WE co-founders' testify before House finance committee, How WE controversy will affect entire charity sector

Guests: Vassy Kapelos, Greg Thomson

SOUNDCLIP

This false information has been circulated, has been devastating to the charity. The charity got [unintelligble] a WE Charity scandal on this, when in fact the charity didn't make the final decision and didn't, you know, wasn't involved in the process of declaring whether or not there was a conflict that every media's shared. This is the charity scandal around the world. This has been- it's devastating to a Canadian charity through this whole process. And, frankly, you know, there it is. We just we wish that we never answered the phone on an April 19th when Rachel Warneke called asking us to help.

MARK KELLEY: That's Craig killed Kielburger speaking to the House Finance Committee yesterday. He's the once celebrated co-founder of the WE Charity. Now it's we versus they we being Craig and his brother Mark, they being opposition MPs who grilled the brothers yesterday over the contract, the federal government awarded the WE Charity to run a 900 million dollar student grant programme. To walk us through how the brothers fared and what this all means for Justin Trudeau, we're joined by Vassy Kapelos, the host of Power and Politics on CBC News Network. And in my opinion, the hardest working journalist on Parliament Hill. Good morning, Vassy.

VASSY KAPELOS: Good morning, Mark.

MK: You're everywhere. Listen, this is the first time we heard from Mark and Craig Kielburger in all of this. They started the marathon yesterday, you know, with smiles on their face. They were like, we're happy to be here. We're happy to set the record straight. Four hours later, Vassy, they looked like two political prisoners who wanted to use their hands, bare hands, to tunnel out of the room. Did their appearance help or hurt the prime minister, in your opinion?

VASSY KAPELOS: Yeah, it's funny because they started off by saying, we're thrilled, we're thrilled, we're thrilled. And then slowly, the thrill stopped being used.

MK: The smile started to evaporate from their faces.

VASSY KAPELOS: Yes, very much so. I don't know if there's, like, one conclusive answer to that question. And I sort of wrestled with the question myself. Did this actually end up sort of landing any kind of deafening blow or something along those lines? And I don't think it did necessarily. I don't think it helped the prime minister, because it certainly raises a lot of questions about why the government ended up making the decision it did to enter into an agreement with this charity when clearly there are a lot of issues that they should have been aware of. At the same time, it's not like the brother said anything that clearly undermined or poked a major hole into the argument that the prime minister and his ministers had put forward so far that this was a recommendation of the public service, that, you know, they're not super cozy with the way. But it's not like anything the Kielburger said. I mean, there were some smaller things, but no big, huge thing that you go, oh, my gosh, the prime minister's really in trouble now.

MK: Well, I guess the key issue has been the question of the WE organisation's ties to the liberal parties, to the Liberal Party in the possibility of a conflict of interest. And I guess what stood out for me watching it yesterday, and I tried to watch most of it, was the fact that before Justin Trudeau is prime minister, his mother, Margaret, is not paid for her appearances at these WE events. Since he was elected in 2015, Margaret Trudeau's received 500 thousand dollars fees, reimbursements, expenses. It's sort of left the impression somehow that they were paying for access to the government through Margaret Trudeau. What's what was your opinion on that?

VASSY KAPELOS: Yes. What was so interesting also is that we kind of learnt that it wasn't- we thought the money they had originally paid, the prime minister's mother was for speaking fees. But in fact, they said it was for what's known as auxiliary events. So, for example, fundraisers, galas, dinners that she attended outside of that main speaking event. And of course, those are the kinds of events that the brothers and the organisation, the charity would use to raise money off of. So it kind of creates this odd relationship. And I mean, they denied the idea that they were looking for access or vice versa. But it certainly creates I mean, the question I had for the Liberal MP was on my show after was, doesn't this increase or sort of heighten the sense, the appearance of a conflict of interest on the prime minister's part? I mean, Margaret Trudeau certainly has a lot of years of advocacy, and she is a well-known spokesperson for issues surrounding mental health. But at the same time, none of this happened until the prime minister was the prime minister. So it it definitely raises questions about, I think, the reason for it, whether or not they were able to get access and whether they were kind of banking on the Trudeau name to help raise money for the charity. And then that in turn, I think, raises additional questions about how close this organisation is, or are there very close ties to the liberals and in particular the Trudeau family?

MK: Yes, I didn't quite understand the distinction, saying, well, no, we weren't paying her to make a speech. We were paying her to attend auxiliary events.

VASSY KAPELOS: Yes, that's what I think is actually so more problematic almost that we saw NDP MP Charlie Angus ask a lot of questions about that, because those other events are the events that they make money off, that they fundraise off of. So you were paying her essentially to mingle with people who would in turn give lots of money to the charity. Like that seems almost more problematic than paying Margaret Trudeau to speak.

MK: Well, you mentioned Charlie Angus, the NDP MP, and why he was front and centre yesterday. He kept raising the question of why WE doesn't register as lobbyists. And we put together some of the highlights of the exchange.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: You're providing access to the Trudeau family. Don't you understand or realise that that puts the prime minister into serious conflict by you setting this up and paying family accountability. It's the lack of accountability. It's really given us a hard time believing.

VOICE 2: As for lobbying, we've spoken at this instance. They were happy to be further, Sir, that based on understanding, it is accomplished on time.

VOICE 1: You never reached out for funding before, never before.

VOICE 2: Mr. Angus. Mr. Angus, please. That's not the appropriate definitional of lobbying, Sir, I believe you know.

VOICE 1: Well, I think they wouldn't understand it well to.

VOICE 2: And then number three, with great respect, is the trust. You trust us with their own children for years in the programme. I hope you trust us now.

VOICE 1: I did. I don't trust you anymore. But my children did go through your programme. And since my children been raised, I think it's a very good point. My children learnt so much from you guys when you guys were a much younger operation.

MK: You start to get testy there. How prepared were they Kielburgers, in your opinion, for that lobbying question?

VASSY KAPELOS: Not very. I think they said that they were eventually after, you know, multiple exchanges. They said that they were going to review whether or not they should be registered as lobbyist. I think it was a pertinent line of questioning. I think what we have learnt through all of this is that that organisation, that charity, as well as the brothers themselves or some other delicates, have an immense amount of communication with very high level both politicians and bureaucrats. If that happened in any other organisation or I think you could argue even most other charities, they would be classified as lobbyists. And that would be- the thing about classifying them as lobbyists or registering is that then the public has a database where they can go, okay. We don't have to go through four hours of testimony with you. Okay, the Kielburgers spoke to Bill Moore no on this date. They spoke to his office on this date. Their delegates spoke to Minister [unintelligible] on this day. So there's a lot more transparency, which I think is certainly one of the things that's come out of all of this until this all came to light and journalists started digging and opposition MP start asking questions. Most of this stuff was very much in the dark.

MK: My head started to swim, especially when they started getting into who knew what when you know, the timing of communications, the way your organisation. At the end of the day or at the end of the four hours, was there any appearance that the wee charity got some sort of inside information that benefited them at the expense of other charities who could have gone for this contract?

VASSY KAPELOS: I think what's become really clear throughout some of the previous testimony and then throughout the testimony yesterday is that - I don't know if I would say it's an inside track, but I don't think the government had plans to really, you know, consider giving this to anyone else. What became evident yesterday was that they started working on this bit almost two months before the contract was signed. They couldn't start incurring expenses almost two months before they could start hiring people for the project almost two months before. I understand logistically why - in order to get the thing up and running, this was for a student student grants for four volunteers - to get it up and running as quickly as possible, except for it just like as soon as you hear that and they went over the details. The first thing I thought is how can you, you know, this is a multi-million dollar agreement that you're signing. The I's have not been dotted. The T's have not been crossed. And yet you're using money that you're going to get you're going to be reimbursed for right away to hire people to get there. Clearly, there was no real intent on the government's part to hire a different or employ a different organisation. And I think that's what's become very clear out of all of this, that this was in the works for a long time before the announcement by the prime minister was made. And I think that's why there's a lot of questions about sort of did they have an inside track in order to procure that type of relationship? They claim no. The government claims no, but something seems amiss.

MK: Well, that's certainly what conservative and MP Pierre Poilievre of thought. He had this question for the Kielburger paragraph five.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: One of the contribution agreement allows monies to be spent on salary from this contribution agreement. Was there anything in the agreement that banned either of you from receiving that money.

And that led to an exchange?

VOICE 1: Yes or no?

VOICE 2: You are not paid by...

VOICE 1: Yes or no? That wasn't my question.

VOICE 2: By definition, we are not paid by any one of those organisations.

VOICE 1: Yes or no?

VOICE 2: Sir, by definition.

VOICE 1: Yes or no.

VOICE 2: By any of those organisation...

VOICE 1: That wasn't my question to you.

VOICE 2: And the WE Social enterprises is legally distinct...

VOICE 1: That doesn't answer my question.

VOICE 2: From the ME to WE Foundation...

VOICE 1: OK. We understand now there will be no answer to the question.

VOICE 2: ... Very serious topic.

VOICE 1: Mr. Chair, can we have 15 more seconds please.

VOICE 1: You can have three more seconds. This is my time. Go ahead.

MK: The whole thing started to descend at certain points, you know, into arguments back and forth were hard for us who were watching on the outside to learn anything. The prime minister now will be taking the stand tomorrow, given everything that happened yesterday. How is this set him up for that appearance?

VASSY KAPELOS: Look, I think it's still going to be a very significant appearance. I think even without the testimony yesterday, I've never seen a prime minister- I mean, they prime ministers have testified before committees. But in the middle of a controversy about themselves, this is going to be something to behold. I think it's safe to say at the same time, I think that opposition MP, I mean, exchanges like the one you just played, I'm not sure are going to work to their advantage when they're questioning the prime minister. So I'm curious to see if they change tack, if they are more focussed in their questioning and if they're able to get any kind of new information or new revelation out of the prime minister. The thing is clearly that there's a strategy being employed here, I think, by the prime minister. They feel like they want to get everything out on the table and that will deflate. Can't take all the oxygen out of this, but that can backfire. I would point to Bill Morneau's appearance where there were all these new revelations that came out of it and that provided actually more oxygen to the controversy. So I think this sets up for a lot of questions, probably around the prime minister's mother and the payment operations or arrangements, rather, and how much the prime minister knew. And if there is stuff the prime minister knew prior to making these decisions or there's any kind of additional relationship with WI that is revealed between he or members of his family. I think that kind of stuff can be damaging. But save and accept for something like that. If it's just more of what we saw yesterday, you know, that could point to maybe the right decision for the prime minister to come before the committee. So many questions. I think it's hard to see exactly how it goes because this kind of stuff doesn't happen very often. But it will be, I would argue, pretty must see TV.

MK: So much for the dog days of summer.

VASSY KAPELOS: Not at all.

MK: Thank you so much for your time. Vassy Kapelos is the host of Power and Politics on CBC News Network. She joined us this morning from Ottawa. Well, yesterday the Kielburger is were questioned about more than the now cancelled government contract. They were grilled about we structure its governance and how the wheat charity has been implicated in this controversy. Greg Thomson was paying close attention. He's the director of research ship charity Intelligence Canada, which reviews publicly available information on more than 750 charities. Good morning, Greg.

GREG THOMSON: Good morning, Mark.

MK: Now, Greg, are you hearing some of those clips and I'm sure you're watching yesterday, the Kielburgers were almost treated with contempt by some of the opposition employees. From what you heard during their long marathon testimony, are they guilty of any wrongdoing here?

GREG THOMSON: So I think that Vassy had it at it, right? I mean, they didn't say anything troubling, really. I mean, as it relates to the contract, the Liberal Party, they were very well scripted. They're very good at at marketing what they do and coming across as passionate about what they do and, you know, single focussed in helping children, helping kids, helping young people. And and so, you know, it was it all seemed to me like a bit of a sort of marketing pitch for what they do. Yes, they did seem a little bit battered at that at the end. And they started getting a little bit little bit defensive. But, you know, overall, you know, there was nothing in particular that they said that was that was particularly troubling, in my view. Now, what I was much more interested in is what Michelle Douglas was talking about earlier. And so I wish there were more questions related to what Michelle had said that were put towards the Kielburger and if they come back, I would hope that some of what Michelle said was brought up a little bit more specifically.

MK: And I want to get to Michelle's testimony as well in just a sec. First, I wanted to play a clip from Boris Martin. He's CEO of another charity, Engineers Without Borders. This is his impression of how the Kielburger said yesterday.

SOUNDCLIP

I don't think they're victims. I don't think they are culprits. I think they're just navigating a complex system. I think they are entrepreneurial. They're bold entrepreneurs in what they do. It's apparent that they had internal challenges organisationally, but yet still went with that massive contribution agreement at the same time. They didn't come across, as, you know, guilty culprits who didn't come across as spotless clean angels either. Just as normal people navigating a complex system and trying to get things done.

MK: and as you mentioned, Greg, it seems some of the biggest criticism may not have come from opposition employees, but it came from, you know, friendly fire, which is Michelle Douglas, who is a former chair of the board of directors of We charity. She resigned in March. What did you hear in her testimony yesterday that raised concerns for you?

GREG THOMSON: Well, charity intelligence works for donors to help donors understand charities in terms of their finances and there how they operate. And when I heard what Michelle said, if anything that Michelle said was was the way that we charity operates, I would have certain red flags about governments.

MK: Let's be specific about those red flags.

GREG THOMSON: Very, very specifically, she stated that there were massive layoffs going on. The board was not informed. The board was denied access to financial data to help them understand what the situation looked like. They were denied access to the CFO. Governance at a charity is about the board hoping to financially and organisationally run the charity and oversight over that. And, you know, any board member who is denied access to financial information, that is a red flag. You know, that board members should be very wary of what's going on at the charity if they're denied access to financial information, cause that's one of their responsibilities. And what Michelle said was that they were denied access to not only financial data, but denied access to the CFO and denied access to information in a in a in a huge time of need when there were massive layoffs going on. So this wasn't sort of a normal course of events where, you know, minor a minor decision was made and the board didn't have any say. This was major structural changes going on within the organisation. And it sounded like the board had had little to no information and little to no say in how those decisions were made.

MK: You know, Greg, I don't ever remember where there's been a national controversy involving a charity and certainly nothing on this scale. And I'm wondering, is it, for you, is this bigger than WE? It's already hard enough during a pandemic, we're told, for charities to be getting money. Is this whole controversy and create a sort of a charity chill for others?

GREG THOMSON: Well, it is unfortunate. I'd like to start off by saying I would hope that donors can whatever they think about, whatever they heard yesterday, whatever that they've heard prior, I hope that whatever they feel won't take taint their viewing going forward in terms of giving in the sector. Because you know what we've heard about WE, what we're learning about WE is, to me, quite unique in terms of charity governance and for large charities. But that being said, donors do give largely based on trust. And, you know, this is one reason that charity intelligence was created was to help donors have information beyond just a trust in an organisation that comes from some marketing and name recognition. Now, right now, in the charitable sector there's unfortunately not enough good information to understand the impact that charities are having. And so trust is a huge part of giving in Canada.

MK: So in your opinion, has the WE Charity lost the trust?

GREG THOMSON: You can see it from corporate donors, that's probably the canary in the coal mine is, you know, corporate donors are there because they want to align themselves with trustworthy organisations. They see that level of trust has declined significantly. And so they are bailing. So the next layer and then what's going to happen to two general donations and general working activities that rely on trust. And you know for sure, WE Charity has taken a hit. But because they are one of the largest charities in Canada, they are one of the top 100 charities in Canada in terms of donations. And so their big name, they're well-known.

MK: Big name and a big fall.

GREG THOMSON: And there's so many questions that are that are swirling.

MK: Greg, we're going to have to leave it there. But we'll continue to follow this story. We appreciate your time. Greg Thompson, the director of research of charity Intelligence Canada. We reached him in Port Carling, Ontario.

Education experts call for outdoor classes to increase student safety amid COVID-19 pandemic

Guests: Hilary Inwood, Kaviq Kaluraq, Glenda Hanna

MK: As politicians and school boards grapple with the challenge of how to safely reopen schools in the fall, one part of the solution could be quite simple. Have class outside is one of the ideas suggested in a report released by the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. After all, we know COVID-19 spreads better in confined indoor spaces. Plus, teaching outside in the great outdoors isn't exactly a new idea.

SOUNDCLIP

My name is Monica Warsecha and I'm a freelance journalist based in Toronto. A few years ago, I was working on a sort of series of stories on Toronto history. And one of the photos that I came across that really stuck with me was one of the forests school in High Park. And it's this photo of all these kids. And they're kind of formally dressed and they're sitting at these desks that are wooden and solid with wrought iron in front of a chalkboard and teacher. But they're in a forest. The forest school and open air movement, it really started as a response to tuberculosis, which was this major cause of death in the industrialised world for most of the 19th century. And third sort of medical understanding at the time, was that the best thing you could do for people suffering with tuberculosis was to make sure that they get a lot of fresh, clean air. And then the chief medical inspector of the Toronto School Board ended up visiting some of the first forest schools that opened in Germany and England and then bringing the idea back to Canada. They would still have classes when it was cold outside. The kids would just be bundled up a bit more. They would wear mittens and hats and in some of the open air classes, which were, you know, on rooftops or just in existing schools where you would just have no heating on. And the whole wall of windows open, you would just kind of dress up the kids and have them keep learning. There are these photos of the Ord Street School, which is still standing today in Toronto. The kids are just in these gigantic coats with these pointed hoods just sitting there in the cold looking like little witches while they're learning in these classrooms. I think with the pandemic, there's been a lot of focus on high tech or technological solutions, which I think are important, but especially a lot of the younger children just have a really, really hard time learning things off of iPods or Zoom calls and that it might be worth looking at other possibilities that don't include technology. So I think it's just interesting that these things were tested decades ago and were part of schools across Europe and England and Canada for decades.

MK: That's freelance journalist Monica Warzecha. Well, the forest school in Toronto's High Park closed in the 1960s, but there are still plenty of similar programmes operating across the country to this day. And preventing disease isn't the only reason to take class outside. Advocates point to educational benefits too. Hillary Inwood leads the Environmental and Sustainability Education Initiative at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto. And Kaviq Kaluraq is an instructor in the Nunavut Teacher Education Programme at Nunavut Arctic College. She's also the author of a paper for the Gordon Foundation that calls for expanding access to land based education in the north. Good morning to you both.

HILARY INWOOD: Good morning, Mark.

KAVIQ KALURAQ: Good morning.

MK: Hillary, let me start with you. I love this idea of getting the kids outside. And certainly I remember when I was a student in elementary school, going outside was just fantastic. What do you see? The benefits of taking class outside?

HILARY INWOOD: Oh, there are numerous benefits for students to get outside. We can certainly look to the physical benefits. And these are incredibly important in a time of COVID-19, you know, fresh air, certainly getting outside of a physical distance scene that is going to be required. Very tight physical distance seen in classrooms. So, you know, certainly getting outside is going to minimise the risk of transmission. But the room to move your body is often overlooked when it comes to really understanding how students learn. They learn in lots of different ways, not just by sitting at a desk with pen and paper. So getting them outside has lots of physical benefits and got lots of mental health benefits too. The classrooms can be very noisy places. When we get outside, often we find a little bit more tranquillity, even in an urban environment than we might find inside a classroom. Not having all that fluorescent lighting around is also an advantage. And we know that there's been a number of studies that have shown that being outside is a great way to reduce some of that sensory overload ,to alleviate stress. There's even some scholars who are talking about the way that it can bring about attention restoration. So there's lots of benefits to getting students outside.

MK: Kaviq give us your view from the North. Why is land based learning important, especially in Inuit communities?

KAVIQ KALURAQ: Well, as you know, Inuit culture as highly linked to the environment that we live in. So taking learning back to the land creates both experience and hands-on learning opportunities that link what they're expected to learn in schools to the communities that they live in, to the land, to the places where they live. And it creates a more practical and relatable learning experience. It takes it away from more base and abstract learning. It also creates the opportunity for collaboration between the community members and people that work in the schools, because in the context as of 2018, 70 percent of the teachers in schools are non-Inuit. So taking learning back to the land allows students in Nunavut to learn from their communities and from there, not just from the place where they live, but also their own histories.

MK: Hilary, from your perspective, I mean, just to be clear here, are you talking about taking class all day outside or just let's go out for the morning or the afternoon? I mean, give me an example of the kind of how this would actually work.

HILARY INWOOD: Well, that's a great question, Mark. There is no doubt that we don't have access to the bountiful access to nature that we do in the in the north. So I hear Kaviq talking about the importance of land based learning and I think the same importance as here. But we have a very limited access in the city in some cases to what's available in schoolyards. So I can only imagine that we can't- most schoolyards don't have space to have classes outside all day long. Instead, I think what we're going to see is some kind of rotation basis happening. So there'll be some time in classrooms, some time outside classrooms. And that balance, I think, will allow teachers to really access the best of learning in both locations.

MK: Kaviq, give me an example of something that has worked that you've seen that's been successful in really engaging the students when you take them outside?

KAVIQ KALURAQ: Well, some programmes that I've heard of in terms of programming for children is the Nuna school out of [unintelligible] school in Iqaluit. Two teachers there piloted a project called Nuna School where they were able to have put up a tent outside of the school and a lot of the learning, the earlier children from grade one to two. And they do most of their learning outside everything from maths to science through games and interactive activities. But some of their learning is also taken back indoors. So it happened throughout the year, both in the fall but also in the winter. If you search Nuna School, you'll see pictures of children in their outdoor winter gear playing and learning at the same time with their teachers. So I would agree with Hilary that it would most likely be a combination of indoor and outdoor activities with alternating schedules.

MK: Right, because we have to take, of course, Seasons into consideration here and in the north. I think, you know, your students are probably better equipped to handle that. But Hilary you got to wonder, is this a practical suggestion when we're thinking of what it's like in deep February here, even in southern Canada?

HILARY INWOOD: Look, if Inuit students in the north can do it in the heart of winter, we can absolutely do it in the heart of winter in southern parts of the country. The same advantages that Kaviq outlined of hands on experiential learning can absolutely be played out here. So finding ways to do it here in the city is just as likely even in the winter. You know, they say there's no such thing as bad weather. It's just about bad gear. So making sure that we're communicating with parents to make sure that children are coming with properly dressed for learning outside. It does take parents a little while, and children as well, to get into the flow of things. But with teachers who are doing this regularly and there are many in the southern part of Canada who are doing this on a routine basis already, it just takes a little while for people to get used to that. That new and I'm going to argue a new and improved normal of being outside.

MK: OK, I want to bring in another voice here. Glenda Hanna is principal of Youth Safe Outdoors, which provides guidance to school systems in western Canada about risk management and safety for outdoor activities. And she's in Salmon Arm, BC this morning.

GLENDA HANNA: Good morning.

MK: Glenda, give give me your view. I mean, each you're here sort of as the risk mitigator here. It's like, let's get the kids outside, let's have some fun. But you're saying let but let's do this responsibly. What's kind of advice would you be giving schools or school boards that would be considering taking things outside?

GLENDA HANNA: Well, absolutely no one is do it, get kids outdoors, that's the most important thing. And for all the reasons that both Hilary and Kaviq camps have shared that we need kids to be outdoors, lots of that they learn more about themselves, about the natural environment and connect to it. If we're going to take on the challenges of climate change and other things that are related to understanding the environment, we need to get kids in the environment. So, you know, our resources include lots of material for outdoor activities, but we also relate to have information or resources that help every teacher, whether it's a science teacher and art teacher or anybody educating kids outdoors in on field studies and field trips. So, yes, it's get them out there but do it in a way that is within the capacity of the teacher. So we don't have necessarily the benefits of having elders in the community that can work with every school of the way Kaviq has talked about in the north. So teachers generally haven't had a lot of training in our universities, unfortunately, on how to teach kids how to do it safely. So we've taken on doing that research and providing integrated safety guidelines and death information and tools to help them do that.

MK: Glenda, I know today that BC will be announcing what's going to be happening for schools in this coming fall semester. Have you heard people talking about this idea about getting the kids outside? Is it is this is this idea getting any kind of traction in the province?

GLENDA HANNA: Oh, absolutely. Both Dr. Bonnie Henry and our premier have talked about the importance of taking kids outdoors as much as possible, as part of dealing with COVID for the reasons that Hilary shared that transmission rates are lower if they're outdoors than if they're in. And so yes, and outdoor education is in the new BC curriculum. So it's not on the front burner of the stove yet, but it does have a spot there. And so teacher already encouraged to do that. And of course, that can be done across the curriculum. And so we're certainly here to support them doing that.

MK: You know, Hilary, we're waiting for that word as well from the Ontario government about what the school season is going to look like come this fall. Have you heard anyone talking about this notion of like maybe a hybrid approach, maybe we can take some of the kids outside some of the time? Is this on the table?

HILARY INWOOD: Absolutely. The teachers and administrators I've been talking to in the last couple of months, in fact, have been talking more about this possibility. And many are very excited about the possibility of getting children outdoors more often. Sometimes there's some resistance from administrators and some schools not to take the children out too often. But this sort of will give a permission for teachers to get outside with their children, to experiment with the possibilities and to really understand that there are academic benefits to getting students outside, having students learn in multiple ways, understanding that land can be one of our first teachers and most powerful teachers. All of that is actually going to enhance the academic experience. When teachers experiment with that and understand it, then they're much more likely to want to replicate it again in future and to share that practise across the school community.

MK: Yes, I was reading a report that was talking about for kids, there's a nature deficit disorder that can contribute to a diminished use of the senses, attention, difficulties, conditions of obesity, higher rates of emotional and physical illnesses. Kaviq, I'm curious to know for you, when you've seen some of these outdoor activities put in place for education, does that create for the students a better connexion to education? Because I can see yes, it makes a better connexion to the land, and that is important. But what about education, retention, interest in actually going to school every day? Does that help?

KAVIQ KALURAQ: I would say yes. One example is a bit young harvester's programme. I've heard about, when I was doing my research, I learnt about different programmes that are offered across the globe. But this programme specifically and what they've done in Iqaluit with high school students is they started that they were facing challenges with specifically score retention and school performance. Then they incorporated a programme where the students were allowed to, on a regular basis, they were going onto the land with elders and harvesting and learning about the environment and patterns. So they were doing a lot of traditional knowledge learning and then they would come back to the school. So that was a part of their regular school routine. And they saw improvements in their school attendance as well as their school performance. So I think that's just one example of the fact that being connected both to the land, but also involving community members to what's happening in the school and making a part of the school routine does in fact improve both attendance as well as performance. Another example would be that given the science educators community, the programme or the group of teachers [unintelligible] offering science education programmes for probably about 20 years, if not longer, and every fall they do Land based programming, where they get together for about a week and they learn both traditional knowledge as well as contemporary science, and that was one of the places where I was inspired. Participating in that type of programming is what inspired me to go into the science field. So I would say that there are examples out there, and it's not just about relating to the line. It definitely has both political and economic benefits and as well as academic.

MK: Well, my my seven year old next door neighbour this week gave me a dissertation on a little egg from a monarch butterfly on a milkweed leaf. And how it grows into a caterpillar and then into the monarch butterfly heading down to Mexico. It was fascinating. And I said, where did you learn that? She said by going outside. So I saw firsthand that this kind of things that you can learn. But Glenda, as I said, you're sort of a risk mitigator. Let's put this on the table. Everything sounds great. What's the downside to this? What are the concerns about taking these kids outside?

HILARY INWOOD: Well, there are certainly legal liability and, you know, public safety concerns with schools taking kids outdoors in and particularly in higher care activities. So we provide guidelines that support teachers getting kids out at a level that they have sufficient knowledge, skill and experience to do it safely and to help the kids learn, most importantly, to help the kids learn through their role modelling and through there for their purposeful instruction to do these activities safely so that they can be part of their healthy, active lifestyle for life. So it is important that kids are taken out and that it's done in a way that they can learn and benefit and grow as healthy, active adults. So, yes, we provide lots of- all of our work is research based. We've looked at legal cases, public enquiries, search and rescue incidents. We have tons of those in D.C. compared to all the other provinces in the country put together, and how did people get hooked in the outdoors and then how do we prevent that from happening by providing helping support the schools with guidelines and resources and tools that allow teachers to make good decisions, recognising that they most in most cases haven't had a lot of training. A principal in a school who has to start a school field trip may not have any experience in that particular activity, whether it's cross-country skiing, canoeing or hiking and so on. So how did they have that conversation with the teacher regarding whether a particular outing idea is well prepared or not. And so that's where we come in and we work with them in terms of providing those resources and also providing training wheels where a school district desires that. So, yes, the most important thing is to get them out and then gradually progressed to doing things that are more adventure based, where that's desired and relevant to the curriculum but for the most part, just getting kids out is really important.

MK: Hilary, let me ask you this. As I listen to this conversation, part of me says it sort of strikes me in saying that this this sounds like getting outside is a function of privilege. You know, that this if you're out in the great outdoors, if you live in these wonderful neighbourhoods, wouldn't it be great to go outside? I mean, is this really a, you know, an inner city solution for so many kids across this country?

HILARY INWOOD: It absolutely is, because I want to counter what Glenda said earlier. Well, it's wonderful to take students out of their communities into more adventure approaches to outdoor learning that the same outdoor learning with equal richness can happen right in their school yard. So in fact, this is a great way for children who live in apartment towers, right in the heart of urban environments to be outside on a regular basis in their school yard and using that as a source of learning. I found it interesting that Kaviq was talking about using the land as a source, for example, of looking for food and learning about plants on the land. We can do the exact same things on schoolyards. There's so many schoolyards now that are really working to make their schoolyards a rich ground of learning. This is, thanks in part to the amazing leadership that Evergreen has provided over the years, funding coming from places like TD Friends of the Environment Foundation, who have really strived to make schoolyard equitable spaces for learning. So regardless of the economic circumstance of a student, when they come to school, they've got the same access to really amazing school grounds that provide inspirational sources of learning for them. So I think that's a really important place that this actually can help to increase equity rather than to decrease it.

MK: Well, I think at the end of the day, what we're hoping for is what's best for the kids and certainly the idea of if this can promote retention, if this can create better bonds between them and their schools, and at the end of the day, if it can be healthier in this pandemic environment we all find ourselves living in, then I hope that there are a lot of educators out there that are seriously considering this as an option this fall and beyond. And I think you've all made a pretty darn good case for that. Thank you all for joining us this morning. We appreciate your time.

HILARY INWOOD: Thank you very much.

MK: Hilary Inwood leads the Environmental and Sustainability Education Initiative at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto. And Kaviq Kaluraq is an instructor in the Nunavut Teacher Education program at Nunavut Arctic College. She's also the author of a report for the Gordon Foundation that calls for expanding access to land-based education. Glenda Hanna is principal of Youth Safe Outdoors, which provides guidance to school systems in Western Canada about risk management for outdoor activities. She's in Salmon Arm, BC.

Let kids' car seats into secondhand market to help poorer families, urges author

MK: I'm Mark Kelley and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Can I get that for you. Oh, my goodness.

VOICE 2: It's nothing special. What did I bring today? Children's book, some old stuff out of the basement. Yeah, that's one of my old soccer trophies.

VOICE 3: It's a coffee maker. So we bought a new coffee. This one just somebody else can use it.

VOICE 4: Children's stuff that they've grown out of, costumes.

VOICE 5: Some linen, some clothes. They always say that sometimes your decluttering is someone's new treasure, you know, so they can enjoy.

MK: A steady stream of donations at a Goodwill store in Oakville, Ontario. We may think of that drop-off point as the final destination for our "stuff" -- once we no longer need it, or want it. But in many ways, it's just the beginning of a journey through the secondhand economy. Or, as Adam Minter puts it, "the new global garage sale." In his latest book - called "Secondhand" - the American journalist set out to follow our stuff's often-surprising second life. Matt Galloway spoke to him in February from Malaysia.

SOUNDCLIP

MG: Adam, hello.

ADAM MINTER: How are you?

MG: I'm well, thanks. That last woman that we heard at that Goodwill store in Oakville gave a variation on a line that you must have heard over and over and over again, that idea that one person's trash is another person's treasure. Is that a common sentiment? Is that a true sentiment in these times?

ADAM MINTER: It is, and it's a growing sentiment. And I think what's so interesting about it is that it takes us away from this idea that everybody has the same definition of waste. You know, what you may look at as waste in your garage is going to be somebody else's definition of a commodity or inventory. And that goes from your garage all the way around the world. You know, you may not find anybody in Toronto who thinks the stuff in your garage is a treasure, but I'm sure I can find somebody, say in Accra, Ghana, or, you know, in Benin or here in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, who might think that way. So yes, it's very much a global garage sale and it's something that kind of value as something that people are chasing.

MG: Where did all that stuff come from and why do we have so much more stuff now it seems like, than we had in past?

ADAM MINTER: Right. Well, if you just look at North America, I mean, since the post-war period, North Americans have gone through a historic sort of consumption pattern. And that's because of this extraordinary affluence that faults in the United States and Canada enjoyed in the post-war period. So it wasn't just rising incomes and the ability to buy more stuff, but it was also the ability to fill bigger and bigger houses, both in Canada and the United States. You know, houses have more than doubled in size on average over the last 60 years. And so as people, you know, build bigger houses, they have more room for their stuff and they're less inclined to get rid of that stuff. And so you reach a point where there's this sort of surplus of stuff that, as you know, if we had smaller quarters, if, you know, in North America, we had homes the size they have in Japan, a lot of that stuff would have been gotten rid of a long time ago, recycled or landfill or incinerated. But because of this extraordinary wealth of space that we have, we've really accumulated an enormous amount of stuff. And because both populations in the United States and in Canada are aging, a lot of that stuff is now suddenly being set free as people downsize and declutter.

MG: And I want to talk about setting it free, but that can be a gradual process. It's hard to keep all your stuff. And so you end up, if it's not in your house or your apartment, you end up, you know, outsourcing it and putting it somewhere else in a space that you pay for. Tell me about the self-storage industry and how much money that self-storage industry makes.

ADAM MINTER: Right well, two years ago, the self-storage industry actually made more money, generated more revenues than Hollywood did on films. It has enough space in the United States alone to cover all of Palm Springs, California, golf courses included. And the amazing thing about the self-storage industry and there's about 50,000 plus self-storage parks, if you will, in North America, the amazing thing about it is, depending on where they are, the rent in those self-storage spaces, whether by the square foot or square meter, can be more expensive than the rent paid for residential units, you know, in the same city. So in a sense, we're spending more time housing our stuff than we are housing ourselves.

MG: Is your sense that when people put something into the self-storage space, they ever have any intention of getting it back or does it just go into some sort of black hole and disappear?

ADAM MINTER: Right. Well, I think, you know, I think everybody says the same thing. I'm just going to have this in here for six months, you know and of course, you know, it ends up being six years. And then you forget you have it and you've got it, you know, on the auto renew on your credit card. And it just keeps going. So it's an incredibly lucrative industry. I mean, real estate investors love buying self-storage units because it's the steadiest revenue you can get in the entire real estate world.

MG: When I did clutter and I haul out of my basement the bags of old clothes or the kids toys or the old coffeemaker that I don't want anymore, and I take it to Goodwill, where does it go after that?

ADAM MINTER: On average and again, this is an average on average, about one third of the stuff that goes out onto the shelves at your average Goodwill or thrift store in North America actually sells.

MG: Wow.

ADAM MINTER: Yeah. The rest of it, sells in the retail outlet. The stuff that doesn't sell is cycled, isn't thrown away. It's cycled back into the warehouse. And there's it depends on the Goodwill. I mean, there are different Goodwill federations in North America. I believe it's about 140 of them and they all do things their own way. But many of them have what are called outlets. And at the outlets the stuff is discounted to sell at a dollar a pound and they will move quite a bit of stuff that way. The stuff that doesn't move at a dollar a pound, if it's textiles, clothing, oftentimes bedsheets, that stuff will then go really in a couple of directions. One is it may go to be made into rags if it's a low quality garment or textile that is cut up and literally made into rags to wipe things down, countertops, cars at car washes. And then the other, the other textiles will, you know, more often than not, be exported outside of North America into markets like Africa or Southeast Asia, where they are sold for people who are interested in second hand clothes.

MG: There's a fascinating scene in the book. You hang out at a Goodwill near the Mexican border. What goes on there when it comes to that cross-border economy and the second hand economy, particularly in Mexico?

ADAM MINTER: Yeah, it was one of the reasons I wanted to write this book is I wanted to show people just how important global markets are to moving your second hand stuff. And so I spent time in Tucson with a guy who in the book I call Shoe Guy. That's what he asked me to call him. He didn't want his real name identified. And what he does is he drives around Goodwills every day, buying stuff out of the Goodwills, which he then conveys, you know, 90 minutes south to Nogales, Mexico. And he sells that stuff to wholesalers who then convey it further into Mexico into used good outlets all over Mexico. By some accountings there, 90 percent of the stuff that's being sold at Goodwill in Tucson is flowing south of the border. So you can imagine if that border was closed off, the people of Tucson would really have a problem with what to do with all their excess stuff.

MG: And what kind of stuff heads south of the border?

ADAM MINTER: Everything. Clothing, furniture, appliances, you know, bowling balls. You know, I keep pulling balls, but I was astounded that there is a second hand trade in bowling balls. You know, Mexicans just like, you know, folks in Tucson want to have their place in this material consumption based economy we have in North America and used goods are the way they access it because it's a low cost means of doing so.

MG: One of the most interesting parts of this book is about something that's happening literally down the road from where I'm sitting right now that I had no idea about. And that is that in Mississauga, Ontario, just outside of Toronto, is apparently a global hub in the world of the second hand textile trade in particular. What happens in Mississauga?

ADAM MINTER: Yeah, it's fascinating. So this came as a complete surprise to me. As I reported this book, I kept hearing people say they're shipping their clothes, meaning charities, telling me they're shipping their clothes to Mississauga and graders in Mississauga. And so I wondered, why on earth are they shipping, you know, to Mississauga? You know, in the 1970s, 1980s in particular, a lot of folks from South Asia and a lot of folks from Africa immigrated into the area, as we know, the Toronto area and Canada in general is a very immigrant friendly city. Well, South Asians, you know, folks from Pakistan and India have been involved in the used clothing trade around the world for a 100 years. And they actually have set up businesses in Africa, India and Pakistan to process and sort these clothes. And folks in Africa, Africans themselves are the world's largest consumers of second hand clothes. And so when you had these two communities moving into Mississauga and the Greater Toronto area, you know, in the 70s and 80s, you sort of had a match made in heaven. And nobody knows who started the trade, who was the first South Asian trader to sell a load of second hand clothes to Africans, but it happened at some point there. And there was a couple of advantages to Mississauga. One, there's a good rail link there. So you can ship stuff from all over North America into Mississauga. Taxes were low. There's a lot of low cost immigrant labour. And the biggest advantages, really short summers. So if you think about where second hand clothes go around the world, they mostly go the biggest demand is from warm weather. Places in Canada has very short summers. Toronto has very short summers. So this stuff is very lightly worn and so because of that, it's in good condition and there's huge demand for it around the world. And that gives the clothing graders and there's about 20 of these businesses in Mississauga, it gives them a huge advantage buying clothes around North America, which they then bring to Mississauga, sort and send all over the world.

MG: What are those clothing graders do? You go into, you meet some of the people who are who are involved in this. What do the graders do?

ADAM MINTER: Well, these grading warehouses can be huge. You can have 300 employees in some of these and they will process 200,000 pounds of clothing a day.

MG: What?

ADAM MINTER: And the clothes. 200,000 pounds of clothes a day, the very biggest ones. It's extraordinary and what this means is they will bring in trailer loads, container loads of clothes from around North America. And you will have trained employees who will open up these trailers. and the clothes usually arrive in bales, big bales, 200-300 pound bales of hay bales. They take them apart and literally start sorting the clothes by different grades. You know, what kind of condition is it in? Is it soiled? You know, is this a medical, like a medical smock? You know, can this be, you know, and they and they'll start sorting them and you'll have a pile of medical smocks, you know, surgical gowns in one area. You'll have, you know, a pile of shoes and another area will have baby clothes in another area. And it's an extremely sophisticated process. And as the stuff gets sorted, it becomes a commodity. It becomes something that you can sell anywhere in the world so long as you have the markets to sell it into and these clothing graders do. And so once they have enough of a load for whatever customer it is, a customer in Benin, a customer in India, a customer wherever, they then ship it out. And that's how they make their money with these very sophisticated sorting operations, of which they're about 20, all of which are based in Mississauga. And they handle, you know, millions of pounds of clothes per year.

MG: And they're making a lot of money. I mean, there's a lot of this is a huge business.

ADAM MINTER: This is a huge business. I mean, all you have to, you know, know is that, you know, these biggest companies, the ones that can turn over 200,000 pounds of clothing in a day, they can turn over in the range of 20 million dollars in a month. So this is a really big business, employs thousands of people. But, you know, if you drive through Mississauga, if you don't know it's there, you don't know it's there.

MG: One of the things you learn in reading about this is that the folks who are sorting through those bales of clothing can see a change in the quality of the clothes that they're sorting through. And the change isn't for good. What's happening with the clothes that we're donating?

ADAM MINTER: Yeah, well, it's just as you said, you know, if you spend time in a Goodwill sorting room anywhere in North America, the sorters there will tell you that over the last two to three years in particular, they've seen the quality of the fabrics, the quality of the stitching declined precipitously. And their measuring stick really is brands. You know, at a Goodwill, one of the ways they sort clothes is just to say, you know, this is a brand that we price at 2.99. And what they kept telling me in the sorting rooms at Goodwill is a 2.99, you know, version of Brand X is no longer worth 2.99, it's worth a 1.99. And that's a real problem for someone like Goodwill because if a garment is less durable, it's something that is less likely to sell on the sales floor. And then that means that they're going to incur costs of selling it to a rag maker or shipping it off to Mississauga or whatever it may be. And this also repeats in Mississauga in these giant grading warehouses. Again, you know, folks in Africa, folks and Southeast Asia, folks in South Asia don't want clothes that, you know, wear out after two or three washes any more than than most North American consumers do. And so that lowers the price of the clothes. It makes it less possible to recycle them. And that raises the possibility that these clothes are going to end up in landfills and incinerators because there's simply no market for them. And, you know, this is a long term process. I mean, 200 years ago, you know, families around the world. You know, pre-industrial revolution thought of clothes as wealth. There was a lot of money involved in a lot of labour involved in making a shirt. You know, it wasn't something that you let go of easily, but, you know, now we have disposable clothing. And when it ends up at the Goodwills, when it ends up at the clothing graders, wherever they may be, you know, it's essentially a disposable product and it's becoming increasingly difficult for these recycling operations, these reuse operations to recycle and reuse.

MG: And is that the same thing with furniture? I mean, I remember, you know, as the young starving student and we'd go to Goodwill and buy a couch or buy a bookshelf and it weighed a thousand pounds and you'd haul at home on the bus or the subway or something. And, you know, it had been around for a long time because it was heavy and durable. Is that the same now that we've seen a decline in the quality of those hard goods?

ADAM MINTER: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the example that I often use is IKEA. You know, there is some good quality stuff made at IKEA, but I think we also, you know, anybody who's ever bought the, you know, the famous Billy bookshelf, which I think is the most manufactured and purchased piece of furniture in the history of the world, knows that's not a durable piece of furniture. You can build it once. It's flat packed. You put it together in your dorm room, say, but moving that thing down a stairwell, much less putting it in the back of a moving truck is essentially, you know, murdering that Billy bookshelf. It will fall apart. It will crack and it will not last to the next location, and that's to some extent what's happened with furniture in general over the last 50 years is it's become cheaper, it's become harder to move and as it becomes disposable, it's something that's difficult to sell at a Goodwill. And if, you know, you would think it would actually make it more popular to buy the heavier oak furniture that, you know, we all used to break our backs on moving stuff in and out of dorm rooms. But that stuff is kind of out of fashion. People want those clean lines of an IKEA design. You know, that really thin, flat packed furniture. It looks great, but it doesn't hold up. And because of that, we're seeing more and more furniture flowing into the landfills than it was ever the case in the history of consumption.

MG: The other backbreaking thing we used to haul around were televisions. You have those giant TV's that weighed a ton. They're huge, boxy things now, of course, replaced by flat screens. But the big boxy TV's, they didn't end up in the landfill. A lot of them went to Africa.

ADAM MINTER: Yeah. A lot of them went to Africa. And it's amazing. I spent time for this book, quite a bit of time in Ghana and especially in northern Ghana. And if you go into any, you know, home in to Tamale, which is a town in northern Ghana, I spent quite a bit of time and population of 300,000. You're still going to see a lot of these they're tube televisions. They're called CRT televisions. They were big and heavy. They were durable and they will last forever. I recount in the book visiting with a television repairman and Tamale, who at the time I visited him, was working on a TV that was about 35 years old. It had gone through three, four owners. Had that television not been exported to Ghana, you know, it probably wouldn't have lasted 35 years. And that's the really interesting thing about it, is, you know, one of the best ways we have to sort of extend the lives of these goods that we don't want in, you know, more affluent societies is to export them to people who are guaranteed to use them longer. And so that's one of the things you still see in Ghana, is you will still see these heavy, boxy TV still in use, especially in the less affluent parts of Ghana, which is saying something. They will continue to repair them for years to come.

MG: How does planned obsolescence impact to the second hand economy, whether it be technology and the fact that the phone that I have in front of me, while it was up to date and brand new a couple of years ago, is on the verge of being out of date and won't work with the software that's coming out in the years ahead. How does that change the second hand economy?

ADAM MINTER: Sure. Well, it means, you know, anytime you have a product that's not as, you know, not durable, that's only designed to last for a short period of time. That's a strike against the second hand economy. I mean, if we want second hand economies, we have to have stuff that's going to last for a long time, not just two or three years. And so as we see more planned obsolescence, the idea that these, you know, especially electronic objects are designed, you know, if not to fail after a short period of time to be very difficult to repair and upgrade after a short period of time. It generates more waste in it. It's less stuff for Goodwill to sell or any other thrift store. So it's a real, it's a real strike against them. And it's not just electronics. I mean, we see it in other consumer goods as well. One of the products that I talk about in the book that I found very interesting is child safety seats, car seats. You know, as if as any parent knows, I'm a parent, you know, a lot of these have expiration dates on the bottom of it. You know, expires at six years. And, you know, I thought that was always very curious. I went looking for the studies to show me why a car seat expires after six years. And the best I've been able to find and many other researchers have been able to find is that there are no such studies. These are fairly randomly put onto the car seats. Now, whether they're put on there to keep the car seat manufacturers from some kind of liability or there's, you know, a conspiracy basically to to get these things to the recycler so that people will buy more second hand car seats, I don't know. But overall, it's bad for the second hand economy if people can't reuse these devices, if they're sort of being almost taunted into disposing of them.

MG: And I mean, we're told, car seats in particular, you have to cut the straps so that people can't use them again. In addition to that second hand economy, you're also perhaps depriving people who might not be able to afford a new car seat from getting a second hand one.

MG: Well, exactly. So I'm talking to you from Malaysia, which just this year passed a law requiring families to have car seats. Now, you know, from a Canadian, you know, from a U.S. European standpoint, that that must sound really archaic. But they have large families here and families struggle to own a car. And so if you start asking a family here to spend, you know, you know, 50 dollars, 100 dollars on car seats, they're not going to be able to do it. And they haven't been able to do it. And for me, what what's so frustrating is I know that there are a lot of good used car seats in North America in particular that are not damaged, that may or may not be expired, whatever expired means in terms of a car seat. And the manufacturers refused to tell me. But they're being destroyed when they. Be used here and given, you know, and giving you give access to families that can't afford safety equipment, low cost access to that equipment, even, you know, the fact of the matter is a used car seat is better than no car seat. And right now we're taking those car seats out of circulation.

MG: There is more attention being paid to the environmental cost of fast fashion, as you're talking about, and the fact that clothes that might in years past have lasted longer now last, you know, for a few washes and then they end up in the landfill. How does that dovetail, that environmental concern with the second hand market?

ADAM MINTER: Well, it's igood for it. I mean, in so far as consumers are interested in moving away from disposable, you know, short term products and buying products that are more durable, that aren't fast fashion stuff, that will last for multiple washes, stuff that can be handed down, sold at garage sales. It's good for the environment and it's good for these businesses and charities that depend upon second-hand. I mean, one thing we know about products of any kind, you know you know, it could be an IKEA bookshelf, it could be a book, it could be a laptop is, you know, in terms of the environmental impact, the carbon emissions, the water pollution, most of the environmental impact of any product happens during the manufacturing phase. You know, the use phase is, you know, usually number two. And then actually the lowest environmental impact tends to come during the waste phase when something is recycled or disposed of. You know, via incineration or landfill, you know, we spent so much of our time focussed on what happens when stuff is thrown away. But we should really be focussing on the manufacturing. If you're worried about that, the best thing you can do is just make sure your stuff lasts a really long time and you're not encouraging people to manufacture more.

MG: What about the stuff that we inherit? You start this book and talking about your mom and what happened after your mom died and how you and your sister had to go and sort through your mom's belongings. This is the story I think that a lot of us are facing or are going to be facing as our parents age and maybe they downsized out of the place that they're in or maybe eventually when they die and we inherit that stuff, what should our attitude be around that kind of stuff?

ADAM MINTER: Yeah, I mean, that was kind of the journey that I went on with this book. I mean, my sister and I were left with the responsibility of figuring out what to do with my mom's stuff. And, you know, some of it was really easy to figure out what to do with. But you reach a point in one of these clean outs where you say and with us, it was one of the moments I was looking at my mom's China and saying, you know, this meant a great deal to her. You know, she had a lot of emotions invested in it, for you and me, referring to my sister, it didn't mean that much to us. And so, you know, we had to ask ourselves, do we hold on to something because it meant something to mom, you know? Are we doing her some kind of tribute by leaving it in the closet for an extended period of time? And we ultimately said no. I mean, you know, mom was more than just the accumulation of her stuff, but that's a big leap to make in sort of contemporary consumer societies. And in North America, Europe, Japan, you know, China, we tend to build our identities via stuff in many ways. And this accumulation of things that we have, whether it's our libraries or our music collections, our whatever the hobby is, it's us. And, you know, being able to let go of sort of that outlook is really hard. And what I found is it's even harder when you're sort of letting go of somebody else's material identity. But you know, at some point, you know, if we're going to sort of get out of this in saying, you know, consumption cycle that we're in, not just in North America, but around the world, you know, we're going to have to stop, you know, building these identities around that stuff. And so that was the journey I went on and, you know, for me to let go to a very large extent, it was a matter of me having to see just how much access there is out there in places like India and places like Ghana. Not to mention the access in North American, going to home cleanouts in North America. It was at that point that I said, you know, I think I can let go. My mom meant more to me than just the accumulation of stuff and her China.

MG: Well said. It's a really interesting book and it's so real in terms of how people will relate to the things around them and how they think perhaps those things to find them. Adam, thank you so much.

ADAM MINTER: Thank you.

MK: That was Adam Minter, author of "Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale," in conversation with Matt Galloway in February. And about child car seats - Transport Canada's website advises us not to use car seats after their expiry date; not to give them away; and not to sell them secondhand. We asked Transport Canada if that advice is based on any independent research - They replied that the recommendation is based on - quote - "the manufacturer's own risk assessment". They add that – quote - "expiry dates are not required by regulation, and are therefore not based on requirements set out by Transport Canada." That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q with Tom Power. Before we go though...did you see this story about NASA's next big idea? And when I say big I mean big! In August NASA will start the testing process for The ASTHROS mission which is designed to send a balloon the size of a football field up into space. The mission will study star formation and something called "stellar feedback" which is basically the regulator of star formation. The interstellar hot-air balloon is set to float off of Antarctica in December 2023 and spend three weeks in the stratosphere. Hopefully the balloon doesn't pop on the way up - because that would be one big bang. Here's Harry Nilsson with "Spaceman" I'm Mark Kelley. Thanks for listening to The Current.

The Current Transcript for July 29, 2020

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

WE co-founders' testify before House finance committee, How WE controversy will affect entire charity sector

Education experts call for outdoor classes to increase student safety amid COVID-19 pandemic

Let kids' car seats into secondhand market to help poorer families, urges author

Thursday July 29, 2020 Full Transcript

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