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The Current Transcript for March 12, 2019

Host: Piya Chattopadhyay

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: Everybody's having a very difficult time. She died doing what she loved. She always gave up herself to everyone.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: She's speaking about her dear friend, Canadian Jessica Hyba who was in Africa to work with the United Nations. Just one of the heartbroken loved ones grieving in the wake of the Ethiopian Airlines disaster. So many of the people who died in that crash were exemplary, committed to making the world a better place. In a moment, we'll hear some stories of the 18 Canadians who were lost and discuss a big question on many people's minds in the wake of this disaster. Just how safe is the Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane? Also on today's show, the plastic crisis in our landfills, in our oceans and in our household is a problem we want to solve, but as long as the products we buy, like a bottle of shampoo, come packaged in plastic that may be a tall order.

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VOICE: Imagine in early 2019, you'll be able to get that exact same brand of shampoo, but instead of in a cheap plastic bottle, in a beautiful stainless steel container that does more than what the plastic bottle could do before.

PC: You'll hear from an environmental entrepreneur behind a new system that may sound a lot like a throwback, but the big question is will it truly help end the plastic crisis? That conversation in half an hour. And after that.

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VOICE: This is an issue that has been much talked about over the past few days. I welcome the ethics commissioner's interest in this matter.

PC: The prime minister says he welcomes an investigation of his ethical behavior. Well we've convened an ethically expert panel of our own to share their thoughts on what's happened in the SNC-Lavalin affair. Hi, I'm Piya Chattopadhyay, sitting in Anna Maria Tremonti, and this is The Current.

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Former pilot blasts U.S. authorities for not grounding Boeing 737 after Ethiopian crash

Guests: Genevieve MacRae, Arthur Rosenberg

PC: They were professors, environmentalists and family members flying home to see loved ones, but they never made it to their respective destinations. Among the 157 victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash, were 18 Canadians and the loss has devastated their friends and family.

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VOICE 1: He's a man who loves people. And whenever he knows someone has a problem or something, he will be the first one there. He will sacrifice his evenings, his lifetimes or he will just have to get there and help the person. He's a very loving dad. He loves his kids so much. He's a very loving husband.

VOICE 2: It's hard to accept. I'm devastated. Her mother, her family, her friends, her daughters. They're devastated. We're best friends. We're very best friends and she knew me better than I knew myself.

VOICE 3: We feel like you know our lives have been bottomed out because Pius was so passionate about the African continent and our African studies by Africans in the continent. This is just too much too soon.

VOICE 4: Our colleagues, both women and men, junior professionals and seasoned officials, hailing from all corners of the globe. They all had one thing in common, the spirit to serve the people of the world and to make it a better place for us all.

PC: Friends and family members of Pius Adesanmi, Derick Lwugi and Jessica Hyba, just three of the 18 Canadians who died in Sunday's Ethiopian Airlines crash. The secretary general of the United Nations Antonio Guterres also sent his condolences. At least 21 UN staff members lost their lives in the crash. Among the Canadian victims was Peter deMarsh, chair of the International Family Forestry Alliance. It's a group that represents more than 25 million forest owners worldwide. Peter was en route to a conference looking at financing for small farms. Peter deMarsh was from Taymouth, New Brunswick and that's where we have reached Genevieve MacRae, a family friend. Hi.

GENEVIEVE MACRAE: Hello Piya.

PC: First of all, I'm just so sorry about the loss of your friend. How are you doing today?

GM: Thank you so much.

PC: How you doing? How you holding up?

GM: It's kind of surreal honestly. We had a gathering of a few neighbours here last night and came out just to come together and not be alone in our grief and talk about our favourite Peter stories, but it still doesn't really feel like it could actually be true.

PC: How did you know Peter?

GM: I've known Peter for pretty close to all of my life. I'm in my early 40s and my sister and I grew up was Peter's son, Luke. So he was the father of a friend. He was the friend of my parents and in my early 20s, he also became a colleague and it was at that point in time that I came to consider Peter a friend of mine as well.

PC: And I'm sure as you say along with sharing wonderful memories of your friend, there's been a lot of memories that have been coming to mind the last couple of days. What sort of stands out for you about Peter now?

GM: What stands out I think, as I've been reading friends posts on Facebook and talking with others last night, talking with my family and remembering my own memories is that very consistently Peter had a strength of character that was respected and admired by everyone. He was warm and loving, strong and passionate. One friend described him as thoughtful, insightful and caring and I think that's a pretty great way to describe Peter. He cared about the people in his life and he cared very very passionately about the environment and was always taking on some new project. My mother remembered yesterday that I had completely forgotten, it was back in the, I think it was in the late 80sm although I couldn't put my finger on exactly when, it was quite some time ago, before the days of roadside recycling pickup in this area, Peter started a recycling program in his driveway and he set up barrels and containers and encouraged friends and neighbors to bring their recycling to him. And he would cart it into town and do that legwork so that it got done because Peter was the kind of guy who would see a need and then filled a need, either by taking on a project himself or by connecting somebody else who was passionate about it with the people or resources they needed to be connected to in order to take it on. He was a facilitator. He made stuff happen everywhere he went.

PC: Everywhere he went and he went many places. We'll talk about that in just a second, but Taymouth is a small community, right. It's a population of just about 600 people and a loss of someone in the community, a community that size, must really leave its mark across your hometown.

GM: Absolutely. We're a small community, we're close knit. A lot of us are family or at the very least we feel like we are. So we've just lost a family member for sure. But Peter was the kinda guy who that kind of feeling of loss of family member is going to be felt around the world because when you say he went everywhere, you weren't wrong. He did. He went everywhere. He's the kind of guy who there was no such thing as a project that was too big. He was always thinking about the next way to make improvements to make change to to do the right thing and never would he utter the phrase or think the thought, no that project, that's just too big. There's no way we could do that. He was into everything and he met people all around the world. I mean his work with IFSA as you said earlier, the amount of families they represented. But with Peter it was about those meaningful connections. He would meet people from anywhere and make lasting meaningful connections with them. He brought people to Taymouth from time to time from all over the world because he would talk about here with such love and affection that they couldn't help, but vist.

PC: And as he traveled the world for his work, as you said many places, many countries, on behalf of families in the forestry business. Tell me about the kind of work international work he was doing.

GM: Peter's passion in life always has been the small land owner, the small woodlot owner. I knew him professionally when we worked together when he was the manager of the New Brunswick Federation of Woodlawn Owners. He is now the president of the Canadian Federation of Woodlot Owners in addition to his role at the IFSA. And the concept that it's the small woodlot owner who is intimately connected with the land and how it operates and what it means both what the land means to the people and what the people mean to the land and all of that what that relationship entails. That's what Peter was about and he was fighting on behalf of that relationship between people and the land they lived on. This project he was on the way to the UN for this project, this was something he'd been working on for two years.

PC: Where did the passion for woodlots for Peter come from?

GM: I think it was in the very fiber of his being. I never had the joy of meeting Peter's father, Roy. He was a minister. He took on the church here in Taymouth when Peter was young and that's how he ended up in Taymouth. But I've met Peter's mother Edna and she is an absolutely wonderful loving soul with a great deal of passion and zest for life herself. So I think Peter comes by it honestly. But I'd also have to put a little plug in for exactly how beautiful this part of the world is and I think when you're raised in a place where you can be so connected to the land, it's hard not to end up with that strong feeling of connection. Peter and his wife Jean were constant tireless advocates for so many different causes relating to the environment and to people. I think it's just something that they needed to live and breathe.

PC: Genevieve again, I'm so sorry for the loss of Peter to you and all who loved him. Thank you for sharing a bit of him with us. I appreciate it a lot.

GM: Thank you Piya so much for the opportunity and on behalf of the family and on behalf of the community of Taymouth, I would like to extend my heartfelt condolences and sympathies to everyone who had been affected by this terrible tragedy.

PC: Thanks Genevieve. Take good care.

GM: Thank you.

PC: Genevieve MacCrae is a family friend of Peter deMarsh, one of the 18 Canadians who died Sunday when Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed shortly after takeoff. We reached her in Peter's hometown of Taymouth, New Brunswick. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. Well one of the most unnerving facts about this tragedy is that it is the second fatal crash involving the Boeing 737 Max 8 in just five months and some people are now concerned about the plane's safety. Ethiopia, Indonesia, China and now Australia are among the more than 20 countries that have grounded the Max 8 planes for now, but in Canada, dozens of the aircraft remain in service owned and operated by Air Canada, WestJet and Sunwing. Yesterday, Federal Transport Minister, Marc Garneau was asked about that. Here's some of what he had to say.

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VOICE: I am confident that we are following up on this very, very carefully and very with all of the priority that is necessary to ensure that we discover what the cause of the accident was and then I will not hesitate to take any action necessary. My colleagues at Transport Canada are working with the NTSB and the FAA who are the leads because they certified this aircraft. And it's very important not to jump to any conclusions about any possible causes this aircraft has a performance. Yes people are focusing on what happened in Indonesia five months ago, but we have the black boxes. It's important for us to determine the cause and then to take the necessary action and we will do so.

PC: Well our next guest is watching closely as this all unfolds. Arthur Rosenberg is an aviation attorney and a former pilot and engineer. We've reached him in New York. Hello.

ARTHUR ROSENBERG: Good morning Piya, how are you?

PC: I'm okay. You know a growing number of countries are temporarily banning the use of the Max 8 plane, but Canada and the United States say there is no cause to ground them. What do you think of Canada and America's decision at this point?

AR: Well almost from the beginning of this most unfortunate tragedy and again my condolences to the victims and their families, but this Ethiopian Airlines crash has a scaringly identical fingerprint to the Lion Air crash, both prior to and during the sequence of events and the ultimate crash. In the United States, the FAA has actually taken some almost unprecedented action in last night, early this morning, putting international carriers on alert, advising them that there are similarities between the two crashes, but we're waiting to see the evidence, which would be in the black boxes, the flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder. But most significantly, the country that was most directly affected by this have essentially banned the airplane until Boeing figures out what's going on. In the United States, the FAA serves a dual role, both from an economic standpoint and a safety standpoint. And I'm sorry to say that the FAA I think has dropped the ball on this. I think they're siding more with the economics of Boeing and air travel and revenue to the airlines than they are to the saftey of the passengers.

PC: Okay. So you said a lot, so let's unpack some of it and the first part I want to pick up with with you is that you say look, there's enough similarities to the Lion Air crash in Indonesia in October and this one to be concerned. How so?

AR: Well both planes entered what I would call altitude departures almost immediately after takeoff. The Lion Air flight path was a little bit more violent gains and losses of altitude. The Ethiopian airplane had a very similar profile and we know that because the radar data was available. Both of these happened almost immediately after takeoff, Ethiopia within six minutes, Lion Air within 12 minutes. Both flight crews reported flight control problems. Both flight crews requested, can we return to the airport? And then what happened after that is also very similar.

PC: OK, but let me ask you this because the Lion Air crash investigation is not yet complete. They have just recovered the two black boxes from the Ethiopian disaster. To what extent, at this early stage, is it irresponsible to be linking these two events before we know more?

AR: Well I mean certainly we can't draw final conclusions, but the facts that I've just articulated you really can't dispute. In both situations, certainly in the Lion Air crash, the M-Cast system, this invisible auto-pilot system, which works behind the scenes, add the sight and ears and senses of the flight crews is implicated and it certainly looks like the same situation is here with the Ethiopian crash. The FAA seems to acknowledge that, certainly we do have to wait for the DVR and the cockpit voice recorder, but you can't ignore the facts. And then if you do want to take exception to that, you have to come out with the conclusion that something is not right with this airplane.

PC: Well let's add Boeing to this because yesterday Boeing, the manufacturer of the plane, by the way there's about, this plane, the many versions of it, or the Max 8, I should say the many planes that are Max 8, they've done about 8500 flights since it came online in 2017. Yesterday Boeing, the manufacturer, issues a press release saying that the Max 8 is a safe airplane. That it's been developing a flight control software enhancement for the plane designed to make the aircraft even safer and this comes in conjunction with the FAA saying it anticipates the mandatory software has been by April. What do those things said by the FAA and Boeing say to you?

AR: Well first of all, I've been I've been involved personally in litigation with Boeing for decades and almost every major airplane crash since the early 80s. I would expect Boeing to say nothing else, but most significantly, what would you expect Boeing to say? That we acknowledge that there's a defect in the airplane? The very fact that they're saying that we are making design changes, we are making changes to training manuals, we have a software upgrade, whatever that is, coming out for the flight control system, is an admission that something is not right with this airplane.

PC: You're a former pilot. What does a design change mean to you? Because I don't fly planes. I don't know anything about them.

AR: Sure. Well I could talk about the M-Cast system just very quickly. The history of this plane, the Max 8, was sold by Boeing to the airlines on among other grounds that the flight crews would not need much if any additional retraining to go from the old planes to the new planes. The airlines would say millions of dollars in having to train flight crews, but the new plane has new engines. These leaf engines, they're actually terrific engines. It has a new wing. It flies differently. It's a new plane, a different plane, but what Boeing did is they put in this M-Cast system because the new plane had a tendency to nose up under certain flight conditions, which could become dangerous and this M-Cast system, this maneuvering characteristics augmentation would push the nose down. But they never told, Boeing disputes this, but they never told the flight crews or the airlines that this invisible system was in the airplanes. Now the problem with this is there is something wrong with the system. It's prone to receiving information from certain sensors. It makes the airplane do things that the pilots don't want it to do. It does things to the airplane that pilots can't control. So these flight control system software upgrades, whatever that means, those are Boeing's words, is designed to alleviate that. But the bottom line is it's an acknowledgment by Boeing that yes we acknowledge there's something wrong with the flight control system with this airplane. We could dispute and argue what that means, but the consequence of it to the flying public is people now have to make decisions whether they want to fly this plane or not. And Australian and Singapore and China and Indonesia and many other countries have grounded planes until Boeing figures it out.

PC: I got about ten seconds left with you and let me ask you that question. You are a former pilot, an engineer, you're an aviation attorney. Would you get on this kind of plane today?

AR: I would not.

PC: Arthur Rosenberg. We'll have to leave it there. Thank you.

AR: OK. Thank you.

PC: Arthur Rosenberg is an aviation attorney, a former pilot and engineer and we reached him in New York. By the way, the UK civil aviation authority has said that as a precautionary measure any commercial passenger flights of 737 Max 8 will not be allowed to arrive, depart or fly through U.K. airspace. Alright the CBC News is next and then we are going to meet the environmentally-minded entrepreneur behind a company called Loop. Its goal is to eliminate waste by allowing you to buy the products you already use in durable, reusable containers. So would you go for that? We'll hear all about it in our next half hour. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. You're listening to The Current and we're back in just a bit.

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Big retailers will test reusable packaging to replace throwaway plastic in Canada

Guests: Tom Szaky, Tony Walker

PC: Hi. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, and you're listening to The Current.

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PC: Still to come, the lights have been out in Venezuela for nearly a week. We'll hear from a woman in Vancouver whose family in Venezuela is enduring the latest crisis. Plus a panel of big thinkers share their thoughts on the ethical considerations at the root of the government's SNC-Lavalin scandal. But first, closing the loop.

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VOICE: So we can see right away, there is a very significant quantity of plastic inside of this poor bird. He should've weighed somewhere around a thousand grams and he only weighs right now about 500, so he's about half of his body mass. There's no doubt this bird died as a result of this plastic ingestion.

PC: Well that's the sound from a video of an autopsy of at South Pacific seabird and as you heard Canadian scientist Dr. Jennifer Lavers say, even though this bird was found on a remote island, plastic ingestion was the likely cause of death. Of course, the oceans are clogged with plastic today. The so-called Great Pacific garbage patch pf swirling plastic wrap refuse is now said to be twice the size of Texas. And though you and I as Canadian consumers may do our dutiful best to put our recyclables in the blue bin, the sad truth is that just about 10 percent of plastic waste is ever recycled. Well earlier this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a new initiative was large to help tackle our plastic problem. It is called LOOP and it's billed as a new way for consumers to shop. A big name roster of companies, including Proctor and Gamble and Nestlé have signed on for the initial trial, set to launch this spring in New York and Paris. There are plans to expand to other major cities around the world, including Toronto. Tom Szaky is the CEO of TerraCycle Inc., the New Jersey company behind the LOOP project and we reached him in Trenton, New Jersey. Good morning.

TOM SZAKY: Thanks for having me today.

PC: So when did you first become concerned with how much plastic waste we as consumers are creating?

TS: Well it really hit me, you know growing up in Canada, we used to do a lot of canoe tripping up in Algonquin Park and other places and it was pristine and amazing and when I came down to New Jersey for college, we went on a canoe trip and there was garbage floating in the river and there was just waste everywhere and it really shocked me and brought this topic front and center.

PC: And so connect the dots. What was this specific inspiration for LOOP? Was that it?

TS: Well so TerraCycle, the company that created the LOOP. I started 15 years ago and it's been on a mission to eliminate the idea of waste by basically recycling things that are not recyclable and that integrating unique waste streams all the way to ocean plastic, back into consumer products. And that's been growing for 15 years and we realized about three years ago as we were thinking about is really recycling the solution to waste and making things from recycled materials. The solution will realize that recycling is incredibly valuable and incredibly important but it's not the foundational solution to waste because that's only addressing waste at the symptom level and so that began a journey about three years ago and were what is really the root cause of waste and where we landed was using things once or disposability that is really what drives waste the waders today and it's easy you know to vilify disposability but it's also important to look at its virtues. You know the reason we as consumers vote for disposability multiple times a day is because it's incredibly convenient and really affordable. And so the thesis for a loop began by saying how do we solve for disposability while maintaining the virtues of convenience and affordability. And that's how it started and we've realised that the foundational unlocking principle was shifting ownership because so strangely you know when we go into a coffee shop and buy a cup of coffee we're buying the coffee but we also are purchasing that disposable cup you know just like if we buy a bag of chips you know we're buying the chips but also the back yet we don't really want to own these things and so why should we. And by shifting ownership from the consumer to the manufacturer, suddenly everything starts making more sense because then the manufacturer is motivated to make things long lasting and durable and not creating things that go into the single use environment.

PC: You know it's interesting to talk about recycling and getting a bit of a black mark on it because of the three Rs, reduce, reuse, recycling, really are Western science has focused in the last number of years on the recycling and I think what I'm hearing from you is saying let's focus on reuse, yeah?

TS: Absolutely and I do want to say the very most important thing is the first thing you said is reduce. I mean we really as individuals need to think about buying less stuff, but that's a very hard thing to wrap a commercial system around. So at least within the idea of buying, yes absolutely reuse is the critical way to solve for waste.

PC: Okay, so tell me how LOOP works into that then, how does it work exactly?

TS: So LOOP is an engine for consumer product companies big and small as well as retailers. So we'll first work with producers companies like Coca Cola, Pepsi, P&G, many others as well as smaller ones. Like great even Canadian companies like Greenhouse Juice and so on to help them create durable versions of their products. So imagine now that your ice cream isn't coming in coded paper like it comes today but comes in double was stainless steel and this is sort of the interesting thing about durability is it's not just about reuse but it's also what an elevation of design using materials that otherwise you wouldn't have access to. There are way better than these. So for example if you take the ice cream container instead of it being coded paper which you know has only a certain amount of sort of beauty to it. Now getting it in double Waldstein is just way more a static way more beautifully designed and even keeps your ice cream frozen on the go. Or as another example that your dish. So let's say your mouthwash instead of coming in a plastic bottle now comes in a beautiful glass container and so you get this elevation of design and beauty while also being reusable.

PC: Okay and what do I do with these containers? Do I just rinse them out and use them at home for something else?

TS: Well so, this is the key is that disposability brings this unbelievable convenience and LOOP is here to match or beat that convenience. So LOOP is partnered with major retailers you know Carrefour in France or Tesco in the UK and we will be announcing our Canadian retail partner very soon, where you could buy these LOOP products through their e-commerce platforms and or their in-store platforms just like you normally would any product and then when you're done, you don't have to wash. You don't have to do anything other than throw it into a bin. Sort of like throwing it out, except that bin now is your reuse bin and LOOP will pick it up or you could drop it off at the store, whatever is more convenient. And then we take it, clean it and then supply back to the manufacturers who refill it.

PC: Okay so you're going to use like UPS trucks to deliver my ice cream sandwich in this double steel container thing that's going to look beautiful in. So you're going to use a big truck to deliver the product. So how does that square with the environmental footprint that you're trying to reduce?

TS: Well this is why we are working with major retailers. So for example if you buy in-store, you would you know drive to the store, pick it up as a normal product and then on your next shopping trip simply drop it off. So it's not any more cars on the road in that version and then in the e-commerce versions, LOOP is partnering with the retailers to use their existing supply chain. So for example in Europe when the package is delivered to you in the trucks of those retailers, those same trucks pick up the dirty ones and take them back, which effectively doesnt put any new vehicles on the road and those trucks also are reducing the need of garbage vehicles. So it's really focusing and partnering with existing infrastructure and focusing on not putting new infrastructure out there or new trucks on the road. From an environmental point of view, when you look at the life cycle analysis of this, it ends up being somewhere around 75 percent better for the environment than disposable packaging.

PC: I'm going to ask you more questions, but I know that listeners are wondering like this sounds great. How much is it going to cost compare, like let's use the mouthwash in the plastic bottle. Say it's three bucks at the store. I have no idea how much it costs. What's mouthwash in a fancy glass bottle going to cost me through LOOP?

TS: Well this is the beauty. It'll cost you exactly the same. The only difference is you would put a deposit on the fancier beautiful LOOP package, which you get back in full once you return it to us, no matter what condition you returned the package in. So if you've scratched it or dented it or even potentially broken it somehow, you still get back 100 percent of your deposit. And the reason the price can be the same is because the consumer doesn't own the package. It's always property of the manufacturing company.

PC: A number of companies that you have convinced to use LOOP are the ones that are the biggest wasters in plastic in terms of selling it to us consumers. How convinced are you that these companies are getting involved for any other reason than to clean up their own image, in other words marketing and branding?

TS: Well look they definitely care about their image and that is definitely in play here. But they also agree that they cannot be in the business of disposability in the long run because it simply can't keep going like this for 50 to 100 years and they've all agreed to that, so they need to think about alternative ways to supply consumers their products because the challenge with disposability is it's a race to the bottom. Every single day our packaging becomes cheaper and lighter and that makes it way harder to innovate. You know if you think about something like beverages they began in you know beautiful refillable glass bottles. Then tell them Eminem cans. Then two plastic bottles then two cartons and then now there are trending towards poacher's and throughout that process the ability to differentiate and innovate effectively goes away. And so as a way to be more competitive these companies want to be able to bring innovations they can never do before and the only way to be able to deliver your ice cream in a beautiful stainless steel container that even acts like a thermos is a model like this. Even if you divorce the concern of sustainability.

PC: This model isn't super modern in the sense that we used to get our milk delivered this way, right. In glass bottles, you get them in your milk chute or on your doorstep and you'd leave the empties outside and someone would come pick them up.

TS: Oh it's exactly right. I mean in Canada and Ontario, you have the beer store model where you can return your beer containers. This is, LOOP is nothing new in the idea of reuse. What is really new about it is that instead of just for milk or just for beer, it's for everything, especially products that never even experienced the idea of reuse like toothpaste or laundry detergent or orange juice.

PC: I'm glad you brought up the beer return example. It's not just here in Ontario, other provinces also you get money back when you return your empties. But so many people don't do that. They just chuck it in the blue recycling bin right and off it goes on recycling pick up day. So ultimately this is going to depend on consumers taking a little more responsibility, time, effort for the containers they use and I'm wondering what makes you think that people are willing to give up convenience in such a big way? Because you're talking about a whole bunch of products that we use in our home.

TS: And you really, it's a really important point that you say here is that convenience is incredibly important and there's two ways to solve for this concern because you're absolutely right. Many people will recycle their beer containers and I think a part of that is because the refund you get is not so high. In LOOP you know every package has a deposit and some deposits can range from as low as 25 cents up to 10 dollars and as they become a bit more meaningful you have financial motivation to want to behave properly and do reuse instead of chucking them. In addition it's also when everything in your life moves this way it's really not that more inconvenient. I think the challenge and convenience is when you have multiple models functioning and only your beer bottles. Are you really worried about imagine now. Everything in your refrigerator everything in your pantry would go into the same behavior. It makes it much easier and way more convenient. That's also not political. It's not something like climate change that has some level of debate on it which is sort of crazy but it does in a way waste is very black and white. I've always seen people say that you know landfilling and incinerating is not as good as reusing or recycling, it's very basic. People can get around it and I think that really helps this topic get more attention quickly.

PC: Tom Szaky, thank you for your time.

TS: Thanks for having me.

PC: Tom Szaky is the CEO of TerraCycle Inc., the company behind the LOOP program. By the way, the LOOP trial will be coming to Toronto this spring. Well clearly some people are pinning some big hopes on the LOOP program. For a reality check on the prospects for a plastic reduction, we're now joined by Tony Walker. Tony Walker is an assistant professor at the School for Resource and Environmental Studies at Dalhousie University. He's in our Halifax studio. Hello.

TONY WALKER: Hello. Good morning.

PC: You know it wasn't so long ago that as I said with Tom that we were getting our milk delivered in glass bottles. I remember as a kid that happening right. So what does it say to you about thinking around sustainability that the bright new idea for plastic reduction still resembles the old method of milk bottle delivery?

TW: Yeah, I'm kind of cut from the same cloth too. We had a milk man in the UK, but also we had a pop man who used to come around and deliver soda pop on a Saturday. You return the glass bottles and then you get a refill the following week. That's great and that's a model that really does apply to a single line of product or consumer item and I think the idea with LOOP is that there's a fairly comprehensive set of products, but I'm looking at some of the brand names and there's some massive ones. We've got some of these in our store cupboard at home, but I'm just concerned that whilst these might be some luxury items and some kind of utilitarian items, I wonder if Canadian consumers can get all of their weekly grocery shopping from this platform and maybe the trial is just you know the first step and maybe more perishable items will be online fairly soon. That's what I'd like to see. You know can we get milk and bananas used in this system and then we are really replacing and revolutionizing the way that we do our grocery shopping for the basics.

PC: You know earlier I mentioned that our recycling rates for plastic is just sitting at about 10 percent overall. Why are we so bad at it?

TW: Yeah that's the average, anywhere between 9 and 13 has been quoted for different jurisdictions across Canada. But yeah 10 is pretty pathetic. However as residents, we think we do a great job because we wash containers out, assuming we do a good job of that, put them in the blue bag or bin or whatever happens to be in your jurisdiction and we put them on the curbside. So you could be led to believe that you've got a 100 percent recycling rate because once it's picked up, you think all of it's going to get recycled, but that's not the case. Some of it's dirty and has to be diverted to landfill so that's called contamination. Other things where you've got multiple plastic packaging comingled it means that say a number four item cant be recycled. Number two item if if they're combined. And so a lot of that is also discarded into landfill. So this is why we sit at the 10 percent value currently for recycling but the aim of the federal government now is to move towards zero plastic waste strategy. And so that will do that will need to increase our recycling rates. Of course this is also removing lots of plastic food packaging anyway with the LOOP. So this is one way that we can probably increase our recycling rates because we're moving a lot of the waste stream that has to go to landfill with our current system, but I think we're going to get better with recycling as well.

PC: Right, now I just want to point out for people who don't understand what you're talking about, 4 and 2, it's that little number on the bottom of your plastic packaging with the recycling symbol, reduce, recycle, reuse symbol and it has a number and there are different kinds of plastics and they can't be often recycled at the same time, yeah.

TW: That's correct and in fact a lot of consumers they see that triangle with a number on a whole range of you know packaging items in their food cupboard and you know intuitively they think well that's great. It's got a number seven or a number five on it. Well I can put it in the bin. It will get recycled cause it has a number, but that's not always the case. Depending on your jurisdiction, not all jurisdictions can recycle the same plastic polymers and you know for example here in Halifax bottle caps are not recycled and consumers are requested to remove the bottle cap before they recycle the actual plastic bottle. Yet elsewhere across Canada and North America. Bottle caps can be recycled. So again it's just a change in technology in the way that the waste recycling stream can adapt accordingly.

PC: You mentioned the government's commitment on plastics and reducing our use of them. I'm wondering whether it's this government or another one in whatever jurisdiction in Canada, is there a role for taxation or fees to nudge people away from single use plastics?

TW: In terms of taxation you know there's been many examples around the world where very small taxes on things like plastic bags have been implemented. There's been some dramatic reductions in use and waste of plastic bags, for example in the UK, but over time there's something called a rebound effect where people think well it's only five pence or five cents or whatever it happens to be and then they start using plastic bags again. So often times governments have to ratchet up or slightly increase the cost just to like Tom said, make sure there's an incentive to either not use it or make sure it's recycled in the case of the larger packaging items like what's been discussed for LOOP.

PC: You know another player in all this is not the people, the companies that make the content of the vessel, the soda pop or the mouthwash, it's actually the companies that make the container itself, the plastic industry. So how much impetus is coming from the companies that produce the containers we toss are they just like obviously we want to keep making plastic containers. That's how we make money.

TW: That's their business model. Absolutely correct. So yeah I'm sure members of or representatives of the plastics industry would like to keep the status quo, although many are on board with recycling programs. But I guess this is where the government could intervene and perhaps incentivize using more recycled plastic for making new stuff, rather than extracting virgin plastic from the petroleum industry and try to disincentivize that and that could be something like a taxation to the industry, rather than consumers for the end of life of a product.

PC: So even if the LOOPs of the world work as advertised, how much of an impact will a program like LOOP actually have on reducing plastic waste?

TW: Well I think it's going to move in the right direction. This is an early adopter of a new innovative system. I know it's the milkman concept, but still they use in a range of products. So it's new and innovative in the current climate. So I think as this becomes a behavioural Norm and becomes part of mainstream and of course you know bookstores are going to have to probably change their model as well or stop these items on their own shelves. I think will see this becoming more mainstream and perhaps they might even have to increase their deposits on some of these package to make sure they get back to the manufacturer and that's where a little bit of incentivization or nudging or taxation whatever you want to call it a small cost may help change human behavior and I think that's the key here or certainly one of the keys is just changing how we interact with some of our consumer products.

PC: Tony Walker, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

TW: Thank you very much.

PC: Tony Walker is an assistant professor at the School for Resource and Environmental Studies at Dalhousie University and he joined us from Halifax. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, here on The Current. I want to get to a bit of feedback now on a story that we brought to you yesterday. I spoke with Caroline Criado Perez about her new book. It is called Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. Caroline argues that the world is built on data gathered by men and for men. As she put it., we're just so used to seeing a man as the default human and she lays out the consequences of that for women. Consequences that range from inconvenient to deadly. Well after our interview, we heard plenty of polarized feedback from you on Facebook, Lorraine Howatt commented, "Women need to know themselves and have confidence enough to stand their ground. I'm so tired of hearing that it is all in your head." Evangelia Koutsodimos wrote, "I hope every single donor to any medical charity who heard this interview will write a letter asking what proportion of the research is directed toward studies on women? If it is less than 50 percent, she says, tell them you will be cancelling your donations until that changes." And Abbi Spencer from Low Quebec writes that she is one of the many women who are new farmers in Canada, but that "most of the tools and training available are designed by men, especially rock-star farmers who are exclusively men. It is a frustration from tools and gloves to health issues and ergonomics." But Joshua Eaton says, "First world problems. When you're sitting in your ivory tower enjoying your life of privilege and prosperity and you have to start digging at the bottom of the barrel to find a place where you could find some sort of oppression." And this one from Jason Bearhall. "I was fairly dismissive of this article at first, but I have to say that line about Viagra changed my mind. Menstrual pain should be considered a much larger health issue than erectile dysfunction and get a larger share of funding. Your purple pills should be funded with my tax dollars." Okay so a lot of opinions there. If you want to go back and hear our interview yesterday with Caroline Criado Perez, please do. You can catch it on our podcast or go to the CBC Radio app or you can go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Now after our interview we picked up on what Caroline called the Henry Higgins effect by playing "A Hymn to Him" from My Fair Lady, where Professor Higgins laments, why can't a woman be more like a man. Well today, we are giving Eliza Doolittle a chance to reply. This is "Without You," performed by Lauren Ambrose on the 2018 Broadway Cast Recording of My Fair Lady, the musical.

[Song: "Without You" performed by Lauren Ambrose]

Venezuela Blackout

Guests: Neudis Abreu

PC: Hi, I'm Piya Chattopadhyay. You're listening to The Current. Coming up we'll talk ethics in politics, but first desperation in Venezuela.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Without light, you can imagine in addition to the economic situation Venezuelans are living here, we try to take food to our house. We have to give away our meat. I'm a single working mother with two children, a girl and a boy. Just imagine, everything is chaotic. There's no transportation, bad services. We don't have water. We don't have electricity.".

PC: Well imagine living in a major city like Caracas with no electricity for six days. The lucky ones have generators, if they can find the gas to run them and the money to buy one. Venezuela was plunged into darkness this past Thursday after an explosion at a hydro station that provides 65 percent of the country's power. The country's president, Nicolas Maduro, has blamed U.S. sabotage. The country's national assembly has now declared a state of emergency over the power outage on most of its territory. The station's chief engineer said the problem was caused by a lack of maintenance and then yesterday another explosion at a power station in Caracas. The electricity crisis is compounding the suffering of Venezuelans, as well as family members here in Canada who are worrying for them. One of them is Neudis Abreau. Her brother and cousins are in Maracay, Venezuela. It is about 125 kilometres southwest of the capital. We've reached her in Vancouver. Hello.

NEUDIS ABREU: Hello. Good morning.

PC: Good morning. You just heard that tape there. How does that compare with what you've been hearing from your own family who is in Venezuela?

NA: Pretty much the same to be honest. It's my cousins and my brother they're describing everything as a complete disaster of what's happening.

PC: And how are they getting by? How is your brother managing to get by?

NA: Well they're okay, they're well and I managed to get contact with most of my family yesterday. So everyone is doing good. They're good. They're at home and just trying to some of them are just trying to get gas and just preparing for the most sure shortening of electricity that they have right now.

PC: Let's talk about like how they're actually dealing with this stuff. So in your brother's case, what is he doing about food and refrigeration at this point?

NA: He actually has to go to my mom's apartment, where in the building they, a few years ago, the people that live the building got together to buy a generator. So my brother went with his kids to my mom's building, so they could actually have the backup of the generator there. They have electricity right now and the food and everything else is fine.

PC: What about the cash because ATMs aren't working. There's all kinds of problems with cash flow in Venezuela.

NA: Yes.

PC: So what about that on that front.

NA: Well he he mentioned to me yesterday that there was people selling ice bags and food and mentioning that you could pay with U.S. dollars if you have, which not many people have. And there were lineups of people in some gas stations because they weren't able to go to every gas stations because they didn't have the ATM to use them. So yeah, they're just trying to do the best they can to manage.

PC: So they're coping. They've got some support. Obviously that is not the case for all Venezuelans.

NA: For everyone, exactly. Yeah.

PC: And how are you managing to communicate with your family because getting a phone call in Venezuela if you have a cellphone, you can't recharge it very easily. How are you communicating with them?

NA: Yeah. Well as I mentioned yesterday there were some of my cousins and my family that I haven't had contact with them at all and they replied to me later in the evening. They said they charged their phone and that they're okay and that they also have data now because the national country line in the country is not working. So they had to wait to to buy some data for their phone. It's just we're mostly using WhatsApp and I'm trying to contact them and text them. Sometimes they can reply with, my brother actually replies with voice message or text message, but most of my family is using WhatsApp and text message and just trying to use the least possible so they don't actually have to spend their data and then have to buy more and all of that.

PC: And you know the situation in Venezeula is very fluid and frightening for some people. I imagine for you this is very stressful watching what is happening in that country and then having relatives there. So what has this been like?

NA: Well it's been like the past years, but in a very intense weekend. I think this is how we have lived our life the past few years because we know that this situation is just got worse this weekend, but in reality this has happened for years. Yeah, it just got very intensified this weekend, especially not being able to hear from them and know if they're okay and what can we do from far away too.

PC: Is your family political? In other words do they back up, you know either Maduro or Guaido?

NA: No, we do not. We do not back up Guaido, we do not backup Maduro or Chavez or whoever, but the reality is that once you don't back up Maduro, then you automatically become a supporter of the opposition or supporter of Guaido because those are the options that we have for change in our country.

PC: As you say this has been ongoing this week and things have intensified as they have over the last number of weeks in Venezuela. When you talk to your family back home, what are they sort of bracing themselves for? How concerned are they?

NA: Surprisingly, I feel yesterday, I was thinking about this just asking my cousins and it seems they are concerned about the the lack of food. They are concerned about the little preparation that the country has like there's already a surface of no food, not enough of many things like not enough cash money, not enough money for people and then this comes on top. And that makes it very hard foreveryone you know. I think the main concern right now is that there is a big demand for food for medicine, for now that the electricity seems to be back is noone is prepared for this.

PC: The electricity is back?

NA: Yes.

PC: As of when?

NA: Yesterday my brother had electricity during the day. It was on and off during the day. My cousin told me they had electricity in the morning. They had it from 9:00 in the morning for a few hours.

PC: So it seems to be spotty coming back on.

NA: Yes and they are ready for it like that's what they were telling me. My uncle, they had electricity and then it got cut off too and then back again. So I was texting my uncle and they're like we're ready for having this happening for the next few days or even weeks.

PC: But we do know that much of Venezuela is still in darkness.

NA: Yeah exactly.

PC: We will have to leave it there. Thank you very much.

NA: Thank you. Thank you.

PC: Neudis Abreu, her brother and extended family are living in Maracay, Venezuela. We reached her in Vancouver.

[Music]

How SNC-Lavalin affair draws line between personal morals and ethics of power

Guests: Michael Atkinson, Lori Turnbull, Julian Korab-Karpowicz

PC: I'm Piya Chattopadhyay, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: SNC-Lavalin is a company that employs 9000 Canadians across this country. They directly or indirectly, put food on the table for countless families as one of Canada's major employers, but they are also a company facing serious criminal charges. The context is a tough one with potential job losses in the thousands. These are the types of situations that make governing a challenge.

PC: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaking last week at his press conference addressing the SNC-Lavalin scandal that has engulfed his government. As the prime minister noted the core issue at the heart of the scandal, the sanctity of the rule of law vs. protecting Canadian jobs. It is a complex one. Of course both are priorities for the government, but sometimes as the SNC-Lavalin affair illustrates, core government priorities can be in conflict, raising difficult ethical questions. Questions about political ethics and the behavior voters expect of their political leaders. There's even a school of thought popularized by Niccolo Machiavelli more than five centuries ago that argues ethics and politics are mutually exclusive. That politics is ultimately about power and its pursuit, trumps all other considerations. Well to help us unpack the ethics of contemporary politics, I'm joined by Michael Atkinson, professor in the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Saskatchewan. He worked on the original conflict of interest guidelines in the government of Pierre Trudeau and has written extensively on ethics and corruption. He's in Saskatoon. Hi.

MICHAEL ATKINSON: Hi.

PC: What do you think of the prime minister saying that it is these kinds of moral quandaries that makes governing hard?

MA: Well he's absolutely right. There are competing principles here, competing interests and it's really a matter of political judgment in terms of assessing what is the right way to go and how to balance these things out. I mean facts are important. To me it's important to know what on the ground is really going to happen for example if this prosecution were to go ahead with SNC-Lavalin. So there's lot of you know there's a lot of room for gathering facts and that typically will help you form your judgment. But in the end, there will be conflicts among the various roles and responsibilities that politicians have. It's the nature of politics. Even Machiavelli I think would have understood that.

PC: So on the one side in this contemporary situation, you have judicial independence on the other you have potentially enormous job losses. What is a politician to do when both considerations actually have ethical merits?

MA: So you're asking a very, very tough question. It's what is a politician to do. I mean I think the basic answer is ask yourself, what is your job? You have a particular role. You occupy a political office, it has responsibilities and you need to ask yourself as prime minister, as attorney general, as an ordinary member of parliament, what am I supposed to do? What do my constituents and whatdoes my conscience tell me my responsibilities are and and offer a judgment based on a balance of considerations. I think that simply following somebody's lead or taking the view that I'll do whatever my party asks me is something the Canadians simply don't, I think they want more reflection, more thoughtfulness and a broader justification for the path that it shows.

PC: OK I'm asking you to do some observation over time here. You helped write some of the ethical conduct rules for Pierre Trudeau's government. Do you think that the conduct in politicians, whatever party, has worsened in the years since then when we think about ethics?

MA: No I don't. I think that we've seen about 50 years worth of regulation of politics in various forms, the recognition of political parties, the development of a regime to handle election expenses, conflict of interest, ethics commissioners, lobbying registration, I mean it has been a massive effort to try to regulate the conduct of of politics. It has not always succeeded partly because it knew things pop up a new year is very very difficult to anticipate everything that is actually going to happen. But to your question I dont think the politicians have become more or less ethically inclined. If anything I think they probably have become more conscious of their ethical responsibilities to one another ever since Watergate. Really Watergate was a a long time ago, but it really represented a watershed in way in which we think about politics.

PC: Okay Michael, I'm going to get you to hold on because I want to bring two more people into our conversation. Lori Turnbull is director of the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie University. She was also called as a policy expert for what was called the Commission of Inquiry into certain allegations respecting business and financial dealings between Karlheinz Schreiber and the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney and Julian Korab-Karpowicz is a philosopher specializing in political ethics. His books include Tractatus Politico-Philosophicus: New Directions for the Future Development of Humankind. He's with us from his home in Bielsko-Biala, Poland. Hello to both of you.

LORI TURNBULL: Hi.

JULIAN KORAB-KARPOWICZ: Hello.

PC: Lori Turnbull was Justin Trudeau acting ethically in trying to nudge or pressure his attorney general toward a solution that would not lead to job losses?

LT: Yeah, I mean I think he thinks he was, but it's sort of open to debate, right. It depends on how you see ethics. Like I think what we're seeing now in the narrative that's going on this case is that the people involved are putting forward very different definitions of what it means to be ethical. I think the prime minister and the PMO are making the argument that this is a jobs issue. This is a public policy issue. There is a public interest in ensuring that the company is able to continue in these jobs are protected and therefore we were doing the best we could. So you know he acknowledges that perhaps the former attorney general felt pressured but you know that's not our intent our intent was to protect the public. And so what you see there is a kind of the ends justify the means of argument right whereas I think the other side of the argument is something more along the lines of this is not okay, right, regardless of what the ends are. And so if there was a procedural issue to the extent that the attorney general was pressured in a way that she shouldn't have been, that's an ethical problem.

PC: But is one an ethical problem and not the other or are they both thical problems? In other words, what should take precedence ethically speaking, judicial independence or economic considerations?

LT: Well that goes back to your first question to Michael, righ,t like that's the trouble with governance. I think there's a lot of people who would say justice and law is always paramount. And but you know tell that to the people who might lose their jobs. So the miserable part of government is that you have to make a bunch of hard decisions, and there's always a negative outcome, and the ethics of it is about weighing the potential tradeoffs, right, and what's worse than another thing and that really comes down to a value judgment based on who's sitting in the chair at the time.

PC: Julian Korab-Karpowicz, let me bring you in. You're a Canadian citizen, how do you view Justin Trudeau's behaviour?

JKK: Well I view it, not as a major political scandal, but more as a major ethical dilemma because as professor Atkinson stressed, in a sense we are here dealing with a question of responsibility. Responsibility is a part of political ethics. Normally when we view ethics, we view ethics through rules, through quite rigid rules which you want to apply in everyday life, but if you think about the values, which are involved in politics, I would say the key value is actually responsibility of the government. Now what type of responsibilities we have, first of all security and then perhaps prosperity of a country. So this is really an ethical dilemma for someone to say well there's a company which is potentially involved in corruption, but this corruption does not take place in Canada. This corruption involves north Africa and various researchers have been made to prove that in north Africa and in Middle East corruption is a common case involving many businesses. So now we have this corruption case in this particular place in the world where many people simply recognizes this as a common procedure. Now and if we pursue this case legally as a criminal case, this can lead to losses of 9000 jobs in Canada and about 50,000 jobs abroad. So this is really a big question of what type of decision a government should make. Therefore again, this is not easy moral case.

PC: Michael Atkinson, let me come to you again and let's just look at one side of this, one argument that's being put forth. If we're to accept Jody Wilson-Raybould's allegation that the prime minister's office applied inappropriate pressure on her, the important word there is inappropriate pressure words, how serious an ethical violation would that be?

MA: Well an ethical violation. I mean I think that it violates the presumption of an impartial independent attorney general. And so that's clearly got an ethical component, but it's also built in to the way in which we govern. So it compromises the nature of our governing system and so that is pretty important. I mean you wouldn't want to, it's not the sort of thing you want to back off from. When I think back on it and I think when the participants think back on it and look back on it, this concern was probably not given enough of an emphasis at the very beginning. The sort of concerns about jobs was at the forefront and I'm not suggesting it shouldn't have been, but when you're seeking a balance here, you have to be super careful baout simply putting, let me go back, interpreting your job too narrowly. If you interpret your job exclusively as I'm here to serve my constituents and look after jobs and ignore or downplay the rest, there will be consequences. So it comes to political judgment, it comes to balance and if you want to think about the ethics of Mr. Trudeau's decisions and Mr. Trudeau's behaviour, you have to ask yourself, did he interpret his role and responsibilities in a way which adequately balances these principles?

PC: Julian Korab-Karpowicz you've argued that you know political ethics should be governed by consequences. How do we measure that? What do you mean by that?

JKK: Well it is impossible to measure ethics in the same way as for example we can measure some physical phenomenon. Yet we have certain values. We should understand that there are certain important values in politics. First of all, security then prosperity then we can go to happiness and then perhaps we can go to honesty to transparency to diversity and other values. So having the picture of different values which are involved. In a sense we can try atleast to make certain priorities. I would say like we just heard about Venezuela about shortage of electricity and general poverty in this country, so simply we would not like to find ourselves in such a situation. We value security, we value prosperity first. Of course transparency, democracy, diversity are also important. So in a sense out of this picture, the right decision of a government comes, but those decisions are not always easy.

PC: Okay I want to broaden this out a bit. I want to get back to Machiavelli. I'm going to play you a clip. This is Jonathan Powell from BBC documentary on Machiavelli. Mr. Powell by the way was British Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief of staff. He's the author of the book, it's called, The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Machiavelli was saying not the princes should go around being evil. What he was saying is you have to check your personal morality at the door when you become a leader. Personal morality is all very well as an individual, but if you are thinking about the greater good of the community, sometimes you'll have to do things that are not good as an individual, but good for society as a whole.

PC: Lori Turnbull, when it comes to populist leaders like the Donald Trumps of the world, the name Machiavelli has been bandied about to explain the exercise of power and it's not just about Trump, but I'm curious do you think we're in an era of especially Machiavellian politics?

LT: We're in a kind of strange political era for sure where political loyalties may be as strong as they once were. And so there are I mean when we come to an election and obviously the fact that this SNC-Lavalin thing is happening in an election year is a big part of the story. So we're going into an election campaign where everybody knows that a very large percentage of voters have not made up their minds. And so there's a sense of political survival that is always at work for the people who are involved right and so when the committee is meeting on this and when they're asking questions and each side is so carefully trying to control the narrative and trying to tease out details about you know conversations that took place behind closed doors between these people, they know that there are so many votes on the line that I think it kind of encourages this sense of you know we've got to really be careful to make sure we're recruiting as much support as we can. You can't take anything for granted right.

PC: Right and Julian Korab-Karpowicz where do you stand on this? Is there a place for personal ethics in politics or is it just all Machiavellian?

JKK: Well first of all fortunately, Canada is not in Machiavellian politics yet and it hopefully it will never be because actually the separation between politics and ethics has led Europe to many problems including terrible wars. So this is not really to advocate, I am not here to advocate Machiavellian politics, I believe this type of politics with separating ethics and politics is not leading any country in the right direction. I think the problem we are facing right now is as I said, a problem of moral dilemma or ethical dilemma, two different interpretations of ethics. There's private ethics, which is more rule based and there's political ethics which in a sense stresses responsibility and is more related to consequences. So we are not in any Machiavellian situation right now and personally in a sense I support the classical tradition, which is basically politics based on virtues. And the answers to any problems can be simply discovered by analyzing different virtues and vices, which we can find in politics and find right directions.

PC: Michael Atkinson, to pick up on what Julian said, I mean how do you sort of marry personal ethics in politics? Is there a place to do that?

MA: I actually, I agree with Julian that it would, a Machiavellian world would be intolerable kind of place to be in and we'd soon find ourselves in a chaos. On the other hand, I don't think it's very easy and I think one of the big problems in Jonathan Powell's clip picked this up. Imagining that you can take personal morals and personal ethical behaviour with your spouse, with your co-workers, with your children, all of these things and these sorts of rules that you live by and the codes and the conventions and then transport that effectively into the public realm and say well I'm going to use these same sorts of rules and guidelines, we are as Jonathan said, you are now making decisions, not for yourself or your immediate family, you're making decisions on behalf of a lot of other people.

PC: Okay we're going to have to leave it there. We're just about out of time. Thank you to all three of you for joining me today. I appreciate it.

LT: Thank you.

JKK: Thank you.

MA: Thank you.

PC: Michael Atkinson, Lori Turnbull and Julian Korab-Karpowicz, thank you. Alright. That is The Current for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. I'm Piya Chattopadhya, sitting in Anna Maria Tremonti.

[Music: Theme]

Mar. 12, 2019 episode transcript

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