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The Current Transcript for June 21, 2016

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

If we leave the country, exactly the same arguments are going to be made about housing, about jobs, about Social Security. All those issues are going to be exactly the same on Friday as they are on Thursday.

LAURA LYNCH: The leaders of Britain's two main political parties speak as one these days. That's Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, echoing Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. They are down to the final hours of campaigning to keep the United Kingdom in the European Union. But others say it's past time to go. The so-called Brexit referendum has become a divisive, sometimes angry debate. And the polls suggest a dead heat. We head over to London to hear what's at stake for the UK and Europe. After that…

SOUNDCLIP

I've always challenged people when they come up and say congratulations. Sometimes being a first is filling a gap where society has failed.

LL: On this National Aboriginal day, we speak with a woman who has achieved a series of firsts in her life and career. But Dr. Nadine Caron doesn't necessarily see her accomplishments as a reason for celebration. As the first female indigenous woman to graduate from UBC's medical school, at the top of her class, she says there's still much to be done to ensure Canada's Aboriginal people get the kind of health care they need. And she says she knows how hard it can be from her own, sometimes painful, personal experience. After that...

SOUNDCLIP

What does it mean not to be on the map? To be off the grid? If you don't exist on a map, how can you open a bank account? How can you vote?

LL: In the big cities, most of us take it for granted: our home, our address marks out our place in the world, enabling us to get mail, get services, get to vote. But there's no such thing for many, many billions in the world. Now, guess what? There's an app for that. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna-Maria Tremonti, and this is The Current.

Brexit vote wrong approach for UK to get out of EU, says historian

Guests: Margaret Evans, Antony Beevor

[Music: Theme]

LAURA LYNCH: Tensions are rising with just two days until the so-called Brexit referendum, where British voters will decide if the United Kingdom will stay or leave the European Union. 28 member states make up the EU's economic and political partnership. Through the years, the European Union was sold on the promise of peace, freedom of movement, and economic co-operation. But growing dissatisfaction within Britain has called into question its EU membership. Polls indicate public opinion is in a dead heat -- a split that was reflected on the streets of London yesterday.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I'll be voting for Brexit, I'll be voting out. I don't think we need the smaller nations, such as Belarus, Lithuania, Macedonia, when quite fundamentally I would prefer to trade with the big hitters of the European Union such as France, Germany, Spain, Italy, et cetera.

VOICE 2: I was going to vote out, and then scare mongering, fears of the unknown...I like the romantic idea of us doing our own thing, but I think reality, I think it's best to stay.

VOICE 3: Out, definitely out.

VOICE 4: Why is that?

VOICE 3: Oh, for a number of reasons. I think we've seen, since we've been in the EU, loads and loads of companies leaving the EU -- uh, the UK -- car manufacturers, people like Cadbury's have left as well, our steel industry is knackered, our fishing industry is knackered. To be honest, the incredible amount of waste which the Europeans do...

VOICE 4: I'm just wondering which way you're planning to vote and why?

VOICE 5: In. I've got an 18-year-old daughter, and I think freedom of movement for her in the future is what's important. Younger people, they know that the world is a smaller, more integrated place. And we should be voting for their futures, not for old farts' futures like mine.

LL: For more on the implications of a British exit from the European Union, CBC foreign correspondent Margaret Evans joins us from London. Hi.

MARGARET EVANS: Hi, Laura.

LL: You heard those clips of people reacting to the referendum. How divided is public opinion?

MARGARET EVANS: It is pretty divided, and it's pretty confused, I'd say. I mean, I'd have to point out one of those respondents actually said that he didn't think it was important to have Belarus in the E.U.: it isn't. So there is a lot of things that people don't know, and in fact, one of the top five Google questions from Britain about this referendum is, "What is the European Union?" And so it's a very muddied field, but the opinion polls keep putting it neck-and-neck. One side inches forward, the other inches back, etcetera, etcetera.

LL: Some are saying that the split, though, in public opinion is along class lines. Do you see any truth to that?

MARGARET EVANS: I think that there is certainly, I think there is an element of truth to it. I mean, the typical profile of a remain voter, according to the pollsters, is someone who's young with a university education; the leave tends to be older and people without a university education. And I would say just from talking to people, it is people who see access to the European Union in their future, obviously, who want to stay. And so that, you know, it's students, people who can afford to study abroad. Then you speak to some young people who are living, you know, kind of having a tougher time finding a job. Can't imagine actually going to work in Sweden, you know, let alone travelling somewhere. For them, it's not so important to have those border controls gone. So I think it's a question of access and what people see in terms of their future relations with the E.U., and how it affects them.

LL: Does it break down along geographical lines, as well? I mean, the U.K. isn't just England, there's also Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland. Any idea how it breaks down that way?

MARGARET EVANS: Yeah, you know, Londoners are expected to vote strongly in favour of remaining and interestingly, most people here would tell you, as well, or opinion polls have said that one of the people that that Londoners trust the most to tell them the truth about the E.U. referendum is the new mayor, Sadiq Khan, who is in favour of remaining. Scotland is also in favour of remaining, strongly. Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the SNP up there, campaigning very hard, and the Scots have all said that they see themselves very much as European. And, of course, that's one of the big fears on the British side is that if Britain votes to leave, will Scotland move for another referendum, which some people say they will, so that they can remain in the European Union?

LL: What is at stake for the U.K. as a whole with this vote?

MARGARET EVANS: Well, I think it's really-- it is a question of identity. It is, you know, being able to see your country achieve the identity you want it to have, and I think that's why it's become so heated in recent days, it's now very, very real. In a couple of days' time, people who see themselves as a part of continental Europe and very European and global citizens think, oh my god, you know, that the drawbridge is going to come down between the continent and us. And those others who say this is about sovereignty, about being able to decide our own future, and not having to compromise as much as we've had to in the past, it's about destiny. And I think that's what's at stake, and it depends on what your own idea is of the British identity.

LL: Remind us why the British Prime Minister David Cameron called the referendum in the first place.

MARGARET EVANS: Well, that's really more to do with political infighting within the Conservative Party. And they have suffered from this for decades. In the 1990s, when I was in Brussels, we had first Margaret Thatcher, then John Major, all fighting with the Euro skeptics within the Conservative Party, and they're a very strong factor. And then, of course, after the Maastricht Treaty was signed which enshrined the notion of ever closer integration, this party, the United Kingdom Independence Party, UKIP was formed, and it started to sort of siphon off some of the Euro skeptics within the Conservative Party. And so David Cameron was trying to basically appease opinion in his own party and say look, we can get a better deal from the European Union and I promise you I'll do that. And if we don't get that, then I'll have a referendum. And that's what, you know, people would say that's what he did in order to be able to win the last election with a conservative majority.

LL: So he's holding the referendum, he's pushing to stay. Who's pushing to leave?

MARGARET EVANS: Well, lots of people. Again, as we said, that there are some of the people who don't have university degrees, who don't feel like they're a part of it. But I guess the biggest driver for the leave campaign is the issue of immigration, it's people who see that as a threat to their livelihood who say, you know, that the E.U. doesn't have control of its own borders because as a member of the single market, Britain is obliged to allow E.U. migrants to come in and work just as British citizens can go and work and live anywhere else in the other 27 member states. And this really has been one of the most important drivers for the leave campaign, and it's become quite emotional for people. And getting mixed up, as well, with the European refugee crisis, which of course is quite separate from the issue of agreed and managed internal migration. But you know, people see this is as people coming in to take places in schools or putting a burden on the National Health Service.

LL: And of course, that sort of tint of Britain First comes up. It came up last Thursday, tragically, when Jo Cox, a British member of Parliament who supported the remain campaign was killed on the streets of her constituency. How has her murder changed campaigning around the referendum?

MARGARET EVANS: Well, I think there were calls to dial down the rhetoric and sort of the poisonous nature of the campaign, which has sometimes been quite toxic. I have to say that that hasn't lasted very long. There's already a debate about, the leader of the UKIP party has accused the conservatives of using Jo Cox's murder to try to gain leverage as we approach Referendum Day. Jo Cox was, of course, very much a pro remain campaigner, and she was also well-known for championing the rights of refugees. And so I think that Nicola Sturgeon, who's the leader of the SNP in Scotland, had said that she actually thinks that people are increasingly turned off with the poisonous nature of the debate and they don't want to be associated with the UKIP Party, in particular, which is accused of terrible xenophobia. And they came up with these campaign posters recently which just show long lines of migrants. They're Syrian refugees, mainly, coming through the East and that's caused some people to switch sides. But you know, I have to say that immigration has always been a very divisive issue in the U.K. and so has Britain's place within the European Union and with the world.

LL: Okay, I'm going to put you on the spot very briefly: what do you expect is going to happen on Thursday?

MARGARET EVANS: Laura, I don't know. [chuckles]

LL: [chuckles] That's a terribly honest answer. Do you do at least expect that the turnout would be heavy, or do people feel really invested now?

MARGARET EVANS: I think so. I think that you would say up to this point that the leave campaigners probably had more emotion in this debate, and they say they see it on the horizon, it's very close. I would say that I think that the murder of Jo Cox might encourage people who really believed in the same ideals that she believed in to also come out. I do think it could turn on turnout, but I think also there's a possibility that people-- change is scary for people, and just as we saw in the Scottish Referendum, there might be a last minute kind of surge of people to stay. And they will have seen also this week, yesterday, that the remain polls came out a little bit ahead, and we saw the pound kind of climb up again. And so that might be something that weighs on people's minds.

LL: Okay, we'll be watching. Margaret, thanks very much.

MARGARET EVANS: Pleasure, Laura, thanks.

LL: Margaret Evans is a CBC foreign correspondent and she was in London, England. For more on how a split from the European Union could change Europe and Britain's place in it, I'm joined now by historian Antony Beevor. He is author of Ardennes 1944 and he joins me from London, England. Hello!

ANTONY BEEVOR: Hello there.

LL: Why do you say that a vote for Brexit could make Britain the world's most hated nation?

ANTONY BEEVOR: The danger is that Britain suddenly pulling out of the European Union at such a moment of crisis, existential crisis, even, within the European Union itself could pull the whole thing down. Now, I think that the European Union is perhaps probably labile to collapse in the next few years. Its internal contradictions: the single currency, which I think has been pretty disastrous, and is disastrous, will continue to grind down particularly the countries in the south. It's going to-- in fact, it's already being described as one of the longest train crashes in history, and that one can't go on without some form of resolution, which may lead to a split in the Euro. And the other, of course, which is compounded by the migration crisis coming from Africa and the Middle East. Migration, as Margaret rightly said, is a key issue, and has been here. And one of the problems is that David Cameron very unwisely promised that he would bring migration down, or immigration down, to tens of thousands. And he said, you know, that is a promise. And then halfway through the campaign, the figure was announced that the latest figure for last year was a third of a million. The trouble is that London is a victim of its own success. Everybody from all over Europe and the world wants to live and buy in London, and that's made life impossible for ordinary people to either afford the rent or certainly to buy. And all of these things have sort of compounded, and this is why it's become such a divisive issue.

LL: So if the E.U. is destined to fail, what did the architects of it get wrong?

ANTONY BEEVOR: Well, I think their main mistake was to try to push it beyond the European economic community. And the whole idea, as Donald Tusk, the president, acknowledged in the last few weeks in a series of speeches, that he said the great mistake was to have this sort of Euro fantasy of a complete United States of Europe. And that, of course, is disliked by everybody-- well, by the majority. I mean, in France, the feeling against the European Union is now far higher than it is in Britain. It's roughly 50-50 in Germany, which is the same as Britain. So the European Union has made itself terribly unpopular within the people of Europe. And, in fact, let's face it, every ideology, whether the extreme left, the extreme right, or even of the centre, in the case of the European Union, has the seeds of its own destruction. And in the case of Europe, it is that the need to centralize and regulate has actually provoked the very nationalism that the European Union was designed to get rid of.

LL: British MP Boris Johnson, he's also the former mayor of London, has been one of the biggest promoters of Brexit. I just want to have a listen to what he sees as the benefits of leaving the E.U.

SOUNDCLIP

And if we burst out of the shackles of Brussels, we would be able to begin immediately with those long neglected free trade opportunities which we can't do at the moment. We could strike free trade deals with America, with China. And I think if we have the self-confidence to take back control of our money, take back control of our borders, then I think we will be able to take this country forwards with growth and opportunities that have absolutely nothing to do with E.U. bureaucracy.

LL: Now, do you think Boris Johnson's words are resonating with a lot of people in the country?

ANTONY BEEVOR: Unfortunately, yes. Especially with those who haven't studied the problems or are prepared, if you like, to listen to the other side of the argument. Boris Johnson, I'm afraid, is being awfully opportunistic. For him, this is his chance to go for Number 10 Downing Street and take over from Cameron. It's really clever, but I'm afraid totally irresponsible. I mean, these promises that suddenly, we will be able to immediately sort of do this and immediately do that, this of course is totally untrue. The whole idea of trade deals nowadays is that they take a very long time to negotiate. And during that particular period, Britain will suffer a very severe downturn, to put it mildly. There will be no external investment coming, there will be many, many jobs lost. Now, nobody really knows what the longer term effect will be, whether it will be better in the longer term for Britain outside the E.U. or to remain. But the problem is to actually gamble all of that on such an unknown is actually irresponsible, as I said.

LL: I want to play just one more clip for you, is this time it's former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis warning about the possible political fallout across Europe if Britain decide to leave. Here he is.

SOUNDCLIP

We are going to unleash very vulgar and brutal ultra-right wing forces throughout Europe, and various xenophobic tendencies that will be terribly charged. Brexit would speed up the disintegration of the European Union. And in the end, the only beneficiaries will be those ultra-nationalists, xenophobes, racists everywhere, including in Britain.

LL: You referred to this earlier. Do you do you agree with his sentiments?

ANTONY BEEVOR: I'm afraid I could hardly hear a word he was saying, but-- I'm afraid it's very, very faint. But I think the trouble is in Greece, there are very, very mixed feelings. I mean, there are some people in Greece who think it might help because Greece themselves feel completely imprisoned within the European Union, that they're being ground down by the rules imposed by the North. This is also true of other countries in the south. And France is suffering very badly, too. I mean, the trouble is the whole system has imprisoned them all in a position where they cannot raise their own interest rates, they cannot lower the value of their currency, or whatever. Everything is pegged together, and if you've got totally incompatible economic systems and economies like the difference between Germany and Greece, this is going to happen. And frankly, I think that Greece's any chance of survival in the longer term is actually outside the European Union. So there are many in Greece who actually hope that it might lead to the unraveling of the European Union, while others fear, obviously, the consequences. The trouble is, as I said, nobody really knows what the consequences will be.

LL: If it does fall apart as the European Union, do you see any usefulness in having some kind of an alliance, whether economic or somewhat political? Is there anything that could be rise from the ashes of a destroyed E.U.?

ANTONY BEEVOR: Oh, yes, I think so. I mean, I think that what we might be more likely to see, perhaps, is a split in the Euro. You can have a Northern Euro, which will perhaps be east of the Rhine the north of the Alps. I mean, i.e., Germany or Austria and the Scandinavian countries and the low countries. But you know, I think we will see, say, France and the Mediterranean countries in maybe a softer one. But the point is that we should try to do everything to keep the European economic community in the sense of a free trade area going, rather than allowing the European Union to destroy itself by going for its impossible dream of total unification. Unfortunately, as I was saying, Donald Tusk has realized the danger of this, but I'm afraid Jean-Claude Juncker, who is literally like the other president in this very strange organization which the E.U. is, is saying we should ignore all this, we should go for bust with a European army, and all the rest of it. So we're not seeing tremendous coherence coming out of Brussels.

LL: Antony Beevor, we will leave it there. Thank you very much.

ANTONY BEEVOR: Thank you.

LL: Antony Beevor is a historian and author. He was in London, England. Should the U.K. leave the E.U.? What do you think? On Twitter, we're at @TheCurrentCBC. I'm @LauraLynchCBC. Leave us a comment on Facebook or send us an e-mail through our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, and you are listening to The Current.

[Music: Sting]

Dr. Nadine Caron on her trailblazing path as a First Nations surgeon

Guests:

LL: Hello, I’m Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: theme]

LL: Still to come, how three small words could help map the world, but first, an Indigenous trailblazer in the medical community.

SOUNDCLIP

As Indigenous people we hear a lot about how we're not well, how we don't achieve, how we don't graduate from high school, how we don't want to put secondary education, and this was just such a different example for me to be surrounded by, that not only had other Indigenous women gone through medical school before me, but they had excelled.

LL: That was Dr. Shannon Waters. Today she is the medical director at the Vancouver Island Health Authority, but as a young Aboriginal woman working her way through medical school she didn't have a lot of people she could look up to, that is, except for Dr. Nadine Caron. Not only was Dr. Caron the first Indigenous woman to graduate from the University of British Columbia's medical school, she did so at the top of her class. Dr. Caron then went on to become Canada's first female First Nations general surgeon. Now, along with being a surgeon she's also an associate professor at UBC’s northern medical program and co-director of UBC Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Health. Today, Dr. Caron adds another accolade to the list. The Dr. Thomas Dignan Indigenous Health Award, given out by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Dr. Nadine Caron joins me now from Prince George to talk about her trailblazing career and her hopes for young Indigenous students. Hello.

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: Hello, Laura.

LL: Well, that is a lot of firsts. What does it mean to you to have all those firsts next to your name?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: It’s, first of all, an honour, particularly when you're talking about something like The Thomas Dignan Indigenous Health Award from the college. I was really just blown away by that. Other things are a little bit more complicated though when you, sort of, dive into them and what they mean. And I've always challenged people when they come up and say, their immediate response is congratulations. And I wonder, is it congratulating me from graduating from medical school or finishing my surgery residency or is it really filling a gap where society has failed? There's nothing special. You know, I went through medical school with a whole class of incredible colleagues and friends and is it something where society just hadn't had a First Nations woman graduate from UBC School of Medicine yet or First Nations female general surgeon in Canada yet. And at some point I think we have to make sure that in order for it to have a true impact of being the first of something you have to make sure that you challenge those around you and those that ask to make sure they realize that not having someone before you may be something to ponder and to consider.

LL: So, if you were the first then and then I think that it is legitimate to ask what kinds of challenges or barriers did you have along the way?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: Right. Well, I think it's a challenging road to go into medicine and to go into surgery. But I think that we've worked hard, particularly at UBC. We started a couple years ago the Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Health and one of the things we're doing is exactly that, sort of, taking a look at what was hard and how do we fix it for the next generation of students and trainees coming through. And one thing I know that we're doing is trying to make it so that when you are having challenges and you are having difficulties and you do want someone who can understand, particularly that side of things - being First Nations or being Indigenous or being a minority or having other elements in your life that you're trying to hold onto - to have someone to turn to, to have someone to talk to, to have someone that validates your concerns and your fears I think is really, really important in my year there was no other Indigenous student in the class. That was hard because you had to, sort of, looked out.

LL: But why was it hard? What were you facing that you would have liked to have had someone else to talk to about?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: I think part of it is it's often when you're working with Indigenous populations. And my real link is with First Nations because, being Anishinaabe myself, that's where I sort of connect to and the lens that I looked through. When I saw, particularly first hand, issues in the health care system where it led our First Nations people down, our communities down, that when it really triggered me there was no one around that got triggered in the same way that it touched so personally and so passionately. And I was often told, like, Nadine, you’re overreacting or why does that always trigger you? Why do you always get upset about that? And even as a faculty member and in academia and out in the world there I often get told that that'll never happen. Don't dream so big. It's sort of a message that you get repeatedly throughout because there's not too many people that see it through your lens. And, like I said, at UBC, which is the world that I'm most affiliated with, they get it and they understand it and so I'm starting to see a difference now. And then I do look back and realize what I did not have.

LL: You are well aware and we've done many stories about the state of Aboriginal health care, both on and off reserve, big challenges, big problems - what do you say the major failings have been?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: Oh my goodness. I usually break it down into sort of different elements. One is the access to health services. Another is the utilization of health services. Access means that a lot of our Aboriginal Peoples and communities have to travel significant distances. They don't have access to health services. They aren't aware of the health services that are there. And the quality of the health services that they get can be impacted. And, I'll say it, they can be impacted by culturally, insensitive, unaware, or frank racism within the health care system. I've witnessed myself. I felt it myself with family members.

LL: What happened?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: Oh, it's just what you see when you walk down a hallway in an emergency room or you overhear what’s being said by other health care professionals in a in a doctor's mound or in a surgery.

LL: They’ve said things to you or about other patients?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: You know what? No one's ever said anything to my face, partly because I'm so protected by the white coat. You know, why would you say that to someone with an MD after your name? But when you're around a corner or they don't realize who you are or they don't know that you're First Nations, then they open up with their thoughts and those thoughts can be incredibly shocking at first, hurtful, and just, in a way, sometimes unbelievable even though you hear them time and time again.

LL: I'm sorry. It probably isn't easy for you to say, but can you give a couple of examples of the kinds of things that you've heard?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: Oh, gosh. I've been all over the country in different hospitals, so I know that I'm not going to identify a particular hospital or clinic or office, but I hear people laughing at the inability for a First Nations person to understand what's been said. I hear people really frustrated with someone who shows up late or unprepared for an appointment or for a procedure and not recognizing that all you have to do is ask a simple question and ask them why and it will blow them away. It's heart-breaking, but it's so important I understand. And I think that's why, again, I'm fortunate in the sense that being a First Nations physician I can ask the why and I and I get these answers where I can understand and say, you did the right thing not coming in. You know, that funeral is really important to go to, or that's not your fault that that transportation wasn't organized. We’ll look into it. The system failed you there. It is hard. Some of them are so personal, literally personal. I remember this one time, it was many years ago, and I was at a hospital that I don't usually work at and didn't usually work at, but I had the crew of surgeons that I worked with and other colleagues that I worked with that knew me. So, I was sitting at lunch in the doctor's lounge with them and a surgeon came in. And he was, obviously, sort of, sweaty and had just finished a long case and he sat down and he's, like, “Phew, if I never operate on another Indian it will be too soon.” And it was interesting because all my colleagues around were very uncomfortable, obviously, because they knew that I was First Nations, but this individual did not. He didn't in any way target this towards me or didn't mean to hurt me. And so my colleagues were uncomfortable. It was very awkward. I did what my mom used to tell me when I was a kid, you know, count to ten before you do anything. And so I sort of waited a few seconds and then I said, “Well, you know, if you don't want to operate on an Indian when you get paid you probably don't want to eat with one for free.” So I slowly gathered up all my stuff and got up and walked away. Eventually what happened was, slowly, one by one my other colleagues at that same sort of big lunch table got up and moved away from the table too. And what was interesting is it was about four years later, I was talking to him and he came up to me and he said, “Do you remember that day?” And I knew exactly what he was talking about. And I said, “Yeah, yeah. I remember.” And he said, “I'm so sorry.” And I said, “Yeah, you know, what are you sorry for? Are you sorry because you hurt my feelings? Is that what you're sorry for?” And he said, “No. I knew if I said sorry right away for hurting your feelings that you would never have accepted that.” He said, “It took me a long time to realize every time that I saw a First Nations patient or an Aboriginal patient that I had to be so careful and I had to check myself and I had to realize that I needed to respect every person. I shouldn't jump to conclusions and I shouldn't make assumptions.” And he said, “It's taken me years and every single time I see an Aboriginal patient I think of that interaction that we had and so now I feel like I can say sorry, because I think I've changed. I feel like I can actually say sorry for more than hurting your feelings, but for the way that I used to be.” And I bring up that one, I guess, because in a way it came about with an apology. That whole apology that Aboriginal people in Canada are waiting for, I got one of those.

LL: I can hear in your voice the kind of emotion and pain that you can recall so vividly even though this happened such a long time ago. I know it was hard for you to share, but I thank you because I think it's something that listeners, people need to hear.

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: Well, if there's one person out there that is touched by it that maybe changes, then it was worth it.

LL: You vividly outlined what you see as some of the problems and challenges. So, what needs to change?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: Well, I think, in a lot of ways, the pathway to changing, a lot of those are aligned in the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions calls to action. For example, we were just talking about issues in the health care system where it's really almost on one to one and how an individual is respected and valued and understood. So, in the TRC they called for cultural competency now or even moving towards a cultural of safety and cultural humility training for healthcare providers, not just nurses and doctors, but across the board, making sure that the actual quality of care that an individual receives regardless of their background is optimal.

LL: Do you think this Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Health at UBC can play a role in that?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: We certainly hope so. That’s within our mandate. We targeted first the medical school because they were doing their new curriculum. And it was very exciting when the medical school took on absolutely mandatory training in cultural competency and cultural safety for their medical students. So, that's been going on now for two years and that was a big step forward for UBC and I think a real leading role in terms of how post-secondary institutions can take responsibility for the professionals that they're training. We're trying actively at UBC to increase the number of Aboriginal health care providers. So, we're out there and we're trying to recruit students that want to enter the health professions, whether it's medicine or other entities like nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, midwifery, you name it. We need more Aboriginal representation. So, these individuals can become leaders and they can show the Aboriginal youth out there. If it's a Métis doctor, they can say, look, you too can do it. A First Nations nurse, look at what I'm doing and I love what I'm doing - that role-modelling and mentoring.

LL: You've also set up this biobank. It sounds really interesting. What is it? What is the aim of it?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: The Northern Biobank Initiative just underwent or it's just starting its phase two, recently, up here in the Northern Health Authority in BC. And what a biobank is is basically collecting biospecimens or, to make it easier, something that would otherwise be collected, such as a tumour after a cancer operation or blood, and we, instead of just sitting in the basement of a hospital, we bank it and we put it in a place where we know it's there and we have, what we call, annotated clinical data. We know it's from a 62-year-old man or a 42-year-old lady. It's all de-identified so we don't know who it was or any information that can identify that individual, but then if research questions come up, then, all of a sudden, if we can create that biobank, the Northern population will be able to be part of the significant research that's being done. Being a cancer surgeon I certainly see a significant change in how we diagnose and treat cancer patients because of this research and it's just been concerning that our Northern population hasn't had the opportunity to be part of it. A significant part is, the major partner in this entire initiative, is the First Nations Health Authority here in BC. And they're really exploring whether this is something their communities would want, is this something their communities would benefit from? And if it is, then how do their communities want this to be created?

LL: There is another area I want to address with you. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which you talked about before, made some other recommendations around Indigenous health. One of them is to recognise traditional healing practices and as a doctor and in the Western system, how does a move like that sit with you?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: Right. You know, I get asked that a lot, particularly since I don't know if there's anything more concrete in the Western medicine than a surgeon where if there's a lump, you cut it out, kind of thing. And then all of sudden there's the traditional healing practices of our Indigenous people in Canada. I fully support that. I think it's so important to ensure that when you are working with an individual patient with, whether it's a disease or, in my case, often new diagnosis of cancer, that you're not-- You know, when I go to the operating room and I do an operation to take out, say, half of the thyroid or a thyroid because of thyroid cancer, I don't just take the thyroid to the operation. I take the entire person. I take their family, their community, everyone who wants this to be a safe operation, a successful operation. But, most importantly, that individual has beliefs, has values, and you have to ensure that all of that is respected so that they can trust you and you can trust that they know what they're going to the operation for and that it's safe. And so I completely agree that our First Nations people and our other Aboriginal people in Canada really need to be respected. If this is another area where they turn to for their health and for their treatments, then we need to work with them, in collaboration with them, to just make sure that what are they doing? What do we propose? How will it fit together? Instead of feeling like you have to choose.

LL: Well, but what if a patient does come to you and say, no, I don't want your treatment. I want to use traditional healing practices only.

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: And I do have patients that do that. I think part of it is that as a First Nations surgeon I probably get more First Nation patients referred to me and we have, I think, great discussions. My role as a surgeon is to share where my expertise is after decades of experience and training. But I'm not an expert in traditional medicine. So they often share what they're planning on doing to the degree they feel comfortable with and I tell them what the pros and cons are of the surgery. I let them know what my thoughts are. I always say, you know-- I very rarely have someone who says they don't want surgery, they're only going to do traditional medicine. And if they only want to do traditional medicine, our final thoughts are can we stay in touch? You can always change your mind and come back to see me. I think, overall, we have to realize that these are choices. Any health care is a choice. I don't have a right, particularly in an area where I am not an expert-- I have only to learn from my patients in traditional healing practices. My job is to do the best I can to explain what a surgeon can do and absolutely respect the individual behind that. They are so much more than a surgery patient and I can't lose sight of that.

LL: I have you ever had a patient who refused your treatment and survived on traditional healing practices?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: I have some patients who have survived longer than I ever would have expected with traditional healing practices. And I don't know how to explain it except to be one 100 per cent honest and say I'm not an expert in traditional healing practices. But I can respect an individual’s beliefs even if they're different than what I've been trained in. And I think that's so important. I think it will help an individual trust the Western medical system and realize that we're not here to judge, we’re not here to force someone to change their mind or force them to choose between one or the other. We're here to do whatever we can, whatever they choose in the options that we give them and we're here to support them through a path, even if they end up not choosing our path.

LL: We've covered a fair bit of territory here, but I just wanted to ask you, with everything that you've talked about, how far away do you think Canada is from providing the kind of care and treatment and research that the Indigenous communities need?

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: You know what? It spends on the day and it's early back here in the morning in Prince George. I haven't even gone into my clinic. That's a better question to ask at the end of any given day because sometimes I'm so optimistic. I have incredible colleagues in the Western medical system that just wish they could work more with the First Nations communities or do go into First Nations communities in northern BC and are absolutely blown away by the health that they see in these communities because they see individuals in their own space. And then on other days I experience things in the hallways or hear things that are unintended to be heard and you just hang your head and you realise that it’s why thing like the Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Health exist. It's why the TRC is going to be such a powerful document. It's why, as an Indigenous physician, I celebrated when the Trudeau government said that they were going to adhere to those calls to action and they believed in them and they understood that they came from thousands of courageous voices. And so I think in the end it's just like anything else. We're not there yet, but we don't even have the right to stop trying to get there.

LL: Dr. Caron, congratulations on the latest first and I thank you very much for your time.

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: Thank you so much, Laura. A pleasure to talk.

LL: Bye bye.

DOCTOR NADINE CARON: Bye bye.

LL: Dr. Nadine Caron is being recognized today by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada with the Dr. Thomas Dignan Indigenous Health Award. She was in Prince George, BC. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you are listening to The Current. And now we’re going to have some listener feedback. Last Thursday, we aired a segment about the night sky. According to the US National Park Service's Night Sky Program, almost 80 per cent of North Americans can't see the Milky Way from where they live, due to light pollution. We heard about how this affects the health of humans and ecosystems. But astronaut Roberta Bondar believes the effects are even more fundamental for our shared humanity.

SOUNDCLIP

How can we reconnect individuals to something that has been free to everybody throughout time? That is, to be able to look up and not just be enamoured of the sky or want to be an astronaut or want to figure out why the planets are the way they are, but to give us a more deep philosophical insight into who we are as a life form. I think without that we’ve become a society that's really just looking down all the time at our feet. We don't have that ability to look beyond the edge of our planet and really try to understand what this is all about.

LL: Now, after that segment aired, many of you wrote in to us about your own connections to the stars. Robert Smith tweeted: “I'm from Labrador, and I grew up with a deep, dark sky. I miss it living in Montreal.” Yvonne Zarowny of Qualicum Beach, BC, shared this: “I went to two dark sky reserves in Ireland. It was so amazing ... like a total body balm. We need to know more about the importance of the night and the power to wonder about the stars.” Doug Delamatter tweeted us a comment from his daughter: “The problem with cities is that no one can see the stars, so people think that their problems are the most important things.” Marilyn Turton from Lakefield, Ontario, wrote: “We moved from Toronto to a small lakeside home over 20 years ago. I find that more and more cottagers are adding outside lights to their properties and leaving them on all night. It's polluting the skies here too. I wish they would just install motion lights that turn off automatically after a few minutes. I can't imagine that they are all that afraid of the dark." And finally, we'll give the last word to Sharlene Hamilton -- who has her own theory about why people can't see the stars: “[It's] because they are staring at their phones.” Let us know what you think of what you hear on the program. Tweet us @thecurrentcbc or me, @lauralynchcbc. Post on our Facebook page. Or email us by clicking on the contact links on our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent. In our next half hour, a simple idea to help people who live off the grid to get on the map through a new way to address the mail. I'm Laura Lynch and you’re listening to The Current.

How 3 words could put 4 billion people without addresses on the map

Guests: Chris Sheldrick, Catherine Farvacque-Vitkovic

LAURA LYNCH: Hello I’m Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you are listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[guitar playing]

What does it mean not to be on the map? To be off the grid? When you are at the bottom, it is the difference between sinking and swimming. The barrier to improving your life if you don't exist on a map, how can you open a bank account, how can you vote? We all must prove where we belong. If the government cannot give us an address, then we have to look to other means.

LL: That’s a promotional video from a UK tech start-up that has designed a solution for people who live off the map, or don’t have a reliable mailing address. The United Nations estimates as many as four billion people live in places where there are no street names or numbers. As you just heard, that simple lack of an address can have some big consequences. To try and solve that problem, the company what3words has divided the entire world into three by three metre squares. They have assigned each square a unique combination of three words that act as an address. For instance, if you want to visit the base of the CN tower, you'd head to quote “Ribs. Grow. Oatmeal” unquote. Those are the three words that represent that specific section of the world. Well, it may sound futuristic or a little bit odd [laughs], but as of July 1, Mongolia is adopting what3words for their national postal system. So now if you want to send mail to the Canadian embassy there, its official address will be: Listen. Backpacks. Motive. For more on this, I'm joined by Chris Sheldrick. He is the co-founder and CEO of what3words and he joins me from London, England. Hello.

CHRIS SHELDRICK: Hi, Anna Maria.

LL: Can you explain to me first what the mechanics are of this app?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: Sure. What3words is a global address system. We’ve divided the world into three metres squared, so 57 trillion in 3 metre squares. We’ve made every three metres square on the planet with a unique three word address, using words from the dictionary. Table.chair.spoon is one of our addresses. Toffee.bronze.pyramid, and there are enough combinations that you can literally label every three metres in the entire world with a unique three words. That means it is far more easy to just tell anyone where you want to go, or where you live if an address doesn’t really work for you.

LL: These words are just assigned randomly, are they?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: That’s right, they are random words. There is no meaning from the words in terms of where you are actually talking about, but it gives you a far easier way of talking about that place.

LL: [laughs] Say my friend lives at Spoon.Table.Chair, what do I do?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: You would download the app, type in spoon-dot-table-dot-chair and then you press directions and it will direct you there. You’d use it in the same way you’d use a normal address.

LL: So, it’s working with GPS, is it?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: That’s right, because every smartphone has a GPS chip in it and the GPS navigation will take you there. Where we help is with defining where you want to go. I think everyone can associate with getting lost when somebody’s address take you to the wrong place. We think people shouldn’t have to go through that pain, so just by typing in the three words into the app, you can get to the exact three metre square you want to go to.

LL: And how many languages do you have it in because not everybody speaks English?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: Right. SO while we cover the whole world in English, we’ve also made 10 other language versions. That means for us, if we speak English we can go anywhere from Canada to Russia to the middle of Africa using English, but if you’re a Spanish speaker, you can also be anywhere in the world and use three Spanish words. It’s more about being able to talk about anywhere in your own language as easy as possible.

LL: How did you come up with this idea?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: I was working in the music business and when you’re in the music business, you’re always going to somewhere new every day. Whether it is a big venue in a city, it would normally have one address or one postal code, or zip code that would point to the middle, and there would be like 18 car parks and 12 different entrances and everyone would call up because we were coordinating everyone arriving, and they’d say I don’t exactly know where I am, I think I’m a bit lost, and this was a big problem when you’re trying to build a show in three hours. Other days, we’d be in the middle of the country side in a much more remote setting and everyone would be calling out saying, I’m by a lamp post and a hedge. I put the address in but I’m in the wrong place, so I wanted to use something that was far more precise. We tried using GPS coordinates but having all these musicians, they were typing in an 8-digit latitude and AN 8-digit longitude, and they didn’t know where the degree sign was on their phone, they mixed up a four and a five and they ended up 20 miles in the wrong direction. For me, it was about can we have somewhere that is universal, is really accurate, but has to be really easy for everyone.

LL: So it’s something you needed. How big a problem is it for countries that have a lot of people without addresses?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: That’s the thing. In the US and Canada, the UK, some places work, some places don’t but in a lot of countries, they don’t have an infrastructure for addresses at all. Take Dubai in the Middle East, take India, take a lot of South East Asia and Latin America, in many cases, the government has never built proper address systems. The UN said there is four billion people in the world who live without an address, and they say that three-quarters of countries don’t have a proper address system. This is a much bigger concern than most people are aware of. For example, we’ve just done a deal with the post service of Mongolia. Mongolia is a big old country. There are not many addresses there, and they are now able to support three Mongolian words to help mail get to the right place. It is a big a big global impact that we can have. E-Commerce is now available to other countries, but while people are writing fourth lamp post on the left by the roundabout on the checkout page, then the poor delivery company is really struggling to get that to the right place. We can create a lot of efficiencies for businesses but reduce frustrations for customers and make the world a lot safer because we can aid and other essential services get to the right places.

LL: This would work for e-commerce, would it not?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: Exactly. That’s exactly we’re doing in Mongolia, in the Middle East, and other places. So if people are shopping for something and the delivery driver is always calling up saying, sorry, where exactly is your house, or maybe they missed your delivery because your address had a problem, that’s what we want to target. So, people will discover their three words on the what3words app, go onto the e-commerce site, type in their three words which could be Spoon.Table.Chair, that will go right through the system to the logistics company and they will show up at your door, no hassle.

LL: Does this whole system depend on having a smartphone, and depend on having Wifi?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: It does depend on having a smartphone if you want to discover your own three word address, but once you’ve got that, our system actually works offline. You could be in the middle of a desert and still workout your three word address, and still navigate to your address. You don’t need to have mobile date or Wifi for it to work once you have the app. In a lot of these other countries, the post service, or people from the government will actually help people find their three word address if they don’t have a smartphone. In Rio de Janeiro they use our Portuguese version for a huge part of the city with no addresses. The courier service actually tells people their three word address and says, look, remember this and if you need to give it to anyone, here are your three words. Three words is easy enough to remember, they don’t need a smartphone or computer, but they can still benefit from it.

LL: I think of other things that must be challenges, things like these sprawling refugee camps all over the world. Would you use it there?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: Yes, absolutely. We’ve just started to see some interest there. For example, one of the UK’s biggest festivals uses our [indecipherable] aid because you’ve got 200,000 people in a field with no infrastructure. That’s actually a remarkable similar environment to a refugee camp in that you have hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, somewhere where you have no infrastructure. You need to be able to label key sites and go, where is the water? Where is the emergency tent? Where are these key places? And a lot of responding agencies come in and need to find their way around. We’re really looking at doing refugee sites at the moment with some of the agencies that are already struggling.

LL: [laughs] How do you deal with the vertical?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: A lot of people ask that. At the moment we're two dimensional. We know we want to help you get to the entrance of the building because indoor mapping, and navigation, and positioning is this kind of up and coming technology but it's not widespread. I think in the future, it will allow people to specify the height as well, but for the moment there's a really big problem in the world about getting people to the right entrance and that's what we're focused on fixing.

LL: Okay, this is a business for you, how do you make money from this?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: So the what3words app and the what3words website are free for anybody to use. How we make our money is by businesses who want to benefit from using the service. So, if you're a delivery business and you want to be able to receive thousands or tens of thousands of orders with three web addresses a day, you need an automated software tool from us which means that you know the location for each of those destinations automatically. So we have the software that we license to businesses or apps; whoever wants to have what3words ingrained in their processor. Business pays but the consumer doesn't. It’s entirely free for people.

LL: And how is business?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: Business is very good, thank you. I mean, I think for us the important thing is that we've got all the key people we wanted in the verticals we're after so you know we've got some navigation apps now, we've got some post services, we've got a taxi company, we've got a whole load of different ways that businesses are using what3words and it's growing. We're now used in 170 countries, the ten languages that we've built are not enough because people in new countries and new languages want to access what3words, so we're doing another ten languages at the moment. I think it's great as more and more businesses adopt what we’re doing. I think we're really excited about what is happening.

LL: [laughs] We all know about vanity license plates. Does anyone ever ask you specific tailored three words like Hollywood--somebody would have a star.star.star address or something like that?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: Plenty of people have suggested they could have a vanity three words, but for us one of the biggest benefits of what3words is that is global and it's fixed, and because that means it all works from our small algorithm. It can be run on anyone's phone without internet and it can be run on any business’s server without internet or sort of relying on an ever changing database. I think changing databases get confusing but a fixed system works really well for everyone, so I think whilst on one hand it can seem appealing to start playing with the system, the fact that it's fixed is much better for everyone.

LL: And do you know the address of where you're at right now? What’s it called?

CHRIS SHELDRICK: Yeah, I'm sure I can call it up.

LL: [laughs] I put you on the spot.

CHRIS SHELDRICK: No, it’s absolutely fine. Right now I’m at Couches.Maps.Chemistry. That’s what you would type into the what3words app.

LL: Sounds like an interesting place. We'll leave it there, thank you.

CHRIS SHELDRICK: It’s a pleasure, Laura.

LL: Chris Sheldrick is the co-founder and CEO of what3words. He was in London, England. Last year, what3words partnered with an organization working to bring electricity and solar power to slums in India. It used the app to reach hard to find people. Arjun Bolangdy is Pollinate Energy’s head of operations and technology in Bangalore, India.

SOUNDCLIP

A lot of these communities, a prominent number of these at least are found in bylanes of bylanes where ordinary Google maps can't seem to provide them with an address, essentially because the street might not be named or something to that degree, and those are the kind of problems that we faced. We chanced upon this app about a year or so ago. We were actually able to associate and find these communities and follow up with them in a more effective manner now that we had such an accurate representation of where they exactly were, as opposed to let’s say, an unnamed road on Google maps that didn't necessarily provide us with that level of accuracy of their address.

LL: Being able to easily track down people means Pollinate Energy was able to bring light to a lot more homes.

SOUNDCLIP

As of today, we work in about 1,500-odd communities like this in three cities and have reached 70,000 people. One of the families I ended meeting in the field was a family where a single mother was taking care of her children. She had lost her husband in a very tragic incident and now she literally had to fend for her children and she was working domestically in two or three households around that community. What the light ended up doing is that it now it allows her most importantly to cook at night and it allows her children to study after dark, something they couldn't do before.

LL: So connecting to the grid is just one thing that's made easier by getting on the map. The World Bank says having an address would solve a host of problems for billions of people. Catherine Farvacque-Vitkovic is the Lead Urban Development Specialist with the World Bank and we reached her in Washington, D.C. Hello. How big a problem is the lack of addresses in the world?

CATHERINE FARVACQUE-VITKOVIC: Well, it's a big problem as your old previous speaker mentioned. This is a problem that is affecting many, many parts of the world like Africa, Asia, and Latin America are probably the key regions where the issue is extensive. I must say that street addressing is nothing new, it's a concept that ancient China and many countries have implemented over the centuries. But what's happened in the recent past is that cities have grown at a very rapid pace and the existing street addressing system that might have been in place, has not kept up with the rapid pace of urbanization. The key issue in many cities around the world is urban expansion taking place.

LL: We've heard some examples, but why do you think it's so important to have an address? What are the consequences?

CATHERINE FARVACQUE-VITKOVIC: Well, at the World Bank, we have worked on street addressing for many years. We have developed also a methodology that is very, very simple to apply at a very low cost and we take a slightly different stance than then the perspective taken by a number of start-up companies such as what3words. We understand that there is a business case for being able to navigate in the city and obviously this is key. We have heard so many examples of people not being able to find their way in the city. A key application, or key goal of street addressing is obviously enhancing the sense of civic identity. I mean, everybody today needs an address to have access to identity papers, to report life events, to demonstrate papers, to vote, so street addressing is really a key requirement help cities achieve social integration and the sense of community. Obviously, street addressing has also many, many other public good type of applications.

LL: So, in that context then what do you think of the what3words solution?

CATHERINE FARVACQUE-VITKOVIC: Well, it's one solution. As I said, there are several start-up companies that have started and I think this is a very good trend. Street addressing has been the forgotten topic for many years on the development agenda, so it's very good to see a renewed interest in the topic, and obviously, location matters. Location matters and the need to enhance economic development, to use location also as an engine, economic development is very important and this is how what3words and other start-up companies are positioning themselves. At the bank, we are taking the same approach but we are also wanting to make sure that we don't forget the invisible, or less visible benefits of street addressing and the many applications. So this is why we take a stand also on using street addressing as part of a city management function and making sure that local governments are the drivers of change on street addressing.

LL: So you see it as a public good and something that the government should be in charge of, but I guess the question is, is it happening and I would almost assume it's not if this app is filling a void.

CATHERINE FARVACQUE-VITKOVIC: It is happening and the demand is huge. I think what is missing right now is the capacity to respond. We had at the bank, as I mentioned, developed a methodology on street addressing, we have published a book called Street Addressing and the Management of Cities, we have developed an e-learning course that is training thousands of practitioners around the world, we have created also a community of people working on this issue, so the demand is great. A lot has been achieved on this. We have worked on many, many applications and what I would like to mention is the importance of having a street address with the goal of helping; of facilitating service delivery and infrastructure. Delivery has been used in many countries as part of our on-going operation as a tool for solid waste management, for connecting with utility practitioners, water and electricity, for road maintenance, for helping with better knowledge of management, as an aid to investment planning at the local level, and another key application is the link between street addressing and local taxation. We have had major impact on linking street addressing with the fiscal registrars. An application we are working on is, of course, emergency response. We have been working a lot on informal settlements around the world. Today, about one billion people leaving informal settlements and street addressing has proved to be a connector, in a sense; bringing informal settlements into the urban fabric and using the street as a unit of intervention, which is a very new concept. It seems simple, but it's actually a transformational paradigm.

LL: You mention one thing in that list there, and that's taxation. I would think that that would be an attractive thing for civic governments. The very point of getting those addresses would mean that they have people and addresses they can go to to collect tax and provide service.

CATHERINE FARVACQUE-VITKOVIC: Right. What you have to remember is the address is really the cherry on the cake. What's happening with the street system is that it implies not only an effort to update city mapping and street mapping, but also to update or collect any type of data that happens at the street level and household level, and that can be used for such applications. One item that we have been working on is this connection or linkage between fiscal resistors and the street addressing data, and in countries where this has been done we have been able to improve drastically the tax base, or the knowledge on the tax base, and to improve revenue mobilization of local governments by 25 to 30 percent. They are number of countries I want to mention Ghana, for example. Ghana is a country where there has been a strong commitment to street addressing at the national level. We started a national street addressing program under the leadership of the Minister of Finance and a key application there was local taxation, so we have been able to train—

LL: And is that outside the big city of Accra, or does it mainly focus--

CATHERINE FARVACQUE-VITKOVIC: Yes, Accra and five other families outside of Accra.

LL: I'm curious to know, do you ever get any resistance from neighbourhoods that don't want to be put on the grid?

CATHERINE FARVACQUE-VITKOVIC: No, not really because I think that people see, especially in informal settlements, in informal settlements what has traditionally been done unsuccessfully was to try to recognize property rights and to issue even temporary titles to residents. This is proved to be a very lengthy, cumbersome, expensive process, which has never been fully expanded. We have, in a sense changed our approach on this issue of informal settlements by saying, okay, we cannot deal with property rights issues, we cannot deal with the micro-management of plot boundaries where there is no judicial system that works well, no land registration that works well, so let’s focus on what’s happening at the street level and the occupancy level, and let’s see if by providing the a street number and address, we can improve the situation. There is definitely a larger sense of both citizenship and inclusion into the urban fabric. By using the street as a unit of intervention, we are aiming to integrate these neighbourhoods that are under-serviced and forgotten, integrate on budget instead of off budget, and linking them to the rest of the city.

LL: Thank you very much for sharing your perspective on this, it's actually very interesting to hear how much is at stake with addresses.

CATHERINE FARVACQUE-VITKOVIC: Thank you.

LL: Catherine Farvacue-Vitkovic is the lead Urban Development Specialist with the World Bank and we reached her in Washington, D.C. If you want to see what your three word address would be you, can head to our Website at cbc.ca/thecurrent. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, thank you for listening to The Current.

[Music: Extro]

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June 21, 2016 full episode transcript

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