Jan Reimer

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

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MG: Still to come, an American military plane with 44 people on board disappeared as it was flying over the Yukon in 1950. Families have never stopped looking for the wreckage and a new documentary is putting that search in the spotlight. We'll speak with the director of Sky Master down in about 30 minutes, but first, a divisive Alberta court decision.

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MG: Earlier this week in Alberta, Court of Appeal cut Helen Naslund sentence of eight years for manslaughter in half. Helen Naslund pled guilty to manslaughter in 2020 after killing her husband, Miles Naslund. This after suffering years of abuse at his hands. The judge called the initial sentence the result of quote outdated thinking. This is Helen Naslund, lawyer Mona Duckett speaking about her client after the court decision was announced.

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She was almost speechless in the sense that she had no idea of what to expect. She was obviously very, very grateful that the court had an understanding of the position in which she found herself. The unique circumstances of this case, I hope, will protect Miss Naslund from any further appeal, but equally, the strong language used by the court, I hope will endure to the benefit of all women who find themselves caught in the justice system after they have been in a battering relationship.

MG: Christina Frangou as an independent journalist who's been following this case and she joins me now. Christina, good morning.

CHRISTINA FRANGOU: Good morning, Matt, thank you

MG: for having me. Thanks for being here. You wrote an incredible piece about this in chatelaine. Take us back to the beginning. What was Helen's married life like with Miles Naslund?

CHRISTINA FRANGOU: Well, Helen married very young. They got she was 19 when they got married. They bought a farm. The farm was always a struggle for them financially. They had three three kids, three boys. Over the course of their marriage, Miles drank more and more. He acquired guns, and he often use them to threaten hell and the boys. He became quite violent to two Helen, and she would often he would push her use guns on her and she would have to step in between him and his sons. In one case, one of his sons, Miles, shoved his son's head into the windshield of a car, creating a hollow like a fishbowl. And Helen tried to get in his way. She weighed about 100 pounds. He was a foot taller, weighed nearly twice as much as she did. She became depressed. She even tried to leave once, but could not. She had, you know, poured her blood, sweat and tears into this farm. And I think that's one of the things that people have to think about when they when they look at this case. This was her home and this was her life.

MG: You learnt a lot of this by speaking with Wess, the oldest of their three boys. What did he tell you about? About the guns in the house.

CHRISTINA FRANGOU: So from the time he was in elementary school, he remembers his dad being drunk and walking around the house with a gun. And he'd often have one that he would sit in his recliner at night with his gun on his lap, and he would cock it and uncock it and cock it and uncock and use it, pull it out when someone wasn't following his orders. It was incredibly violent. Home neighbours stop coming over. They lived in quite isolation and people stayed away because of the violence in the home.

MG: As you mentioned, Helen tried to leave what happened when she tried to leave the home?

CHRISTINA FRANGOU: This was this was after Wess was 16 and his mom asked for his help to leave. He got the car ready. She was, she was sitting in the car with him when she went into to say something to his father. And when she came out, she was crying and she said, I can't go. He'll kill me.

MG: That's what Miles had said to Helen, that that if she tries to leave, he'll kill her.

CHRISTINA FRANGOU: Hm hmm.

MG: What happened on the weekend just before Helen shot Miles?

CHRISTINA FRANGOU: Well, this was the September Labour Day weekend, and it was always a really important weekend on the farm this time of year. This was sort of their annual measuring stick financially, the kind of work that they could get accomplished at this time. Helen had a job out of the house at an equipment rental company, and she worked there on the Saturday. She came home after her shift and Miles was drunk, and he ordered her and their youngest out into the field to finish the work. And she worked in the fields Saturday and again Sunday, and on Sunday, the tractor broke down. She came in and she told Miles what had happened, and he told her she would pay dearly and she threw a bunch of wrenches at her. Well, he went out to fix the tractor, she made dinner. He came in and flew into a rage and said the meal wasn't fit for a dog, and he pushed all the food and the cutlery and the glasses onto the floor. His rage sort of didn't end until he passed out that night, and after he fell asleep, Helen retrieved a gun that was kept in the farmhouse and shot him twice.

MG: What happened then?

CHRISTINA FRANGOU: Then Helen and one of their sons, Neil, pulled the body out. They put it in the toolbox, the kind of big toolbox that goes on the back of a truck. And they welded it shut. They dropped his body in a pond. They hid the guns. They took got borrowed an excavator for Helen's work, so they did it for work on the farm and they hid buried miles his car. They reported it to the police to say that Miles had gotten him his cavalier with his gun and driven away, and sort of suggested that he had taken his own life.

MG: People believed her when she said that, that he had just sort of up and left and disappeared.

CHRISTINA FRANGOU: Yes. Yes, they did.

MG: You mentioned the community and the fact that people were afraid of of the house and that they stayed away. How much did they know about the abuse that that the family suffered in that house?

CHRISTINA FRANGOU: It's it's hard to know how much people knew they did know there was a lot of violence. And one of the one of Helen's co-workers said to me that they they used to do deliveries to farms around the area and one of the other farmers said said, you know, everybody knew Helen just had it really rough.

MG: After her. Husband had died, Helen changed in some ways, right? She became in some ways the way that you describe it in the piece is a bit of a different person.

CHRISTINA FRANGOU: Well, she could go out of the house without someone asking questions of her in the court documents, she says when Miles was alive, she couldn't go anywhere without his permission other than work and even with work. There were times he would accuse her of infidelity. And so she and she so she could work in freedom. She got back into barrel racing, which is something she'd really love to do, and she did that early on in her marriage. But he made her give up all her horses. She really, she adores horses. She's a real, outdoorsy person.

MG: She was sentenced to 18 years, and that sentence, as we were saying, was cut in half. This week, we heard at the beginning of our conversation from her lawyer, Mona Duckett. What is Mona Duckett achieved here, do you think?

CHRISTINA FRANGOU: Well, the best description I have came from another lawyer who texted me that evening. The decision came out and she said, Miss Duckett has moved mountains.

MG: What does that say to you, knowing this case as well as you do?

CHRISTINA FRANGOU: This will make it very difficult for people to ignore the way abuse affects the woman. This decision forced people to acknowledge that a lifetime of abuse adds up and it affects the way a woman makes decisions. It means it sort of deals with that question of why didn't a woman leave, and that's that's not the right question, because a lot of times she can't.

MG: Christina, it's great to speak with you about this, thank you very much. Thank you, Matt. Christina Franco is an independent journalist who's been investigating the Helen Naslund case. She wrote about it for chatelaine. She is in Calgary. Helen Naslund case is, as Christina mentioned, being watched very closely by legal experts and advocates for victims of domestic violence. For more on that, I'm joined by Elizabeth Sheehy. She's a professor emerita of law at the University of Ottawa and the author of Defending Battered Women on Trial Lessons from the Transcripts. We're also joined by Jan Reimer, who is the executive director of the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters. Good morning to you, both.

ELIZABETH SHEEHY: Good morning.

MG: Elisabeth Sheehy, what is your reaction to the Court of Appeals decision in Alberta to cut the sentence of 18 years and half?

ELIZABETH SHEEHY: Well, I have I'm very happy with the decision. I think it's highly significant decision. I agree with Christina that Mona Ducat move mountains. She had to reach an incredibly high bar to overturn a sentence agreed to by both defence and crown and that bar. In fact, the sentence has to cause the reasonable observer to lose confidence in the justice system or be contrary to the public interest, so it's not easy to overturn a sentence that her own lawyer had agreed to. So it's a really significant decision both for Helen personally, but also for other abused women who face the criminal justice system.

MG: You use the word reasonable compared to similar cases is nine years reasonable considering the abuse that Helen Maslin experienced for close to 30 years in that relationship.

ELIZABETH SHEEHY: Well, nine years is certainly the outer limit of any sentence I've ever seen for an abused woman who pleads guilty to manslaughter. So even nine years is at the very highest end of the sentencing spectrum, I would say.

MG: Jan Reimer, the Alberta Court of Appeal judge, wrote in her decision that the 18 year sentence that was the initial sentence was the result of, in the judge's words, outdated thinking. What do you make of that?

JAN REIMER: Oh, absolutely. If people think of how you know, the justice that was looking at the case called it a kill, callous, cowardly act involving the victim. I mean, he was throwing wrenches at her. He was ordering around with a gun. He was doing this constantly. He was threatening the children. I mean, it really is outdated thinking this whole thing. Why doesn't she just leave? I mean, she lived on a farm where she's supposed to do run through fields. I mean, I think people really have to understand the dynamics of abuse. And I think this is, you know, with all the speakers, this is just a real hallmark of decision because so often women's needs and testimony is, you know, it's discounted, it's dismissed or it's discredited. It's never taken, you know, for what the real experience is. So it's really good to see that this is now part of it.

MG: Elisabeth Sheehy What is that outdated thinking as the appeal judge wrote?

ELIZABETH SHEEHY: Well, the idea that a woman can just leave is said to invoke stereotypes that battered women stay because the violence really can't be that bad or because they actually are masochistic and enjoy it. But at the same time, it ignores, you know, beyond reproducing stereotypes that idea that oh well, she should just leave, ignores the reality that that her husband was a highly dangerous individual. He was engaging in coercive control, which is a major risk factor for intimate partner femicide. And he also had already used escalating violence. He was using a gun, as has been mentioned in the house. And furthermore, separation leaving a violent man is the most dangerous thing a woman can do. And I'm not saying women shouldn't try to leave, but no one could just walk away from a man like that without expecting that he's coming after her or coming after her children. And I guess the last point I would make is that it also ignores the fact that leaving is not really possible. Once an abused woman has had children with the man, it's not possible. He will always have contact with those children and he will always be able to get to her at the same time because the man will have access to those children if she leaves. So it's just completely divorced from the actual reality of trying to leave a violent man to simply toss off. You know, she had other options

MG: when to come back to that other options thing, because that's that's something that was also raised in the initial ruling. Jan, from your work at the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters, how often do you hear stories like that of Helen as you've talked about the isolation? For example, tell me more about that.

JAN REIMER: Well, about and we're certainly seeing it play out during COVID as well. Why that's a key tactic of perpetrators is to isolate women from their family, their friends, their community and exercise that power and control, and it could become very, very dangerous for her. And also, you know, as was mentioned, because, you know, women are more likely to be killed if they say they're going to leave or after they leave, where they are looking over their shoulder forever once they leave an abusive relationship. So I think this whole thing, you know, he isolates her, he cuts her off. It's a very difficult way to then even reach out to family and friends. You know, you see women, you know, hiding in closets, trying to use their cell phone to contact help. They're monitoring their cars even on their phones. They're watching every move. And of course, when there's children, the courts also lean over backwards to give access to abusers with their children. So your dad can control her and abuse her through those children.

MG: What are the options that are available for women who live in those rural areas? When when, you can compare it to perhaps more more urban settings?

JAN REIMER: Well, I think it is reaching out for help whenever you can, but it's also incumbent upon, you know, family, friends, neighbours to start recognising what those signs of domestic violence are and offering support and help as well. It's never easy. Women have a lot of courage when they do leave. There is help available. But it's to leave safely, have a plan, not tell your perpetrator about that plan and work with, you know, your local women's shelter or other advocacy agencies to plan your living so you can live safely.

MG: But you said something at the beginning of our conversation, she lived on a farm. What was she supposed to do? Just walk through the fields?

JAN REIMER: Yeah, exactly. So it's it's not easy for women in rural women in particular, and we have a very high gun ownership here in Alberta as well. So no simple access for women at all in terms of, you know, planning how to leave. But and that's why it's so important for community as well to take a part in this and be observant. And you know, when violence does occur to call it out.

MG: Elizabeth Sheehy More than 30 years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada expanded self-defence for battered women who kill their abusers, saying that self-defence- that this was in some ways a legitimate extension of self-defence. Can you explain what that means for cases like this?

ELIZABETH SHEEHY: Well, for someone like Helen Naslund, it would. Had she gone to trial on self-defence, had she gone to trial for murder, she would have been able to argue self-defence. She would have been able to introduce evidence of battered woman syndrome so that the judge and jury could understand her experience through the lens of having experienced the culmination of 27 years of violence and threat. You know, in order to understand where she saw threat, that might not be apparent to the ordinary observer. Although I have to say any observer to this situation, I think, would be able to see the obvious threat that her husband posed on an ongoing basis. But also, our law of self-defence does not have an imminence requirement, which means that a person like Helen Naslund can still argue self-defence, even though she killed a man who was passed out so. Those are the ways in which self-defence is really available to someone like Helen, and it's still a huge risk to go to trial. A jury might decide nonetheless that she's not entitled to self-defence. But my experience, having read many, many transcripts of women's murder trials for killing abusers, indicates that juries in Canada are very sympathetic to abused women who kill, if they're allowed to hear the evidence about how she lived in captivity, her fear for her children, her efforts to try to protect herself or protect her children. Most juries are very compassionate when they actually get access to the evidence about what the woman has survived.

MG: Let me go back to something that you said earlier, and this is something that the judge who ruled in the initial case mentioned that judge use words like vulnerable to describe Helen's husband and said that Helen Maslin had, in the judge's word, other options. Do you see an issue with judges making those sorts of statements in a case like this given what the judge is- the needle that the judge is trying to thread.

ELIZABETH SHEEHY: Well, obviously the Alberta Court of Appeal had a lot of difficulty with those two statements to call a man like her husband a vulnerable victim. Yes, he was asleep, but other than that, he was in no way vulnerable. He was the aggressor and the dominant person who ruled that household with an iron fist and a gun. So to characterise her abuser as her vulnerable spouse is, is really to reverse the positions of the parties. And as I've already said, you know, by stating that she had other options is to suggest that she could have just walked out the door scot free and safely and protected herself and her children by doing so, which is far, far from the truth.

MG: We asked for comment from the Minister of Justice David Lametti. His spokesperson responded to say that they don't comment on specific cases, but sent a statement saying in part, We must continue to work to end gender based violence and continue to send a clear message to all survivors of sexual assault, domestic abuse and all Canadians that our justice system will serve them fairly and respectfully. Elizabeth, what needs to change in that justice system so that these types of cases where women like Helen are facing the justice system are dealt with differently and bring in their life experience going forward?

ELIZABETH SHEEHY: Well, two things that are extremely important are first, we need to get rid of the mandatory minimum sentence for murder. As long as we have a mandatory minimum sentence for murder, women like Helen Naslund are going to have to undergo extreme pressure to plead guilty to manslaughter even when they have a valid defence self-defence. And they ought to be going on trial. The mandatory minimum sentence for murder makes it a crushing risk to face the possibility of murder, a murder conviction and a mandatory life sentence. The second thing we ought to do is go back to Justice Judge Linda [unintelligilbe] self-defence review and adopt her recommendation. And one of her recommendations was that if a prosecutor is willing to accept the manslaughter guilty plea, then they should only charge at the level of manslaughter and not be charging someone like Helen Naslund with murder in the first place. And again, that is intended. Those are. That's another reform that would take the pressure off the woman to accept a manslaughter plea when really she ought to have the opportunity to go to trial and argue her self-defence case and have a jury of her peers listen to the evidence of what she endured and what she tried to escape from in her life.

MG: We're almost out of time, but do you see that discretion being applied in future in the wake of this ruling?

ELIZABETH SHEEHY: One can only hope.

MG: Jan Reimer for you, I mean, for the women that you work with and the women that are clients of the shelters that you helped coordinate, what is what is this ruling say to them, do you think?

JAN REIMER: Well, I think as you know, the justice system really has, you know, you know, give it a strong message. Justice Gourcuff comments like in terms of the outdated thinking and giving, I think more hope to women in the legal system that they actually have to consider, you know, the issues of domestic violence because it's often shunted aside and in many cases, the lawyers are telling women not even to raise it to, um, you know, not like Helen's case where it's a mother that well, actually once they are too, but also in many other cases, in child custody in particular, they're being told, just don't talk about it because they'll be worse off. So I think having this ruling and having I just have to actually deal with it is a really important step.

MG: You see the opportunity for the system to change coming out of this.

JAN REIMER: Recently, there's lots of opportunity for this system to change, and I hope this is one step forward.

MG: I appreciate speaking with you both this morning. Thank you very much. Elizabeth Sheehy, Professor Emerita of Law at the University of Ottawa. Jan Reimer is executive director of the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters. Your regional update is next and then after that.

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that was part of our our life growing up knowing about Joyce going missing. We just hope that one day they will find her, they will find the plane. So we all have closure.

MG: That plane was an American military aircraft. It disappeared, flying over the Yukon in 1950. Neither the plane nor the 44 people on board were ever seen again. A new documentary tells the story of over 70 years of time and money spent searching for answers. I'll speak with the director of that film coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

New documentary looks into plane that disappeared over Yukon in 1950; and Shawn Bath’s mission to clean up Newfoundland's harbours

Guests: Andrew Gregg, Shawn Bath

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current more than 70 years ago, a plane vanished over the Yukon. The aircraft and the 44 people on board were never found. Now, a new documentary is trying to unravel a Canadian aviation mystery and figure out how a plane that big can prove elusive for that long. Andrew Gregg is the director, writer and co-producer of Sky Master Down. Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW GREGG: Good morning, Matt. How are you?

MG: I'm well, let's begin at the beginning. The day is the 26th of January 1950. A flight takes off from Anchorage, Alaska. It's heading to Montana. What happens next?

ANDREW GREGG: Well, the way it was set up, they were following the Northwest staging route, which was essentially a highway through the sky that mirrored the Alaska Highway on the ground. And this is pre radar, so they had to check in every half hour to radio these little radio outposts on the ground all the way along the route. They checked into three or four in Alaska. No problems crossed into Canadian airspace, checked in with a real remote outpost called snag in the Yukon and after that were never heard from again. When they checked in, they didn't say anything was particularly wrong. They said there was a little bit of ice on the wings. They had a half hour after snag before they were supposed to check in at a shack. So in that half hour, something happened.

MG: Who's onboard this plane?

ANDREW GREGG: It is all military men and a military crew, all American. The only civilians were a woman named Joyce Aspie, who was travelling with her toddler, Victor, and she was pregnant. She was going down to see an obstetrician in Colorado.

MG: Can you describe what the plane would look like?

ANDREW GREGG: Yeah. If anybody is familiar with a DC3, it's like the bigger version of that. So four engines, the wingspan was 110 feet and had a 20 foot foot high tail. So this is a big plane with a lot of, you know, plenty of space for 44 people inside because it was carrying people and it wasn't pressurised, it couldn't fly any higher than 10000 feet. The mountains along the route, the northwest staging route, can get up as high as 7000 feet, but it was being used all the time, so it should have been clear sailing for them.

MG: Describe the terrain. This is one of the most beautiful things about this film is seeing the area that that this plane was meant to fly over, describe the terrain that they were flying over and where perhaps this plane has gone.

ANDREW GREGG: Well, The Terrain is some of the most beautiful country in the world. I think from a southern perspective or a city perspective, we would say that it's remote. But that area curiously has been travelled and crisscrossed by First Nations people, hunters, trappers, miners, geologists, hikers over the last 72 years. So there's sort of like three working theories about where the plane might have gone. One is that it's still somewhere along the flight path, maybe down in a ravine. But as I say, it's been so heavily travelled over the years that I'd be surprised if that's where it is. The second is that maybe it went into a lake and there's a lot of big lakes along the route. But in order to do that, to punch through January ice, which is very thick, the plane would have had to have been screaming fast and the noise would have been earth shattering, even even way out. In the middle of nowhere, somebody would have heard it. Also, in the spring, once some ice has melted, you would have seen a fuel slick on the on the on the surface of the lake. So that's probably not what happened. I think what happened is that the pilots thought they could do a bit of a shortcut, which apparently happened a lot and would have flown just to the south. It's the same. The last mountain range, nine of the top 10 tallest mountains in North America are in there, plus the largest glacier outside the poles. And I'm fearful that that's where it wound up back in there, that it's entombed in ice somewhere.

MG: At that time. I mean, how common was it for a plane to vanish?

ANDREW GREGG: Well, the Yukon has a database of over 500 known wrecks. A lot of that was because of the rush after in 1942 to defend Alaska from the Japanese who had attacked the Aleutian Islands. So there was a mad rush to build the Alaska Highway, but also to get planes up there. And you've got a lot of what they call green or inexperienced pilots ferrying planes up there, and a lot of them crashed. So this is a land, as I say, and as beautiful as the Yukon is, it's also a land of wreckage. But what's really interesting and frustrating is that of those five 000 plus air wrecks that we know of in the Yukon, four are unaccounted for and the Sky Master's one of them.

MG: What was the search like in the days after this plane vanished?

ANDREW GREGG: Well, there was at the same time they were starting up these military war games, Winter War Games in the Yukon, so there was already a lot of military people in the in the area. But they made the search more confusing. You've got the search going out, you've got and then you've got these war games going. On where people are parachuting or firing off flares. So other newcomers are phoning in saying, I think I saw something, I think I heard something. And all the search planes just head off willy nilly. So there wasn't really a plan. On top of that, they were using C-47s and C-54s. So big planes with porthole, a tiny porthole windows which tended to frost up and low slung winds. So you couldn't really get a good view out looking down. So the search went on for three weeks before they called it off. And four search planes crashed actually over the course of those four over the course of that time as well. So, you know, it was a bit of a disaster.

MG: This documentary features footage, as I mentioned from the area where the plane may have gone down, also conversations with some of the family members of the survivors. I want to play a little bit of this documentary. Take a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

I've gone through the hysterics and cried myself silly. My wife was seven months pregnant and because her health was not good in the Alaskan climate, she was going to Colorado to have her baby there. I was at the field to see her and Victor off. My last words to Joyce were, if you have to jump, give the baby to Sergeant Roy Jones. She said she would.

MG: Andrew Gregg, what are we hearing there?

ANDREW GREGG: That's an actor playing Robert S.P. Staff Sergeant Robert S.P. So Robert Spee was married to Joyce Aspie, the woman I mentioned before and the only woman on the plane. He actually took Joyce and his son, Victor, right to the aeroplane. And Sergeant Roy Jones was his best friend, and she said, he said, just make sure you sit next to him and they'll take care of you in case anything happens. It wasn't too long before they heard back in Anchorage at Elmendorf Air Force Base that the plane had gone missing. SP managed to get off on the first plane out of Anchorage to Whitehorse. I'm still not sure how he did it, and then he caught another smaller plane out to snag the last place to hear from the aeroplane, and he was going to go out and look for it himself. He ended up volunteering as a spotter on some search planes. Of course, they never found her, and SP kept looking for his wife and his son until the end of his days in the 60s until he died. He never, ever stopped looking.

MG: For more than a decade after.

ANDREW GREGG: Yeah. Two decades, almost two decades.

MG: Two decades. Why was this search called off? I mean, this is, as you mentioned, there were a number of planes that had gone down, but this is a large plane, 44 people on board. Why was the search finally ended?

ANDREW GREGG: Well, the the interesting thing is that the search wasn't in terms of the search report as the search was postponed as far as they were concerned because they said they're going to come back when the weather got better. They didn't. They just never went back again. The search came to an official end when another plane went down. It was a B-36 bomber, which was one of the biggest bombers ever built by the United States Air Force, and it was carrying a nuclear warhead with no plutonium in it. It was a training run down the West Coast and this plane caught on fire over the Gulf of Alaska. The crew jettisoned the the warhead and blew it up with conventional explosives in midair. And weirdly, all the all the crew got out, except for one. Weirdly enough, they kind of abandoned the plane mid-air and expected it to crash into the ocean. But it turned around and ended up on top of a mountain in northern B.C., where it sits today. But anyway, I digress. The point is that all the resources that we're going into look for the Sky Master were redirected to go, look for this lost nuke. So that was it. That was the end of it. And when you think about it, if you're the United States Air Force Northern Command in three weeks, you've lost six planes, you've lost up forty four people on one of them and you've lost a nuclear warhead. You'd want to just kind of put that behind you as fast as possible. And I think that I think I tend to think that's what happened.

MG: All these years later. How does this story end up in your lap?

ANDREW GREGG: I was up in the Yukon a couple of winters ago visiting some friends at Yukon Archaeology, and I saw this pile of crumpled metal on a shelf. And I said to the archaeologist, Kristen, whatt's what's that from? And he said all. We found it in the bush last year. We thought it was from the last guy, M. But it wasn't. And I said, What loss Guy M.? And that's what started it. That just started in a conversation on a show and tell and all. Almost four years later, we finally have a film out of it.

MG: And did you know much about about what was going on in these planes coming down in the north?

ANDREW GREGG: No, not a thing. I knew there were some plane crashes around, but and some of them are kind of famous, especially in the old bush, the bush flying days in the early days. But no, I knew nothing about this story. And I found out pretty quickly that most other people didn't know anything about it either. So our goal really is to get it back in the public eye and try to bring closure to the families. You'll see in the film that we interview several families, and for them, this is all still fresh. 72 years later, because they essentially have a big hole in their family law. You know, this is a this. It's generational, but still, at the same time, there's this big mystery at the core, and we're really hoping that this kind of gets us another search going to try to finally put this story to bed.

MG: Let's hear from one of those family members. This is Judy Jackson.

SOUNDCLIP

Mother was in Texas and guys came with caps under the arms to her door, and she knew immediately, you know, that he was gone. Of course, mother was pregnant with me. Daddy was lost January and I was born in May. I've heard people say all my life, You don't miss something you never had. But I've missed my father all my life.

MG: It's an amazing moment in the film when she says, People tell you you don't miss something you've never had and that she's missed her father her whole life. Tell me about Judy Jackson.

ANDREW GREGG: Yeah, Judy lives in southern Alabama now. She's married to a Vietnam and Korean War vet, and the both of them have done letter writing campaigns over the years. She actually holds up a form letter that she got back from the White House. They said, Well, they say no one gets left behind, and she goes, But that's not true. You know, if they do get left behind, a lot of people get left behind and they all feel kind of let down by their own government. They feel that, you know, if these people are going to go into the service of their country, that the least a government can do is go back, go and find the bodies and bring them home so they can have a proper burial. And Judy says later on that all she wants is something of her father that she can bury beside her mother. Her mother died without knowing what happened. And now, Judy, you know, she's in her mid 70s and, you know, she's not the youngest person. And the kids of these missing people are now getting a lot older, and they're worried that they're going to pass some of the closure, either.

MG: Tell me more about that. I mean, this is a tragedy that continues all these decades later, continues to impact these families and shape their lives in some way.

ANDREW GREGG: Yeah, yeah. It's like there was one fellow we talked to Larry Floyd in Detroit. He had two relatives on that plane, his uncle, Junior, and then he had his dad had a cousin on the plane as well. I mean, you know, these stories just keep pouring out and it's amazing. Like I say how fresh they are. You know the details. And it's unless they're talking amongst themselves. Like other other families that are involved with the crash or just within their family, they don't really bring it up. And this is why. You know, they were just ready to talk. Joyce Ashby's niece and nephew that you heard earlier, the ones with the Australian accents, I mean, they're just unbelievable and they were able to describe Joyce. They were able to tell me all about her. And so we get a good sense in the film of who these people were. And it's just really something to see again, how it's just a current part of so many family stories, even though it happened so long.

MG: It's I mean, it is. The story of the film is the story of the plane and what happened to the plane, but also the story of. We talk a lot about intergenerational trauma and generational grief, and in many ways that's what this is, right?

ANDREW GREGG: It is, too. But the other thing that the film is about and I really, really want to point out, there's still a small group of Yokuners in Whitehorse that are searching and they've never given up. And what I wanted to do as well in making this film is that those searchers in the families have never met each other and at least on screen, I can bring them together. But they it's amazing how every summer they're out there and their little [unintelligible] flying these grids along the flight path, trying to see if there's a glimpse of the aluminium or anything down there that can give them a clue and put them on the path to finding this thing.

MG: This story really got its its hooks into you surprised at how deep you got into this?

ANDREW GREGG: I guess so. I grew up around old planes, and I also you lived in the Yukon.

MG: I mean, that's just that's your father, right?

ANDREW GREGG: My father at the beginning.

MG: There's a little hint of that at the beginning. Tell me about him.

ANDREW GREGG: But yeah, he flew vintage tiger moth out of our cornfield and we were members of the Canadian warplane Heritage Nabhan. He actually was the one that helped get them there, Lancaster. So that stuff was around when I was growing up and and then the Yukon Connection. Having lived there, but also I go back a lot. And so those two things, I'm not surprised that got it. It sucks that me considering those two facts, but also, you know, in a in another time, I was very much involved in the Franklin expedition trying to find out what happened to that. So this reminds me of that. And that's the one thing about the Franklin expedition that somebody said to me once is if only one person had gotten out alive, just one person, then we would have known what happened. And it's the same here. If one person had walked out of wherever this plane went down, then it wouldn't be the mystery that it is, but they didn't. Everybody died. And yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's human nature. We want to solve this thing well,

MG: because it's hard to wrap your head around the fact that a plane that big with 44 people on it can just vanish and nobody knows what happened to it.

ANDREW GREGG: Well, and in the absence of facts, you get conspiracy theories and there are quite a few around this this crash. I saw one of them I heard once was that they were they were hijacked and taken to communist China, where they're being held in a prison camp, you know.

MG: Very much of the times, right?

ANDREW GREGG: Yeah, yeah. And then somebody else said that it flew into a black hole. There's all this stuff. And the problem is that when people post these theories online, the families see this stuff and and it gets confusing and it gets their hopes up. And then they realise that, you know, a black hole. No, it didn't fly inot a black hole. So it's it's it's frustrating in that sense that, you know, that people are going to fill in the blanks. But that's what happens. And the sooner we can find this thing, I think with the way that the climate is changing and the glaciers are melting, this is one of the only positives I can think of because the plane might. I think that's what's going to happen. The plane is going to melt out.

MG: Are you optimistic that I mean, I don't want to give anything away, but you don't find the plane at the end of the film. I think it's fair to say that's not a spoiler. I mean, it is...

ANDREW GREGG: No, no, not at all. Not at all.

MG: But are you optimistic that this plane will eventually be found?

ANDREW GREGG: Yes, very much so. I'm I'm looking into some news stories about some other wrecks that happened around the same time in Alaska. Same search, same sort of circumstances. And these planes are showing up because of the melting. So, yes, I think it will. I think it will turn up.

MG: And that would mean the world for those family members.

ANDREW GREGG: It would mean the world for a lot of people. Yeah, and it's another story put to bed.

MG: This is a fascinating film, and it's great to speak with you about it. I hope people have a look and you'll keep us posted. Of course, if you find something.

ANDREW GREGG: Yes, I will. You'll be. You'll be the first person I call.

MG: I look forward to that. I will wait by the phone. Andrew, thank you very much.

ANDREW GREGG: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Andrew Gregg, director, writer and co-producer of Sky Master Down. The documentary airs this Sunday at nine p.m. on the documentary channel.

[Music]

MG: You're listening to the current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway, and if you are a regular listener to this programme and of course you are. You may remember this voice.

SOUNDCLIP

Speaker 4: Everything you think about from car batteries, rubber clothes, rubber boots, computers, microwaves, I often joke about the ropes and being like the internet or whatever you can to in earlier you look for is there, right? There's days, just myself, doggint be hard outside. 50, 60 tars, something over 100 one day. With the boat, we're going to do way better than that. We'll have a full crew aboard the boat and we should be able to bring it a 100 times a day out water, along with thousands and thousands of pounds of other trash.

MG: That's Shawn Bath. He worked for decades as a diver in Newfoundland's fisheries. A few years back, though, he made a career change. He made it his mission to clean up the garbage and debris in the waters where he used to dive for sea urchin. We first spoke with Shawn about what he was doing exactly two years ago today. His one man operation has come a long way since then. You know, operates a fleet of four vessels under the Clean Harbours initiative, and he's the subject of a new documentary called Hell or Clean Water. His work is far from finished, though. In fact, he's actually gearing up to go out on a dive later on today. We've reached him in Cupids Newfoundland, where he's getting set. Shawn, good morning.

SHAWN BATH: Good morning, Matt.

MG: It's great to talk to you again.

SHAWN BATH: Yes, it's good to be on the show.

MG: Where are you exactly right now?

SHAWN BATH: I'm back up to my boat, about to hook up the boat, and then we're going to Witless Bay. We're doing a clean up in Witless Bay this morning, and we're going to be doing some filming with the film crew for a TV series coming to Calgary. But I can't mention the name yet because I don't have a permission, but nevertheless, it's all exciting stuff.

MG: Ooh, secret stuff. Now what is under the under the the water in witless bay where you're going? What do you think you're going to find?

SHAWN BATH: We already did an assessment in that area, so we know exactly what we're going to find. We've got a bunch of tires, some metal like stainless steel with some aluminium equipment that was lost on work years back into some really big tires there that was buried in the sand and one in particular is came up a loader or something that was probably gonna take us half a day to get over. We've got to dig underneath the sand in torsion ropes on it and get it dumped into the winch and pull it to surface. So we got a few days work there. Today is just going to be our. First day diving there,

MG: when I first talked to you a couple of years ago, you were just out by yourself, you had that that diving suit that had some holes in it in the cold ocean water was getting in. Now things have changed a lot. What? What has changed for you in your operation in the last couple of years?

SHAWN BATH: Well, like you said, when I first started it, I just had my own personal ready dive here and we didn't have any equipment we needed to do this properly. But thanks to the support of a lot of people, that's been following us, we've gotten all new dive here. We got all kinds of equipment we needed. We got four new boats. We had two speedboats donated to us. And just recently we had two smaller boats donated to us for landing craft. Because when the water's rough, we can't get the big boats in close up to the shore, to the land because a lot of our clients are down on the beaches as well as diving, depending on the visibility, of course, rain.

MG: How many people are helping you out now?

SHAWN BATH: Right now, there's three divers of us, two full time divers and part time when we need them and we got three or four operators that we rotate. If they're available, we'll get them and if not most common, other guys are in.

MG: And how much trash do you figure you've hauled out of the ocean so far?

SHAWN BATH: I've lost track, now. It's well over 100000 pounds or so.

MG: Hundred thousand pounds.

SHAWN BATH: Oh, easily. We've taken. Over 2000 tars are now maybe sold through 300. I recently lost count I should know about every day readiness for bringing up 7- 80 tars, hundred dollars and they when we're doing the beach cleanups, we're going to take an hour four boats, we're told, and two little ones beyond the big ones. And we go ashore and we talk to two little ones in full of trash and the two big ones full of trash. Just before that storm came ashore last summer there at [unintelligilbe], we had approximately 30 boatloads of trash, I guess, packed up on a I'm sorry to roll it out in [unintelligible]. And all that trash was purely plastic because it was the stuff that floated and drifted onto the beaches. And we did a 12 days it or clean it up and the amount of trash we got sure was insane. Every day we go on those beaches we can bring in boatulls of trash

MG: and I saw it. I watched the documentary on you last night, and one of the things you see is just the sheer amount of trash that you're hauling out. But the other thing that you see in this film is, is what this has meant to you. This is now kind of your life's work, and it's not been easy. You, you talk in the film and your partner talks in the film as well, just about how difficult this has been financially for you. How close is this come to it to kind of ruining you financially?

SHAWN BATH: A couple of times now, it's going to come close off to a point where we almost split up and went our separate ways from the stress, the financial stress. I guess we're just getting too much to handle. But we've got past that and we've continue to do what we're doing and I have no intention of ever stopping. Like I said, the documentary is kind of an obsession for me now. This is what I want to leave behind for our legacy. Now, when I die, I want people to look back to the sky and say he spent half his life enjoying himself. And secondly, he dedicated to doing something for the planet.

MG: But it's hard. I mean, there's a point in the film where I think you show that you had $9 in the bank or something like that. And as you say, it's hard to explain to your girlfriend that you're going to spend all of your money hauling trash out of the ocean. Why? Why is it so important to you given the strain that it's put on on your relationship?

SHAWN BATH: Well, I mean, it's something we all need to be doing a little more than what we've done. And my personality is one of my do something. I got to do it 110 percent. I just can't let go of something [unintelligilbe] and this is no different. I mean, I started this now, and no matter what comes out of it, I got to continue this read. I got to bring awareness to this problem until we get enough people on board to make a bigger impact. If I stopped now, I mean, it's just going to be forgotten in a few years and we're going to deliver the same thing more when we die or our grandkids will inherit the mess that we left on the bottom of our harbours. And that's not good enough.

MG: When we talked initially, you saw donations come in after our conversation, and I know the people have been helping you out with this. But what is the role of government, do you think, to help keep the harbours in the waters of Newfoundland and Labrador clean? I mean, in part, that's why you're doing this is because other people were doing it. So what should government be doing to help you out here?

SHAWN BATH: After three years? I think we should have had someone from government step up and give us full time funding so we could have the people we need and the equipment we need to do this properly. We've proven that we are. We can do what we're claiming to do and we can do it safely and it definitely needs to be done and we don't have to prove that, but we already have. And I think the government needs to provide more funding for us. When you may need to provide equipment we need and you got to start working with us on different projects. I think, you know, to be fair to the government, to the federal government, they have had several grants out and we have acquired a couple of grants from them. We're just in the process now of applying for another grant for the spring or early summer. I now that's a long ways away. So. More donations, we get, more support we get from people even through the winter be greatly appreciated. But hopefully we get this grant more after the summer or spring than whatever. We'll have enough funding to us over for three years because it is a three year proposal requiring a three year proposal. Yes.

MG: One of the things about this film, you and I have spoken a couple of times, but you watch this film and you actually see the work that you're doing. You see you hauling these white wall tires out of the ocean and the old car batteries and the nets and the Nets and the nets. It's really quite something. I hope the next time we talk, we can do this on your boat so I can actually see you. You don't want me helping out, but I can actually talk to and see through this work firsthand.

SHAWN BATH: Yeah, that was so cool. If you can come down here and your crew come down and spend a day with us while we're doing cleanups.

MG: I'd love it. In the meantime, good luck and stay safe. And thanks for the work that you're doing, Sean. You're you're doing great stuff.

SHAWN BATH: You're welcome. Thank you.

MG: Take care of yourself. Bye bye. Shawn Bath, founder of the Clean Harbours Initiative We reached him in Cupids, Newfoundland and Labrador. You can watch the documentary Hell or Clean Water on the CBC documentary channel on Sunday, eight p.m. and as well on CBC Gem, there's a great scene of him smashing through the ice with a tire around his shoulders. In this scuba suit, he looks like a superhero coming out of the water that is The Current for this Friday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q Just A heads up. Yesterday on the programme, I spoke with Frances Haugan, whistleblower about Facebook, about why she thinks Canada could lead a coalition of countries demanding change at the social media giant and why she thinks the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may not be the man to fix the problems. If you missed the conversation, we're releasing a longer version of it online this morning. Go to cbc.ca/thecurrent, CBC listen or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Matt Galloway thanks for listening to The Current. Have a great weekend! We'll see on Monday.

The Current Transcript for January 14, 2022

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

The provinces' latest COVID-19 measures

Alberta top court slashes prison sentence for woman who killed abusive husband

New documentary looks into plane that disappeared over Yukon in 1950; and Shawn Bath’s mission to clean up Newfoundland's harbours

Friday January 14, 2022 Full Transcript

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