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The Current Transcript for June 7, 2018

Host: Mike Finnerty

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Chanting]

If kids don't eat and sleep, you don't eat and sleep!

Shame. Shame. Shame.

MIKE FINNERTY: Those Activist tactics against senior figures in Donald Trump's administration in the United States are inspiring to some in the Democratic opposition. To others, they represent the low road incivility. But what does civility really mean? Mind your manners or mind your station? We discuss in a moment. Also today, with four months to go before recreational cannabis is legal in Canada, Indigenous people face some tough choices.

SOUNDCLIP

Our social structures are our traditions are becoming more blurred when it comes to the use of cannabis. Ceremonies like the [unintelligible] there are some that will want to use it and say it's okay now. It's not against the law. There's a lot of different opinions.

MF: In half an hour you'll hear both enthusiasm and trepidation over legal cannabis and a call to use this moment to expand First Nations powers. And as lobster season continues in Atlantic Canada, we look at the debate over how they make it onto our dinner plate.

SOUNDCLIP

I believe that this is probably the only food the consumer is kind of asked to kill, with the possible exception of maybe fresh mussels or oysters, but they don't have eyes and they don't move and twitch as much.

MF: Hello I'm Mike Finnerty. Welcome to the summer edition of The Current.

Uncivil society: The divide between passion and practicality in U.S. politics now

Guests: Celinda Lake, Melissa Michelson

SOUNDCLIP

And if you see anybody, from that cabinet, in a restaurant, in a department store, in a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back against them and you tell them they are not welcome.

MF: It's Maxine Waters, a Democratic U.S. congresswoman, last weekend and what she's calling for has been happening.

SOUNDCLIP

Taking away health insurance for people with pre-existing conditions, Pam Bondi, shame on you! Shame on You!

MF: Florida Attorney General and President Trump supporter Pam Bondi heckled outside a movie theater. The secretary of Homeland Security Kirsten Nelson was the target of protests inside a Mexican restaurant. So is Steven Miller. And last Friday Sarah Huckabee Sanders the President's press secretary was told by a Virginia restaurant owner that she wouldn't serve her. And here's what she had to say in response.

SOUNDCLIP

Healthy debate on ideas and political philosophy is important. But the calls for harassment and push for any Trump supporter to avoid the public is unacceptable. America is a great country and our ability to find solutions despite those disagreements is what makes us unique

MF: News reports say that Ms. Sanders is expected to receive Secret Service protection as a result of the controversy. What some see as a breakdown in civility is a reaction to what others see as a breakdown of democracy, brought to a boiling point by the Trump administration's separation of migrant children from their families. But among the democratic opposition there are fears that giving up on measured tones could also mean ceding the moral high ground. Here's Democratic strategist David Axelrod on Monday.

SOUNDCLIP

Look I understand the outrage about how this president behaves and about his policies. He has shredded the idea of civility in our politics from the moment he began running for president. But I don't think you defeat that. I don't think you change it by emulating it. I don't think a race to the bottom in terms of civility in our politics is the way to go.

MF: So what is the way to go? Well we have two guests standing by with their ideas. Celinda Lake is president of Lake Research Partners and a leading political strategist within the Democratic Party and we reached her today in Aspen in Colorado, and Melissa Michelson as a Democrat supporter and a professor of political science at Menlo College in Palo Alto California. Hello to you both.

CELINDA LAKE: Good morning.

MELISSA MICHELSON: Morning.

MF: Celinda Lake what do you think of what David Axelrod had to say there in that last clip?

CELINDA LAKE: Well I agree with him completely and I think the most inspiring person who articulated this view is Michelle Obama herself who said when they go low we go high particularly as we're coming up on an election. It's easy to understand the motivation here. And I think you know in terms of energizing the base it can be very effective. But we also have to appeal to swing voters. And for swing voters, when we participate in tactics like this we become part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

MF: Melissa Michelson. Do you agree that Democrats should focus instead on organizing funneled passions there?

MELISSA MICHELSON: I don't agree at all. I think the passion is what we're seeing with these crowds of people confronting members of the Trump administration in the streets. And to a certain degree I'm concerned that they're all being conflated because of course Sarah Sanders was asked nicely by the owner privately to leave. And sanders agreed and that's very different from being heckled by crowds. But I think what we're really focusing on is is the heckling is people being yelled at publicly. And I think that passion is what's going to bring folks out to vote. That's going to bring us more victories, like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez last night in the Bronx, is getting young people out to vote is getting people of color out to vote who are horrified at what is going on with the Trump administration and will vote for people who speak to them. So enough about reaching out to swing voters. That is not working. The way to victory is to fire up the base and to fire up people who have not been voting in previous elections.

MF: Celinda Lake is that a fair characterization of where we are?

CELINDA LAKE: Well I think we have lots of ways to fire up the base and you know the Trump administration is our greatest ally in this every day. And I we can't become hypocrites. I mean we argue as a party in Supreme Court cases that commercial establishments need to serve everyone. We can then turn around and say no you can't. You shouldn't be served because of your political views. So the other thing is...

MELISSA MICHELSON: But she was not refused service. The owner pulled her aside nicely onto the patio and asked her to leave because her staff was uncomfortable. And Sarah Sanders voluntarily left. That's totally different than if the owner had gone up to her and said we refuse to serve you. Right. That's not the Baker at the Masterpiece Cake Shop thing, 'I refuse to bake a cake because of who you are'. The owner asked her nicely to leave and she did. I don't see how that's uncivil. That's just saying hey you're making people uncomfortable, would you mind? I don't think that sense of it all.

CELINDA LAKE: Think about the baker, the baker could say 'hey you're making my staff feel uncomfortable and I'm asking you to leave and not ask me to make your cake'. I see the difference and you see the difference but I'm not sure that a whole swath of swing voters see the difference. And then I think what becomes the controversy here is the controversy becomes the tactic, rather than the problem of what was done. The issue here on the table is unbelievable separation of children from their mothers and their parents. We don't do that in America. And I don't think we should...

MELISSA MICHELSON: We do. We do that in America. We've been doing that in America for hundreds of years. And I think...

[Cross talking]

MF: Okay. One at a time, folks. One at a time.

CELINDA LAKE: That is kind of thing that the public wants to hear. What we should be able to engage in is to focus on the issues rather than interrupt each other, rather than yelling each other. That's not going to- We become part of the problem. I understand the enthusiasm. I feel it too but that's not the way to win election.

MF: Melissa Michelson, the tactics - and you brought them up, and I wonder how comfortable you are with - I mean you support what happened at the Red Hen - But what about when it comes to crowds of people shouting down administration members. Is that okay?

MELISSA MICHELSON: I think it is. I think this is a strong part of our civil rights movements, of our social movements history. It's how marginalized communities are heard when they are oppressed, when they are shut out of the public debate. Being polite and being civil is great if you're white, if you're financially comfortable, if your life is not in danger. But we are talking about members of the LGBTQ community. We are talking about communities of color, immigrant communities, Muslim communities that are not heard. And for them civility is not going to do the job. And you don't have to look very far back in our history to see the success of this sort of in your face confrontation. We had it in the civil rights movement. We had it in the ACT UP movement in the 1980s. Right. It's pride month and I keep thinking about the activism of ACT UP. I keep thinking about the way that they demanded that people pay attention to them and said 'You have to listen to us because we are dying'.

CELINDA LAKE: That's entirely different I think.

MF: Celinda Lake, can I first of all ask you about that point that your position is a position of privilege which is one of the things that Melissa Michelson Said.

CELINDA LAKE: I think Martin Luther King, I think Gandhi, I think Michelle Obama would be surprised to be characterized as having a position of privilege. We are not talking honestly about being able to speak up. But the most powerful voice we have right now is our voice. And we're not talking about protests. We should have all the protests. That's not the point. We are not talking about free speech. We're not talking about protests. We're not talking about organized. We're not talking about the most effective way, just yelling at each other is not the most effective way to win elections that is four months away from now.

MF: What I think she's saying is that you can say that and it's comfortable for you to say that from the position you're in, in society.

CELINDA LAKE: Is that what you would say about Martin Luther King and Michelle Obama? Because they said it too. Melissa.

MELISSA MICHELSON: That is not what Martin Luther King said, I recommend that folks go back and read a letter from Birmingham Jail, talked about how King talked about the cup of endurance running over, talked about the abyss of injustice the weakness of corroding despair and talked about confronting people and acting up. I don't think that's the legacy of King. That's a whitewashed memory of King that people want to think of him as. But you got to remember that back in the 60s he was considered a dangerous radical. He was the one sending children out into the streets to confront police dogs-.

[Cross talking]

MF: And he was accused of incivility at the time.

MELISSA MICHELSON: Absolutely.

[Cross talking]

CELINDA LAKE: The problem I have with this analysis is that we're characterizing a whole set of strategies, when I think the critique here is about a very narrow tactic. So we're not talking about protesting. We're not talking about civil disobedience. We're not talking about using our voice and our vote. We're not talking about protests. What we're talking about is when we engage in tactics that are personally just yelling at each other that tactic rather than the issue becomes what is vivid to people. I think we should do every- You know it's interesting that you gave the analogy of the election last night in New York because that's a perfect analogy in my mind. What we need to do is organize, get out the vote and win these elections in four months because they have real consequence.

MF: Melissa Michelson is there. Not a bit of a sting to turn your back on that moment, that Michelle Obama moment, where she presented the high road as a Democratic value.

MELISSA MICHELSON: Yes I think we all loved it when she said when they go low we go high. But I think what these numbers of marginalized communities are feeling is what we tried going and that didn't work, because families are being torn apart and Muslims are being discriminated against. Hate crimes that are at an all-time high. There are a number of transgender people being murdered is at an all time high. So we're fed up. And I think what this is a sign of is that frustration that people are being killed. People are being given irreparable damage by this administration and we can't just wait and vote. It's building up. And that's why I think the letter from Birmingham Jail is so appropriate to think about.

MIKE FINNERTY: Celinda Lake's President Trump tweeted this week: "Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, she has just called for harm to supporters of which there are many of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max." Now that's from the president of the United States. How possible is it to stay civil and go high when the tone is descending like that?

CELINDA LAKE: Well we're characterizing going civil in a very interesting way. You know Melissa respectfully, I wouldn't say this is let's sit back and wait to vote. What people have been doing for over a year is running for office in record numbers, going to the streets to organize voters and registering them to vote, talking to their friends and neighbors and indivisible groups etc. And we're not talking about not protesting and we're certainly not defending in any way language and appropriateness like that. We've tested these kinds of yelling at people individually. And, yes, the motivation is completely understandable. The problem is it is much much more effective to go out and take back the House. If you want to stop these policies, let's go back and take back the House. Let's take back the Senate let's pass Supreme Court nominations. That's a lot more effective and these kind of techniques of yelling at particular individuals, unfortunately very understandable and because of all of the things Melissa that you're talking about, I would just say to you I'd rather have the Supreme Court in four months and have blockage on the Supreme Court than not have Sarah eat at a restaurant in Virginia.

MF: Melissa Michelson.

MELISSA MICHELSON: Well people don't feel heard and I think you are asking them to wait. I think that's unreasonable given what is happening to our country. I think people want to fight back. I think this is very much like the 1980s in the 1960s and I think it's easy to say or comfortable to say 'We need to organize. We need to win back the House we need to be able the block nominations to the court' when you go home and you live a life of relative privilege. But again I think members of these marginalized communities, people who are seeing their friends and family members hurt by this administration, just don't think that that's enough.

MF: Is it possible that this is what President Trump wanted that in a way he's pleased to see you join him at this sort of bare knuckle level?

MELISSA MICHELSON: I think that is perhaps giving Trump too much credit. I think often what he's doing is shooting from the hip and he hasn't really thought through what's going to happen. We get all these analyses of how he's a strategic thinker. No I don't really think that's what's going on at all. What I see is members of the LGBTQ community and members of communities of color, Muslim American community, immigrant community fighting back for their lives. And I don't think that we should be telling them how to protest and we shouldn't be telling them how to fight for their lives. We should just support them.

MF: Celinda Lake, are we seeing a sort of breach open up in the Democratic Party a significant division?

CELINDA LAKE: I don't think so.

MF: I mean you two are at odds really at odds, really at odds with each other on this.

CELINDA LAKE: Well I think it's unfortunate that we appear to be at odds in this radio program. And I think it's unfortunate that- it's easy and it's absolutely understandable. You know and there are lots of effective ways to protest. I think the problem is that you have to keep your eye on the ball. And I don't think the vast majority of Muslims, the vast majority of millennials, the vast majority of individual chapters, the vast majority of African-Americans, the vast majority of LGBT people who are fighting for their lives and fighting for the very important things Melissa that you're saying are not out there yelling at people in front of movie theaters or in restaurants. And I think all of us just after remember that - and obviously we all defend the right to do that - But the more effective tactic is we are four months out from one of the most important elections we have had in my lifetime. And in the end that's what we should be organizing around and these tactics deflect from are issue issues. I do think Trump relishes this. I think he tries to bait it and I think it would be unfortunate if we fell for the bait.

MF: And Melissa Michelson, how comfortable are you with the divisions that have opened up around this issue within the Democratic opposition?

MELISSA MICHELSON: I'm not particularly concerned about it. I think that what happens is we have a good fight. We see who wins the primary is again thinking back to what happened last night in the Bronx and then the party comes behind the winner. But I think these kinds of street level protests these incidents of "incivility", that's what's firing up people who aren't always involved in the party. And if they feel like they're not just being crushed down every day by this administration, we just allowed them to protest in the way that makes them feel heard, if we encourage them. And then also steer them towards participating in the elections in November then that's the way that the party wins. We do want the party to win. Absolutely. But I don't think we should be telling people how to protest. We should be supporting them.

MF: You are being taken down a road though, and well where does the road end?

MELISSA MICHELSON: The road of confronting people in this and confronting our elected officials with our grievances, I don't think we're going down a road I think we're continuing down the road. I think we are very much in the spirit of the very strong civil rights and social movements histories of our country. And to say that we have descended into some a historical, unbelievable level of incivility that's I think that's just a historical. We've forgotten our history and that's what Maxine Waters is talking about.

MF: Well, briefly Celinda Lake, are you worried about the road you're going down?

CELINDA LAKE: No not at all because I think that we are unfortunately coupling protests and just a narrow tactic, personally confrontation incivility. No nobody's talking about limiting protests and in fact it was protests across the board that stopped or halted the administration's practice on the separation of families. So protest is very very important and I don't think anyone's talking about that. What we're talking about is a very narrow tactic in civility that I just think four months on from now is just not very useful.

MF: Okay. Both of you, thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it.

CELINDA LAKE: Thank you.

MELISSA MICHELSON: Thank you.

MF: Celinda Lake president of Lake Research Partners and a leading political strategists within the Democratic Party. She was in Aspen and Melissa Michelson is a Democrat supporter sheets Professor of Political Science at Menlo College in Palo Alto California. The CBC News is next and then: Willll legal recreational cannabis be an economic opportunity or a detriment to the community for Indigenous people in this country. I am Mike Finnerty. This is the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

How legalizing pot will help a Fort McMurray reserve become self-sufficient

Guests: Brad Callihoo, Rhonda Kirby, Manny Jules

MF: Hello. I'm Mike Finnerty. You're listening to the summer edition of The Current. Still to come: We're heading into the kitchen where a certain delicacy is served with a side of an ethical considerations.

SOUNDCLIP

When you go to cook lobsters, they must be live. They are supposed to, they spread their arms wide and they flap their tails usually. Should be very lively. There he is 'flap flap flap'. That shows that he a kind of boy that's worth buying.

MF: That's the late great chef Julia Child getting ready to drop that good boy into a boiling pot of water. It's a culinary tradition that's become outlawed rather in different parts of the world. We'll jump into that pot in half an hour. First what legal pot in Canada means to the country's indigenous communities.

SOUNDCLIP

This bill is, without a doubt, a generational opportunity for creating economic dignity for Indigenous people. There's no more need to perpetuate this romantic notion that Indigenous peoples are historic curiosities, wandering aimlessly on this terra nullius, hunting and gathering. As we know that just has to end. I mean it's high time absolutely high time. I apologize for using that term, there was no pun intended in that. I just wanted to be clear abour that. It just came out. [Chuckle].

MF: It is Mike Fontaine, he is vice president of IndigiCo which is an Indigenous led Cannabis Company and he was speaking to senators in Ottawa about the potential economic boon that cannabis could be, now that recreational weed is about to become a big legal business. But legalization isn't being welcomed with the same wide open arms by all indigenous people. In fact it sparked a debate amongst community leaders about whether cannabis should be viewed as potential for economic stability, or potential for instability socially and on community health matters. The Senate's Aboriginal Peoples Committee came close to postponing the legislation. It only agreed to support bills C-45 after last minute government commitments, including more support for Indigenous mental health and addiction treatment services and help for Indigenous businesses to get into the cannabis trade. We're going to be hearing a few different perspectives beginning with Brad Callihoo is CEO of the Fort McMurray 468 First Nation and we've reached him in Tofino B.C. Hello.

BRAD CALLIHOO: Hello. How are you today?

MF: I'm good. Thanks very much. You just heard Mike Fontaine speak to the Senate there about his hopes for the legalization of cannabis. How high are your hopes?

BRAD CALLIHOO: Oh man. Listening to his introductory gave me chills. I mean For Mc Murray First Nation is leading the charge when it comes to the production of cannabis and we hope to be world leaders on it.

MF: Can you just give us a bit of the perspective from 468 First Nation? I mean what does cannabis offer to you that other economic opportunities don't?

BRAD CALLIHOO: It's not so much that what other economic opportunities don't offer it's the fact of the diversification of our economic development in the Fort McMurray region. When oil prices were plummeting we had to look to other economic developments to be that self-sufficient nation that we strive to be. By mandate [unintelligible] councils to be a self-sufficient nation the next seven generations. How do we do that? Through economic and business and Cannabis just happens to be one of those.

MF: So how reliant were you on oil and gas and fossil fuels prior to the present?

BRAD CALLIHOO: 80 percent of our funding and our money that we used to run the nation come from the oil and gas industry and due to the economic downturn, it just wasn't there anymore. We had a look at other places.

MF: So can you give us an overview of the investment that your community is undertaking that the project, the cannabis project, that you're looking at?

BRAD CALLIHOO: Absolutely. I mean so we've applied for a medical marijuana licence we're in our final review of that in Ottawa, which is great news. Our first facility is going to be approximately 24,000 square feet and after we produced two crops we're looking to expand to 250,000 square.

MF: So it's quite big.

BRAD CALLIHOO: Yes I mean at 24,000 square feet it's probably 20 million dollar investment. At 250,000 we're up to around 150 million investment.

MF: And what goes into that kind of production?

BRAD CALLIHOO: Well I mean a lot of hard work and in due diligence and in finding the right partners to do it. I mean for us it's about finding that worldclass partner. It doesn't matter what it is, if it is oil and gas or cannabis or tourism. We want to align ourselves and we can do it ourselves with world class people and we believe we found that in a company called Raven Quest. The CEO George Robinson,and we've come to terms and we're going to do this as a partnership. And as we move forward and we grow and the capacity becomes more, the nation I could see running it by themselves in the future.

MF: What's the facility going to look like?

BRAD CALLIHOO: You know the facility itself it's a large building but it's definitely taken into the culture and tradition in the region as far as what it's going to look like. There are some pretty cool technology that were worked with Raven Quest and McGill University on. So it's a little bit outside the box. It's a big building but were you actually using a technology called the orbital gardening's so it's stacking the technology to grow.

MF: So how many jobs are going to be created?

BRAD CALLIHOO: Well we were suggesting that 24,000 square feet approximately or 20 jobs. The 250.000 Square feet I think will be up or 50 jobs.

MF: And how much do you expect to make from it? I mean how is it going to work in terms of you know benefit back to the community?

BRAD CALLIHOO: I mean the return rates you know are very favorable for the nation. I mean we have to pay that investment on first but, back to the community. I mean we're running a nation here so we're responsible for the self and well-being of every individual 805 of them. So a world class education, world class health care, stuff that we take for granted everyday; water and sewer we don't have yet. I mean we're going to have those kind of services now at the reserve because of opportunities such as the cannabis.

MF: There's no no sewage, no water going in on the nation?

BRAD CALLIHOO: Yeah it's going in but it's at a cost of 30 million plus dollars and right now we have a pump in powerboats system, so we have the hawler water in via a truck and pump it out via a truck. You know we're in the economic engine of Canada. All our neighbors to the to the to the north of us and around all have you know sewer water and there's no reason that For MC Murray First Nations should not have that same service.

MF: What is the nation saying about the investmment? What's their reaction been?

BRAD CALLIHOO: Thethe reaction has been mixed. I mean when we first come and announced it I mean we had a lot of pushback from the community because I mean a lot of people look at as an illegal drug. And a lot of our elders you know, that's the way did they vision it. But as we've educated over the last couple of years in front of the community had Raven Quest talking about you know the benefits. We've looked at it from every angle from meat health benefits to helpin get off the addiction of opiates and that all the positives go on forever. And the community started to understand and see that and really get behind what's happening.

MF: Have you ever had a discussion around how available cannabis should be? Some First Nations are looking at the possibility whether they could for instance be the cannabis equivalent of dry on pot.

BRAD CALLIHOO: We've had that discussion. But I mean we're only half an hour from forming Murry's, so as a member if you want access to cannabis, it's going to be there. Right. And we're also going to be cognizant of the fact that we're not going to be selling the minors. We're not going to have it around the schools. Differnt things where we can influence. And that's always a worry in the back our head is the fact that what are the negatives and how do we mitigate them.

MF: You mentioned earlier that this is I guess part of a process of making the community self-sufficient for generations. So what are your future hopes for the production of cannabis?

BRAD CALLIHOO: For For Mc Murray's FirstNnation's perspective, we want it to be produced and distributed and be able to go from there and we look at it as a long term economic opportunity. That's something and we're just not going to sit on the sidelines and let go buy us.

MF: Better than oil and gas at the end of the day?

BRAD CALLIHOO: I think it's better in oil and gas because it's a little more predictable I believe. I mean the demand is there and I think demand's always going to be there. I meanif legalization doesn't come in October like they're saying it's going to, and I believe there will, the demand for medical marijuana is still there. We would still go for the medical perspective, even if the legalization of it. So the demands there we don't have to rely on discretionary funding anymore. It will rely on our own future, our own, people and our own business.

MF: Brad Callihoo thanks very much for speaking to us really appreciate it.

BRAD CALLIHOO: Thank you. Have a great day.

MF: Brad Callihoo is CEO of the Fort McMurray 468 First Nation and we spoke to him today from Tofino British Columbia. Well not all indigenous leaders see legal cannabis uniquely as an opportunity for First Nations. Some are skeptical and some are downright concerned. Rhonda Kirby is a chief of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake and she has some concerns about the law. We've reached her in Kahnawake which is just south of Montreal. And Chief Kirby, Good morning.

RHONDA KIRBY: Good morning. How are you?

MF: I'm well thanks. Nice to talk to you. Listen Brad Callihoo who has a real enthusiasm there, almost infectious, and I wonder how much of that you share and how much you don't.

RHONDA KIRBY: Well first of all, we've been talking to our community members for the past two years when we've learned the legislation that was going to be passed. So we've taken more of a proactive approach here. We've been talking about our own legislation here in the community and we're at the final stages of it being approved by the community. So it's something you know we and I just wanted to say it's a concern. I think our major concern is the lack of consultation for First Nations communities by the federal government. So we've taken that proactive approach and we've looked at both sides legislation and the business aspect of it too. So it's in consultation with the community and we're hoping that we originally wanted to make sure that it had passed by the July 1st deadline. We do now have some time but we're hoping to have this passed in her community definitely before September.

MF: So tell us about that proposal that is currently before the community. How would you regulate, or how are you proposing to regulate cannabis consumption in Ottawa?

RHONDA KIRBY: Well what we did in the fall of 2017 was pass a moratorium that no one is allowed to produce or distribute any forms of cannabis. To date, the community has abided by our legislation. And what we are looking at for the future is following if it does go through. We are looking at having a two tiered system where anyone who does want to produce will have to have a Health Canada permit along with a Kahnawake permit.

MF: That's the industrial side or the production side.

RHONDA KIRBY: Yes.

MF: And what about the consumption side? You've got some rules that you're putting out there that are different from the rules that are going to be in place in the province of Quebec.

RHONDA KIRBY: Well one of the things that we are looking at and we know that it has its challenges is that anyone- the minimum age would have to be 21.

MF: Because it's 18 in the Quebec law. So why 21?

RHONDA KIRBY: Well that was the upon the recommendations of our chief peacekeeper and the Director of Community Services, here in the community. Like any other community, we have our challenges with drugs and addiction. So we're hoping that- It is a challenge because we are so close to the Montreal area. It was mentioned, were only a 15 minute drive away but we also in close proximity of other communities so we realize that anyone could go to another community and then bring it back here to Kahnawake, but we are trying to prohibit anyone from under the age of 21 from buying.

MF: And just tell us what your concern is. I mean what is it that has prompted you to put the age up to that level and to give you just a kind of a concern about where this might go?

RHONDA KIRBY: Well looking at some of the issues that we are currently dealing with and what we have been dealing with in the past several years, it is a concern. I mean the fellow before spoke about addictions and what's happening and I think we're all falling into same area with drugs and fentanyl. So it is a concern and we are looking at part of our regulation certainly would be not to have any sort of production in the school area. But it is something that we are looking at also down the road.

MF: So on one hand you're going to embrace it and on the other hand you're very veery of it. Both positions in the same community.

RHONDA KIRBY: I think we have to be proactive. I don't know if it's embracing it. But I mean we're taking a proactive approach here in the community to make sure that we have something in place. We take pride in what we have in this community and in the jurisdiction and we want to make sure that we can continue to do that.

MF: Chief Kirby will you sell cannabis for consumption, recreational consumption in Kahnawake?

RHONDA KIRBY: Well that's something that we're looking at possibly in the future. What is paramount for us right now is to make sure that we have legislation passed in the community before we can go on to anything else.

MF: And do you think he might go that way? Because that would be a change wouldn't it?

RHONDA KIRBY: Well it is a possibility I think since we started putting a noticeable moratorium and what we are doing. We've been approached by many many companies who are interested in having businesses here in the community, as well as our own community members who are interested in doing something like that. But we want to make sure that we have our regulations in place before anything is started up.

MF: Your regulations and your legislation in Kahnawake, how worried are you about whether you actually have the legal powers to do what you're setting out to do?

RHONDA KIRBY: Well we've been able to pass quite a few of our own laws. We work closely with Quebec in many different areas. So I think we are confident that we we will be able to do this.

MF: Ottawa has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to addiction services and education programs. Does that help?

RHONDA KIRBY: Well that would be one of the things that we talked about. If there was any type of business, right off the top part of the proceeds would go towards prevention and education in the community.

MF: How hard is the debate within about to vote?So what's it like when people are talking the streets in Kahnawake?

RHONDA KIRBY: Well I think like every community we do have people that are for and against it. So it's just a matter of trying to reconcile the differences that we have from community members. And I think most important is that we put off as much information as possible about what the product is. There's a fine line between what cannabis is and other drugs that people are using. So we've looked at the medical side of it and we are hoping that the community will have a better understanding of what this cannabis law is all about.

MF: When is the vote?

RHONDA KIRBY: Well we are actually meeting tomorrow afternoon to finalize. We did have our draft law online for 30 days and community members were able to write in and give their comments. So we've looked at that. We're going to finalize the comments tomorrow, and hopefully have a meeting in the next couple of weeks to present all of those findings to the community and ensure the people that did make submissions that their concerns were addressed.

MF: Rhonda Kirby, Chief Kirby, thanks for speaking to us.

RHONDA KIRBY: Thank you.

MF: Al the best. Rhonda Kirby sits on the Council of Chiefs for the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, just south of Montreal. Manny Jules thinks it should ultimately be up to each first nation to allow legalized pot on their lands, worries that they may not be able to take full advantage of the sale or cultivation of cannabis. Manny Jules is the chief commissioner of the first nations tax commission and a former chief of the Kamloops First Nation. He says first nations need the legislative tools, covering everything from taxation to jurisdictional powers, to act as equal partners. And he is in our Ottawa studio this morning. Manny Jules Hello.

MANNY JULES: Hello.

MF: What do you think of the Kahnawake approach? I mean they have got their rules and they're setting down that road. And that's what it is.

MANNY JULES: Well you can imagine the kinds of discussions that are taking place through in over 600 communities across the country. Uncertainty about legislative approaches, the regulations that they have to operate under, what they can and can do and that's ultimately the problem with the legislation as it's laid out. What I'm proposing is really three simple amendments. Two of them to the Excise Tax Act which would enable First Nation jurisdiction and tax administration agreements and have regulations related to tax sharing with First Nations right across the country. Right now that's only aimed at the federal and provincial governments being able to share in the excise tax. The excise tax is something that everyone pays including status First Nations. And the third amendment would be to amend the First Nations Management Act to allow First Nations cannabis laws, if they choose. So it's optional. And that would provide for the regulatory framework to work effectively to implement the jurisdiction. And so without the legislative framework what you heard with Chief Kirby is good to be repeated right across the country. So what I'm proposing is really some simple amendments so that it brings clarity to the issues and so that First Nations would be fully engaged in the process, and not only sharing in the tax revenues but also having the jurisdiction putting forth the regulations that would allow for the whole range, either communities making sure that they're dry, but also other communities being able to take full advantage of the economic opportunities.

MF: Those tax changes that you're talking about, and going back to Brad Callihoo who in Fort McMurray First Nation, how might they help things there, help them get the most out of the industry?

MANNY JULES: Well what we have is the first nations Management Act which not only includes the First Nations Tax Commission but also a management board to look after transparency and accountability as well as a First Nations Finance Authority. And that would be the vehicle by which we would be able to bring in, if you will, third party or private investment on onto our land. And right now that's very difficult to achieve given the the the situations that First Nations have you know under the jurisdictional purview right now.

MF: And in the absence of those amendments I mean you just have people going off in different directions. Is what's going on in GhKahawake, strictly according to the rules and the way the legislation is set out?

MANNY JULES: Well what you've got under the Indian Act right now is laws have general application, meaning provincial laws have general application can apply on reserve lands. So even if you have moving as an individual First Nation community to try to occupy the field, right now you're going to be confronted with the reality that maybe the provincial laws would apply. So what we're trying to propose is some clarity so that it's clear that the First Nations themselves have the jurisdiction.

MF: And what are the chances of getting that clarity?

MANNY JULES: Well the commitment made to Senate is that there would be discussions over the summer leading to further legislative changes. So I'm optimistic.

MF: Because Justin Trudeau did campaign on the promise that his government would be building a new fiscal relationship with First Nations. Has that borne fruit the way you'd like to see it?

MANNY JULES: Well unfortunately the types of discussions that have taken place for a fiscal relationship really have been around programs and program delivery. A true fiscal relationship means who does what with what jurisdiction. And that's a fiscal relationship. It means how much money is generated in our communities for the greater good. And this notion that First Nations don't contribute to or pay taxes is a myth. The amount of revenues that are generated within our communities is substantial and we want to stop that leakage. We want to be able to take full advantage of the governance and making sure that we can reinvest back in our communities so that we have vibrant economies.

MF: And are First Nations themselves comfortable about going down that taxation path?

MANNY JULES: Well you know it's of course controversial and they always tell me many think of a different word other than tax. But the fact of the matter is is that in my neck of the woods, in British Columbia, we spoke Chinook language which was a trade language which is comprised of native languages in the Pacific Northwest as well as English and French. And taxes tea T A K S I S was a part of that language and we spoke that language right across the country. It's another word for sharing. The fact of the matter is this that the federal government legislated us out of our tax jurisdictions from the 1880 to the 1920s. And what we want to do and achieve through a new fiscal relationship is reasserting those jurisdictions, both with the federal and provincial governments. So this requires a level of co-operation that really hasn't been achieved so far.

MF: Possibly an opportunity.

MANNY JULES: An incredible opportunity to change the face of this country because ultimately the question that we all have to to address is what do we want to be. And my answer to that simple question is we want to be a part of the foundational fabric of this great country.

MF: Manny Jules, thanks for speaking to us.

MANNY JULES: Thank you very much.

MF: MAnny Jules chief commissioner of the first nations tax commission and a former chief of the Kamloops First Nation. He was in our Ottawa studio. Coming up in our next half hour: Consider the Lobster. As Switzerland banned boiling lobsters alive, we are asking whether they really feel pain and if it outweighs our pleasure. I'm Mike Finnerty. You're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

Should boiling lobsters alive be banned? Experts disagree on whether crustaceans can feel pain

Guest: Shelley Adams, Lesli Bisgould

MF: Hi I'm Mike Finnerty and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

CRAIG FLINN: This is a pound and a half lobster. I believe this is a male. Yes! And here I have six litres of boiling water and I have one tablespoon of sea salt per litre.

MF: What Halifax chef Craig Finn is about to do will soon be against the law in Switzerland. On March 1st, the European country will become the latest jurisdiction to ban boiling lobsters alive. It's part of an emerging debate about boiling lobsters alive and whether it should be considered cruel and unusual. But for Chef Craig Finn dropping a lobster into a boiling pot of water does not bother him.

SOUNDCLIP

CRAIG FLINN: I'm used to it. I've been cooking for 23 years now and I'm a Nova Scotia cook so I've cooked a lot of lobster. I certainly can understand why it would be troublesome for some people. I think this is probably the only food we have that, we, the consumer is asked to kill, with the possible exception of fresh oysters and mussels—but they don't have eyes and they don't move and twitch as much. So here we go. It's head first. Drop the claws in. Take your hand off the crossed claws and I immediately submerge. Put the lid on.

[Sound: Cutting lobster]

CRAIG FLINN: He's obviously turning red and I think that slight little twitching of the muscles contracting like is what bothers some people. But it's also for me a very normal thing. that's part of the process after he's been in for 30 seconds or so.

MF: From a culinary perspective, we may have lobsters down to a science. But from a biological perspective, new research is teaching us new things about these creatures from the complexities of their lives, to questions about their ability to feel pain. And that's a debate that Anna Maria tackled as the Swiss law was about to come into effect and one that's timely to hear now as you decide on your next summer meal and lobster season continues in Atlantic Canada. Anna Maria began by speaking with Shelley Adams. She's a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Dalhousie University in Halifax who studies crickets which like lobsters are arthropods. Here's their conversation.

AMT: Hello.

SHELLEY ADAMO: Hello.

AMT: What's your view of this new law in Switzerland?

SHELLEY ADAMO: The idea lobster might feel pain is based on some interesting, recent research that shows that lobsters have some complex behaviour and have complex learning abilities. And this was more than people had thought before this is Bob Elwood's work. And this is certainly true. And you can see other invertebrates like bees for example have some amazing learning abilities. They can navigate. They can find their way back to the hive. So people have been wondering, given that they have these very tiny brains. But despite that they have these advanced behavioural capacities. So what does this mean in terms of their ability to not necessarily think, but maybe to feel? And that's I think where scientists at least are kind of struggling a little bit because with lobsters and with insects and other invertebrates, their brains are very, very different from ours and they're also very, very small. So the average insect for example has less than a million neurons in its brain and you have about 80 billion. So it's many orders of magnitude larger and it's differently organized. Even though we might have an idea, we do know some of the areas in the brain that's important for us to feel pain, lobsters don't have those parts of the brain. Now this doesn't necessarily mean they can't feel pain, but it makes it very difficult to know for sure. As a matter in fact you can't know for sure.

AMT: Let me ask you. In your lab you perform research tests on crickets, do you think about their pain?

SHELLEY ADAMO: Well you know you always wonder and I do think that they actually don't feel pain. I don't actually think lobsters do either. Nevertheless, when we do our research on our crickets, we are very careful because you can't know for sure. And also it's this respect for life that I also want to instill in my students, that even though it’s just of little life, we want to make sure that we treat it with respect. So we actually anesthetize our animals before we use them for experiments. On the other hand though I would say, the evidence is really not there in terms of whether or not they can feel pain, and again because their brains really are so very much smaller than ours. And it's fine I guess if you want to give them the benefit of the doubt because we can't know. It's a very difficult thing to know. You can't ask them for example. We have to be a little careful because on the other side for instance with insects, if we decided that we were going to just assume with little evidence that insects can feel pain because they can move as if they felt pain, they can [unintelligible] if you put an insecticide on them, then that would mean that for example you wouldn't be able to spray for bedbugs, you wouldn't be able to do research to get rid of mosquitoes that carry malaria. So the real costs involved in extending the benefit of the doubt—a little too wide in my mind.

AMT: OK. Well before we go into all of that, let me go back to lobsters. I got some specific questions for you, if I may.

SHELLEY ADAMO: Okay.

AMT: So you say they probably don't feel pain. Is there evidence that they may feel pain?

SHELLEY ADAMO: Yes. Well I guess the evidence comes from two lines. One is again they have these very complex behaviours. For example, in some lobsters, but not others. So it's a bit species specific. If they damage a limb, they'll guard it. So they're sensitized to any contact with that area. That isn't true for some lobsters. So it sort of depends on the species and that's true with insects too. Sometimes they'll walk on a damaged leg and it doesn't seem to bother them. And the other area is the fact that it's now known that opioids for example can decrease nociception, so the ability to feel damaging stimuli or a damaging event can be reduced in lobsters and insects by using things like morphine.

AMT: So what does that mean? Specifically on the lobster, what are you saying? If you can decrease that ability, there must be some ability there.

SHELLEY ADAMO: Well that's what some would say and I would disagree.

AMT: What would be your explanation for that then?

SHELLEY ADAMO: My explanation is that every sensory system is modifiable and the ability to feel damage is no exception. Sometimes the animal is in a fight for its life and it can't be distracted by the fact that it's been damaged, so it has to just carry on. So all organisms have the ability to sense damage and also to ignore that damage when they have to.

AMT: But you're saying that's not the same as feeling pain?

SHELLEY ADAMO: No. I guess one way I would look at it is if you're looking at the lobster or an insect, is it really more like a little person or a little robot because you can program robots. There's actually someone at Northeastern University, Joseph Ayers, so he builds robots based on lobster brains. So he creates artificial lobster brains. And you know he would say that, 'no these are simply hardwired connections and it doesn't require any subjective experience', so that sense of discomfort and despair and negative feelings we can have when we're in pain. The lobster can simply register it's had some sort of damage and then have a muscle response without any subjective experience.

AMT: Now in this law in Switzerland they have to stun them before they submerge the animal in boiling water. Is stunning them first more humane?

SHELLEY ADAMO: Well I'm not sure. I don't know a great deal about the Crustastun, which I think is the name of the gun that they use—the electrical shock mechanism. Again you can see the people who designed these laws don't necessarily know a lot about invertebrates because they want you to stun them my understanding is—I've never used one—between the eyes because you want to get the brain. The problem is lobsters have lots of brains. You've got one big brain there, but you also have some sort of substantially sized brains further down. And then you have a whole series of brains down the tail. So what part of the brain do you think you need to knock out? And does the Crustastun stun all of them or just the main brain?

AMT: Now as animal protection laws for mammals become stricter and you've already mentioned the issue of protection for smaller creatures such as insects. What are the potential implications to science if insects were to gain more protection?

SHELLEY ADAMO: Well my concern would be—you know it always sounds good. Benefit of the doubt because as I said we cannot know. My concern would be that there are two issues with arthropods like insects and other organisms like that. First of all, in many insects are competitors for us for food, and if we're going to use any kind of control mechanisms because most of those control mechanisms are neurotoxins—and they don't kill immediately—then we are basically going to allow the arthropods to take a big chunk of our food supply. And in a world with seven billion people, I'm not sure that's going to that's going to work very well for us. And then of course the other issue is with disease. A number of insects are very important disease vector, so they carry the disease like malaria. And if we're not allowed to do research on mosquitoes, then all of these insect vector diseases, lyme disease, various other diseases, we're going to take a huge hit for something that I think is highly unlikely.

AMT: OK. Well thank you for your views on this.

SHELLEY ADAMO: You're welcome.

AMT: Shelley Adamo is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Dalhousie University. She joined us from Halifax.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: My father fished for 60 years and we used to run a lobster pound and ship them all over the country. I cooked four or 500 hundred pounds at a time. I would have heard screaming. I was dumping them in tray after tray after tray.

VOICE 2: I just want to say that lobsters can be put to sleep by standing them on their noses.

NORMA LEE MACLEOD: Is that what you do?

VOICE 2: No, I usually don’t take the time. I'm just too hungry.

VOICE 3: My father is a lobster fisherman. I understand that people in the industry don't want to admit that lobsters feel pain. But me personally, what I've witnessed over 30 years, I can say that lobsters feel pain maybe not on the same level as you or I, but they feel pain like any living being.

VOICE 4: I'm a recreational fisherman, if I want to go fishing trout, when you want to describe what I'm doing, I'm putting a worm on a hook. Does that worm feel the hook's pain? [Unintelligible] so it can’t breathe now. And a fish bites the hook, gets it on a slip, I pull it into my boat and the thing is gasping for air there. I mean does it feel pain? When is this stuff going to end? Like what do we have to do? Why are we talking about this for?

AMT: Well some callers weighing in on the debate about whether lobsters feel pain. That was on CBC Radio's Maritime Noon. Lesli Bisgould has been listening. And she'd like to weigh in too. She teaches animal rights law in the University of Toronto's faculty of law. She ran Canada's first animal rights law practice. And she's in Toronto. Hello.

LESLI BISGOULD: Good morning.

AMT: What do you make of what you just heard on those clips?

LESLI BISGOULD: Well it's a range of opinions that we've heard about different animal issues for many years and it's interesting now that we're having it about lobsters.

AMT: So what do you make of Switzerland's new law?

LESLI BISGOULD: It does seem to happen around the world in different jurisdictions. An incident happens that prompts a jurisdiction to pick a particular area to pass a law about and the rest of us are surprised as to why they're picking that. But it does tend to foster a really important debate that we need to have. So to the extent that it's done that in this case I am thrilled.

AMT: OK. Well they are cooked alive. They are dumped into boiling water alive.

LESLI BISGOULD: Absolutely.

AMT: Why do you say they deserve more rights?

LESLI BISGOULD: Well I think as the scientist who spoke who you interviewed earlier explained, there are some things that science may not be able to prove conclusively one way or the other. But we do know even if we can't prove 100 percent that lobsters feel pain, we can prove 100 percent that they avoid painful stimuli. We just heard about how many brains they have. We heard about the nervous system that they have. So there are enough markers that we can identify that relate and that correlate to experience of pain. And of course it's going to be different in a lobster than it is in a human being. But there is enough there for us to be cautious. And in a country like Canada we're fortunate enough to have a wide array of choices, in most places not everywhere in most places, for our food. Why wouldn't we choose something that we know isn't causing harm rather than something that might be causing harm?

AMT: Do you extend this to insects as well?

LESLI BISGOULD: Well I don’t want to dismiss that argument as invalid because it is an argument to have. But it concerns me that we go there so quickly when there's so much to talk about. I think people like to talk about insects because it seems to be a way of making the entire ethical discussion about animals seems silly, and it's an easy way to dismiss it. When the truth is we have very profound problems in respect of even the animals that we say we care about, the mammals that we know. We have extreme violence that is caused to those animals in a systemic, institutionalized, and a very profitable way in Canada. So when we start talking about insects it's a way of trivializing a debate that we really need to have about our treatment of all the animals that we share the animal kingdom with.

AMT: And we don't have a bedbug fishery after all.

LESLI BISGOULD: We don't have a bedbug fishery [laughs].

AMT: The CBC callers we just played are obviously a random sample. Many people eat lobster without thinking twice. How do you convince skeptics that it's worth considering the pain of lobsters?

AMT: That's the hundred thousand dollar question or maybe now a hundred million dollar—whatever is the equivalent. I mean it's an area that the movement to try and create progress for animals has struggled with for decades in respect of all animals. Because the sorts of practices that we commit in order to put other forms of meat, whether it comes from pigs or cows or chickens or goats on our table causes such extreme pain and other forms of suffering privation, psychological suffering, deprivations of various kinds, that it's just too early to even go there. We have no protections in place. We have hundreds of millions of animals going through extreme pain and suffering every year for our food and that's a serious problem we have to deal with.

AMT: OK. And we did hear Shelley Adamo, the scientist, argue that lobsters and insects likely do not feel pain.

LESLI BISGOULD: Well what I appreciated about her comments is that she quite honestly said we can never know. We can never know for sure. So she's chosen to come down on the side of probably they don't and that's consistent with the work that she does, using animals in research as she does, and so it's not surprising that she airs on that side. But I appreciate her honesty in saying we'll never know. And when I come from an ethical perspective where I don't have quite the same I guess interest in exploiting animals in a sense, I would argue that we are on the side of caution. Why wouldn't we apply the precautionary principle? Why wouldn't we choose actions that we know don't cause harm rather than actions that might?

AMT: At the same time someone when argue, when a scientist says we'll never know, they're talking about specific science as opposed to someone who's talking in a wider term. That someone might say, 'well you're anthropomorphizing. You're saying they're going to feel like we feel'.

LESLI BISGOULD: Right.

AMT: 'And that's not very scientific at all. That's just an idea that comes up'.

LESLI BISGOULD: Right. So there's a very long history in talking about animals. We have a very long history of underestimating, not only animal pain, but the animal experience altogether. So animal communication, animal social life, animal psychology, we have over time dismissed animals as being unthinking machines because our science didn't know enough. We weren't able to interpret their own behaviours. We were in fact anthropomorphizing. We were using our own standards and our own experiences to judge other animals. And we've learned over time that that's not the way to do it. You can't take a creature out of out of her own environment, lock her in a laboratory, judge her by our standards, and determine if she's intelligent. 'Well she doesn't speak English, she doesn't write poetry and she’s not intelligent'. Now science recognizes to understand animals we have to look at them as individuals in their own environments. We thought elephants don't communicate with each other. Well now we've learned that their communications are at too low a tone for the human ear to perceive. So it's not the elephants that have been flawed all of this time. It's us. It's our own understanding. We underestimated elephants because our scientific method didn't allow us to understand their communication. We know that a lobster avoids painful stimuli. We know that a lobster has a brain. We know some things. It's not as though we're just picking this idea out of the air and saying 'well maybe. Seems like that blade of grass may feel pain, so let's not step on it'. I mean it's not that arbitrary. It's come from science. It may be that this particular aspect of science is in the early era as the other branches you know that I alluded to earlier you know we've had a little bit more time and scientists working on them.

AMT: How long have you been practicing animal rights law and teaching it?

LESLI BISGOULD: I don't practice it now full-time. I had my practice. I started about 25 years ago. I did it for 10 years. And I've continued to work on it in that time. I've been teaching for going back about six or seven years, and what I've seen is absolutely shocking. When I started my practice I sat alone in an extra bedroom in my apartment because I couldn't afford anything else and I had no one to talk to. There were no lawyers to call. And now we've got a national organization called Animal Justice which works on animal legal issues in Canada. I've got classes of students where the majority of them tell me they've gone to law school only to become animal lawyers. So it's a complete transformation in a couple of decades. The topic has really exploded and is very front of mind for many people now which is a very exciting development.

AMT: What are the biggest changes you've seen in the treatment of the animals through that kind of law?

LESLI BISGOULD: It may be an unusual thing for a lawyer to say but I don't think law is what changes us. I think law is a reflection of the changes that we've already accepted—with some exception. So I spend most of my time as a lawyer trying to disabuse people of the assumption that the laws protect animals. I try to show how laws operate and how the little words that are embedded in their actually serve to protect the people who want to exploit animals rather than the people who want to protect them. But there have been changes. One that's in the news right now comes out of British Columbia where the Vancouver Park Board, who operates the Vancouver Aquarium, recently passed a bylaw that would prohibit any more cetaceans whales and dolphins from being held captive at the Vancouver Aquarium. And the Vancouver Aquarium challenged that legally, but they've now come out and said that they are going to abide by it. So that's a reflection of the growing public sentiment—comes after documentaries that have come out about practices at SeaWorld, the practice of collecting dolphins to keep in captivity. So as people start to see these things they say, 'maybe there's other ways we can entertain ourselves'.

AMT: So looking forward, what would you want to see and changes in terms of how animals are treated under the law? What are the big areas you'd like to actually see some significant movement on?

LESLI BISGOULD: For me the most important thing that law can do is keep the doors and windows open. I don't want to pass a law that prohibits people from engaging in practices that they all want to do and that they don't understand why they should be stopped. I think law is a tool to ensure that our democracy can really have honest open conversation about right and wrong. So I want to make sure we don't get what they have in the U.S. Ag-gag laws, laws that prohibit anybody from taking any pictures or getting any information about factory farms. I want to make sure we can see where food is coming from, we can see what's done to animals, and we can have an honest discussion about whether we think that's okay or not. And then individuals I'm quite convinced will choose otherwise. When they see what their food really looks like before it ends up on their plate, they'll choose to stop eating it.

AMT: Thanks for coming in.

LESLI BISGOULD: Thank you for having me.

MF: Anna Maria Tremonti speaking with Lesli Bisgould about whether to boil a lobster. Lesli is a lawyer an adjunct law professor at the University of Toronto and she was in Toronto. They spoke in February. Now over to you. Do you think twice before boiling a lobster or eating one and you think the push for animal rights is going too far? Let us know we are on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC and find us on Facebook and comment or e-mail from our website, just go to cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. And that is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for Q. Ammy and Golden Globe nominated actress Amber Tamblyn joins Tom Power to talk about the Mitsu movement and her first novel. Remember you can always take the current with you to go on the CBC Radio app which is free from the App Store or Google Play. After our conversation about lobsters Let's send things off on a hit song about crustaceans from 1979. Rock Lobster, breakout hit for the B52 news went all the way to the top of the charts in Canada. Decades after its release, songwriter Fred Schneider said in an interview that he won't eat lobsters. It dates he says to when he was four years old on a family trip in New Jersey and saw lobsters being boiled alive. In recent years he's narrated a video for PETA urging others to let lobsters be. Here's the B52s with Rock Lobster. I'm Mike Finnerty. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song: Rock Lobster for B52].

Wednesday June 27, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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